Would you take this as a player?

[Danielqueue1]

(Clarifying edit- the "Willpower" mechanic was not created by me. I am just using it. The party has agreed to using it before the campaign started and has experience with using it before the campaign started. I have just modified it slightly and am adding active uses for it. My question is about the active uses)


For a campaign I am running everyone starts with a "willpower" resource, dieing and getting ressurected, or getting knocked unconscious multiple times before a rest consumes rhis resource. When it reaches 0 your character must retire, open an inn, wander into the sunset etc as the stress of adventuring just becomes too much. Regain some by finishing quest lines. Everyone starts with 90.

At a point in the campaign the party will get the ability to willingly expend some of this resource for temporary benefits each character only gets one of the following.

Once per short rest Use a reaction to take no damage from an attack, reduce "willpower" by half the damage you just prevented. (Defensive panic button should only be used in dire consequences and has high long term cost)

Expend 1 point of "willpower" to see the plot based marks and plot based hazards within range no matter how well hidden (even through illusions and thin sheets of lead) most campaign bosses are marked and the plot based "plague" would be easily detected. ( by "plot based marks" I mean I don't want to go into several pages of campaign lore to explain them.)

Use an action to Expend 3 willpower. If the next attack made against target creature hits, it is a critical hit. (This one is the one I am weakest on. I want something offence oriented and willpower is an expensive resource in the long run due to how hard it is to recover open to suggestions)

What does the playground think? Overpowered, underpowered, should cost more?

[T.G. Oskar]

For a campaign I am running everyone starts with a "willpower" resource, dieing and getting ressurected, or getting knocked unconscious multiple times before a long rest consumes rhis resource. When it reaches 0 your character must retire. Regain some by finishing quest lines. Everyone starts with 90.

At a point in the campaign the party will get the ability to willingly expend some of this resource for temporary benefits each character only gets one of the following.

Once per short rest Use a reaction to take no damage from an attack, reduce "willpower" by half the damage you just prevented. (Upgrade to 1/3)

Expend 1 point of "willpower" to see the plot based marks and plot based hazards within range no matter how well hidden (even through illusions and thin sheets of lead) most campaign bosses are marked and the plot based "plague" would be easily detected. (Upgrade to see other things too)

Use an action to Expend 3 willpower. If the next attack made against target creature hits, it is a critical hit. (Upgrade to bonus action)

Upgrade would happen at part of the plot.

What does the playground think? Overpowered, underpowered, should cost more?

I'll be frank - I'm not sure I like this kind of mechanic. It feels a lot like Action Points (from 3.x, though they exist in the DMG; you have a pool of points that you can use to enhance your rolls, activate some of your rechargeable uses, or even power up new ones, but they recharge only when you level up) and the Sanity mechanic (as you get progressively worse, you gain mental flaws and eventually permanent insanity which forcefully retires your character), but in a way that's intended to give players game-breaking powers.

Also: are you taking this mechanic from the World of Darkness books? (Not related to D&D, if you're wondering.) Because Willpower in that game works almost exactly the same, except the "sanity" mechanic is handled differently.

Here's the deal: the first few levels can be pretty brutal. Up to level 3, characters are basically made of paper, and they can be knocked out or die at any time, without any benefits. Thus, while you give them a very suitable amount of "willpower" points (90 is pretty decent) and an ability to "recharge" them, by the moment they can use the "benefits", they'll already have a lower amount. Then, of the powers you get, you get one that costs more than just taking the damage outright (the "damage reduction" benefit), one that's also a bit too overpriced (the "auto critical hit" mechanic), and a gamebreaking power (because it allows you to basically ruin YOUR plans as a DM). In fact, the only worthwhile ability to use is the game-breaking power, as after a while, your players will become better at surviving, and they can pool the resource to have only one of them use the ability, and then spread the info to others. Even if you limit the power to only one of the options, be sure to know that everyone will go for the gamebreaker power option, since it's insanely cost-effective.

Thus, it's...ill-thought of. Considering there are similar options for what you want (i.e., the Action Point system, which lacks the gamebreaking mechanic and works more like applying the effect of Bless or Guidance to a single roll at the expense of a point system that recharges sparingly), I don't see the worth of having this.

That said, and to see the silver lining behind it, it'd be interesting to see your thought process behind this. I believe that you're looking for a gritty campaign where you want to reflect the hardships of being an adventurer; after all, once you see all the illusions, enchantments and plots of evildoers, your mind will certainly fracture and you'll eventually be too paranoid to continue. That's an interesting thing to see, but I don't really see it tied to a mechanic per se. I can understand that there can be fun behind it (the game Darkest Dungeon pretty much revels on that aspect, with characters becoming afflicted by the large stress of simply walking through a dungeon, fighting monsters beyond their comprehension, and dealing with things they aren't meant to know, to the extent they can end up completely worthless or even outright die), but it depends on your players' intention of fun.

