# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 5e/Next >  New campaign 'realistic low power' - advice?

## Waazraath

A friend will start a new campaign soon, first time he'll DM. He intentionally aims for 'guy at the gym' kinda realism, only race available is human, no wizards and probably restrictions on other (full) casters as well. 

Do you folks have any advice? Other than "don't" please - we know he is making it pretty hard for himself, especially as a first timer, but he wants to see if he can make it work. 

When reducing ability checks to things that 'normal' real life humans could do, what should be done with spells and other supernatural abilities to bring them in line? Would gritty rest mechanics work? And in such a campaign, what would you play, or definitely not play (as far as can be said with this incomplete information).

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## Mastikator

Level 1 with non-magical classes can feel pretty "guy at the gym" level. Stick to level 1.

Once a character hits double digit level they are super heroes.

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## Pildion

> A friend will start a new campaign soon, first time he'll DM. He intentionally aims for 'guy at the gym' kinda realism, only race available is human, no wizards and probably restrictions on other (full) casters as well. 
> 
> Do you folks have any advice? Other than "don't" please - we know he is making it pretty hard for himself, especially as a first timer, but he wants to see if he can make it work. 
> 
> When reducing ability checks to things that 'normal' real life humans could do, what should be done with spells and other supernatural abilities to bring them in line? Would gritty rest mechanics work? And in such a campaign, what would you play, or definitely not play (as far as can be said with this incomplete information).


Just banning Wizard wont be enough, I would say ban at least any full caster, maybe even half casters. Have everyone go some kinda Martial build, maybe give out the "Healer" feat for free to make up for no healing magic?

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## Catullus64

Are you soliciting advice for the DM himself to use, or are you looking for advice for you and your fellow players?

I think that a game with narrow class selection isn't bad, especially if having very few spellcaster classes allows for the DM to create really tight theming and story behind magic in the setting. I would advise him to pick one to three of the full spellcaster classes to allow, picking them according to the 'feel' that he wants magic to have in the setting. If there is only one spellcaster allowed, and it's not Wizard, I would make that class Bard, Druid, or Warlock, because they all have very distinct themes and flavor.

When I do human-only games, I like to come up with 'culture packs' to take the place of races. These are three lists of skills, tool proficiencies, and feats for each human culture I've invented, from which you can pick when making a person from that culture. Each culture also gets a ribbon or minor mechanical feature (either home-brewed or cribbed from an existing race) and its own language. It's a good way for characters to feel unique and diverse with a game of all humans. One example might be:

*Hylde Clans*
*Language:* You speak Hylspeak
*Skill:* Choose one from Athletics, Religion, Stealth, or Survival
*Tool:* Choose one from Herbalism Kit, Weaver's Tools, Lyre, or Dice Set
*Feat:* Alert, Fey Touched, Fighting Initiate, Healer, Magic Initiate (Druid), Poisoner, Skulker
*Mask of the Wild:* You can attempt to hide even when only lightly obscured by foliage, mist, snowfall, and other natural phenomena.

I'll admit that this is the first time I've seen 'guy at the gym' used to earnestly describe a desired playstyle. Are those the DM's words about what he wants? If not, what were the words he used to pitch this game? 'Guy at the gym' has a somewhat pejorative connotation around here, so I want to be sure that's what the DM is really after before giving advice.

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## Zhorn

> Would gritty rest mechanics work?


The same advice I give here I give for regular campaigns. Skip over Gritty Realism and go for Slow Natural Healing instead. The assumptions on timing with other mechanics is unchanged from base rules, which means less stuff overall is kicked out of whack.
Our table runs Slow Natural Healing with the additional houserule of 'you can only short rest if you are spending Hit Dice'.
Achieves the whole 'injuries matter' intention, while still allowing the narrative timescale for multi encounter dungeon crawls.

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## Sigreid

If I were going to do this, I'd ban all casters and limit magic to magic items, with player created magic being limited to potions via herbalism and alchemy.

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## Waazraath

Thnx all! 

Few specifics:




> Are you soliciting advice for the DM himself to use, or are you looking for advice for you and your fellow players?
> 
> ...
> 
> I'll admit that this is the first time I've seen 'guy at the gym' used to earnestly describe a desired playstyle. Are those the DM's words about what he wants? If not, what were the words he used to pitch this game? 'Guy at the gym' has a somewhat pejorative connotation around here, so I want to be sure that's what the DM is really after before giving advice.


1) both
2) no, he isn't into these kind of forums as far as I know, nor in its slang. I used guy at the gym cause I know it's a term most people understand - it is a term which is indeed often used negatively, but he really wants to run the game with taking into account "how much can a real world strong person lift" - which is imo pretty litterally guy at the gym. 




> The same advice I give here I give for regular campaigns. Skip over Gritty Realism and go for Slow Natural Healing instead.


Darn, I'd forgotten this existed!

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## Zhorn

> Darn, I'd forgotten this existed!


