D&D Hack: The Arcane Conduit and the Satellite Acolyte

You can hack a game by making lots of tiny quibbly changes to the existing structure. “Yes, we have wizards, but ours are different in these seven small mechanical expressions” or “we have clerics because players expect them, but the flavor of ours differs in these fiddly little ways.” The result is a fantasy heartbreaker where any small improvements are overshadowed by the result’s proximity to the looming monolith of the original game. Get further away from the base, and find some more interesting territory.

Let’s use the existing D&D 5E classes as jumping off points, but try to land further afield from their basic implementation. We can do it by trying to find interesting halfway points between the classes, and create something new and different in the process.

This is not an attempt to create hybrid or multi-classed characters. We want to create something new by identifying an axis that differentiates two classes, and choosing an interesting point on that axis where a new class could live.

I’m going to randomly pair up the core classes for this exercise, but reserve the right to re-roll anything that comes up as a total blank.

Wizard and Sorcerer: The Arcane Conduit

I am immediately punished for doing this exercise randomly, with a tough combination right out the gate. Sorcerer is the least-well-defined class in 5E. Wizard is sorcerer’s closest comparable class, sharing many of the same spells and, frequently, a similar role in the party. So how do we square these two? 

Axis: Power/Control

Sorcery is a ticking time bomb inside of you. The magic in your blood is boiling over, and you are a fragile container ready to crack from the heat. Wizardry is the safety valve that releases that pressure. You didn’t want to be a wizard; you just didn’t want to die.

Mechanics

Our hybrid would build up power over time (or over stressful events/encounters). The longer they bottle it up, the more their sorcerous origin manifests. For example, for a draconic bloodline, they would become more dragon-like, ferocious and tough, but also more covetous, more solitary, and less concerned with collateral damage.

They can unleash that pent-up energy in a burst of wizardly magic. The strength of the magic (perhaps upcasting) is proportional to how much bottled up sorcerous energy they have to spend.

Cleric and Paladin

Clearly the dice hate me, foisting another closely related pair on me. Try explaining the difference between a war domain cleric and a paladin to someone who has never played D&D before. Or, for that matter, the difference between a nature domain cleric and a druid. 

This overlap seems odd, as there’s no shortage of possible domains we could pick. How about the domain of shame, the domain of earthquakes, the domain of velocity? I understand the desire for some pretty universal concepts that can be plugged into any fantasy milieu, but it shouldn’t be so broad that it’s stepping on the toes of two other classes.

Tangent over. I’m going to re-roll this one.

Barbarian and Cleric: The Satellite Acolyte

This is more like it – two classes with pretty distinct profiles. One thing that’s interesting about clerics is that they force players to choose an archetype or sub-class (in this case, divine domain) at first level. Almost every other class treats 1st (and sometimes 2nd) level as introductions before the player is compelled to choose an archetype (sorcerer is the other one that triggers at first level). I think it would make more sense to treat 1st-level clerics as unaffiliated acolytes, and let them choose their domain at level 2 or 3.

Axis: Civilization/Savagery 

The Marabou Satellite orbited the earth for a hundred generations. The astral monks living aboard did not understand the original purpose of the station or its maintenance, but they lived peaceful lives amid its rich hydroponic gardens, in contemplation and prayer to the stars. 

But the station’s orbit gradually decayed, and one terrible day it fell into a terminal decline. The station’s automated systems controlled the fall such that parts of the satellite and many of the monks survived the impact. But the holy brethren  had to learn to survive on a planet that had turned feral underneath the feet of their starward-gazing ancestors; to adapt to these harsh conditions. Stay true to the satellite vows when they could. Rage against the world when they could not.

Mechanics

Divine magic is a vestige of a lost civilized world. Barbarian rage is the necessary tool of survival in a fallen one. A character at full HP is a healer and support caster. As they lose HP, their divine magic becomes weaker, but they themselves become more resilient and deal more damage. 

That’s two abilities in a row that work on a kind of spectrum. Perhaps powers oriented in this way would be a consistent point of distinction for this hack? Or maybe they would diversify in implementation under the stress of actual testing and development?

Next: The Polythrope and The Speaker

The Many Systems of D&D

How many systems and mechanics does D&D 5E have? More than you might think! 

Did you know, for example, that time travel is part of the core game in D&D? 

