Lifestyle Benefits Houserule - Suggestions Appreciated

[Jay_Willynogs]

A little bit of background (skip this paragraph if you just want to get straight to the topic to be discussed): I'll be DMing a 5e game soon, so I've been brewing a mixture of rules to use that will enforce a sort of survival-style game I want to run. For example, I'm making long rests take one week and short rests take one full night of relaxation as per the optional rule in the DMG. I'm also instituting a houserule for the potential of lasting injuries (broken bones, torn muscles, etc.) that can be inflicted during combat or other hazardous situations. These and other rules I'm implementing are intended to make the game more about the party's endurance as they spend a week or two away from town to plunder a crypt or explore ruins. Towns will serve as a haven of rest and recuperation, while wilderness and dungeons will be more dangerous, and I want the slower healing to make the party think more about getting into combat if they don't have to since I hate the player mentality of "kill everything in sight because they're bags of experience."

Anyways, on to the topic I actually want some feedback on. I want what lifestyle a PC chooses to live for their time spent in town to matter, both while in town and while on their next adventure. If a PC spends more cash to live and eat better while in town, I want them to feel the benefits of it. I was going to implement a mechanic of minor illnesses and infections PCs can get while traveling from things like flea bites and whatnot, and how likely you were to contract a minor illness would depend on your most recent lifestyle. I presented this idea to my group, but they were vehemently against such folly.

I know that I want what lifestyle a PC pays for to impact them in some way mechanically, but I'm not really sure what to do with it now. One idea I had was to grant a Hit Dice bonus. So say one PC cheaps out and lives on the streets for their long rest period, (which is common in our group to avoid lifestyle cost) they would get their normal modifiers on spent Hit Dice during short rests, while a PC that lived a comfortable lifestyle for that week would get something like +3 hp back per spent hit dice until their next long rest. Thoughts on this and other suggestions are much appreciated!

[Safety Sword]

How about keeping with the advantage/disadvantage rules?

If you live on the streets you get disadvantage on any recovery HD you spend.

If you live in luxury, or at place where people with medical training are taking care of you, then advantage.

[DragonLordIT]

I am also trying doing a table with random/fixed benefits coming from lifestyle.
I would include percentages (with different values based on style) of getting a random disease, getting levels of exaustion due to poor food or tainted water. May be even weapon and armour failure (with penalties such the ones given by oozes). Other ideas would be penalties to downtime activities, someone living in a squalid way would hardly be allowed to research in famous libraries or haveing contacts with the nobles.
On the other hand with good life styles this downtime activities would be easier in some way (drop CD to find magic items on sale, lower the times to spread rumors and so on); advantage on life gained from rest would also be a good point or something like "great weapon fighter" on hit dices (if you roll 1 or 2 you can reroll the amout you heal).

[Douche]

I think your players might be opposed to it because it sounds like you want to implement penalties... I think it'd go over better if you avoid that, never make the players go below their baseline stats.

Instead, you could implement "well rested" and "well fed" etc buffs that would make them feel benefits, rather than penalties, for living an extravagant vs pauperous lifestyle. Plenty of video games have this... Skyrim gives you experience buffs for sleeping a full night in your own bed (rather than 1 hour on a pile of straw in some bandit hideout to regain all your health), WoW has lots of different food buffs and gives you double experience depending on how long you've been logged out (as long as you did so in a main city or an inn). The thing they have in common is that you can adventure for as long as you like without getting a debuff to your stats, and don't actively suffer if you don't choose to spend gold on food and such.

[Safety Sword]

I think your players might be opposed to it because it sounds like you want to implement penalties... I think it'd go over better if you avoid that, never make the players go below their baseline stats.



What's wrong with penalties?

[Pyrous]

What's wrong with penalties?

The RulesTM don't say that the players get penalties, so some players may think the DM is being unfair. After all, when you take a long rest in the wild you don't get those penalties. But if the DM gives bonus to the players that spent their gold with a better lifestyle, he can easily justify that, because logically it should give more benefits (and mechanically, they spent more resources). Of course, because of that, the money that the player saved by living a worse lifestyle should be able to buy a equivalent benefit.