I don't blame you, the mechanics were misnamed and so much of the general conversation on rest variants is focused on Gritty Realism when its intent isn't aligned with how many tables use it.

Gritty Realism's intent (as stated in the book) is for games where combat is a rare occurrence and you have longer stretches where the emphasis is on activities outside of the dungeon leaning more on the social interaction side. *Natural healing* under this system is *slowed* down to emphasise the focus is on avoiding getting hurt at all. Works fine when the DM just needs an excuse to only worry about one combat a day, but for regular campaigns the timing makes the short vs long rest difference a much bigger issue to balance around, and 10min/1hour/8hour spells get revalued as equivalent to 1min spells since they are unlikely to be used in more than a single encounter. the later is a lesser issue though if doing the guy-at-the-gym style with very limited magic.

Slow Natural Healing on the other hand (as also stated by the book) is for instilling a sense of *grittier*, more *realistic* campaigns where healing is more resource intensive and the attrition model of play hits harder since a heal to full isn't a guaranteed thing after a night's sleep. Low level threats maintain a sense of danger as a average weapon hit is the equivalent of one hit dice worth of healing, so even on a day with simple goblin ambushes and bandits, each hit wearing you down adds up to a serious issue if you are using more than half your hit dice each day as you have less and less to top yourself back up with over time. Help makes overland travel through hostile environments more perilous. My party recently had a two day trek through the swamps... was very concerning if they were going to get to the next town before their resources ran out.

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## MrStabby

A few things to be aware of:

In a human only realistic world, different class features will have hugely different value.  Barbarian Strength + Con save proficiency is fine, but rogue dex and int? In a non magic world what might trigger an inteligence save?

The fighter might feel a bit constrained, especially as you go up levels.  Feats are cool but if you strip out your feats like fey touched, probably resilient (given lack of magic), and if you lose the good racial feats (due to all human) then you are kind of corraling your players into a narrow range of decent character options.

Its worth flagging just how limited the non magic options are in the game.  Probably no rune knight or arcane archer fighter.  No zealot or totem barbarian.  No arcane trickster or soulknife rogue.  No mercy or shadow monk (and arguably no monk at all).

I worry that if you are strict you will end up with some nearly identical characters due to lack of good and meaningful choices for race, class, subclass and feats.  I would suggest ensuring that these thigns have enough meaningful choices to support the size of group you play with and you might even want to consider some pre-made characters to try and get a spread.

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## CTurbo

Gritty realism can be a lot of fun, but it's hard to sustain for long as characters grow in power. 

I ran a (almost) no magic gritty realism level 0 campaign with slow healing. I tried to capture what it would be like for 4 "regular" humans to be thrust into the middle of a D&D campaign. I sat the 4 players down and told them to think about what class they would want to eventually be, and what background they'd have. I told them that they were regular people with jobs and what jobs they had should match their skills and would determine what tools/weapons they'd be proficient in. The only skills they started with were from their background. I gave them a modified weak point array to start with. Something like 13,12,10,10,8,7 and I awarded +1 to one score for completing a task. 

We ended up with
A future Barbarian. He was a big dude. A jock in high school and worked as a woodcutter so he was handy with an axe.
A future Ranger. He worked as a hunter and tracker and was great with a short bow. 
A future Rogue. He was a farmer and was great with a sickle. He was also an outcast and had some run ins with local law. Can definitely pick a lock. 
A future Sorcerer. She was the sister of the jock and was most beautiful and popular girl in school. She was not much use in combat, but was the face of the group and dominated social encounters. 

The campaign began with a small portal opening up in the woods and a single gnoll came through and attacked an old couple. The 4 soon to be heros set on to find out what was going on and the encounter with the gnoll was so much fun. The Jock was the only one to take significant damage and a single bite almost killed him. The future rogue did get scratched but I think only did 2 damage. The jock was down for days. I don't remember my exact rules for rests and healing, but he only gained 1 hit point a day. 

2nd encounter was dealing with the badly injured jock and getting him back to town to the doc.
3rd encounter was trying to figure out what the strange creature was that they killed and where it came from.
4th encounter was trying to figure out what to do with it which ended with some fights. 
5th encounter was actually discovering the portal and preparing to enter it to explore. This had the characters beginning at level 1. Once through the portal, the Sorcerer's innate magical abilities were awoken. 

Unfortunately we ended there, but I had planned on keeping with the relatively low magic and slow healing as long as I could.

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## JackPhoenix

I do have an advice: Pick a different system. People try to use 5e for things it's not build for, and end up disappointed. Realism and low power is one of those things.