The sphinx in the Monster Manual has a lair action that allows it to move everything within the lair 10 years forward or back in time. Yes, sure, a DM who didn’t want to introduce time travel into their fantasy adventure game could just skip over that particular lair action. But I do think there’s a big difference between choosing not to implement an optional rule (like the Dungeon Master's Guide’s alternate “Time Warp” rule for Feywild Magic) and consciously omitting an effect that’s not labeled optional or variant. Even in a game where DMs can modify or tailor as they see fit – in fact, especially in a game where that’s true – what is and isn’t in the rules, and what the rules do or do not describe as core to the game, is incredibly important. 

The way time travel is casually introduced in the sphinx’s entry got me thinking about how many other mechanics are quietly “back-doored” into the game.

Semantic disclaimer: There’s a lot of squinting and estimating as to what is part of a “system” or what constitutes a “mechanic.” I didn’t count every discrete class feature and monster ability as its own mechanic. Instead, I tried to focus on ludological objects that either affect the game more broadly; or relatively narrow instances that seem to imply unstated or backdoored truths of the game. 

Generally, I think something is probably a system or a mechanic if one or more of the following is true:

1. The players or the DM use it to resolve uncertain situations
2. It formally mediates gameplay in some way that’s recognizable from table to table
3. It’s something that is tracked and that can change over time
4. It triggers or modifies the rolling of dice 

Below is the list I produced after reviewing the three core rulebooks. For most of this list, I merely note the rules object or grouped-together objects. But for a minority I’ve included some thoughts about game design (often implicit, unstated decisions the designers made when creating 5E). I am sure I missed some good candidates. I welcome feedback on my taxonomic approach.

