tal’dorei campaign guide

Optional Campaign Rules and Guidelines

Every campaign embarks on its heroic tale in its own way. Simple beginnings for a ragtag lot of sellswords. Students of the
world falling into the wrong crowd. Unwitting pawns of destiny thrust into something bigger than themselves. However
you wish to formulate your story and world, the existing rules for your game help set a very clear vision of how to run it
with consistency and intended design.
That being said, sometimes the experienced group wishes to add some new flavor to the existing structure of the world.
Bring in new options to how old rules function, or adjust to an advanced difficulty in a mystical world where danger, and
even death, can be circumvented. This section outlines a number of homebrew rules and guidelines you, and your cam-
paign, can adopt to further customize your gaming experience.
Like any homebrew or non-standard rules and option, should any of these elements presented before you be of interest, they
must be approved and implemented by the dungeon master of your campaign. They may or may not fit their intended game bal-
ance. Dungeon Masters, discuss the possible inclusion of any of these elements with your players beforehand to ensure everyone
can enjoy any changes you intend. Talk them over and make sure everyone is both aware, and fully understands, the new rules.
These guidelines can also be implemented into an existing campaign, just ensure discussion and approval resounds
within your gaming group. Any of these proposed rules, as with any rules in a roleplaying game, can be altered, adjusted,
and tailored to your personal preference.

Combat With Rapid Quaffing

Larger Parties
When running games of larger party size (generally 6 or
more players), the combat action economy can become dif-
ficult for some players to feel as involved or active due to
fewer rounds of combat generally occurring per encounter.
Here are a couple of possible recommendations to better
allow characters some freer choices during their turn at
the proverbial bat.
Change the time required to pull free and quaff a potion
from one action to one bonus action, or hand out the
Rapid Drinker feat to the entire party. This enables many
classes, especially more melee/combat focused classes,
the ability to down a healing potion or enhancing liquid
without sacrificing their entire round of attacks. Admin-
istering a potion to an unconscious character would still
require an action. Don’t forget: enemies can also drink
their potions as quickly!

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Optional Rules of Critical Role
For those who have watched along with our adven-
tures, you may see some of these optional rules as
familiar. Many of the elements included in this
chapter are based on or retooled versions of the house
rules we tried within our own campaign. Some have
undergone a number of changes for balance as we try
new things and learn from our experiences. For those
that are curious, the ones we utilized within our own
game are Rapid Quaffing and Multi-Spell.
Multi-Spell
At around 8th level, gift the Spelldriver feat to your play-
ers. This will allow spellcasting classes more options to
aid themselves and the party at higher levels without a
comparably sluggish per-round ability set, spending their
solitary action on a bonus action spell. This would also
apply to enemy spellcasters, leading to additional chaos
and challenge.
Accelerated Downtime
Certain adventures thrive on the adrenaline of the chase,
or the ever-present fear of ambush. As it stands, the need
to take a short rest can prove difficult during long dungeon
crawls, and this lends itself to a nice tone of personal stress
and risk-vs-reward. However, sometimes a rest is necessary
for the party to even continue, but the current rush of the
story’s clock won’t allow for a standard short rest. You could
consider lessening the required time to complete a short
rest to 30 minutes or less for the moment, or your entire
campaign, as an option. Another possibility is to allow the
party to take an Arduous Rally if they so choose.
Arduous Rally
The party spends 5 minutes to rally their resolve in the
face of coming peril, the adrenaline fueling their need
to push on. The party benefits from the completion of a
full Short Rest, but all healing gained by spending hit
dice is halved, and all rallying characters suffer 1 point of
Exhaustion (p. 291 PHB).
“Like all of the great rites of passage in life, death
changes us, and simply returning to the world of
the living does not undo that change, nor is it at all
simple. Those who have passed beyond the veil are
marked by it, even if they manage to find their
way back.”
—From “On the Price of Death and
Resurrection,” by the sage Narrel
Alternative
Resurrection Rules
Character death can often prove to become a minor
inconvenience in some campaigns once the adventuring
party reaches a certain level, with spells being available to
return fallen comrades from the afterlife with temporary
setbacks, robbing a small element of danger and threat
to future conflicts and challenges within the story. If you
wish to elevate the gravity of character death, you can
introduce any of these optional rules.
A Taxing Return
This rule calls to the old D&D rules where every time a
character is restored to life, the process corrodes a fraction
of their vitality, slowly consuming the body until it can no
longer sustain life.
Each time a character is brought back to life via a spell
or ritual, that character suffers a permanent loss of 1 point
of their Constitution ability score. This loss cannot be
restored outside of a carefully worded wish spell. Use of
the spell true resurrection to restore a character does not
impose this loss of Constitution. Characters that reach a
Constitution ability score of 0 are permanently dead and
cannot be resurrected.
Didn’t Come Back Right
Within this rule, the process of dying and being pulled
back into your body is a harrowing experience. The magic
itself pulls you from beyond the dark veil of death, taking
its toll on your body and psyche each time, leaving you
less and less the person you were.
When a character is brought back to life via magic, that
character must make a Wisdom saving throw, DC (22
- level of the magic used to return the character to life).
A failure on this check inflicts long term madness (see
DMG, p260), except that the duration is measured in days
rather than hours. A lesser restoration or remove curse will
alleviate the madness itself, though it returns any time
that character drops to 0 hit points or awakens from sleep,
until its full duration has expired.
Didn’t Come
Back Right (advanced)
For additional consequences and player difficulty, you can
implement a further stage of corruption. If a character has
died a number of times equal to their Constitution
modifier, and they fail their Wisdom saving throw
upon being brought back to life, they instead suffer
an indefinite madness (see DMG p.260). Any
subsequent deaths inflict an additional indefinite
madness with each resurrection. A greater restoration
spell can temporarily suppress a type of indefinite
madness, with it returning anytime that character
drops to 0 hit points.