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## Grod_The_Giant

I've got a whole chapter about low magic in my Grimoire of the Grotesque, covering both general advice on how to run such a game and providing a bunch of new classes and subclasses that better fit a classic-swords-and-sorcery style campaign.
The Artificer is a full class, a ritual-magic-and-voodoo-curses-themed pseudocaster who can conceptually replace Wizards, Warlocks, Clerics, and DruidsThe Warlord is the second full class,  a mundane support class based around projecting auras while using your bonus action and reaction to provide instant bonuses to your allies.The Barbarian gets a Path of the Animal Master (animal companion) and Path of the Skinshifter (eat bits of dead animals to gain their power/eventually transform) to cover Druid and Ranger concepts.The Fighter gets a Combat Medic archetype that gives you new and more useful options for healer's kits, and Paladin and Ranger archetypes that let you hit all the main thematic notes from those classes except for casting.The Rogue gets a Bard subclass that steals Bardic Inspiration, and a Surgeon subclass that lets you make super-healing-kits (that only you can use properly).

EDIT: It's also got rules for a 5e version of E6, where you stop getting actual levels at a certain point and switch to a slow accumulation of ASIs.

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## Mastikator

> I do have an advice: Pick a different system. People try to use 5e for things it's not build for, and end up disappointed. Realism and low power is one of those things.


What system to use can be solved with a simple flowchart  :Small Tongue:

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## deljzc

I would advise sticking to a low-level campaign and progress VERY SLOWLY.

Since the Monster manual is a bit limited on low level challenges, have him create new monsters or use higher level ones that he weakens.  Eliminate unlimited cantrips.  Spellcasters are okay but gear it more towards how old AD&D was.  They are fragile, targeted frequently and need protection.

It's possible, but with the way 5e rules work, you can only make it last for about 5-6 levels.

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## Anymage

Tier 1 is more "action hero" than "guy at the gym", but there's a lot of overlap between those concepts.  You're still heroic and those natural 1s/20s show up more often than they would in reality, but you aren't fighting small armies without breaking a sweat.

Other people have mentioned slow natural healing to make combats feel more impactful.  I'll mention either having the story plan to complete some time after fifth level, or just capping everybody at fifth and letting them grow through ASIs/feats after that.  I think people really undersell just how much level range matters.

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## Bobthewizard

I'd like to play a game that banned full casters, including warlocks, but not using slow healing or gritty realism. Paladins and rangers would be your healers. Artificers, eldritch knights, and arcane tricksters would be your magical controllers. You could take this game to tier 3 and it would still feel less magical than a tier 2 game with full casters. It would let those 1/2 and 1/3 casters shine in something other than damage. 

I'm not a fan of slow healing or gritty realism. I've played them and found the extra attention to resource management interfered with the story.

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## JellyPooga

Either Gritty Realism OR ban full casters, not both.  GR puts *heavy* restrictions on casters anyway and completely borks the differences between, for instance, Cleric or Druid and Wizard, with the former having a lot more leeway in day-to-day operations.

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## animorte

> What system to use can be solved with a simple flowchart


How very in-depth. That actually got a good laugh out of me.

Ive probably said this 38 times by now: I have played some adventures with no full casters. It was some of the best experiences Ive had.

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## MutantDragon

> A friend will start a new campaign soon, first time he'll DM. He intentionally aims for 'guy at the gym' kinda realism, only race available is human, no wizards and probably restrictions on other (full) casters as well. 
> 
> Do you folks have any advice? Other than "don't" please - we know he is making it pretty hard for himself, especially as a first timer, but he wants to see if he can make it work. 
> 
> When reducing ability checks to things that 'normal' real life humans could do, what should be done with spells and other supernatural abilities to bring them in line? Would gritty rest mechanics work? And in such a campaign, what would you play, or definitely not play (as far as can be said with this incomplete information).


Personally, my take on this is that all casters, whether half or full, should be banned. Point buy, perhaps with a lower point total, instead of rolling for ability scores. Max level should be five or lower. Slow healing and lingering injuries would aid in the "realism," though you should be _very_ careful with lingering injuries in a world without healing magic. Magic items, of course, are out. And that's it off the top of my head.

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## Dork_Forge

Banning fullcasters altogether would be the easiest way to achieve this, but for healing I personally like:

Short rests - Roll a number of Hit Dice up to your Con mod.

Long rests - Either roll a number of Hit Dice *or* regain a number of HP equal to your level + Con mod and regain half your Hit Dice.

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## Composer99

If your DM can find a copy of Adventures in Middle Earth 5e port, you're getting a 5e game that's designed to work in a low magic way.

The DM would have to work to strip out setting details (possibly including the Corruption mechanic).

But that's a possibility at any rate. (A remote one since the game's out of print.)

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## JellyPooga

On the subject of keeping the campaign low level, I disagree. Yes, a lot of higher level monsters and NPCs have abilities or magic that are harder to accomodate or overcome for non-casters (or half/third-casters), but as GM it's easy enough to plan for that and as a player it can be an entertaining experience to find solutions to those hurdles. Putting on the kid gloves isn't always fun...

