Simple question, as the GM how would you guys facilitate a PC being an alcoholic? There are some addiction rules, but it leaves a lot up to the GM. In my current campaign I had everyone draw character traits out of a hat, one of them pulled "drunkard."
Here's how I was planning on running it...
The player starts at minor addiction, and when they drink they have to achieve drunkenness stage 1 (just a morale bonus). Every day they must take a will save. It starts at 5. If they make the save they increase the difficulty by one. If they fail it their addiction changes, but the difficulty does not increase. Here's a list of how it changes:
First failed save: Addiction becomes moderate
Second failed save: Player must achieve drunkenness stage II in order to avoid withdrawal.
Third failed save: Addiction becomes severe
Fourth failed save: player must achieve drunkenness stage III in order to avoid withdrawal.
Does this seem fair to y'all? How would you do it? I'm curious. I'm hoping that as the this characters addiction worsens the other characters help her kick the habit. If not this could get pretty upsetting.
...I am considering the implications of alcoholism in a world where you can hold a near infinite amount of alcohol in appropriate magical containers, where you buy items by level 8 that might amount to more than an average peasant may make in a lifetime, and where you can very likely use healing spells to cure the physical symptoms if you find yourself in an ambush.
I want to play a cleric that partakes of the communion wine now. Best not to play a cleric of Cayden though, since he would kind of encourage it.
I've played alcoholic characters and I've always just RPed it. Your mechanical system doesn't reflect actual alcoholism much, IMHO. The player can just use the existent rules and thus occasionally have the sickened condition and RP some irresponsible behavior.
Honestly, Why do you need mechanics for this? I'd just trust my players to role play it out. If they were so inclined they could take one of the dozen archetypes that benefit from such a condition.
If you're looking to penalize them for it, while I still disagree, what are the actual penalties?
The penalties for having an addiction, or the penalties for being under the influence?
This can just be handled with Role Play.
You could throw some penalties when drunk, but adding mechanics for the sake of adding mechanics, seems a little silly to me.
I generally agree with just RPing, having done it in 3.5 for quite some time. No the rules do not reflect actually alcoholism at all, I never even thought to try. These rules apply in combat only. When fighting drunk I feel this charter should take minuses, note that they would not suffer them until failing two saves at some point. I also wanted to use the addiction rules in case they end up in a place with no booze and can't handle, they Gotland be fighting at full capacity. Outside of rounds none of these rules need apply, unless they want to kick the habit. I was expecting the player to choose again, but she went for it and roles up a 16-year-old so I expect I won't need to encourage them to RP. I considered just asking them to make decisions in battle as if they were drunk, but that seemed like it could get old.
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Actually, I found this in the Gamemastery Guide:
Alcohol
Just like drugs, alcohol can be abused and have significant negative effects. In general, a character can consume a number of alcoholic beverages equal to 1 plus double his Constitution modifier before being sickened for 1 hour equal to the number of drinks above this maximum. Particularly exotic or strong forms of alcohol might be treated as normal drugs. Those who regularly abuse alcohol might eventually develop a moderate addiction.
Simple question, as the GM how would you guys facilitate a PC being an alcoholic? There are some addiction rules, but it leaves a lot up to the GM. In my current campaign I had everyone draw character traits out of a hat, one of them pulled "drunkard."
Here's how I was planning on running it...
The player starts at minor addiction, and when they drink they have to achieve drunkenness stage 1 (just a morale bonus). Every day they must take a will save. It starts at 5. If they make the save they increase the difficulty by one. If they fail it their addiction changes, but the difficulty does not increase. Here's a list of how it changes:
First failed save: Addiction becomes moderate
Second failed save: Player must achieve drunkenness stage II in order to avoid withdrawal.
Third failed save: Addiction becomes severe
Fourth failed save: player must achieve drunkenness stage III in order to avoid withdrawal.Does this seem fair to y'all? How would you do it? I'm curious. I'm hoping that as the this characters addiction worsens the other characters help her kick the habit. If not this could get pretty upsetting.
This is pretty harsh. Make the saves weekly, and build in a recovery mechanic at least. A few bad rolls and they're non-functional. And that's not really how most alcoholics are.
I agree with the leaving it to RP. But if it's going to be mechanical, tone it down. One check a week at least, if not a month.
I recall a friend used to play a functional alcoholic character (e.g.'Mick and Keef' in Cerebus). They tweaked his stats so he had to be inebriated at a certain level to perform correctly - sobriety actually hurt his abilities. - I think he had increased luck or some similar buff as well - think 'Drunken Master'. the character was obviously played partly for laughs.