[Safety Sword]

The RulesTM don't say that the players get penalties, so some players may think the DM is being unfair. After all, when you take a long rest in the wild you don't get those penalties. But if the DM gives bonus to the players that spent their gold with a better lifestyle, he can easily justify that, because logically it should give more benefits (and mechanically, they spent more resources). Of course, because of that, the money that the player saved by living a worse lifestyle should be able to buy a equivalent benefit.

If you can justify a bonus to a base situation, you can easily justify a penalty if conditions are worse than the base level.

This rubbish that players should only ever gain benefits from mechanics is poor form.

Anyway, if you're the DM, you are the rules maker, so do what you want. Just let everyone know how it works so there are no surprises when players make decisions.

[Mellack]

Since there are no penalties for taking a rest in the woods on adventure, it does seem odd logically that living in somebodies barn would be worse than living outside with naught but a blanket. So I would recommend against adding penalties unless you want to make adventuring even harder.
Also, with your players being against this idea, you may not want to make any sweeping decisions without talking with the group. A DM generally doesn't have any fun running a game for himself.

[Tallis]

Since there are no penalties for taking a rest in the woods on adventure, it does seem odd logically that living in somebodies barn would be worse than living outside with naught but a blanket. So I would recommend against adding penalties unless you want to make adventuring even harder.

Living in squalid conditions in a populated area would be much more likely to expose you to disease (and probably parasites) than sleeping in the woods.


Also, with your players being against this idea, you may not want to make any sweeping decisions without talking with the group. A DM generally doesn't have any fun running a game for himself.

This warrants consideration. Whatever you rule it needs to be something that the players can accept. They don't necessarily need to be in love with the idea but it shouldn't ruin their fun either. If you're going to have penalties they should be minor and there should be benefits available for living better too. You don't want the players to feel like you're just forcing them to give up their treasure. They should be able to gain something too.

[Alejandro]

Ask the players to write a possible set of rules for you.

I have often found players will actually come up with worse than their GM would have.

[Shaofoo]

The book gives reasons to live a better life than just simple personal health.

A rich nobleman might not want to deal with someone who lives in poor conditions while someone who is wealthy would have the nobleman give him the time of day.

The general populace doesn't want to deal with a hobo, being able to keep up a certain living condition means that people accept you and might even do you some favors if you are rich enough.

Personally I think that PCs out in camp technically live a poor life, not squalid or wretched. I would imagine that they eat decent rations, have clean water and probably has some sturdy shelter.

I wouldn't say to give a physical bonus to PCs that spend money on their lifestyle but do give them obvious social bonuses, the merchant would shoo away the poor person while the rich person is welcomed with open arms and even given a discount. Of course you can also add that a person who lives a squalid or wretched life has to roll a dice per long rest or down time to be able to do said activity or be faced with a violent encounter that interrupts them.

[Troacctid]

Low standards of living also make you vulnerable to theft. If you sleep in the street without any shelter, anyone can walk up and steal your gear.

[AbyssStalker]

I would keep it to mainly beneficial effects from higher luxury lifestyles, if you must have negatives to living in squalor you should make them something the players can actually prevent, taking previous examples, give the PCs a solid chance to stop thieves, spot the symptoms of a plague before they get infected or it progresses to a dangerous point.

Also throw in the occasional downside/upside to the respective rich/poor lifestyles, keep them on their toes or give them a pleasant surprise every once in a while.

[JellyPooga]

Personally, I'd go one step further and make lifestyle costs a percentage of total cash-on-hand and then impose penalties/benefits based on the actual amount spent.

After all, if you've got enough money to house, clothe and feed a small family for a year in your backpack, you're not going to ask the tavern landlord if you can sleep in his barn and eat gruel.

You can choose to "rough it", but there's roughing it and there's roughing it; you're going to spend something on luxury items, no matter how cheaply you claim to be living.

If you spend too little, you wind up with a penalty. Spend enough and you take no penalties or benefits. Spend a lot and get benefits. Spend too much and you start taking penalties again; all those rich foods, alcohol and...people of ill-repute...take their toll, after all.