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## Zhorn

Tangenting off JellyPooga's tangent back to the topic (yay for closed circles); for whatever houseruling you DM settles on the big thing to keep in mind should be to have the playstyle of the campaign work within those bounds to reinforce the intent of those houserules rather than work against them.

What I mean is if the intent is to make healing recovery trickier to make injuries feel more serious, the availability of healing potions has a breakpoint where it works against the houserule and changes it from
*"healing is slow and injuries are dangerous"*
to
*"healing potions are the fundamental resource by which the adventuring day is gauged by"*
since if healing potions are readily available, and the treasure infow is high enough to sustain a reliable supply, then the adventuring day can keep going with relatively little risk since recoving hp has now been trivialized, despite the initial houserule for the campaign intending on making injuries matter.

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## Keravath

A couple comments.

1) I'm not sure it is possible to get that feel with 5e at all even if you stick to martial classes. Cunning action on the rogue lets them run twice as fast as anyone else. Battlemaster maneuvers are cool but are a bit beyond "guy in the gym". Ranger/paladin, barbarian rage and reckless attack, fighter second wind and action surge - they are all game mechanisms but also almost "super powers" already. 

2) It may also not play out the way you expect. 

I played 5 or 6 sessions of a very similar game run in an earlier version of D&D. The party were all men at arms working as the guards for the local lord. One character was something like an alchemist (low level cleric or some sort of caster that could do some healing). So what did we do? We sat around the castle with boring guard shifts. Not much actually happens in a "realistic" medieval castle. We would go on patrols. Most patrols had nothing happen because that is the way "realistic" patrols are. When we did run into something it was often a poacher - we'd arrest them and take them back to the castle because it was "realistic". We did run into bandits once or twice. No one died but it was a close thing since there wasn't much healing. We'd shoot a bow or run in with club/halberd. I think only the squad leader was wealthy enough to have any sort of sword - "realism". 

The problem with limiting the characters to "realistic" options and making "realistic" choices in a "realistic" world is that it is boring. Opponents aren't fantastical beasts they are other humans. Usually ones who are just hungry and need food for their families. Some forced into banditry because they have limited choices. 

The main problem with a "realistic", "guy in the gym" game is that it is either boring or the "realism" meets the fantastical nature of Dungeons and Dragons (which is implied in the name), "realism" goes out the window as soon as you start encountering orcs, goblins, kobolds, bugbears, hobgoblins, trolls and other fantasy creatures. You also have the issue that "guy in the gym" is also pretty likely to die when that part of orcs attack them. 

So, from personal experience, the campaign I was playing in died due to terminal boredom after several sessions (the DM was good and very experienced and wanted to try something a bit different since they were a fan of medieval history but "realism" just placed far too much of a limitation on a D&D campaign to make it fun).

My concern is that for a first time DM the concept will just place too many limits to be fun for the players. A different twist on the "realism" option is to use one of the web tools out there to get a set of stats representing each of the players and give them those with which to make their character. They can then try playing "themselves" transposed into a fantastical setting. 

3) I'm not sure how to make it really work. Limiting a game to level 1 isn't much fun since one of the points of the game is the character growth and progression. However, every level of every class adds something that becomes less "realistic". 

The most "realistic" would be to give everyone champion fighters - but that would be boring. 

Either way, best of luck with it :)

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## Unoriginal

> On the subject of keeping the campaign low level, I disagree. Yes, a lot of higher level monsters and NPCs have abilities or magic that are harder to accomodate or overcome for non-casters (or half/third-casters), but as GM it's easy enough to plan for that and as a player it can be an entertaining experience to find solutions to those hurdles. Putting on the kid gloves isn't always fun...


"Realistic low power" and "guy at the gym" means that if your PC tries fighting a tiger in melee without wearing at least the upper tier of medium armors, they get mauled to death. 

You're not going to face an actual monster and win. Because that's not "realistic", "low power", or something the "guy at the gym" can do. 

More to the point there wouldn't be any monsters because it's not "realistic" or "guy at the gym".

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## Catullus64

I think a preferable approach to banning all full casters, or trying to pick a very narrow selection of acceptable casters, would be to just state that the party can only have one spellcaster in it. Let the player who wants to play a caster (or wins the draw to do so) decide on the class, and have the DM design the world's magic fluff rules according to that class. Warlock will definitely give a more low-magic feel.

Even a lot of the most iconic low-fantasy groups still feature one magician.

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## Unoriginal

> Even a lot of the most iconic low-fantasy groups still feature one magician.


But most iconic low-fantasy groups aren't "low-power", "realistic" or "guy at the gym", so that doesn't fit OP's criteria.

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## MrStabby

> I think a preferable approach to banning all full casters, or trying to pick a very narrow selection of acceptable casters, would be to just state that the party can only have one spellcaster in it. Let the player who wants to play a caster (or wins the draw to do so) decide on the class, and have the DM design the world's magic fluff rules according to that class. Warlock will definitely give a more low-magic feel.
> 
> Even a lot of the most iconic low-fantasy groups still feature one magician.


