Balancing Casters by Limiting Player Cognition

[Nifft]

Here's the proposed house rule:


When your character casts a spell, you must drink X quantity of alcohol.

The key insight here is that a T1 character can appear quite well balanced, if the T1 character is played poorly. Drunk people make bad decisions, so inhibiting the player's thinking will tend to balance the high-tier character.


There are obvious expansions:

- If you Persist a spell, you must maintain a specific blood alcohol level, or the duration expires.

- In order to prevent "15-minute-workday", add a rule to penalize nova tactics. If you puke, your character does not gain XP for this session. XP is a river, and the river is chunky.

- If you bring nice liquor for your own use, you must bring enough for everyone. D&D is for partying.

[ZamielVanWeber]

After I nearly killed my DMS girlfriend by drinking game in DND, I vote no.

[Falontani]

If'n I'm playin a healer wit deez rulezz, u'r bringin de booze.

[Mike Miller]

Here's the proposed house rule:


When your character casts a spell, you must drink X quantity of alcohol.

The key insight here is that a T1 character can appear quite well balanced, if the T1 character is played poorly. Drunk people make bad decisions, so inhibiting the player's thinking will tend to balance the high-tier character.


There are obvious expansions:

- If you Persist a spell, you must maintain a specific blood alcohol level, or the duration expires.

- In order to prevent "15-minute-workday", add a rule to penalize nova tactics. If you puke, your character does not gain XP for this session. XP is a river, and the river is chunky.

- If you bring nice liquor for your own use, you must bring enough for everyone. D&D is for partying.

Excellent house rule. Although for once this seems to be weighted heavily in favor of the players rather than the NPCs, because the DM is ALL the NPCs. I hope the DM isn't using casters...

[heavyfuel]

Excellent rule! May I just suggest the entire table pools money for some liver protector supplements?

[ZamielVanWeber]

Excellent rule! May I just suggest the entire table pools money for some liver protector supplements?

Oooog. Better idea. A radler is technically alcohol: take a chug of one of those instead! Knowledge is power.

[Vaern]

I don't see this as balancing for tier 1. Rather, it seems heavily weighted against tier 2.
Tier 1 consists mainly of prepared casters. They have already selected every spell they intend to cast and the circumstances under which they are to be cast. They have already made all of their major decisions before they've even had an opportunity to consume alcohol and they aren't able to change their spell selection without resting. The impact that alcohol is able to make on their choices is limited, unless they get hammered before preparing their spells.
Tier 2, on the other hand, consists largely of spontaneous casters. They have a limited tool box that they need to work with on they fly. They typically haven't thought everything out and need to be more creative than a prepared caster at times to solve problems, meaning the impact that booze may have on their judgement is significantly greater. In addition, they tend to have more spells per day, and are more likely to wantonly cast spells just to prevent those spell slots from going to waste, which makes them much more prone to alcohol poisoning than tier 1.

[Vizzerdrix]

I'm a violent drunk but I'm down for it so long as I'm not legally responsable for what happens.

[Reversefigure4]

The DM is either going to die of alcohol poisoning, or use far fewer casters. Which, ironically, means the players can play casters more easily, relying on only non-caster opposition, so the players need to use fewer spells to solve the problem.

If this doesn't count using magical items, it makes a Rogue with high UMD a good option vs a wizard. If it does count magic items... does the Fighter drink every time he swings his Flaming Sword?

[JoshuaZ]

Sounds good. I'll play a binder.

Supernatural abilities means sobriety.

[Psyren]

The key insight here is that a T1 character can appear quite well balanced, if the T1 character is played poorly. Drunk people make bad decisions, so inhibiting the player's thinking will tend to balance the high-tier character.

While this would undoubtedly be entertaining, it also ignores a dangerous problem - that bad decisions from the caster can have negative effects for the entire party. This can range from simple mistakes like poor placement of area effects, to more complex ones like directing divinations/enchantments/conjurations/transmutations improperly.

[lylsyly]

Been doing it for years, LOL. Except it's Whomever casts a spell rolls a doobie ;D

[Mato]

The DM is either going to die of alcohol poisoning, or use far fewer casters. Which, ironically, means the players can play casters more easilyEase has nothing to do with it, if you want to drink you need to cast a spell. It just encourages drunk players to play casters with a drunk DM.

[Goaty14]

What if some of the players are under 21, what do they do, eat dog food?

[Warchon]

Speaking as a bartender and a person with friends who have overcome drinking problems, I take serious issue with requiring people to maintain a certain BAC or really any enforced drinking.
My drinking games always include the rule that "a drink" is however much or little that person is comfortable with at that time, and no whining over it is allowed.
It may sound like a party pooper rule, but it's always kept the party going for everybody.

If you really want to "limit player cognition" you could just ask for Int checks whenever a player tries to do something especially canny.

[JoshuaZ]

Speaking as a bartender and a person with friends who have overcome drinking problems, I take serious issue with requiring people to maintain a certain BAC or really any enforced drinking.
My drinking games always include the rule that "a drink" is however much or little that person is comfortable with at that time, and no whining over it is allowed.
It may sound like a party pooper rule, but it's always kept the party going for everybody.

I think this is a sensible attitude but at the end of the day it probably depends to some extent with who one is playing and what people are comfortable with. But I do appreciate where you are coming from here, and sympathize with it highly.




If you really want to "limit player cognition" you could just ask for Int checks whenever a player tries to do something especially canny.

