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Hey all! This is my first forum post so if I've screwed something up let me know.
I'm GMing Skulls and Shackles, and what would any pirate campaign be without the yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Unfortunately, Pathfinder's rules on alcohol and inebriation are incredibly sparse, limited basically to this short blurb involving no Fortitude saving throw or duration of intoxication. You'd think that with a god of alcohol and a handful of archetypes literally powered by booze there'd be more written on this subject.
So I've written up rules for everything! Included in this alternate ruleset are rules for intoxication and hangovers, rules for drinking in combat, and statistics for most common brews. Also included because I thought it would be funny are rules for spiked potions and alchemist extracts, because you know somebody would try that. Lastly, there are rules and stat blocks for spellbrews, magical alcohols brewed with limited spell effects. Think of them like substantially weaker potions with heavy drawbacks.
I'd appreciate feedback about any of these rules or alcohols, and of course if you have any suggestions for additional drinks or spellbrews I'd love to hear them!
Thats a pretty exhaustive document. More than is neccessary, I think, but you must have your reasons. If this is for others to use then it could stand to be reorganized a bit, but if this is intended for your own game then thats not a concern.
Do saving throw bonuses against poison have any effect? What about immunity to poison?
Obviously we could argue over the effects of alcohol at the varying stages of intoxication. There are just so many ways to look at it! In yours it looks as though the effects of the previous stage are ignored and those of the new stage take hold. There are some things in lesser stages that are not addressed in subsequent stages.
Up to a point, I think the saving throws against fear should continue to improve past relaxed.
The distance you can move in a straight should be handled in a different way. Its one thing you want to move in a straight line, but what about if the character is trying to circle around an enemy to avoid an attack of opportunity? That should be tough too. Intentional movement should become more difficult, but I also think that should start at stage 3.
I like the miss chance bit, but you might as well just call if concealment and total concealment. This will avoid cases where the character rolls twice, and gives a small perk to characters with the Blind Fighting feat.
The various skill penalties are fine, but in limiting ability score penalties to Str and Dex only, you are also hurting martial classes more than spellcasters. Sure, you can begin the night with a small bonus on Charisma skills, but shouldn't you start getting pretty bad at them later on? Maybe beginning at stage 3, you get a -2 penalty to all ability scores and to all skill checks. At each stage thereafter, increase by -2. Just a thought.
In stage 5, you are limited to a single move action, but are other penalties also in place?
Thanks for the response!
Bonuses to saving throws against poison effects also apply to saving throws against intoxication, as mentioned in the intoxication section. Those with immunity to poison must willingly drop their immunity to be able to become intoxicated, otherwise they automatically succeed on their saving throw against intoxication.
You are correct in that each stage of intoxication is its own condition, and penalties/bonuses from each do not stack. The bonus to saving throws against fear was dropped from later stages as the mind becomes more clouded and susceptible (eventually giving a flat penalty to will saves).
The movement penalties are the classic "straight line" test of intoxication, and also because attempting to lay out specific "make an Acrobatics check to fall if you move X squares" overcomplicates things. The inability to charge and a staggering gait are enough penalties for tipsy and drunk, and are easy to remember.
I will change the miss chances to concealment, thanks. That will help them synergize with existing rules better.
Spellcasters will have lower Fortitude saves and lower Con, in addition to not being likely to take any of the feats/traits for drinking. As such, spellcasters in general will succumb to intoxication much quicker than martial characters, so that's their penalty.
Stage 5 is the usual nauseated condition, and the other penalties don't apply because you can't do any of the actions that would be penalized. The allowance of a single move action per turn is a grace here, and assuming it's taking all of your focus and ability. If penalties from the prevous conditions were to stack with nauseated, characters would be basically helpless. And I don't want characters to be able to intoxicate an NPC to the point where there is no chance they could survive or escape (at least not without a bit more effort than providing alcohol).
As someone who plays a brewmaster in PFS and had encounters with drinking games, I think the rules are way too much. From my experience, intoxication rules are always the sort that no one really wants to bother looking up on the rare occasion they come into play. As a result, most GM just ad hoc them. If you really want to homebrew a set of rules that will actually see play, you need to write the rules so they're intuitive and easy to remember.
May I ask what is too complex here? Drink alcohol, fail a Fort save, get drunk. The penalties are straightforward and very similar to existing conditions in Pathfinder.
The only time things get complicated is if you're playing one of the 3? archetypes that drinks alcohol mid-combat, and all I've done there is clarify existing rules.
The magical brews are for players interested in making such things, otherwise if you're just buying them, they're potions with drawbacks.
Cheers
May I ask what is too complex here? Drink alcohol, fail a Fort save, get drunk. The penalties are straightforward and very similar to existing conditions in Pathfinder.
It's complicated because the document is long. If you condensed to a 1/2 page or 1 page, it would be more manageable.
