Greywander
2022-07-03, 12:35 PM
One thing that really needs to be done is removing the second bullet point from the blind and invisible conditions. These are redundant with the vision rules, and create strange technically-RAW interactions where you can see an invisible person but technically still have disadvantage on your attacks. All these conditions should be doing is making you unable to see (for blinded) or be seen (for invisible), and the vision rules will handle the rest.
One suggestion I've seen is making surprise a condition. I think this would mostly be a semantic change, but I think it could help make it easier for people to understand. This might also make it easier to apply surprise to a creature mid-battle, e.g. if someone is somehow sleeping through the first few rounds of combat, then wakes up. Perhaps instead of a surprised condition, an "unaware" condition might work better. The unaware condition could also replace some of the rules for being hidden (e.g. if you hide from another creature, it is considered to have the unaware condition for you).
One thing I've run into is that the petrified condition isn't limited to being turned to stone. What if we changed it to a "hardened" condition, and then created several sub-conditions that were the same mechanically (or nearly the same), but different rules and effects might interact with them differently (kind of like creature types)? For example, sub-conditions could be: petrified, frozen, and, uh, "dendrified" (to be turned into a tree). This way, you might have a creature that is immune to petrification, but not to becoming frozen or dendrified.
Alternatively, hardened can be it's own condition, and the petrified, frozen, and dendrified conditions all inflict the hardened condition on you (similar to how a bunch of conditions also make you incapacitated), potentially along with their own unique twists. For example, a dendrified creature might get vulnerability to fire and/or cold and/or necrotic damage (which would cancel out the general resistance to all damage that the hardened condition gives).
I feel like there were some other effects that seemed like they would fit well as conditions, but I can't think of them right now. Bleeding? Pain? Hmm...
What are some ways you might improve conditions? What conditions would you want to add?
One suggestion I've seen is making surprise a condition. I think this would mostly be a semantic change, but I think it could help make it easier for people to understand. This might also make it easier to apply surprise to a creature mid-battle, e.g. if someone is somehow sleeping through the first few rounds of combat, then wakes up. Perhaps instead of a surprised condition, an "unaware" condition might work better. The unaware condition could also replace some of the rules for being hidden (e.g. if you hide from another creature, it is considered to have the unaware condition for you).
One thing I've run into is that the petrified condition isn't limited to being turned to stone. What if we changed it to a "hardened" condition, and then created several sub-conditions that were the same mechanically (or nearly the same), but different rules and effects might interact with them differently (kind of like creature types)? For example, sub-conditions could be: petrified, frozen, and, uh, "dendrified" (to be turned into a tree). This way, you might have a creature that is immune to petrification, but not to becoming frozen or dendrified.
Alternatively, hardened can be it's own condition, and the petrified, frozen, and dendrified conditions all inflict the hardened condition on you (similar to how a bunch of conditions also make you incapacitated), potentially along with their own unique twists. For example, a dendrified creature might get vulnerability to fire and/or cold and/or necrotic damage (which would cancel out the general resistance to all damage that the hardened condition gives).
I feel like there were some other effects that seemed like they would fit well as conditions, but I can't think of them right now. Bleeding? Pain? Hmm...
What are some ways you might improve conditions? What conditions would you want to add?