I don't know for anyone else, but this would be a sore point for me.  I can live with DM restrictions on what can and can't be played as long as they are symmetrical.  If one person is permitted something then I think it better that all are.  If I wanted to play a caster and someone else was preventing me by choosing to play one I would be at risk of harbouring resentment and rather than risk that I would just back out of that game.

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## MutantDragon

> I don't know for anyone else, but this would be a sore point for me.  I can live with DM restrictions on what can and can't be played as long as they are symmetrical.  If one person is permitted something then I think it better that all are.  If I wanted to play a caster and someone else was preventing me by choosing to play one I would be at risk of harbouring resentment and rather than risk that I would just back out of that game.


Yeah, it does seem to be asking for trouble. It comes off as saying everyone can only choose between a narrow set of options, for lore reasons...except Bob. Bob gets to do whatever he wants and be the most special character in the entire campaign world. And suddenly all thought has shifted from "This is an interesting game concept that I want to explore," to "Screw Bob."

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## Kane0

Try some of the DMG rest and healing options and dont go past level 6-8.

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## MrStabby

> Yeah, it does seem to be asking for trouble. It comes off as saying everyone can only choose between a narrow set of options, for lore reasons...except Bob. Bob gets to do whatever he wants and be the most special character in the entire campaign world. And suddenly all thought has shifted from "This is an interesting game concept that I want to explore," to "Screw Bob."


"So we are only allowed one caster in the party... hypothetically, if Bob's character were to die... someone else could then play a caster?"

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## Kane0

Ooh, you could substitute in the tashas sidekick spellcaster, lets you play a broader spread of levels.

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## Waazraath

Loads of useful advice, keep it coming!




> "Realistic low power" and "guy at the gym" means that if your PC tries fighting a tiger in melee without wearing at least the upper tier of medium armors, they get mauled to death. 
> 
> You're not going to face an actual monster and win. Because that's not "realistic", "low power", or something the "guy at the gym" can do. 
> 
> More to the point there wouldn't be any monsters because it's not "realistic" or "guy at the gym".


We'll have our session 0 next weekend, so I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's a little less realistic than you interpret my post here - I don't expect the aim is 100% realism. I think it will be a fantasy world, with monsters and non-humans all that, at low magic, and with the players starting with pretty average human characters, but not as as the game Keravath described in #24 - no historic medieval times simulater.

As for casting: yeah, I tend to think, also based on replies, that banning a few full casters, or maybe all full-casters, or maybe even half and/or 1/3rd caster is a better way of doing this than allowing 1 player to play a caster. If it would be my world, I would also like the world building implications of some classes just not existing. But I'm not the DM, so dunno how it'll turn out.

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## CTurbo

I think the only way to pull this off is to ban casters and keep magic in general to a minimum. 

The only way my little level 0 "realism" campaign worked is because magic hadn't existed in that world..... yet. Magic was just about to be introduced. 

I've had the idea in the past of a "slow heal" game where characters' hit points were doubled, but all healing capabilities were roughly cut in half. I think healing is almost too powerful considering you can go from rolling death saves to full health pretty easily.

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## narrator667

Tell your Friend to Look into Warhammer Roleplay. 
It's just way too many closed doors to be comfortable. It's disappointing to be given a slew of races and unique stat blocks to then be told your only choice to look through the human variant feat list again. if you're committed to DnD, I'd say open the race list up to taking a flavorful, mundane racial trait here and there, take a few lines out of the half-orc or goliath race to make your tall guy more unique, elven or dwarven weapon proficiencies, lizardfolk scavenging, natural armor for the guy who wants to wear peasants clothes.
 I'd probably allow up to half-casters. rangers, paladins and kensai and drunken monks being flavored as wholly mundane, if anything only incidentally magical Classes like wild barbs, EB's, arcane tricksters, shadow, open hand, or the other monk subclasses would be treated like full wizards by the world. You can go either way with stuff like totem or zealot barb, paladin and ranger spells. Real Gandalf with a sword type of vibe. 

Warhammer Fantasy has more quick and brutal combat. Limb damage and stuff like that. It encourages the player to fight as a last resort, roleplay around situations, and allows craftsmen and their trade, rogues and rangers with their scouting and knowledge of the land, and the disgraced noble and popular beggar to be equally useful to the party as the fighter or wizard. It's both guy at the gym and guy on the street.

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## Waazraath

> Loads of useful advice, keep it coming!
> 
> 
> 
> We'll have our session 0 next weekend, so I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's a little less realistic than you interpret my post here - I don't expect the aim is 100% realism. I think it will be a fantasy world, with monsters and non-humans all that, at low magic, and with the players starting with pretty average human characters, but not as as the game Keravath described in #24 - no historic medieval times simulater.
> 
> As for casting: yeah, I tend to think, also based on replies, that banning a few full casters, or maybe all full-casters, or maybe even half and/or 1/3rd caster is a better way of doing this than allowing 1 player to play a caster. If it would be my world, I would also like the world building implications of some classes just not existing. But I'm not the DM, so dunno how it'll turn out.


