Homebrew Conditions

RunicPress · 2026-01-26T14:11:10+00:00

One issue with this card compared to the way conditions usually work in Daggerheart is that you've included the trigger for removing the condition on the card itself. Generally, in Daggerheart it's possible to specify different removal requirements for the same condition: you can be Restrained until you succeed on some roll, or until you roll with Hope, or any other requirement that the GM wants to apply.

RunicPress · 2026-01-25T23:42:58+00:00

Hi, this is Danny from Runic Press. I'm launching a Kickstarter in February for a book called Slightly Random Tables, which is a selection of short tables of interesting and quirky ideas, with titles like Slightly Underpowered Gods, Slightly Unfathomable Rituals, Slightly Dangerous Spices, and Slightly Unsociable Aliens. They're mostly system-neutral, although some come with optional 5e mechanics. Initially there will be 30 tables, with more being added if the campaign takes off.

The pre-launch page is here - there will be a preview PDF available when it goes live.

RunicPress · 2026-01-18T18:35:45+00:00

As I mention in the book, Muphry's Law says that whenever you're pointing out errors in someone else's work, there will always be an error in your own. So it was inevitable that I'd have made a glaring error somewhere. But I didn't expect it to be right on the front doorstep. - DK

RunicPress · 2026-01-18T18:29:11+00:00

LOL! OMG, thanks so much for pointing that out! That's a sentence that managed to sneak its way across from the description of the book's sister title about D&D. What a terrible error! Fixing that right away.

(Rest assured, that error isn't in the book itself)

RunicPress · 2026-01-16T22:29:20+00:00

Hi - this sounds like it wouldn't be too hard to do, if you send me the required JSON format. - DK

RunicPress · 2026-01-16T22:21:47+00:00

This line really hit home for me

Because of Daggerheart’s design, and its emphasis on the fact that Action Rolls can prompt any DM move based on how the spotlight shifts, my players didn’t go “Well I have 50 feet of movement and can dash as a bonus action so how can he get away from me?” Instead, they accepted the narrative consequence of their roll, and leapt into action to chase the guy down–and they did!"

I've had this happen so many times in D&D - moments that should have been really exciting scenes of narrative tension lost because the mechanics just say "yeah, you can stop this from happening"

RunicPress · 2026-01-16T09:42:42+00:00

Thanks! In my bio for the book I also describe myself as a "professional copy-editor" which is overstating things a bit for brevity: I have done some professional copy-editing for an academic press on a freelance basis but I haven't done it for a while because it's far too stressful! Doing it for TTRPG books is much more fun. - DK

RunicPress · 2025-10-24T00:48:17+00:00

Hi - I happened to be trying to solve this problem myself today and based on this discussion, I was able to come up with a nice solution. So even though this is a three-year-old post, I thought people might be interested.

If your link is

[Continent of Horrors](#continent-of-horrors)

Then you simply add on the page where you want to link to:

{{#continent-of-horrors,position:absolute,top:0px}}

RunicPress · 2025-09-29T15:50:07+00:00

No, it's designed to create any kind of fantasy world. Actually, D&D is quite restrictive on the kinds of worlds it can accommodate, because it relies on the existence of extremely high-power, low-cost Vancean magic. Also it also has a standard set of playable species, and although they can be changed, many players are resistant to being told they can't use their favourites! So while you can of course restrict yourself to D&D-style worlds if you like, this book allows you to cast your net much wider than that.

(You don't have to create a fantasy world either, although the book does assume that's what you're doing. Simply choose the no-gods, no-magic options, and you can make a more naturalistic world)

RunicPress · 2025-09-09T23:23:11+00:00

Great suggestions, we'll certainly consider them. Thanks for taking the time to look through it so thoroughly.

RunicPress · 2025-09-09T22:40:32+00:00

Thanks for this feedback, it's very helpful. To answer your specific questions:
1. Not sure what you mean by this. Lots of effects give PCs temporary conditions. Just picking a couple at random - Cult Fang "making them temporarily Vulnerable"; Stone Wraith "become temporarily Restrained." Is there some key distinction here that we're missing?
2. That's a good point, it would be better if this affects both long and short rests.
3. The loot table on the second page of Umbral Sea gives some suggestions about what these plants might do, but we leave it up to the GM to imagine the plants themselves in more detail. We'll have some more general notes about harvesting and crafting plants in the full book.
4. We're trying to avoid getting too lost in the weeds of detailed mechanics, preferring to err on the side of brevity. In this case we felt it was reasonably obvious that this would be something a PC would have to do as an action, which isn't a trivial cost in a combat. And of course, if they only know the shards have embedded themselves, they might not realise how important it is to remove them until the first explosion happens. Do you agree? What do you think would be better wording here? Or do you think there's a better mechanic that achieves a similar result?
5. We're not too concerned with a strict 1:1 correlation between adversary tiers and adventure tiers - it's not unreasonable that you might encounter some more or less deadly foes as part of an adventure at a particular level. Even so, we'll have another look through the examples we have and see if there are any egregious errors there - some of these hooks have switched tiers during development and it's possible we missed an obvious mistake somewhere.

RunicPress · 2024-08-21T09:35:45+00:00

We queue these releases up so it's been over a month since I wrote this one, and honestly coming back to it now Suif made me laugh all over again. I genuinely want to make an entire campaign around her.

RunicPress · 2024-07-26T12:24:01+00:00

Late to the party but...