I would have preferred to see the alcoholic beverages in alphabetical order. Also rules for magical brews what spells would be necessary to treat these like potions?
Create Wondrous Item plus either craft (beer or ale) or profession (brewer), or other similar profession)
May I ask what is too complex here? Drink alcohol, fail a Fort save, get drunk. The penalties are straightforward and very similar to existing conditions in Pathfinder.
The only time things get complicated is if you're playing one of the 3? archetypes that drinks alcohol mid-combat, and all I've done there is clarify existing rules.
The magical brews are for players interested in making such things, otherwise if you're just buying them, they're potions with drawbacks.
It's not that simple. Let's break it down to how these rules might get run at the table.
1) As soon as someone takes a drink, the GM has to look up the drink's Fortitude save DC. So immediately, we have rules that force you to look things up as soon as they come to play. And we're dealing with a situation that likely won't be pre-planned by the GM. Already this isn't practical. A better solution here is to offer a base DC for regular drinks with specialty drinks modifying that DC. That would make it much easier to remember.
2) The Fortitude save DC constantly changes depending on how many drinks a PC takes and how long it has been since their last drink. Since setting DCs is typically a GM responsibility, these rules now force the GM to do a ton of annoying book keeping. If the whole party gets drunk, the GM has to manage up to six DCs that all constantly change and keep track of every drink each PC has. That's a huge chore. GMs don't like using rules that are a chore to run. It's best if this rule didn't exist or was simplified to a Fortitude save penalty directly based on the number of drinks taken in X amount of hours.
3) The effects of the intoxication stages are all different and not easy to remember. Most of them have different numbered penalties that apply to different statistics and situations. Some of them have extra effects that seem unnecessary and redundant. For example, why have the miss chance when you already get a huge penalty to Perception?
A better approach is keeping the numbers the same and have them naturally progress in an easy-to-remember fashion. The unchained poison rules are a great example of them. All of the unchained poison effect stages have a consistent progression that flows like this: -2 penalty, -4 penalty, bad status condition, unconscious, death
As you can see, the rules are not simple to run. The GM constantly has to refer to this document and do a bunch of really annoying bookkeeping. Most GMs and players alike would find this a chore, which is the complete opposite of what you want with a scenario that's supposed to be spontaneous and fun.
The rules for Intoxication can be found in several sources if you willing to look at 3rd Party and 3.5 sources as well. I find conversion easy so I still use a lot of older products from 3.5 with Pathfinder. Cityscape had rules for intoxication, Tavern! has them, and Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns has them. Plus a few others that I can't remember at the moment.
The problem I have with most magical drinks is that they are often severely underpriced. Also, I prefer to have the magical effects be temporary, lasting no more than one hour, which is how long a human body to process one alcoholic beverage. Most effects shouldn't stake but overlap.
i game with a couple of underage kids and don't want to glorify drinking if I can help it, especially since I have a tavern encounter I'm working on.
i game with a couple of underage kids and don't want to glorify drinking if I can help it, especially since I have a tavern encounter I'm working on.
The Legend of Zelda's Windwaker game takes place on a bunch of islands. One of them has a town. At night, you can find all of the pirates hanging out in a coffee shop. Its cheesy, but that might work for you. :)
All right, I've cleaned up the formatting. All of the alcohols and spellbrews have been moved to separate pages to make navigation easier.
The first 2 pages are general drinking rules, then feats/traits, then magical drinks.
Hopefully it's easier to navigate now?
Debihuman, making spellbrews requires expending one potion, spell, or extract of the spell in question as part of the normal brewing process (so whatever crafting rules your group is using).
Cyrad, the intoxication effects have been simplified. It's not quite as all-encompassing as I'd like, but it's much easier to remember. Drunk = sickened, Wasted = sickened and staggered, Nauseated = nauseated.
The DCs I'm honestly not too concerned about. I've moved all the normal brews and spellbrews to their own pages for easey searching.
The +2 for each drink is straightforward and necessary so that players can't just keep downing drinks for the bonuses if they know they can beat the initial DC (similar to how you have to fail your initial save to get any benefit).
Good to have some free Barrooms and Brewmasters stuff out there. ;)
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It's almost perfect, except I cannot find the stats for normal types of drink. Till you link that doc, here is a quick and dirty table I will be using.
Weak:Beer, Ale, and watery meede. Generally less than 10 proof. All saves are +4.
Average:Wine, hard cider, and most mixed drinks. 10-70 proof. All saves normal.
Strong: Vodka, Moonshine, Dwarven ale, or Effretti brandy. 71-100 proof. All saves -4.
Toxic: Pure grain alcohol or White lightning. 101-200 proof. Save or loose conciousness, another save or lose sight, another save or lose a point of con till healed. An hour later roll all failed saves again, to wake up, regain sight, or keep from losing another point of con.
Dwarves and half orcs treat all alcoholic beverages as one level weaker. Goblins usually mix booze with pickle juice.