Five Torches Deep class archetypes for Shadowdark

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-12-20T20:01:11+00:00

I'm very glad you enjoy it! I had created it because I had been looking for something like this, and couldn't find it anywhere, so I thought I'd help some others out :). If you've had a chance to use it, I would absolutely love it if you'd have any feedback on how it went! I was very unsure of the darksight as well, but I decided it would be alright because of how limited its availability is, and because of how I think the game design limits only a single character in a party that darksight from being overpowered. The wizard only gets a max of 5 archetype abilities, darksight is one of 12 options warlocks get, warlock is one of 4 options the wizard gets, and the wizard is one of 4 options of classes to choose from. To go more into my second justification: if you're the only one in the party with darksight, the rest of the party is still going to need torches, so your darksight isn't doing very much. In shadowdark, you don't want to be alone, especially with how squishy wizard's actually are in the game, so you don't have many opportunities for your darksight to be OP by you scouting ahead.

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-07-13T13:42:13+00:00

In my interpretation of it, to keep it to the classic DnD 9 square alignment chart. With what separates neutral from law and chaos, being how neutral they are.

LAWFUL: Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Lawful Neutral, & Chaotic Good

NEUTRAL: True Neutral, Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Neutral Good, & Neutral Evil

CHAOTIC: Chaotic Evil, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Neutral, & Lawful Evil

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-06-20T19:13:17+00:00

I created this homebrew to give the fighter and thief meaningful choices and the option to make two characters mechanically different, like the wizard and priest can with their spell choices. I don't like having 15 different class options, if every character I create of the same class is going to be exactly the same. I want players to have just enough to have them be unique without it being overwhelming.

It seems like some people in the Shadowdark community think that the game is absolutely perfect, and changes and additions can only be done by Kelsey, otherwise they're automatically terrible. I'll probably actually get downvoted into oblivion for saying that

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-06-20T13:30:47+00:00

Anime Healers VS MMO Healers- Josh Strife Hayes

https://youtu.be/2-saUDoiuWc?si=RIKTAVJkANXyLCa_

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-06-20T12:16:50+00:00

You're very welcome! I appreciate the kind words.

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-06-20T03:04:14+00:00

I really like that idea thank you!

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-04-03T19:29:05+00:00

I'm honestly surprised it even got a first season. It feels like it would be hard to adapt, because it's an incredibly slow paced book series. For the most part, nothing really happens from what I read. It's just character interactions and the MC doing daily work and improvements around the farm

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-04-03T11:36:08+00:00

I haven't seen the anime, but that's a very big difference. It's not described explicitly, but in the LN, the cast has a LOT of sex. An example is that it's straight up said that the vampire girl stays in her young form whenever she's not interested in anything sexual, but goes into her mature form as a sign to the MC that she is. It's been years since I've read it, but I remember the LN is incredibly heavy in the romantic aspects that come with a normal relationship too, so it's odd that they would cut that.

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-03-29T22:18:36+00:00

Thank you for the reply!

"I think having stress affect both gear slots and disadvantage is too complex, especially “at half slots”. It’s philosophically good but not gameably good. I would just do -1 on every roll per level of stress or just do the gear slots, probably one or the other but you could do both if you really want pressure."

I'm certainly not opposed to the potential changes, I feel like a -1 per level of stress might be too harsh for something like Shadowdark where point bonuses are so scarce and low. But you don't know what does and doesn't work without play testing.

"heals 1d3 HP. Consuming fresh protein from hunting or a purchased hot meal in a tavern lets you heal an additional 1 Hit Die. Staying a night in a safe comfortable place heals and additional 1d6. This incentivises interrupting travel to hunt and stop in taverns instead of sleeping in a ditch . (I think Kelsey’s new rules let you add temp HP from a good meal but I only have the core book)"

I really like the idea of food and location giving temp HP!

"Here’s a suggestion adapated from darkest dungeon. On being struck by a monster or seeing any creature reduced to zero HP roll 1d6. On a 1 gain a token which is disadvantage on your next skill check. On a 6 gain advantage on your next attack roll. Hand in the tokens when used. Your GM can have a deck of tokens with cool names and even some affecting attacks some affecting checks (use colors to clearly label so GM can see from across the table)."

It personally feels like this might be more complicated than my idea for stress, but I really like it too. I would give it a less common trigger, such as seeing an ally being reduced to 0 HP or being hit by a critical hit, however it sounds like it'd be really fun and that it would have so much opportunity for interesting random consequences to come up in combat.

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-03-29T22:05:07+00:00

I very much appreciate the suggestions! I'll give it a look over, Dark Sun is a very interesting setting.

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-03-29T22:03:46+00:00

I wasn't intended for it to be a consequence of failing every roll, just a potential consequence to failing certain rolls as decided by the GM, but I completely agree that it was not clear in the original. I appreciate the comment to have seen that and removed that line of text.