So, to answer the thread question: no, I wouldn't, because I like my characters a bit too much, and I already noticed, just by cursory examination, how to break the mechanic. Taken further, I also see that the mechanic isn't easy to salvage, and there are already options that can reflect a bit better what you seek without having to reinvent the wheel. If it helps, try to see the DMG on the "Workshop" part (the last chapter) and look at Action Points and the Sanity mechanic. If you feel you still want to implement this Willpower mechanic, then go ahead and work it around that. Also, take a look at how the Willpower mechanic works in the different settings of the World of Darkness game; Willpower in that game is relatively game-breaking, but since it's more story-driven, it makes perfect sense.

[Kane0]

Sounds like the DMG sanity/honor scores. I'd suggest using one of those actually, with a save or lose 1 point when you get knocked to 0 HP, suffer the effects of a curse or madness, etc.

Then you can say a character with 0 loses their nerve and is in no state to adventure, but it can be recovered with rest, restorations, etc.

[Genoin]

I'm going to give a different opinion and say that the thing I really like about this mechanic is how it has the potential to force a character into retirement because they lose the will to go on. Losing heart and becoming demotivated into quitting adventuring is something that would realistically happen to a lot of adventurers. If a beginning adventurer went out and was brought close to death several times in one adventure, there is a good chance that person would hang it up and take a more mundane life.

It's not for every group, but it's an interesting thing.

[Danielqueue1]

Explanation, inspired by darkest dungeon combined with sanity and then something from another game. Party is down for the gritty bit and game has already started.

Originally had a different mechanic in place for the crit one, but the party doubled in size making me have to scrap that mechanic.

There will be events in the game that require "Willpower checks" rolling a D100 if you roll higher than your "willpower" you fail (temporary insanity and the like). So every time they use one of these active abilities they permanently reduce their resistance to these effects.

Recovering "willpower" is impossible in downtime or through abilities. No power points, no on a level up. Saving the princess might let you recover 1d10 "willpower." So definitely not something to use every day let alone every fight.

The party has already seen the defensive one and the sight one in action. So can't back out on those but they can be modified.

The detect one would tell you that a specific person is infected, but not if they are part of the cult intentionally spreading it, or just a victim. So it's not an auto-win the campaign. Many common soldier's have been marked just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time so just because someone is marked doesn't mean that they are a boss.

The crit one is the one I am most worried about. It has already been established that there are 3 marks and the party already recognize them, but haven't solidified this one yet. I want it to be offence-oriented but not sure how powerful or how expensive to make it. I want it to be powerful short term at the expense of long term.


Additional, being knocked unconscious the second time gives d4 damage to willpower, the third 1d6, 4th 1d8. Yo-yo healing is going to be a short trip to retirement.

[Rynjin]

Rather than "insta-crit", perhaps change it to "take another action beyond your limit". Both more thematically appropriate and less powerful for some characters, while retaining broad utility; in 5e crits are not that impressive for most characters (an extra 3-7 damage on average isn't really all that hot), but "crit on demand" is pretty broken for a Rogue, as an example.

[Kane0]

Explanation, inspired by darkest dungeon combined with sanity and then something from another game. Party is down for the gritty bit and game has already started.

Originally had a different mechanic in place for the crit one, but the party doubled in size making me have to scrap that mechanic.

There will be events in the game that require "Willpower checks" rolling a D100 if you roll higher than your "willpower" you fail (temporary insanity and the like). So every time they use one of these active abilities they permanently reduce their resistance to these effects.

Recovering "willpower" is impossible in downtime or through abilities. No power points, no on a level up. Saving the princess might let you recover 1d10 "willpower." So definitely not something to use every day let alone every fight.

The party has already seen the defensive one and the sight one in action. So can't back out on those but they can be modified.

The detect one would tell you that a specific person is infected, but not if they are part of the cult intentionally spreading it, or just a victim. So it's not an auto-win the campaign. Many common soldier's have been marked just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time so just because someone is marked doesn't mean that they are a boss.

The crit one is the one I am most worried about. It has already been established that there are 3 marks and the party already recognize them, but haven't solidified this one yet. I want it to be offence-oriented but not sure how powerful or how expensive to make it. I want it to be powerful short term at the expense of long term.


Additional, being knocked unconscious the second time gives d4 damage to willpower, the third 1d6, 4th 1d8. Yo-yo healing is going to be a short trip to retirement.

