Freehold: Healing, Item Loss, and Economy

The discussion on these posts thus far has been super useful to me and things have changed in the previously posted text, but I'd rather charge boldly and then review!  

Healing

After talking with Harbinger of Doom after the last post I thought that the overall increase in threat level and player wish to avoid taking wounds will put a lot of pressure on healing characters to use all their spells to heal, which is not really much fun in the grand scheme of things. So I wanted to make some changes to healing.  

All magical healing and healing from class abilities in Freehold grant temporary hit points instead of healing normal hit points unless otherwise stated (there will be some new spells for specifically healing hit points normally at a lower rate of return).  Healing from healing kits are normal hit points, as are hit points recovered from long or short rests and hit points gained from taking wounds.

Reaction Actions

My hope is to provide more options for all players to use their reactions, even if they do not have class abilities or feats that provide them.  

• Give Ground: As a reaction you can reduce the damage of a melee attack by 1d6 by moving five feet away from the attacker.  The attacker can follow you without provoking an attack of opportunity.  (blatantly stolen from Harbinger of Doom)
• Self-Block: As a reaction you can use this to interpose yourself in the path of an attack meant for an adjacent ally.  This is declared before the attack is rolled and the ally can refuse it.  The attack is applied to you and you gain no benefit from your Dexterity against it, thus if you are wearing platemail you can jump in front of attacks meant for your allies and have some hope of remaining unhurt, but doing so in leather is dangerous.

Primitive Economy

The land of Freehold is not a civilized one and certain advances, such as coinage or metal armor, are not common yet.  In the more advanced realms to the south such things are commonplace, but here in the frozen north people make do with more basic goods.  Instead of rewards and trade being done in coin, it is done in goods and barter.  To that end there is a concept of Supplies, that is rated in days.  A day of Supplies is roughly equal to 1 sp and one must be consumed each day or the character begins starving.  Each day of Supplies weighs one pound.  So players are likely to have a store of Supplies at their residence, but only carry a limited number in the field.  Extra supplies can be consumed each day to represent a higher standard of living, which provides other benefits.

Number of Supplies Consumed Per Day	Benefit
1	None
3	+1 Hit dice per long rest
6	+2 Hit dice per long rest, get temp hit points equal to level after each short rest
10	+3 Hit dice per long rest,
15	+4 Hit dice per long rest

In addition to Supplies, there are Trade Goods.  Trade goods are generic goods of higher value than Supplies and cannot be consumed to survive; they may be used in crafting items like alchemy, magic items, etc. Trade goods come in various qualities, some of which may be required for certain goods.  For example, making potions of healing may require at least uncommon trade goods, while making a healing kit only requires common.  Generally speaking, you can only use trade goods to make an item if the trade goods are worth 5% of the value of the item (you can’t use pig iron to make plate mail).  

Quality	Value Per Pound
Common (Wood, Leather, Iron, Coal, etc)	1 gp
Uncommon (Steel, Cotton, Silver, etc)	10 gp
Rare (Spices, Gold, Silk, High Quality Steel, etc.)	100 gp
Very Rare (spider silk, adamantium etc)	1000 gp

Loot from many monsters will be in Supplies, Trade Goods, and actual items (which are usually non-magical). Defeating a group of bandits may result in finding a bunch of Supplies, Trade Goods, some goats, a handful of simple weapons, and maybe one battleaxe. Coins are a rarity, usually only found in the hands of foreigners.  

At the beginning of the campaign the player village can only manufacture a limited selection of goods, but this is increased by village upgrades.  For example, if one of the players selects a background that puts an alchemist in the village, they can get healing potions if they bring enough trade goods to the alchemist.  This will create a resource game for the players instead of counting coins, and will allow for the accumulation of healing and other support gear that will hopefully take some of the pressure off of the party healers.  Over time as the alchemist is upgraded by the players, better items become available.  

Some items can be used to upgrade facets of the village.  For example, if the players manage to get their hands on ten suits of chain mail armor, they could turn the village’s militia unit of Light Infantry into Heavy Infantry. Alternately they could make that armor out of trade goods if they have upgraded their smithy, or they could buy it if they travel to the Empire with enough coin or valuable goods to trade for it. Thus a wider array of mundane items will be valuable to the players.  

At character creation any cash left after buying gear is converted at a rate of 1 sp to one unit of Supplies.  This inefficient rate is to encourage people to spend as much of their starting money as possible.  

At the beginning of the campaign only limited equipment is available:

• Weapons: Only simple weapons, though classes with proficiency in other weapons start with one non-simple weapon. It should have some explanation for where it came from as the village does not have the capacity to manufacture such things; random character generation will provide such background.  
• Armor: Only Leather, Padded, Hide, and Ring Mail armor and shields are available.  
• Other Items: Anything out of the means of a primitive culture should be off limits.  

 

Fumbles

On any attack that uses a weapon a character character may take a voluntary fumble to get a reroll on an attack.  After the reroll is resolved, roll 1d20 on the table below.  

Roll	Result
1-2	Injured Self: You somehow managed to strike yourself for base damage of your weapon.
3-4	Broken: The weapon breaks and can no longer be used.  High quality weapons become normal weapons until repaired.  Magical weapons have their plus decreased by -1 for the remainder of the battle, though if this occurs with a magic weapon when it has already been reduced to +0 the weapon breaks.
5-8	Stuck: The weapon is stuck in the target and requires a successful grapple against the target to retrieve it.  The target may be at disadvantage on some actions at DM discretion.
9-12	Thrown: Your weapon somehow left your control and flew 1d6x5 feet in a random direction.  Recovering the weapon requires moving to the weapon and spending an action.
13-20	Dropped: You dropped your weapon.  Recovering the weapon requires an action.

Armor and Shield Fumble

A character wearing armor or using a shield can cause their attacker to have to reroll by rolling on the Armor Fumble  table below.  Note that a suit of armor and a shield count separately for armor damage, so you may force one reroll with your armor and one with your shield as long as your shield is in hand.  

Roll	Result
1-2	Broken: The base AC of the armor is reduced by -1.  If the armor is reduced to 10 the suit of armor is destroyed and cannot be repaired.  If it is not reduced to 10 by the end of the battle, it can be repaired by anyone with the appropriate tools.
3-4	Prone: You are knocked prone.
5-8	Off Balance: Your are knocked off balance and have disadvantage on all your attacks during the next round.
9-20	Knocked Loose/Dropped: Your armor is knocked loose or you drop your shield.  Your armor loses -1 AC, but this can be restored with an action.  You can pick your shield up with an action.