04/16/2024

Today, we continue our look at the Into the Shadowlands supplement for Shadowdark from House DM. There is a section that has some optional rules.

Temporary Hit Points

These are just like temporary hit points in 5E. They act like a buffer to actual hit points. They come off before real HP and last until you take a rest.

Armor Type

Breaks down the normal Light, Medium, and Heavy into the different types of armor (Leather, Chainmail, Plate). It is really just of flavor and customization.

New Armor & Weapon

Adds Helm to armor. It takes a gear slot but can negate a critical hit then it is destroyed. We also get the Seax which is a Viking sword/knife. I had to look it up.

New Weapon/Armor Properties

Sundering is a property that allows the user to sacrifice an item to negate all damage from a melee hit. This would apply to the shield, spear, and staff.

The Brutal property allows the weapon damage to roll with Advantage.

Equipment Changes

Flint and Steel now move to the free-to-carry box instead of taking up a gear slot.

Gems are tiny so they would also move to the free-to-carry box.

Exhaustion

Each point of exhaustion would take up one gear slot. 10 Exhaustion slot means death. Completing a rest removes points of exhaustion equal to your CON Modifier. (I would add a 1 Minimum to that).

Luck Tokens

Luck points could be used for a Reroll of any any just made or to give yourself Advantage on the next roll.

Default Class Buffs

There is a series of different abilities to add to the different core classes to keep them from getting overshadowed by the new classes.

Corruption

Similar to the Corruption in Dungeon Crawl Classics, this feature shows evil seeping into the “soul” of a creature. You gain corruption by either rolling a 1 during a spellcheck, committing an evil/heinous act, or a curse. If you ever have 10 Corruption points, you become an NPC controlled by the GM.

Diseases

Into the Shadowlands has 6 new diseases that you can add to your game. It describes how to contract the disease, the effects of the disease, and the cure.

Overall Take:

Some of these would be nice to add to your Shadowdark game.

Things I like

The idea of the helm (giving you a reason to wear one) being able to save you from a critical. The new weapon works well with a Viking-themes game like the setting from Cursed Scroll #3.

The new weapon properties, especially Sundering with a shield, are a nice touch. It gives more options to the players and can make for interesting situations. Do you sunder your shield to survive this attack but lose its AC bonus until it is replaced? It is a house rule that I have talked about before. (here).

The equipment changes to flint/steel and gems are nice. Flint and steel are small and shouldn’t take up a whole gear slot. Since there is no certain amount of times that you use it, it really can be a free carry. The players still need to carry torches or lanterns with oil to see in the dungeons.

Corruption is a nice mechanic to keep players from devolving into a group of murdering hobos unless you like that kind of game. As the Deficient Master over on Youtube says “Hey you play however you want.”

Diseases are really not defined in the base game. A few creatures can give you disease but it just keeps you from regaining HP. It is nice to have something that requires a cure that might be the hook for a quest.

Exhaustion taking up gear slots is a nice touch. This is a game mechanic that actually “hurts” the player without going into a death spiral like 5E.

Things I don’t like

Temporary Hit Points just feel like trying to boost your HP up to the superhero level of 5E levels. Shadowdark is built to have low HP to make the game seem more deadly.

Armor type can just be flavor text and not needed as a separate rule that complicates the game.

Luck tokens giving Advantage doesn’t really do anything but potentially waste a Luck token. There are no abilities that I can think of that require Advantage to activate, like the thief’s sneak attack in 5E. Just roll a single die and if you need a reroll use the Luck token.

Class Debuffs seem like a way to bring the Base Classes up to a level to compare with some of the OP class options in this supplement. I would just stick to the classes that work and ban the OP classes.

Keep on gaming!