'gritty' realism low magic rules for 5e

[Foxydono]

I would like to start a realism campaign sometime soon as a change of pace. It will be low in magic and mages and wizards are rare. Also, there will be less healing magic and I would like damage regeneration to be more realistic. I'm looking for some more detailed rules than those in the DMG on how to run such a campaign.

Does anyone know rules I can use for such a campaign? I looked around myself but I haven't found what I'm looking for, so hopefully someone on the forum can help me out. It doesn't have to be exactly as I described, something similar will do fine :)

[Floopay]

I would like to start a realism campaign sometime soon as a change of pace. It will be low in magic and mages and wizards are rare. Also, there will be less healing magic and I would like damage regeneration to be more realistic. I'm looking for some more detailed rules than those in the DMG on how to run such a campaign.

Does anyone know rules I can use for such a campaign? I looked around myself but I haven't found what I'm looking for, so hopefully someone on the forum can help me out. It doesn't have to be exactly as I described, something similar will do fine :)

In the past I've made what is referred to now as "long rest" healing amounts equal to (Level+Con Modifier), and made short rest or interrupted rest healings equal to 1d4 HP. Neither being allowed to heal you more than once per day.

For less magic, I just went back to a material component required for every spell. Rather than making wizards be able to use general magic all the time, they actually have to write down a specific, spell component for each spell. Then they have to shop for each component. Some players have complained that this made magic too much like accounting, and less fun to use. However, I have found the people who actually enjoy playing intelligent characters enjoy it. Basically, if you want to play the more powerful, casting classes, the you have to be willing to put the time in to play them properly was my concept. I still enforce this, and I have yet to find many pitfalls to it. Cantrips I don't require spell components for.

I think, all around, the best way to do it is to avoid the rulebook for advanced items after you finish character creation. Don't allow players to just buy what they want, don't award insane amounts of gold, and don't let them pull out the DMG and say a magic item, potion, or scroll costs this much, and therefore they should be allowed to have it. Just let them know in advance, that these items will be rare, and the costs will all be determined by the seller, region, and rarity based on your specifications.

Some people look at this as being too strict, but as long as you are forward about it from the beginning, most players have little issue following the guidelines given. Though it should be noted, running a campaign like this requires a lot more back and forth between the player and the DM, and invites open discussion over almost every aspect of what is happening.

Thanks for reading,
Floopay

[Zman]

My houserules and E10 Variant are aimed a bit at a word like that. It effectively removes level 5+ spells from the game so no teleporting or raising dead short of plot type Devices and powers outside a player's right to have, it limits to character level 10 but allows for much more advancement through feats and ASIs and offers a different kind of MCing, and the rest rules are shifted towards more gritty realism as are some of the other rulesnlike Massive Damage, Intant Death, and exhaustion for 0Hp.

Might be a step in the right direction, or at least pick and choose what might fit.

[Foxydono]

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I've done some searching and came up with the following rules:

- It a character goes to -10 hp, the character dies permanently.
- If a character drops to 0 hp it gets 1 lvl of exhaustion.
- Short rest recovers 1 hit dice+con modifier and two hit dice +con if a character is tending to their wounds with successful medicine check. Multiple short rests can be done a day, but only one short rest a day can be used for hp recovery.
- Long rest recovers 20% of their maximum hp and 40% if someone is tending the wounds with a successful medicine check. This will obviously be better at higher levels.
- If a critical hit is rolled and the character loses 25% or more of his maximum hit points, then the character rolls a d100. 1/33 nothing happens, 34/66 the character is bleeding and suffers 1d4 hp of damage till the bleeding is stoppen which requires a successful medicine check and on a 67/100 a lingering injury will occur. What kind of injury will be determined by rolling another d100 with a fixed list of possible injuries.

On top of this I decided to give the E10 Variant rules a try. Furthermore, I'm thinking about removing some magical healing spells. Any comments on the above memtioned suggestions? Are they fair or perhaps too harsh?