For Example; someone choosing a Poor lifestyle might pay 1% of his cash on a months living expenses. If he strolled into town with 1000 gold, he'd spend 10gp on expenses. If the break-point for a certain penalty was equal to or less than 10gp, this guy suffers that penalty. If, on the other hand, he'd strolled into town with 2000gp, he'd spend 20gp on expenses for what he considers a Poor standard of living, but isn't taking that penalty any more because he's been more willing to splurge on those few luxuries that actually give him a lifestyle more akin to Average for a guy with less money.

[NB - I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well on this; I'm over-tired and need to sleep, but wanted to get my thoughts out before I forgot about them]

[Jay_Willynogs]

I think your players might be opposed to it because it sounds like you want to implement penalties... I think it'd go over better if you avoid that, never make the players go below their baseline stats.

Instead, you could implement "well rested" and "well fed" etc buffs that would make them feel benefits, rather than penalties, for living an extravagant vs pauperous lifestyle. Plenty of video games have this... Skyrim gives you experience buffs for sleeping a full night in your own bed (rather than 1 hour on a pile of straw in some bandit hideout to regain all your health), WoW has lots of different food buffs and gives you double experience depending on how long you've been logged out (as long as you did so in a main city or an inn). The thing they have in common is that you can adventure for as long as you like without getting a debuff to your stats, and don't actively suffer if you don't choose to spend gold on food and such.

I want to implement both penalties and bonuses based on lifestyle. I want to use Modest as a baseline, then enforce penalties for living lower than that and grant bonuses for living better than that. In general, I want to outweigh the penalties with the benefits, so you get more for spending more than what you'd lose for spending less. The experience boost is one of the first ideas I had because of its prevalence in video games, but I don't know if experience is really an appropriate reward.

[Jay_Willynogs]

Ask the players to write a possible set of rules for you.

I may just do this.

[Jay_Willynogs]

The book gives reasons to live a better life than just simple personal health.

A rich nobleman might not want to deal with someone who lives in poor conditions while someone who is wealthy would have the nobleman give him the time of day.

The general populace doesn't want to deal with a hobo, being able to keep up a certain living condition means that people accept you and might even do you some favors if you are rich enough.

This is already a concept I have worked in. Every player has a sort of 'social modifier' that influences Charisma-based checks in town with NPCs, the PC's reputation in town, etc. I'm trying to come up with something mechanical for out-of-town reasons to live better lifestyles. I could just leave it at town-based bonuses only and that could be fine. I dunno. I made this thread specifically to get some ideas and opinions from folks outside my group.

[Shaofoo]

Personally, I'd go one step further and make lifestyle costs a percentage of total cash-on-hand and then impose penalties/benefits based on the actual amount spent.

After all, if you've got enough money to house, clothe and feed a small family for a year in your backpack, you're not going to ask the tavern landlord if you can sleep in his barn and eat gruel.

You can choose to "rough it", but there's roughing it and there's roughing it; you're going to spend something on luxury items, no matter how cheaply you claim to be living.

If you spend too little, you wind up with a penalty. Spend enough and you take no penalties or benefits. Spend a lot and get benefits. Spend too much and you start taking penalties again; all those rich foods, alcohol and...people of ill-repute...take their toll, after all.

For Example; someone choosing a Poor lifestyle might pay 1% of his cash on a months living expenses. If he strolled into town with 1000 gold, he'd spend 10gp on expenses. If the break-point for a certain penalty was equal to or less than 10gp, this guy suffers that penalty. If, on the other hand, he'd strolled into town with 2000gp, he'd spend 20gp on expenses for what he considers a Poor standard of living, but isn't taking that penalty any more because he's been more willing to splurge on those few luxuries that actually give him a lifestyle more akin to Average for a guy with less money.

[NB - I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well on this; I'm over-tired and need to sleep, but wanted to get my thoughts out before I forgot about them]

This steps over what should be the player's purview, not the games. It is up to the player to choose what is and what isn't considered a luxury for his character, just because the player has the money doesn't mean that his tastes have changed and unless there is some weird economy where things cost by the amount of money on your person.