The Fading Spirit
This resurrection rule set is designed to add an element
of party roleplaying and narrative to the resurrection
attempt, as well as the creeping threat of permanent death
to a character. Any of the following DC modifiers are
easily adjusted to fit your campaign needs.
Resurrection Challenge
If a character is dead, and a return from death is attempted
by a spell or spell effect with longer than a one action cast-
ing time, a Resurrection Challenge is initiated. Up to 3
members of the adventuring party can offer to contribute to
the ritual via skill checks. The DM asks them each to make
a skill check based on their form of contribution, with the
DC of the check adjusting to how helpful/impactful the
DM feels the contribution would be.
For example, praying to the god of the devout, fallen
character may require an Intelligence (Religion) check at
an easy to medium difficulty, where loudly demanding the
soul of the fallen to return from the aether may require
a Charisma (Intimidation) check at a very hard or nearly
impossible difficulty. Advantage and disadvantage can
apply here based on how perfect, or off base, the contribu-
tion offered is.
Resurrection Check
After all contributions are completed, the DM then rolls a
single, final Resurrection success check with no modifier.
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The base DC for the final resurrection check is 10,
increasing by 1 for each previous successful resurrection
the character has undergone (signifying the slow erosion
of the soul’s connection to this world). For each success-
ful contribution skill check, this DC is decreased by 3,
whereas each failed contribution skill check increases the
DC by 1. Upon a successful resurrection check, the play-
er’s soul (should it be willing) will be returned to the body,
and the ritual succeeded. On a failed check, the soul does
not return and the character is lost.
Only the strongest of magical incantations can bypass
this resurrection challenge, in the form of the true res-
urrection or wish spells. These spells can also restore a
character to life who was lost due to a failed resurrection
ritual, should you allow it.
Quick Resurrections
If a spell with a casting time of 1 action is used to attempt
to restore life (via the Revivify spell or similar effects), no
contribution skill checks are allowed. The character cast-
ing the spell makes a Rapid Resurrection check, rolling
a d20 and adding their spellcasting ability modifier. The
DC is 10, increasing by 1 for each previous successful
resurrection the character has undergone. On a failure,
the character’s soul is not lost, but the resurrection fails
and increases any future Resurrection checks’ DC by 1.
No further attempts can be made to restore this character
to life until a resurrection spell with a casting time higher
than 1 action is attempted.
Chapter 3: Character Options