[JackPhoenix]

Few days ago, I've found wonderful homebrew for non/low magic classes. It's mostly based on Adventures in Middle Earth, but modified to be less setting-specific. Although it lacks spell list for it's only caster class, it shouldn't be hard to just take whatever spells you want in the game and ban what doesn't fit (and the class itself would need some modification, because it doesn't use the idea of different spell levels).

Here (https://img.fireden.net/tg/image/1501/28/1501288762259.pdf)

[Laurefindel]

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I've done some searching and came up with the following rules:

- It a character goes to -10 hp, the character dies permanently.
- If a character drops to 0 hp it gets 1 lvl of exhaustion.
- Short rest recovers 1 hit dice+con modifier and two hit dice +con if a character is tending to their wounds with successful medicine check. Multiple short rests can be done a day, but only one short rest a day can be used for hp recovery.
- Long rest recovers 20% of their maximum hp and 40% if someone is tending the wounds with a successful medicine check. This will obviously be better at higher levels.
- If a critical hit is rolled and the character loses 25% or more of his maximum hit points, then the character rolls a d100. 1/33 nothing happens, 34/66 the character is bleeding and suffers 1d4 hp of damage till the bleeding is stoppen which requires a successful medicine check and on a 67/100 a lingering injury will occur. What kind of injury will be determined by rolling another d100 with a fixed list of possible injuries.

On top of this I decided to give the E10 Variant rules a try. Furthermore, I'm thinking about removing some magical healing spells. Any comments on the above memtioned suggestions? Are they fair or perhaps too harsh?

Are these rule on top of the DMG gritty realism variant rules, or replacing them. If it's the former, then I believe they are indeed too harsh.

Honestly, I would suggest you give gritty realism variant (but otherwise RaW) a try. The only thing missing IMO is some kind of injury mechanic. I 'solved' that by incorporating a "wounded"condition that is gained by a) going down to 0 hp, b) taking a critical hit or c) rolling a 1 on a save made to avoid/reduce damage.

[Sigreid]

My only advice is the incredibly obvious - make sure your players are down with it.

[TheUser]

gritty realism can be obtained without really jenking the rules as far as I'm concerned.

Just use more traps and enemies with cover and grappling.

Grappling from large creatures like trolls is terrifying. Get the large creature's to shove to prone and grapple the party's weaklings in order to drag them off away from the group, off structures, or into dangerous terrain/more enemies. If the creature is larger they roll at advantage and you could potentially make the PC's roll at disadvantage on their opposed checks. It makes larger creatures feel exceedingly dangerous and more like shock troops for multi pronged forces.

Start using war dogs and have the party being hunted/tracked.
Deny them long rests with guerilla tactics and long drawn out skirmishes that force them to flee or to commit to a moving objective.

Traps that cause bleeding or lingering conditions.

Smart humanoid creatures that use skirmishing tactics like cover and bottlenecks properly or "murderholes"

Look up some military tactics and turn D&D combat from a sport into a war.

You can watch WebDM's funny little take on the whole ordeal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a_84LKiyAs&#t=0s


What I can tell you is that you should set the scene as something more open ended to put your group into the mindset of "how do we overcome this problem" instead of just trying to push their way through a series of self-contained rooms.

[Laurefindel]

My only advice is the incredibly obvious - make sure your players are down with it.

this cannot be stressed enough

[Malifice]

- Short rest recovers 1 hit dice+con modifier and two hit dice +con if a character is tending to their wounds with successful medicine check. Multiple short rests can be done a day, but only one short rest a day can be used for hp recovery.
- Long rest recovers 20% of their maximum hp and 40% if someone is tending the wounds with a successful medicine check. This will obviously be better at higher levels.

Just use the gritty realism rest variant.

This makes a short rest (Spending hit dice to heal) an overnight affair and a long rest (Recovery of hit points) take an entire seven days.

You could also place a limit on how many hit dice you can spend on a short rest (Say no more than 50% round up). You could also use the DMG rules for healing kit proficiency as well.