D&D Mechanics

1. Ability Checks, Skills, and Passive Checks
2. Ability Scores and Ability Score Modifiers – D&D mostly uses just the modifiers, but uses the ability scores themselves (for calculating jump distance, certain monsters with drain attacks, etc.) just enough that they can’t be removed from the game entirely. This will be a recurring theme with some other entries in this list.
3. Actions, Reactions, Bonus Actions, Free Interactions, Held Actions
4. Advantage and Disadvantage, Inspiration 
5. Age, Height, Weight – Mostly flavor, but weight can come into play in games where encumbrance is employed and characters want to do something like fireman carry a helpless ally out of danger. Certain spells and magic items also incorporate weight limits.
   Certain monster abilities affect age, like the ghost’s horrifying visage, and another one of the sphinx’s lair actions, but 5E doesn’t have a mechanical effect triggered by growing old like some previous editions did.
6. Alignment – Compared to past editions, most of the mechanical heft has been stripped away; but weirdly, not all of it. You can play many alignment-agnostic sessions in a row before coming across one of the spells, magic items, or monsters that cares about alignment. I can possibly excuse this weird, crufty decision for monsters and magic items, since alignment-adverse DMs can just choose not to put those in their games, or to hack them slightly when they do. But tying alignment to a few spells (e.g. damage type for some cleric spells) seems strange, particularly when something like Protection from Good and Evil has changed to care about creature type instead of, you know, good and evil.
7. Armor Class  
8. Attack Bonus  
9. Attitude
10. Backgrounds
11. Challenge Rating
12. Chases
13. Class, Class Features, Multiclassing, and Archetypes (Paths, Colleges, Domains, etc.)
14. Coins and Wealth   
15. Conditional Immunities   
16. Conditions and Exhaustion – Note that certain effects that feel like conditions do not inflict a condition as defined in the rules. Confusion is a good example. The spell Confusion randomizes behavior on a 1d10. The faerie dragon’s euphoria breath ability works similarly, but with a 1d6 rolled to reflect only two choices. I guess this change reflects that this friendly, prank-oriented creature doesn’t want to make people stab each other.
    The gibbering mouther and the umber hulk have a bespoke 1d8 table different from both the confusion spell and euphoria breath; the odds are different from the spell Confusion, and the 20% chance to act normally for the turn is removed. This minor tweak hardly seems worth carving out separate mechanical space. 
17. Cover and Hitting Cover   
18. Creature Type, Tags, Races, Subraces, Demon/Devil Types, Templates, Variants – A wild hodgepodge of classifications for creatures. Note the incredibly tiny ooze creature type, which in the original books only includes the core four wet boys grouped together under the ooze entry in the Monster Manual. Why weren’t they just treated as aberrations or monstrosities?
19. Critical Hits and Failures 
20. Curses – Like Confusion, “cursed” is kind of a shadow condition, providing an overlay for other effects, similar to how charmed often does. Reference monster abilities like the formorian’s Curse of the Evil Eye, the Lamia’s Intoxicating Touch, and the lycanthrope's… lycanthropy. See also the few cursed magical items (e.g., Berserker Axe) that have survived into D&D 5E. These effects don’t seem to have a particular mechanical link except that they can be treated with Remove Curse.
21. Damage, Damage Types, Damage Resistances, Damage Immunities 
22. Death, Massive Damage, Death Saves, Instant Death   
23. Difficulty Class 
24. Disease and Poison  
25. Downtime (Carousing, Crafting, Strongholds)
26. Encumbrance and Weight  
27. Environment, Terrain, Planes of Existence    
28. Equipment  
29. Feats and Boons  
30. Flanking, Diagonals, Facing   
31. Hit Dice and Healing Surges  
32. Hit Points, Temporary Hit Points   
33. Honor and Sanity; Madness, Fear, and Horror; Renown
34. Ideals, Bonds, Flaws, Traits… and Secrets? – Page 90-91 of the DMG gives villains traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws, much like players… but that last one is Flaw or Secret. Secrets are also mentioned in the Nothic’s stat block, implying that all characters (may? should?) have a secret.   
35. Initiative and Surprise  
36. Languages   
37. Legendary Resistance, Lair Actions, Legendary Actions, Regional Effects  
38. Lingering Injuries – The troll’s Loathsome Limbs variant rule could be flagged here as a little backdoor hit location system.     
39. Loyalty   
40. Magic Items and Attunement  
41. Morale  
42. Nature (Elemental, Undead, Constructed, Immortal, etc.) – These are placed outside the statblock in the Monster Manual, with the flavor/lore text, but they also have clear mechanical implications (e.g. a creature that doesn’t need to breathe couldn’t be suffocated with the Control Water spell or similar immersion). They also suggest some subtle differences between similar creatures; for example the Galeb Duhr and Gargoyle are elementals on successive pages of the Monster Manual, but the latter has Elemental Nature while the former does not, even though the Galeb Duhr can “remain perfectly still for years a a time.” Presumably the Galeb Duhr just has a slow metabolism. Ooze Nature merely allows oozes to skip sleep. I had assumed they eat -- they are predators/scavengers, after all – but do they breathe as well? Will-o’-wisps don’t require air, hydration, or sleep, but by exclusion presumably do require “food” (e.g. their Consume Life power); but other incorporeal undead like the Wraith and the Shadow, with their drain abilities, don’t require “food.”    
43. Optional Combat Maneuvers (climb onto a bigger creature, disarm, mark, overrun, shove aside, tumble, cleaving through creatures)   
44. Pantheons and Domains   
45. Plot Points  
46. Proficiency (Armor, Tool, Weapon, Skill, Saving Throw)   
47. Proficiency Bonus, Expertise, Proficiency Dice, Hero Points, Background Proficiency, Personality Trait Proficiency – Note how proficiency bonus, level, and tier all layer different degrees of specificity / granularity onto the advancement process. 
48. Random Encounters   
49. Range  
50. Rests, Limited Usage X/Day, Recharge X-Y, Recharge after a rest  
51. Saving Throws   
52. Sense, Darkvision, Vision and Light   
53. Size  
54. Speed, Movement, Special types of movement, Underwater Combat   
55. Spellcasting, Spells, Spell Level, Spells Known, Spell Slots, Spell Points, Components, Psionics, Ritual Casting    
56. Souls, Memories – Souls occasionally surface as character features that can be attacked (Trap the Soul, the Night Hag’s Soul Bag) and memories crop up in various places (Modify Memory, Mind Blank, the Gas Spore’s Beholder Memories, Speak with Dead) 
57. Spellcasting Ability, Spell Save DC, Spell Attack Bonus    
58. Success at a Cost and Degrees of Failure – These are the framework for whole   mechanics in other roleplaying games, where these the two principles are at the crux – rather than the edges – of the action. D&D does occasionally uses them within the cor rules, usually as a “fail by 5 or more” stipulation on effects like the Medusa’s petrification and drow sleep poison.       
59. Suffocation – Like confusion and cursed, this is another backdoor condition not formally identified as such
60. Time, Rounds, Days, Time Travel 
61. Time Travel (Sphinx lair action, Fey Time Warp)
62. Weapon Durability / Degradation – just as the Troll’s Loathsome Limbs backdoor hit locations into the game, the Rust Monster’s signature ability introduces a form of weapon degradation.
63. XP and Levels