The problem with this is that this may if anything help the T1 casters more since a lot of the T1 spellcasters are int focused. A 3.5 wizard or archivist is going to have a very easy time with this. Similarly, a Pathfinder wizard or witch. And the result might be that when a lower tier character caster does something clever (e.g. a warmage or dread necromancer) then they have more trouble justifying it. This fits with a general problem, a lot of the T1 classes are the classes where one would precisely expect good roleplaying to involve breaking things.

[Bullet06320]

As someone who has been sober for over 19 years, I would pack up and leave, have fun with your game

alcohol and gaming don't mix in my experience, but if you old enough, go for it, just bring your own with you, I may not drink, but what you do is your problem, not mine, just don't interrupt the game with it

if your group is comfortable with this rule, go for it, but beware the consequences of what alcohol can do, and have a designated driver available, or cab fare handy

and as a side note, pancake syrup and magic cards don't mix well either

[Troacctid]

So this is a joke, right? Clearly a terrible idea.

[Elysiume]

If you get someone drunk enough that they're significantly worse at D&D they're probably going to be a slurring, slow-playing mess.

[Uncle Pine]

As someone who wouldn't like to exclude players from a game just because they don't want to voluntarily indulge in unhealthy behaviours with IRL consequences, no thanks.

If you want to balance spellcasting by affecting the way the player perceives the world you could try introducing Sanity rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm), but only for those who cast spells. It could make for an interesting grittier campaign, without necessarily going full Call of Cthulhu if Sanity only affects spellcasters.

[Seto]

I'm pretty sure this is a joke thread meant to parody a number of "I found a new houserule to balance casters vs. martials" thread.
In that spirit, I would add that you need to drink 1 shot per spell level. Good luck for thinking of a foolproof formulation for your Wish.

(On the off chance that it's not a joke, yeah, obviously, terrible idea)

[Florian]

Ah, puh, lucky me, I'm Oktoberfest-trained, so I can keep on playing T1 casters :P

[ZamielVanWeber]

So this is a joke, right? Clearly a terrible idea.

I presumed it was satire. I am never a fan of drinking games and the Superior Gnomish Drinking Game has only convinced me that I am right.

[Zombimode]

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be ammused or saddened about the fact that people think of this thread as anything else but sarcasm.

[Gnaeus]

I don’t think this is necessary. Just activate the handicap radio whenever they open a book to look up a spell or statblock.

[Deophaun]

Alcohol impairs my judgement before it meaningfully impairs my intellect (in other words, I accumulate penalties to Wis faster than Int). All those things that I know how to do but possess the forethought not to do would now be done. This would make it more likely that I derail or break the campaign.

[Zanos]

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be ammused or saddened about the fact that people think of this thread as anything else but sarcasm.
Yeah.

I know tone is hard to read across the internet, but sheesh. I could cool my computer with all the woosh.

[Vaern]

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be ammused or saddened about the fact that people think of this thread as anything else but sarcasm.

If it was meant to be taken as sarcastic, the initial post would be written in blue.

[Zombulian]

Been doing it for years, LOL. Except it's Whomever casts a spell rolls a doobie ;D

Being a caster at your table sounds expensive.

[HighWater]

This houserule could use an "It's on the house"-rule

Balancing T1's vs T2 is easy BTW: T1's need to drink when they prepare spells, rather than when they cast them! Want to prepare sufficiently for the adventuring game? Better hope your RL Fort save vs alcohol poisoning, alcohol addiction and permanent liver damage is up to snuff.

I do fear that this idea violates Grod's Law, that is literally the only thing that makes this idea fail...

[ericgrau]

I don't see this as balancing for tier 1. Rather, it seems heavily weighted against tier 2.
Tier 1 consists mainly of prepared casters. They have already selected every spell they intend to cast and the circumstances under which they are to be cast. They have already made all of their major decisions before they've even had an opportunity to consume alcohol and they aren't able to change their spell selection without resting. The impact that alcohol is able to make on their choices is limited, unless they get hammered before preparing their spells.
Tier 2, on the other hand, consists largely of spontaneous casters. They have a limited tool box that they need to work with on they fly. They typically haven't thought everything out and need to be more creative than a prepared caster at times to solve problems, meaning the impact that booze may have on their judgement is significantly greater. In addition, they tend to have more spells per day, and are more likely to wantonly cast spells just to prevent those spell slots from going to waste, which makes them much more prone to alcohol poisoning than tier 1.

I think for both I already have plans in mind for my spells and it won't affect me much regardless. At least not in combat. Between combat maybe.

[Heliomance]

Would the effects be more balanced if you used weed instead of alcohol?

[Florian]

Would the effects be more balanced if you used weed instead of alcohol?

Depends on the type.....

[Vizzerdrix]

Ya know, we could expand on this a tiny bit and make things very interesting. We could change up the vise based on school of magic. We could give relevent penalties to partiularly strong builds. :smalltongue:

[Quertus]

DM: So, while we wait for items to be crafted, we're going to have a month of downtime...

Wizard player: But I always cast Mind Blank, Flight, Prestidigitation (x2), etc etc every day... plus all the divinations... I think I'll need a few more bottles, guys.

Higher OP player: you think you've got it bad? I spec'd out to cast and restore my spells every round... and I'm Necropolitan... and on a fast time plane. I think I'll need to make several runs to the liquor store to bring back all the drinks I'll need.


and as a side note, pancake syrup and magic cards don't mix well either

You have my condolences.

[Zombulian]

Would the effects be more balanced if you used weed instead of alcohol?

Maybe if you timetraveled back to the 70's.