For those interested, I'll tell how the DM did this in the end. 

The campaign world is earth, some years from now, devolved into a post-apocalyptic hell-hole. I won't go into specifics due to forum rules, but most technology is gone, most people are dead, and radition, chemicals and biological weapons led to the most horrific mutations. 

We play ourselves, 10 years from now (with everybody complaining that we are much weaker, stupider and less charismatic than in real life, but that must be due to the radiation sickness), in [reference to real world place] fighting [reference to real world people], with our families having fled to [one of the few more or less safe places left]. 

Actually, as for 'realstic low power', the DM deceides we just start at level 0. We get the hp, proficiency bonus, skills and some weapons/armor proficiency, and that's basicly it. All standard array variant humans, with the tavern brawler as feat (except the monk, who got durable). We run around being pathetically weak, being very careful for everything, and start to run into mutations who get weirder and weirder (but for those familiar with D&D start to resemble some low cr monster manual critters - and playing ourselves, we can make meta-jokes about that). 

Normally, I'd advise any new DM against all this. Playing yourselves can lead to issues, real world stuff can, a setting very divergent from the basic D&D settings is much more effort at the very least and might lead to complications, and level 0 homebrew rules might deter people as well.

But it's a blast. He does put a lot of time in it, lots of detail in maps, characters, etc. It just works. And for me, it's a revalation about how little 'leveling up' and 'power' really matter in a game. It goes to lvl 20, so we want to see our character grow, and reach level 20. But it is by no means needed to have fun, I'd even consider that if there would not be any levels at all, but just the occasional minor boon (maybe an item) the game would still work and be as much fun - it needs to be more a good story though, instead of 'dungeon with loot'.

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## KorvinStarmast

> Tell your Friend to Look into Warhammer Roleplay. 
> It's just way too many closed doors to be comfortable. It's disappointing to be given a slew of races and unique stat blocks to then be told your only choice to look through the human variant feat list again. if you're committed to DnD, I'd say open the race list up to taking a flavorful,


 I will offer you a suggestion: play in a campaign with all Human PCs. (either regular human or variant Human). 
You might be surprised at how well it works out. 
(Ours lasted from level 3 to 6 and then RL schwacked us with the DM having to put D&D aside for a while)

(You point on Warhammer strikes me as the better part of your post)



> ... we just start at level 0. We get the hp, proficiency bonus, skills and some weapons/armor proficiency, and that's basically it.  
> All standard array variant humans, with the tavern brawler as feat (except the monk, who got durable).  
> We run around being pathetically weak, being very careful for everything, and start to run into mutations who get weirder and weirder (but for those familiar with D&D start to resemble some low cr monster manual critters - and playing ourselves, we can make meta-jokes about that)...snip...But it's a blast. He does put a lot of time in it, lots of detail in maps, characters, etc. It just works. And for me, it's a revalation about how little 'leveling up' and 'power' really matter in a game. It goes to lvl 20, so we want to see our character grow, and reach level 20. But it is by no means needed to have fun, I'd even consider that if there would not be any levels at all, but just the occasional minor boon (maybe an item) the game would still work and be as much fun - it needs to be more a good story though, instead of 'dungeon with loot'.


 I don't understand what "level 0" means. PCs start at level 1.  What is a level 0 PC?  :Small Confused:  Glad you guys are having fun with this.
You campaign sounds a little like the Gamma World / Metamorphisis Alpha hacks some of the DMs did in the 70's with Original D&D.

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## Waazraath

> I don't understand what "level 0" means. PCs start at level 1.  What is a level 0 PC?  Glad you guys are having fun with this.
> You campaign sounds a little like the Gamma World / Metamorphisis Alpha hacks some of the DMs did in the 70's with Original D&D.


I maybe wasn't clear in how I phrased it, but the line after that was meant to explain it: "We get the hp, proficiency bonus, skills and some weapons/armor proficiency, and that's basicly it." So no rage, fighting style, martial arts, or spells, for instance.

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## Sorinth

A good reminder for DM and players is that HP doesn't mean meat, it also represents luck or plot armour. I would suggest the DM lean into this heavily and narrate stuff so that the only "real" hit is the one that drops someone to 0, any HP loss before that is all just near miss type stuff. Just renaming HP to Hero Points can get people get into this mindset.

As a player I'd be very tempted by a Shadow Monk in this type of game, not least because everyone is human and they can easily give everyone access to Darkvision.

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## 5eNeedsDarksun

In addition to the other suggestions presented here, I'd seriously look at the pace of leveling.  Characters at low levels (tier 1) are far lower powered.  The spike across all classes, besides maybe Rogue, at 5th gets into territory that the DM might want to avoid.  The other thing is that if this is done, and then the group/ DM changes their mind, it's easy to allow the group to level up and you haven't changed a whole bunch of rules.