How Religion Works, and Why the Pope Can't Cast True Resurrection

The typical priest is not a “cleric.” They have no class levels and cast no high magic ("adventuring magic," the spells in the D&D 5E player's handbook). Most priests serve a similar role to priests in real life throughout history: as counselors, bureaucrats, healers, historians, and conductors of ceremonies.

PC clerics with class levels are much more akin to prophets, miracle-workers, or even heretics. Crucially, leveled clerics are much better at starting or reviving religions than they are at growing or maintaining them.

In a medium- or high-magic setting, cities or other centers of religious power may have a small number of leveled clerics serving in some capacity. But the arrival of mid- to high-level clerics serving a particular god would simultaneously be an honor and a source of stress for the mundane priests of the religion in question. 

Roleplaying religions are often depicted as being internally harmonious, and on the surface that makes sense in a world where a god's existence is a verifiable fact. But knowing what a particular deity thinks and wants, particularly in the short term, is pretty difficult. 

The PHB's cleric spell list actually models the unknowability of god fairly well. Compare the amount of insight a divine caster can get from Augury (2nd level), Divination (4th level), and Commune and Legend Lore (5th level). Even at a point where the PC is at the upper end of the "heroes of the realm" tier, about to enter the "masters of the realm" tier, (i.e. able to cast 5th-level spells), they are still only able to discern their own deity’s will in vague or obfuscated ways. It is very hard to get a straight answer to “what does god want us to do?” There is no great way to get a clear, unambiguous answer until a cleric learns Plane Shift and can go ask in person.

This means that leveled clerics are actually quite likely to run afoul of their own religion's institutions, which may have different interests and interpretations of divine prerogatives. Even well-meaning priests are going to experience some message drift. A high-level paladin is more Joan of Arc than a member of the Swiss Guard, and sometimes that means that even lawful good boy scout religions (perhaps especially lawful good boy scout religions) will be wracked with inner turmoil.

In these situations, PCs and NPCs probably broadly agree on the tenets of the faith, and the institutional non-leveled priests may privately acknowledge that the leveled clerics have an important calling; but probably one out in the wilderness and dungeons of the world. God didn't give you the ability to Flame Strike so you could sit around the capital conducting first communions and commissioning murals. Even a well-liked adventurer who saved the village/city/world is still a headache for institutional clergy, who can't wait for them to get back out into the world, defeat evil (or good or... neutrality) and maybe martyr themselves while they're at it.

All of this means that with the exception of very high-magic settings, powerful divine magic like Resurrection is neither available as a service nor as a favor for adventurers. There simply aren't stationary casters of high enough level to do it, and if there are such NPCs within the religion, they are likely to be travelers, hermits, or missionaries. Their presence in any one place for too long is almost inherently destabilizing, and the availability of resurrection magic in particular can have all kinds of unintended effects, many of them violent and disruptive.  

The Rival Schools of D&D

In previous editions of D&D, many classes had various restrictions on what they couldn’t do. Many of those restrictions, like limiting class selection and level limit by race, have gone away, and are not particularly missed. 

Others have been flipped from restrictions into benefits (I cast Sticks to Carrots). Instead of forbidding monks from wearing armor, the game gives them a big bonus when they don’t have any on. This is also fine.

But could a few of these ideas bear a second look? Restrictions breed creativity. Restrictions force characters to pick a side in a world of cosmological struggle. Restrictions can tell a story about a class in a way that mere benefits do not.

Rival Schools

D&D 3.5E had an option for wizards to specialize in a school of magic, at the cost of closing themselves off from other sorts of magic. Of course, it’s 3.5E, so it’s needlessly complex. Most of the schools of magic give up two other schools for specialization, but divination only gives up one. Possibly as a balancing mechanism? The book doesn’t explain. 