I noticed the Darkest Dungeon inspiration, yes.
But you're reinventing the wheel when you don't really need to. The Sanity score covers what you're looking for already.

If you want gritty:
Point buy of 30 with 7 stats instead of 6. This is a little less than you'd expect to get from an extra stat
When X bad thing happens to you, roll a Sanity saving throw. On a success, all is well. On a failure, you lose 1 sanity (and thus makes your saving throws harder).
You can choose to spend 1 sanity to treat one ability check, saving throw or attack roll as a 20 on the roll.

Then offer some small way to restore it. Perhaps a lesser restoration allows a save to recover 1, restoration advantage on the save and greater restoration guarantees restoring 1. Or just plot milestones.

[JackPhoenix]

Sounds too meta-gamey to me. What it is supposed to represent in character? Also, mentioning "plot" doesn't do that idea any favors.

[Pex]

I suspect warriors to lose out in the long run because despite having more hit points they drop more often since they're in the middle of the bad guys hacking away and getting hacked. Spellcasters in the back do get hurt and drop from time to time but not as often. Meanwhile the closer PCs get to 0 willpower the more they are in demand of healing putting pressure on players whose characters can heal. Players will also want to rest more often for the healing. Ultimately the player is denied having his fun because the rules say he can no longer play. Tough luck.

I pass.

[ShadowSandbag]

I think you could take a page from Call of Cthulhu and make two separate stats here. For the sake of this post we will call them “Hope” and “Cynicism”. Hope is your willpower stat, it’s your drive to keep going and belief that your actions have impact. Every time you get beat down and fall unconscious your hope goes down a bit. On the other hand you have your Cynicism. This is your world-weariness and resistance to bad things happening.
As one goes up the other goes down, with effects if they hit too high or low.
Cynicism could be used to see through ruses that a more naive and hopeful person might fall for, it resistance the effects of horrific sights; you’ve seen worse. Hope then allows you to power through unwinnable scenarios and make people believe in you.

You can still get the retirement mechanic you are working for, but it also gives more leeway in how the character views themself in the world and gives benefits to both high hope/low Cyn and high Cyn/Low hope.

[Rynjin]

I suspect warriors to lose out in the long run because despite having more hit points they drop more often since they're in the middle of the bad guys hacking away and getting hacked. Spellcasters in the back do get hurt and drop from time to time but not as often. Meanwhile the closer PCs get to 0 willpower the more they are in demand of healing putting pressure on players whose characters can heal. Players will also want to rest more often for the healing. Ultimately the player is denied having his fun because the rules say he can no longer play. Tough luck.

I pass.

Perhaps mitigated if the OP adds some kind of scaling component or Willpower damage mitigation for martial characters? "Your martial training has instilled in you the lesson that when you fall, it is only natural to get back up. If you are a member of [Insert list of classes and/or Subclasses here] you take only a d2 Willpower damage instead of a d4". Or something.

This is a valid complaint but potentially salvageable.

[Guy Lombard-O]

I'd definitely play it, but more with a "beer & pretzels" attitude.

The thing about D&D is that it's definitely designed for a heroic style of game, where you play with the hope of your character achieving (super-) heroic levels of ability, success and power. But going into a campaign with the knowledge that this isn't going to happen, because every character is essentially doomed by design, would definitely affect my play style. It would both discourage me from getting overly attached to my character, but possibly also allow for better, more realistic role play in dangerous situations, since actually thriving is against the rules and mere survival is the best case scenario.

Going into it knowing you're eventually screwed can be fun in either a Paranoia or Call of Cthulhu sort of way. It can be enjoyable, but I'd have to play it for either laughs or "creeping horror". Definitely not the hopeful, heroic sort of D&D that I generally prefer. So as long as it's made clear from the beginning and the DM isn't expecting me to get too involved in the characters, I'd give it a go.

[Danielqueue1]

I guess more clarity needs to be added.
The base willpower mechanic has already been used by my group in another campaign. It was agreed to and already in play at the start of the campaign. So far it is working great. If this mechanic isn't for you fine, I respect that. So far in the two campaigns we've used it in no one has had issue with it. It does make "useless" in combat healing much more important and retreat and diplomacy a much more reasonable option.

The new feature for this campaign was active uses of that resource instead of just passive.

Clarification: when I mentioned "plot" in my previous posts it was because I didn't want to go over 5 pages of campaign lore. To explain it. Marks mean specific things and come from a specific source. The more the party learns about them the more knowing that a person is marked will mean to them. The abilities come from the marks.

So once again, the Willpower mechanic works for our group, I wanted to try adding active uses for it.