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## Mastikator

The DMG specifically calls out 5th level as the turning point where the player characters changes from local heroes to heroes of the realm. The level of world-impact of their quests should correlate with their levels.

You could make them feel small by raising the stakes of their quest without raising their level, ie the fate of a whole country rests on the players shoulders but they don't have the raw power to brute force it.

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## KorvinStarmast

> I maybe wasn't clear in how I phrased it, but the line after that was meant to explain it: "We get the hp, proficiency bonus, skills and some weapons/armor proficiency, and that's basicly it." So no rage, fighting style, martial arts, or spells, for instance.


 No cantrips? OK, how do you end up at level 1?

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## Waazraath

> No cantrips? OK, how do you end up at level 1?


I'll tell you when I get there =P I can imagine it has something to do with killing mutated frog and tree people until we mutate ourselves in mysterious ways and find hidden powers or the like.

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## Keravath

> You campaign sounds a little like the Gamma World / Metamorphisis Alpha hacks some of the DMs did in the 70's with Original D&D.


Some Gamma World/Boot Hill to AD&D character/item conversion stuff was in the AD&D DMG. 

The DMG even recommended using Boot Hill/Gamma World/Metamorphosis Alpha for running different planes of existence :)

"If your players wish to spend most of their time visiting other planes (and this could come to pass after a year or more of play) then you will be hard pressed unless you rely upon other game systems to fill the gaps. Herein I have recommended that BOOT HILL and GAMMA WORLD be used in campaigns. There is also METAMORPHOSIS ALPHA, TRACTICS, and all sorts of other offerings which can be converted to man-for-man role-playing scenarios."

So, it was an officially sponsored and suggested hack :)

(But I agree :), the OPs description of the game world sounds like something you could find in Gamma World or one of the other SciFi role playing games).

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## CTurbo

> For those interested, I'll tell how the DM did this in the end. 
> 
> The campaign world is earth, some years from now, devolved into a post-apocalyptic hell-hole. I won't go into specifics due to forum rules, but most technology is gone, most people are dead, and radition, chemicals and biological weapons led to the most horrific mutations. 
> 
> We play ourselves, 10 years from now (with everybody complaining that we are much weaker, stupider and less charismatic than in real life, but that must be due to the radiation sickness), in [reference to real world place] fighting [reference to real world people], with our families having fled to [one of the few more or less safe places left]. 
> 
> Actually, as for 'realstic low power', the DM deceides we just start at level 0. We get the hp, proficiency bonus, skills and some weapons/armor proficiency, and that's basicly it. All standard array variant humans, with the tavern brawler as feat (except the monk, who got durable). We run around being pathetically weak, being very careful for everything, and start to run into mutations who get weirder and weirder (but for those familiar with D&D start to resemble some low cr monster manual critters - and playing ourselves, we can make meta-jokes about that). 
> 
> Normally, I'd advise any new DM against all this. Playing yourselves can lead to issues, real world stuff can, a setting very divergent from the basic D&D settings is much more effort at the very least and might lead to complications, and level 0 homebrew rules might deter people as well.
> ...



I love the idea of this and this. It sounds great. 

So you're all at level 0, which I understand, but do you all have class progressions in mind already for future leveling? I guess you do since you mentioned a Monk.

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## DragonclawExia

It's definitely an interesting idea, but player progression is abit of an obstacle if your using any D&D module as a baseline. The core D&D experience depends on leveling up class levels to increase your power level, but this quickly gets out of hand because of how stats like HP go up way too fast. HP in particular does not accurately reflect "Real" humans, as they're infamously fragile while a level 3 Fighter can easily survive multiple injuries that would outright kill any human under normal circumstances. 


So basically, you need to keep Levels Low. But you still need a way to progress players in some way. The easiest would probably be to give Skill Points or Feats after completion of Quests rather than XP. Relative to actual real life, because of the existence of actual education and such a Level 1 PC in real life would have 5-20 times the skill points of the equivalent D&D Level 1 PC. Especially since more than half the classes tend to use INT as a dumpstat.


THA0 or Accuracy would also be a factor, as highly trained martial experts in Real Life can be surprisingly accurate in Melee without having being above Level 1. So being to get Feats or proficiencies without actually getting Class Levels is "real life accurate". 


I guess it also depends if your "Guys at the Gym" can be formally trained in actual combat. It makes a giant difference to be properly educated in actual skills or combat, afterall. Anyways, that's just my thoughts on getting this to work. Inevitably though, you characters will start to be Superheroic anyway, but that's not necessarily unrealistic either. For example, the fastest men on earth is usually at least 3x faster than your average one.


Your try to keep things within the range of Peak Human, or Hawkeye/Bruce Lee/John Mcclane to at most Captain America/Non-Meme Batman.

