Tal'Dorei Campaign Guide PDF

alternatiVe

resurreCti On rules

Character death can often prove to become a minor

inconvenience in some campaigns once the adventuring

party reaches a certain level, with spells being available to

return fallen comrades from the afterlife with temporary

setbacks, robbing a small element of danger and threat

to future conflicts and challenges within the story. If you

wish to elevate the gravity of character death, you can

introduce any of these optional rules.

a taxing return

This variant harkens back to older edition rules where

every time a character is restored to life, the process cor-

rodes a fraction of their vitality, slowly consuming the

body until it can no longer sustain life.

Each time a character is brought back to life via a spell

or ritual, that character suffers a permanent loss of 1 point

of their Constitution ability score. This loss cannot be

restored outside of a carefully worded wish spell. Use of

the spell true resurrection to restore a character does not

impose this loss of Constitution. Characters that reach a

Constitution ability score of 0 are permanently dead and

cannot be resurrected.

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Within this rule, the process of dying and being pulled

back into your body is a harrowing experience. The magic

itself pulls you from beyond the dark veil of death, taking

its toll on your body and psyche each time, leaving you

less and less the person you were.

When a character is brought back to life via magic,

that character must make a Wisdom saving throw with

a DC equal to 20 - the level of the magic used to return

the character to life. A failure on this check inflicts long

term madness (see DMG, p. 260), except that the duration

is measured in days rather than hours. A lesser restoration

or remove curse will alleviate the madness itself, though

it returns any time that character drops to 0 hit points or

awakens from sleep, until its full duration has expired.

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For additional consequences and player difficulty, you can

implement a further stage of corruption. If a character has

died a number of times equal to their Constitution

modifier, and they fail their Wisdom saving throw

upon being brought back to life, they instead suffer

an indefinite madness (see DMG p.260). Any

subsequent deaths inflict an additional indefinite

madness with each resurrection. A greater restoration

spell can temporarily suppress a type of indefinite

madness, with it returning anytime that character

drops to 0 hit points.

optional rules of critical role

For those who have watched along with our adven-

tures, you may see some of these optional rules as

familiar. Many of the elements included in this

chapter are based on or retooled versions of the house

rules we tried within our own campaign. Some have

undergone a number of changes for balance as we try

new things and learn from our experiences. For those

that are curious, the ones we utilized within our own

game are Rapid Quaffing and Multi-Spell.

multi-spell

At around 8th level, gift the Spelldriver feat to your play-

ers. This will allow spellcasting classes more options to

aid themselves and the party at higher levels without a

comparably sluggish per-round ability set, spending their

solitary action on a bonus action spell. This would also

apply to enemy spellcasters, leading to additional chaos

and challenge.

Accelerated Downtime

Certain adventures thrive on the adrenaline of the chase,

or the ever-present fear of ambush. As it stands, the need

to take a short rest can prove difficult during long dungeon

crawls, and this lends itself to a nice tone of personal stress

and risk-vs-reward. However, sometimes a rest is necessary

for the party to even continue, but the current rush of the

story’s clock won’t allow for a standard short rest. You could

consider lessening the required time to complete a short

rest to 30 minutes or less for the moment, or your entire

campaign, as an option. Another possibility is to allow the

party to take an Arduous Rally if they so choose.

arduOus rally

The party spends 5 minutes to rally their resolve in the

face of coming peril, the adrenaline fueling their need

to push on. The party benefits from the completion of a

full Short Rest, but all healing gained by spending hit

dice is halved, and all rallying characters suffer 1 point of

Exhaustion (p. 291 PHB).

“Like all of the great rites of passage in life, death
changes us, and simply returning to the world of
the living does not undo that change, nor is it at all
simple. Those who have passed beyond the veil are
marked by it, even if they manage to find their
way back .”

—From “On the Price of Death and

Resurrection,” by the sage Narrel