Exhaustion should come back on a short rest (overnight) as well.

This has the added advantage of putting the brakes on casters and also making it easier to implement doom clocks and time limits on quests.


- If a critical hit is rolled and the character loses 25% or more of his maximum hit points, then the character rolls a d100. 1/33 nothing happens, 34/66 the character is bleeding and suffers 1d4 hp of damage till the bleeding is stoppen which requires a successful medicine check and on a 67/100 a lingering injury will occur. What kind of injury will be determined by rolling another d100 with a fixed list of possible injuries.

The DMG has rules for lingering injuries. An easy solution is to require a constitution save with a DC of 10 (or half damage taken) on a critical hit or else you suffer a lingering injury.

The advantage of using these options is your players will be less likely to sook as you are using rules straight from the DMG.

[Zman]

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I've done some searching and came up with the following rules:

- It a character goes to -10 hp, the character dies permanently.
- If a character drops to 0 hp it gets 1 lvl of exhaustion.
- Short rest recovers 1 hit dice+con modifier and two hit dice +con if a character is tending to their wounds with successful medicine check. Multiple short rests can be done a day, but only one short rest a day can be used for hp recovery.
- Long rest recovers 20% of their maximum hp and 40% if someone is tending the wounds with a successful medicine check. This will obviously be better at higher levels.
- If a critical hit is rolled and the character loses 25% or more of his maximum hit points, then the character rolls a d100. 1/33 nothing happens, 34/66 the character is bleeding and suffers 1d4 hp of damage till the bleeding is stoppen which requires a successful medicine check and on a 67/100 a lingering injury will occur. What kind of injury will be determined by rolling another d100 with a fixed list of possible injuries.

On top of this I decided to give the E10 Variant rules a try. Furthermore, I'm thinking about removing some magical healing spells. Any comments on the above memtioned suggestions? Are they fair or perhaps too harsh?


-10 can be really harsh, and is pretty easy to blow past when characters receives multiple attacks per round.

I obviously approve of exhaustion for 0HP.

This change to short rest feels like it's going to slow play down, and it is extremely limiting for HP recovery. Looks like you've removed HP recovery here.

Long rest HP recovery, not sure percentage recover feels right. It'll definitely slow play down, but you're going to end awedully reliant on magical healing, or a week passing by every time characters need to recover.

Critical hit table for lingering injuries, should be good, Id change 1-33 Does Nothing to causing disadvantage on attacks and ability checks for one round.

Personally, I find not letting characters fully recover HP on a long rest making them instead rely on hit dice for the bulk of their healing hits a sweet spot. Sure, they'll need their magics if they have them to aid healing, but allows more day to day slogging. If you're wanting to slow play down to weeks, the gritty realism rest variant might be a better fit.


Glad you're giving E10 a shot. If you're going to give my complex version a shot let me know if you have any questions, or alternatively a more straight up E10 minus 5th level spells might be more to your liking.

[Foxydono]

Glad you're giving E10 a shot. If you're going to give my complex version a shot let me know if you have any questions, or alternatively a more straight up E10 minus 5th level spells might be more to your liking.
I will do that! We started our session yesterday at 3rd level. We play once every two weeks, if there are any problems I will let you know :)

We talked about four hours about the rules yesterday. The rules became way more complex then I wanted them to be, but everyone agrees and is happy with it, so I'll give it a go and see how it turns out. For anyone interested the rules we agreed upon are the following:

General rules:
- We use the Zman’s E10 Tweaks V1.0 for level progression and multiclassing.
- Short rest: 24 hours
- Long rest: 7 days
- Healing: Even while using a short/long rest, a character cannot always heal (properly) in a harsh location like a desert, in the wilderness, icy mountain etc. If, and to what extent, a character can heal depends in the DM.
- Spell slots recovery: spell slots recover in a short rest with a dedicated short rest action.
- Spell preparation: to prepare new spells requires a long rest, unless it is in a dedicated place like a library were one can easily prepare spells.
- Prone: when a creature is knocked prone, it drops to the bottom of the initiative table. When he stands up his initiative is returned to normal (what it was before he or she got knocked prone).
- A character only has two death saves instead of three.
- Flanking: when two allies are on the opposite position of the enemy, the enemy is flanked. The character that is facing at the back of the opponent has advantage on its attack rolls.