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## Waazraath

> I love the idea of this and this. It sounds great. 
> 
> So you're all at level 0, which I understand, but do you all have class progressions in mind already for future leveling? I guess you do since you mentioned a Monk.


Yeah, we have classes, so I expect us to become level 1 at some point, and then gain a few levels. This more or less started as the "in between" campaign due to the DM from the running OotA-campaign getting another kid and thus having no prep-time, so it was not expected to become a high level affair. But who knows, it's fun so we might alternate between the two campaigns at one point. 

So while I don't have a clue if I'll ever get there, my class progression in mind so far is "monk" - probably shadow or mercy if I'll ever reach 3. If it seems the campaign will continue for longer, I'm considering shadow monk, with somw multiclass to get devil's sight (or blind fighting figthing style as an alternative) with the sentinel feat, for some teleport/darkness/lockdown shenenigans.

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## Witty Username

Rolled stats: 3d6 roll instead of 4d6 drop lowest
And level cap at 5-6th

That combination will still trend towards Heroic, but is pretty grounded in comparison to D&D's norm.

Casters are also pretty reasonable if you choose to include them, they have the fun of fireball but are too limited to do such on the regular.

I really liked Epic 6 in 3.5, and most of the principles apply to 5e. It isn't something I would do for every game, but it is definitely good for specific tones and game types.

Add in the gritty realism rules, and you got a very mere mortal vibe.

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## Corsair14

The old Greyhawk Adventures book had an excellent section and even included at least one adventure for zero level characters. Basically the idea was characters had not become full members of their class and were essentially kids. I think the adventure was one PC was the apprentice with one or two cantrips and he was assigned to go find casting components in town. It was interesting. So he and his friends had a whole small series of mini adventure to try and make the coinage to buy the ingredients(I think the master gave some coin but it wasnt enough), dealing with pickpockets, something involving a stable and so on for the PCs to work on their respective skills while helping their childhood friend the apprentice with his master's assignment. It was a pretty neat system for developing a character from late childhood essentially into a level 1 adult. Its pretty funny having them lower level than the townpeople(In 2nd every NPC was pretty much level 1 of something)

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## Corsair14

In response to whoever was asking why zero level

The old Greyhawk Adventures book had an excellent section and even included at least one adventure for zero level characters. Basically the idea was characters had not become full members of their class and were essentially kids. I think the adventure was one PC was the apprentice with one or two cantrips and he was assigned to go find casting components in town. It was interesting. So he and his friends had a whole small series of mini adventure to try and make the coinage to buy the ingredients(I think the master gave some coin but it wasnt enough), dealing with pickpockets, something involving a stable and so on for the PCs to work on their respective skills while helping their childhood friend the apprentice with his master's assignment. It was a pretty neat system for developing a character from late childhood essentially into a level 1 adult. Its pretty funny having them lower level than the townpeople(In 2nd every NPC was pretty much level 1 of something)

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## D&D_Fan

Any campaign about realism needs to remember real life survival and logic.

This means a few dreaded things to keep in mind:

Carrying capacity is worth considering. You ever try lugging around 40kg on your back while hiking for two hours? No? Try an entire day. Pack animals may alleviate this. But it is important. Everything has weight. Calculating it is important. Food and water have weight. Money has weight, bullets have weight. Everything. And it will make balance harder. And it will make running harder. It will make noise as it shuffles and jangles in your pack, so stealth will be harder. All of this.

Infection and injury will be important. Skin your knee? Probably not a big problem. Bitten by a rabid dog? Uh oh. Lacerated on barbed wire? Might want to check that out. Impaled on a metal blade? That's gonna get you with blood loss first. Wounds need to be cleaned with sterile water and bandaged. Internal wounds can also be fatal if left untreated. I doubt there are going to be a lot of decent hospitals in medevial settings for those not wealthy enough to afford them. realistic healing is going to be about stopping sources of HP loss like bleeding and illness. And then resting for a long time. Setting legs in splints and stitches. Even more realistic, use Tarkov's blackened limbs system. If part of the body is damaged so much that it is "destroyed" it will never be at full capacity again. It will be weaker and be more vulnerable.

Food and water also need to be cleaned. If they aren't food poisoning will be a real concern. Boiling and filtering water, cooking food. Gotta get those nasty parasites and bacteria out.

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## Mastikator

Good idea about carry weight. Variant encumbrance rules exist and make carrying stuff really annoying. Anyone with 8 strength is unlikely to be able to carry all of their starting equipment unimpeded. Which is pretty realistic, weak people can not carry camping equipment and adventuring gear without difficulty.

I'm sure realistic disease and poison rules can be found, in the real world no amount of natural 20s on your con save against rabies will save you. Many illnesses and poisons will just kill you with almost no chance of survival if left untreated. Something as simple as diarrhea can defeat you if you're camping/adventuring and you don't have access to clean drinking water.

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