Campaign Guide and House Rules

This page describes which options from Fifth Edition are being used for Mythosa campaigns.

Note: Any of the rules or game elements may be altered or disallowed at any time (though I'll try to keep that to a minimum, if it's done at all). Also note that material from Unearthed Arcana is playtest material and as such is generally not permitted in the campaign.

Character Options

  • Player's Handbook: All character options are available with the following exceptions:
    • No halflings or gnomes (note that dragonborn, drow, and tieflings are uncommon).
    • Chaotic neutral, chaotic evil, and neutral evil alignments are not allowed.
  • Other Books: If there's something in one of the other rulebooks you want to use (i.e.; Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Volo's Guide to Monsters, Xanathar's Guide to Everything) let me know and we can see if it fits in Mythosa. Note that the following subclasses from Xanathar's are not allowed: Divine Soul (Sorcerer), Storm Sorcery (Sorcerer), and The Celestial (Warlock).
  • D&D Beyond: If you're using D&D Beyond, make sure you just use the options listed above.

Cleric Domains

Clerical domain information is in an appendix to the Codex.

Campaign Tone and Style

  • Campaign Style: Mythosa campaigns are intended to be of the "sandbox" style with major narrative elements. In other words, there are major plot arcs but at the same time players should feel free to push the story in directions that fit with their characters' histories and motivations. The campaigns tend to be a mixture of city, wilderness, and dungeon adventures.
  • Character Sheets: You don't need a physical character sheet; if you are maintaining your character on a tablet or website, that's fine. You just need a way to get me a sheet if I ask to see one. Emailing a PDF is just as good as handing me a paper copy.
  • Combat as War: The campaign assumes "combat as war" versus "combat as sport" (Google the terms for a detailed explanation). The summary definition is: don't assume balanced encounters as the default, and "kill them all" isn't always an optimal or expected solution.
  • Magic Item Ubiquity: Mythosa isn't intended to be a "high magic" campaign, though it uses the "high magic campaign" guidelines as it pertains to the "Starting Equipment" table in the DMG (page 38). Magic isn't rare but it's not meant to be common, either. A good rule of thumb is to expect that a character will have one permanent magic item for every three levels. Magic items generally must be crafted, found, or quested for. Purchasing them is possible but costly and difficult.

Miscellaneous House Rules

  • Ability Scores: You can use the standard rolling method or the point-buy system. If you roll, you may generate two sets of ability scores and choose the set you prefer (note that you can discard a set if none of the scores exceed 13 or if the sum of the scores' bonuses don't exceed +1).
  • Advancement: Once they have enough XP to level up, characters will get the benefits of their new level after a long rest.
  • Lockpicking: If a check to pick a lock fails, it can be retried as many times as the PC wishes (once per round). However, if a pick lock check fails by 5 or more, the thieves' tools break. On a failure of 10 or more, the tools break and the lock is jammed or ruined, meaning it cannot be picked and a key will not open it.
  • New Characters: New characters start with the minimum XP to be the level of the character they are replacing.
  • Perception: If you make a perception roll you can never get a result lower than your passive perception (this is actually sort of an unofficial rules from the 5E designers).
  • Second Wind: Due to the adoption of slow natural healing (see below), Second Wind can only be used during combat.
  • Sharpshooter Feat: The extra damage from this feat is 2d6, not +10.
  • Variant Rules Used from the DMG:
    • Magic item identification requires the identify spell, experimentation, or both. Just touching the item during a short rest is not sufficient (DMG 136).
    • Slow natural healing: DMG 267.
Last updated: 2020-03-28

Comments

Drogg said…
were would the Arcana Domain fit
Bruce Gulke said…
Hi! I don't use the Arcana Domain since I prefer to keep "divine" and "arcane" too separate things (same reason Divine Soul isn't allowed). That said, if you wanted to use Arcana, I'd say it would be available to any of the pantheons that have Knowledge.

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