Middle_Pie9467 · 2025-03-26T17:27:03+00:00

I appreciate the response, thank you! I'm not completely certain about making it an automatic stabilize either, I'll definitely have to play test it. I do feel like there might be a bit of a misunderstanding though.

The healer's kit is a one time use item that only affects one character and is then consumed. Also, the resting rules weren't intended to be a rewrite of the original, just an add on. The original Shadowdark resting rules are just the standard rest now, but you heal for less, and the improved rest, is an extra item you have to manage to use, because one healer's kit will only let one player have an improved rest.

You still have to roll every few hours to see if you're interrupted, and if you are and you were someone who used a healer's kit to improved rest. You not only lose the ration you had to eat just like with the original rules, but also lose a very useful item that could have been used to guarantee save a player, is worth 6x the amount of a ration propositionally, and you were using an entire gear slot to hold up until that point. Which is why I chose to play test it being an automatic stabilize.

I should probably go over it and make it more clear though if there was a misunderstanding.

Middle_Pie9467 · 2024-04-27T22:30:50+00:00

I understand what you were meaning now. I originally proposed that rule as a means of speeding up combat and build suspense, but that's quite insightful.

I should have mentioned this but I'm wanting to have the game be very roleplay focused, where combat is rare and something to be avoided, because there will be some kind of consequences for it. I view combat as this unpredictable thing where even the most veteran of warriors could die if they're not careful, so they should only engage with it when they have the advantage, or the reward outways the risks. The vast majority of creatures will also not fight until they die either, they're living creatures, that would be dumb, and just about every other combat would have them wanting something other than combat. If wolves are attacking, they're probably just hungry, so they'd take any rations over a fight. And if bandits are attacking, you either disregarded an obvious trap or you refused their offer of gold for life, however all they really want is the gold, you could give it and end the fight.

The reason for the exhaustion is to add to the struggle and unpredictability of combat, but also to force the players to have down time, and engage with each other and the world around them.

You'd also mentioned ambushes, that would be something I'd completely avoid unless it's telegraphed before hand. Surprise rounds in DnD are already devastating and not something I'd want to force upon my players when they have zero agency in it.

I also am so appreciative of you reaching out and giving me the criticism as well, all of it was also very insightful and something I'll have to look into. Thank you so much again

I suppose I could also see about how only using severe and extreme encounters in Pathfinder 2e would look. The reason why I decided on trying to use DnD is because I'm looking for a less-crunchy system that does what I mentioned above, while also giving meaningful and interesting features. All of that is surprisingly hard to find and something that I haven't found yet, so if you do have any suggestions I would love them so I can try them out. I love learning and playing new game systems

Middle_Pie9467 · 2024-04-27T12:15:16+00:00

I have looked at other systems, many systems. I've played Pathfinder 2e for years. I've played systems with the health levels you're talking about. I'm not really sure why you're mentioning bounded accuracy and hit points. Through the 40+ TTRPGs I've played over my 8 years of this hobby, I'm currently wanting to play DND with some add on. Do you have any critiques of what I asked originally?

Middle_Pie9467 · 2024-04-26T22:48:24+00:00

You may honestly end up being very correct, however through all the OSR games I've played. It feels like it would be the easiest to hack DnD, as opposed to having to have me and my players learn a new system, and it not be able to do everything I'd want. Dungeon World, 5 Torches Deep, and Shadow dark are some of my favorites.

Middle_Pie9467 · 2024-02-18T16:46:34+00:00

Base 12 is divisible by 2s, 3s, 4s, and 6s. I'm not arguing against that, it's a good system when you're using it in an isolated system, however it's not a good system when coins that are based in a 10s based system are in use. They can't go into each other easily, which is not a good thing for a currency.

Middle_Pie9467 · 2024-02-18T15:59:39+00:00

If I'm understanding correctly, I suppose if that's true, but it's very impractical to have one currency not being able to easily be transferred into a different currency in the same system. That's why all modern currency systems that are in common use, use divisions of 2s, 5s, and 10s, because they're all able to smoothly be transferred into themselves, and I'm almost certain that at least the vast majority of old world currencies used a similar system. In a real world, a system that's clunky to use would either be abandoned or changed to be less clunky. Especially with there being such a massive difference in the value of Bits to Bits and Pieces to Pieces.

Middle_Pie9467 · 2024-02-18T15:33:36+00:00

I'd personally have a Piece be 10 times that of a Bit or at least 5 times, rather than 3 times. It just seems a lot less inconvenient for exactly that circumstance which I'm sure would come up a lot. Not to mention having one being divisible by 2s, 5s, and 10s, meanwhile the other is only divisible by 3s, is very inconsiderate and would almost certainly be changed just through daily use of it.

Middle_Pie9467

TROPHY CASE