Dedicated short rest actions:
- Can be used to: A) recover spell slots, B) for healing (DC 15 medicine), this heals 5% of a characters maximum hit points or C) repair +1 AC from an armor or +1 damage from a weapon. The amount repaired doubles if one if proficient with the right tools for such a reparation. (smit’s for metal, leatherworking for leather, carpenter’s for wooden shields/weapons, etc.). The damage done to muscles can be repaired during a dedicated healing action and doubles if a successful DC 15 medicine check is made.
- A piece of equipment can also be repaired during a long rest as a free action. One piece of armor or weaponry is repaired of your choice by +1.

Healing:
- A character heals 5% of his maximum hit points value on a short rest.
- A character heals an addition 5% when he uses a dedicated action for healing during a short rest (DC 15 medicine check).
- Long rest: this works the same, only it heals seven times the value of a short rest because a long rest consist of seven days. So normal healing is 35% of the maximum hit point value and this goes up to 70% when uses a dedicated action for doing so.
- A dedicated healing action requires a successful DC 15 medicine check. On a fumble the amount healed that is supposed to be healed is done as damage instead.

Critical hits and fumbles:
- A critical hit reduces the opponent armor by -1. This is true even if the person is not wearing any armor. Then its muscle become weary and his reaction will be slower.
- On a critical hit a d100 is rolled. On a result of 1/33 nothing happens, 34/66 the target becomes bleeding, 67/100 is a lingering injury. Roll on the lingering injury chart depending on the damage source: http://www.farlandworld.com/injuries.html
- Bleeding: the bleeding mechanic works as follows, at the end of each turn the bleeding target rolls a d100. The result resembles the amount of damage taken from his current hit points. This percentage is rolled again the next turn if the target is still bleeding.
- Stop bleeding: bleeding can be stopped in two ways: A) as an action perform a successful medicine check (DC 15) or B) succeed at a DC 18 constitution saving throw at the beginning of the turn.
- Fumble attacking: A fumble with a weapon means it does -1 damage until the damage is repaired with either a dedicated reparation action during a short rest or as a free action during a long rest. Natural weapons recover the same as with repairing muscles when hit with a critical strike.
- Fumble on healing: when a medicine check fumbles, the character doesn’t get healed, but instead takes damage equal to the amount that was supposed to be healed.

Exhaustion:
- When dropping to 0 Hit points, the character automatically suffers 1 level of exhaustion. Exhaustion is normally recovered during a short rest with a good night sleep. This has one exception, if a character drops below 50% of his maximum hit points (temporary hit points not included), he or she also suffers one level of exhaustion. This exhaustion is cured when the target once again is healed enough to have 50% or more of his maximum hit points value.

Spells:
- There are no 5th level spells or higher. They may exist as rituals, but they are very rare and this is at the DM’s discretion.
- All healing spells are regarded as one level higher than they actually are. For example, healing word becomes a second level spell.
- All cure poisons/disease spells are banned. If a spell says it can cure a disease or poison, it can’t (for example lesser restoration). The same goes for classes (paladin) that can do this. Lay on hands does sill heal, but can no longer cure a disease. Some instances of spells that cure a poison or disease may still be found, but they are very rare and at the DM’s discretion.
- Spell changes: Revivify is now a fourth level spell, mending a third level spell, create food/water and goodberry are banned. Other spells may be banned and changed during the course of the adventure if they are deemed too powerful. This will be done in consultation between the DM and the players.

Classes:
- When a druid shapeshifts, it gains an amount of temporary hit points equal to half its animal form. Damage done to the shapeshift form, like lingering injuries or a critical hit, is transferred to the original body.