The wizard also gets to choose which schools to give up. As with everything in 3.5E, the emphasis is on customization, customization, customization. But because it’s so abstracted, it tells us almost nothing about wizards, except perhaps that divination specialists are naturally better generalists than other wizards.

What if instead, the tradeoffs were fixed? Wouldn’t that then tell us some pretty interesting things about how the world worked?

For example, consider these school rivalries: 

Abjuration vs. Evocation. Abjuration includes spells that block or obstruct. It’s opposed by Evocation, the school that manipulates and directs energy. This is a classic offense/defense matchup.

Conjuration vs. Illusion. Conjuration is the school of spells that summon or create creatures or materials. It’s opposed by Illusion, a school defined by the absence of physicality. Conjurers despise the immateriality of illusionists, while illusionists see conjurers as hopelessly bound by the constraints of material form.

Divination vs. Transmutation. Divination is a school of absolute remove; study from afar, but do not interfere. Transmutation is the opposite, tactile magic reworking the world in the most direct ways possible. 

Enchantment vs. Necromancy. Ever notice how so many undead are immune to charms? Enchantment is a school dependent on the vital passions of living creatures; it literally speaks from the heart. The cold hearts of the undead are anathema to enchanters, and the loathing is mutual. 

Some of these are clearer or stronger matches than others. And you could probably flip several of these around a bit – Divination vs. Illusion (seeing vs. occluding) would also work. But some ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. The important thing is it provides, from character creation, tension, conflict, friction, goals, factionality, and movement. All the things we want when a game is just getting started. 

Spells with Drawbacks

How many 5E spells come with built-in drawbacks? More than I would have expected. And they raise some interesting questions. A (non-exhaustive) list:

Friends specifically states that after it’s over that the subject knows and “becomes hostile” to you. Charm Person also notes that the target knows they were charmed after it’s over, but does not stipulate any particular reaction. Does this imply some non-negligible number of charm victims who are OK with it? In a high magic setting, would periodic enchantments and compulsions just be a fact of life that people have sort of grown to accept?

Augury, as a ritual, is a spell that characters could profitably spam in campaigns where strict time records are not kept. Rituals collectively strain 5E’s focus on resource management by making something free in many instances. But Augury has an inbuilt, cumulative chance of producing a random reading on successive attempts before a long rest, as the spirits get increasingly annoyed by all the cold calls. This is dramatically far more interesting than the resource management games of normal spells. Entire games have built magic systems on this kind of escalation, and for good reason.

Haste eats the recipient’s turn after it ends, a pretty tangible drawback for a concentration spell that may drop in the middle of a fight. If characters want to betray an NPC ally, they should confront a dangerous monster, Haste the NPC to “help” them, and then immediately end the spell. Free round of dogpiling on the unfortunate fool.

Contact Other Plane features D&D’s bad habit of using “insanity” interchangeably with a more figurative sort of fantasy madness. Beyond that, Contact Other Plane’s drawback of an intelligence save to avoid damage and temporary madness does a neat bit of implicit storytelling incorporated in the rules here. If a wizard takes the spell, they have a pretty good shot at making the save, with proficiency in the Intelligence save and a high intelligence score. Warlocks also have Contact Other Plane in their spell list, but with no intelligence save proficiency – and almost certainly a lower intelligence score – using the spell is a riskier proposition for them, which fits with the dangerous path warlocks take to achieve power and knowledge. 

Delayed Blast Fireball produces a “glowing bead” that can be grabbed and thrown with a successful Dexterity saving throw, including an opponent palming it and whipping it back at you. Feature or bug? 

Teleport reminds me that while I do not like 5E’s habit of hiding custom, non-standard random resolution mechanics within spell descriptions, the Teleport table is one of the better ones. The levels of familiarity provide a reason to scout or gather intelligence. Mishaps impose a damage tax that could be meaningful if the characters are teleporting into danger. The “Off Target” and “Similar Area” results provide great opportunities for unexpected, emergent scenarios that complicate the characters lives. 

I would consider applying the Teleport table to more spells: perhaps Plane Shift, which as written defers more to DM discretion. Even Sending (which includes a paltry 5% miss chance when the recipient is not on the same plane) could benefit from the table – probably with lower stakes, but producing interesting results for “dialing the wrong number.”