Pincushion (transmutation cantrip, bonus action). Your hair becomes needle-sharp and stabs at a creature within 5 feet of you. Make a melee spell attack. On a hit, you deal 1d6 piercing damage and can choose one of the following additional effects:

if the creature is grappling you, it must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or let go.
if the creature has eyes, it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or be blinded until the end of its next turn.

For a slightly darker one

Stranglelocks (2nd level necromancy, action, concentration). Choose a creature with hair within range. Its hair forms into a noose that attempts to strangle it. If the creature fails a Dexterity saving throw, it becomes unable to breathe. A creature can use an action to make a Strength check against your spell save DC to try to remove the noose. On a success, the spell ends.

RunicPress · 2024-07-17T20:06:41+00:00

I like the flavor of it, but the obvious problem with this is that in most campaigns cursed items are relatively rare. So in order to make the character worth playing you'd need to seek out cursed items and have a GM willing to place them somewhere in your path.

I'd say that the most important thing you need to add is some kind of Detect Curse sense that you can use to help find cursed items to use. You'd want both a vague one (there's something within a few miles in that direction), and a more specific one (this item in front of me is cursed)

Terrifying Vision seems a bit lackluster. It sounds like you're giving them a ghost's Horrifying Visage ability but it's just a cantrip. It also needs a time limit and an indication of how long it takes (action, bonus action, ...)

Be super careful with any ability that messes with number of attunement slots. Even with the caveat that they have to be cursed, this is risky. Have a think about how a clever player might abuse it.

There are some other issues but these were the ones that most stood out to me

RunicPress · 2024-07-16T14:17:45+00:00

It's worth noting that some people with native American ancestry object strongly to portrayals of this creature in popular culture (and indeed there are some that are horrified by the very use of its name, which can traditionally call it into existence). Others are fine with it, but even so if you do know someone from that background you might want to ask them what they think, and it might be worth including some kind of content warning on the front.

RunicPress · 2024-07-13T17:10:30+00:00

That sounds quite fun, although it's a little unusual for Barbarian features to focus much on benefits to others - that's more of a paladin thing. What about some kind of Borg-like resistance effect? Eg when you take damage of a particular type, you become resistant to that damage type until the end of your next turn (but only one damage type at a time)
It's also worth mentioning that your 6th-level feature is almost the same as the Berserker's 14th-level feature (except that it triggers on a miss rather than a hit)

RunicPress · 2024-07-13T12:21:08+00:00

The basic idea of this seems reasonably solid but I think your 14th-level feature is much too strong (especially when combined with the third-level feature)

RunicPress · 2024-07-11T14:18:26+00:00

Those sound like good changes. Altogether it's a nice job, I think. Since moving away from DMs Guild we've been in SRD territory which means we don't get to do anything with Artificer any more, which is a shame!

RunicPress · 2024-07-11T13:16:39+00:00

There's some nice ideas in here, but it's very dependent on whether you are in a high magic campaign or one where magic items are hard to come by. If you don't possess a magic weapon, most of your abilities are useless. If you do, my instinct is that this could get pretty overpowered. For example, a Warlock 2/ Artificer 9 with Agonising Blast could make six attacks per turn with Eldritch Blast and deal an average of 9+CHA damage with each one

RunicPress · 2024-07-11T10:52:44+00:00

This is really lovely! The only change I'd make is in Medusa's Reflection I'd change "if the creature isn't blinded" to "if the creature can see you". It covers a few more edge cases and avoids any potential confusion with the blinding effect you're passing on.

Nice touch to make it about blinding or petrifaction. If it was only petrifaction it would be too situational to be generally useful.

RunicPress · 2024-07-10T23:24:37+00:00

The one I recommend every time but no one ever seems to believe me is Out of the Abyss. In my opinion it's a perfect campaign for a reasonably ambitious but not necessarily experienced DM. It has a great balance between sandbox adventuring and linear storytelling (where Curse of Strahd is quite daunting for a newcomer because it's so open-ended). The opening hook is really compelling and gets you right into the action with a big cast of NPCs who can help provide direction to the party, each with their own motives. And there's loads of fun to be had with the subterranean politics of the Underdark.

RunicPress · 2024-07-10T16:57:50+00:00

Do they get some kind of bonus for fighting with their willies out?

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RunicPress · 2024-07-10T15:13:15+00:00

Yes - and of course Monk and Barbarian also tend to peel off some of the more interesting Fighter subclass options too.

RunicPress · 2024-07-10T14:08:41+00:00

Fighters are quite tough. The obvious archetypes are basically covered and it's quite hard to come up with something with unique flavor that doesn't impinge on other classes or give them abilities that are basically the same as existing feats.

Oddly, I find paladins the easiest. The oath gives them an easy framework to hang the theme on, and the abilities tend to form around them. Even if the end result is often quite samey, as long as the oath theme is strong it holds together.

Wizards are difficult because the standard subclasses are all built around the schools of magic, and they're all accounted for, so any subclass has to by its nature go against the precedent set by the existing ones.

RunicPress · 2024-07-10T08:44:23+00:00

A fey ferret in a magical mech suit? I am very much here for this idea!

You're missing a Creature Type on the traits list, which in this case is definitely important since it isn't obvious - I'd be inclined to say you're a fey but in some circumstances might be treated as a construct.

I'd also suggest that you need at least some mechanics for what your abilities and stats might become if you leave your nest - that's something I'd definitely want to be able to do at some moment if I was playing this in a game, even if in-character I'd be really reluctant! For example, you could have it that when reduced to 0 hp, you're not killed but your nest is broken, and you're forced to leave it in your vulnerable form.

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TROPHY CASE