Personally I would just put that any amount that the player wants to spend be based on his character, maybe living the simple life is all the character wants to do even if he has millions of gold to spend he will never break above a modest lifestyle. The Cleric that wishes to work with the destitute and sick might want to live in a wretched condition to be with the poor.

If you want to you can have different down time encounter tables based on how well you are living where wretched and squalid gives the worst possible outcomes with little in benefit while the best gives great bonuses but also has some bad things going on as well.

If the player demands that he wants the rich people benefits then you ask him to pony up the cash, otherwise just deduct whatever amount best fits the character.


This is already a concept I have worked in. Every player has a sort of 'social modifier' that influences Charisma-based checks in town with NPCs, the PC's reputation in town, etc. I'm trying to come up with something mechanical for out-of-town reasons to live better lifestyles. I could just leave it at town-based bonuses only and that could be fine. I dunno. I made this thread specifically to get some ideas and opinions from folks outside my group.

Make the social benefits extend to the adventure. The mage you befirended at a party chooses to give your weapon an enchantment, the merchant agrees to establish a supply route to an outpost, you convince the nobleman to give you a group of soldiers for your trip.

[Jay_Willynogs]

If you want to you can have different down time encounter tables based on how well you are living where wretched and squalid gives the worst possible outcomes with little in benefit while the best gives great bonuses but also has some bad things going on as well.

This is almost definitely what I'm going to do.


Make the social benefits extend to the adventure. The mage you befirended at a party chooses to give your weapon an enchantment, the merchant agrees to establish a supply route to an outpost, you convince the nobleman to give you a group of soldiers for your trip.

That... is a very good idea. I never thought about something like that before. I'll be sure to work contacts like that in whenever it's appropriate.

[Vogonjeltz]

A little bit of background (skip this paragraph if you just want to get straight to the topic to be discussed): I'll be DMing a 5e game soon, so I've been brewing a mixture of rules to use that will enforce a sort of survival-style game I want to run. For example, I'm making long rests take one week and short rests take one full night of relaxation as per the optional rule in the DMG. I'm also instituting a houserule for the potential of lasting injuries (broken bones, torn muscles, etc.) that can be inflicted during combat or other hazardous situations. These and other rules I'm implementing are intended to make the game more about the party's endurance as they spend a week or two away from town to plunder a crypt or explore ruins. Towns will serve as a haven of rest and recuperation, while wilderness and dungeons will be more dangerous, and I want the slower healing to make the party think more about getting into combat if they don't have to since I hate the player mentality of "kill everything in sight because they're bags of experience."

Anyways, on to the topic I actually want some feedback on. I want what lifestyle a PC chooses to live for their time spent in town to matter, both while in town and while on their next adventure. If a PC spends more cash to live and eat better while in town, I want them to feel the benefits of it. I was going to implement a mechanic of minor illnesses and infections PCs can get while traveling from things like flea bites and whatnot, and how likely you were to contract a minor illness would depend on your most recent lifestyle. I presented this idea to my group, but they were vehemently against such folly.

I know that I want what lifestyle a PC pays for to impact them in some way mechanically, but I'm not really sure what to do with it now. One idea I had was to grant a Hit Dice bonus. So say one PC cheaps out and lives on the streets for their long rest period, (which is common in our group to avoid lifestyle cost) they would get their normal modifiers on spent Hit Dice during short rests, while a PC that lived a comfortable lifestyle for that week would get something like +3 hp back per spent hit dice until their next long rest. Thoughts on this and other suggestions are much appreciated!

I suggest you stick to the suggested benefits/consequences in the PHB.

Adventurers routinely carry around a veritable fortune in equipment (like, worth what would be hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars). If they knowingly choose to sleep on the streets, they are going to get robbed, mugged, or worse.

Conversely, someone who spends on a nice lifestyle will be more likely to have connections, friends in high places to get them out of a jam, or plot hooks for new adventures and ways to make money/garner fame.

skip the straight mechanical favor, just reflect the obvious downsides of not taking care of ones equipment and living as a homeless person.