Conditions of Play
Legal Information
This work is part of the tabletop role-playing game Swords & Sceptres: The Pulp Fantasy, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which can be accessed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 (“SRD 5.2.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
Damage Types
Attacks and other harmful effects deal different types of damage. Damage types have no rules of their own, but other rules, such as Resistance Points, rely on the types. The Damage Types table offers examples to help a GM assign a type to a new effect.
Damage Types
| Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| Acid | Corrosive liquids, digestive enzymes |
| Bludgeoning | Blunt objects, constriction, falling |
| Cold | Freezing water, icy blasts |
| Fire | Flames, unbearable heat |
| Force | Pure magical energy |
| Lightning | Electricity |
| Necrotic | Life-draining energy |
| Piercing | Fangs, puncturing objects |
| Poison | Toxic gas, venom |
| Psychic | Mind-rending energy |
| Radiant | Holy energy, searing radiation |
| Slashing | Claws, cutting objects |
| Thunder | Concussive sound |
| Vital | Suffocation, starvation, thirst |
Does Necrotic Damage Heal the Undead?
No.
Necrotic damage is the decomposition of body and soul — the same thing that happens to a corpse after death. An undead is already dead matter, kept functioning by sleight of hand, by miracle, and by constant maintenance: an undead creature must preserve its own body so that body does not decompose completely. Its essence, the soul it used to have, is already corrupted beyond salvation.
Necrotic damage pushes both further along a road they have already travelled. That does not heal an undead. It may well be among the worst things you can do to one.
Character Conditions
A condition is a property of a creature: an altered state of the body or of the mind — a state that is not the creature’s normal one, imposed from outside and lasting until something ends it. The definition of a condition says what is true of its recipient while it lasts. The effect that imposes a condition says how long it lasts and what ends it.
A condition doesn’t stack with itself. A creature either has a condition or does not.
The Rule Describes the Body; the Player Describes the Man
A condition is a physical or a mental state, never an emotional one.
A body can be broken, blinded, or worn past its limit, and a mind can be concussed, deranged, or emptied of its recollection. These are things done to a creature, and they are true whether or not the creature consents to them.
What a creature feels is not such a thing. Love, shame, disgust, despair, resolve — these are not imposed from outside. They are constituted out of will and cognition and everything a creature has ever been, and no one commands them but the one who holds them.
Fear is a dry mouth and legs gone to cotton, and that much is written down. Whether the man behind those legs holds his ground or runs is not a matter for the rules, nor for the Game Master, but for the player alone.
Blinded
While you have the Blinded condition, you experience the following effect.
Can’t See. You lose the Sight sense. You cannot notice, locate, or study anything by sight, and any ability check that would rely on doing so fails, as if there were nothing for your eyes to work with.
Burning
While you have the Burning condition, you experience the following effect.
Alight. At the start of each of your turns, you take 1d4 Fire damage, unless the effect that set you alight specifies otherwise. That effect also specifies how the fire is put out.
Deafened
While you have the Deafened condition, you experience the following effect.
Can’t Hear. You lose the Hearing sense. You cannot notice, locate, or study anything by sound, and any ability check that would rely on doing so fails, as if there were nothing for your ears to work with.
Drunk
While you have the Drunk condition, you experience the following effects.
Unsteady. You have Disadvantage on attack rolls and on ability checks other than Strength checks.
Bold. You are Immune to the Frightened condition.
Fortunate. If your Luck score is lower than 19, it is 19.
After. When this condition ends, however it ends, you gain the Weakened condition until you finish a Long Rest.
Frightened
While you have the Frightened condition, you experience the following effects.
Failing Body. Your legs weaken, your hands shake, and your mouth goes dry. You have Disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws while the source of your fear is within your line of sight.
Steadied. When this condition ends, you become immune to the Frightened condition from any creature of the same type as the source.
Grappled
While you have the Grappled condition, you experience the following effects.
Locked Up. You can’t move away from the grappler, and you can’t be moved away from it. If either of you moves, both of you move together. If one of you is larger than the other, the larger creature moves the pair freely, and the smaller has no say in where it goes. If you are the same size, either of you may move the pair, but each foot of that movement costs an extra foot, and where you go is contested by a Strength (Athletics) check.
Fouled. You have Disadvantage on attack rolls against any target other than the grappler. You have Disadvantage on attack rolls against the grappler, unless you attack with a weapon of the Daggers group or with an Unarmed Strike. You can’t attack at all with a weapon of the Spears, Staffs, or Bows group.
Insane
While you have the Insane condition, you experience the following effects.
Unnatural Strength. Your Strength modifier is increased by 5 for attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws.
Broken Reason. Your Intelligence and Wisdom modifiers are each reduced by 5 for attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws, to a minimum of −5.
Invisible
While you have the Invisible condition, you experience the following effects.
Unseen. Other creatures lose the Sight sense with regard to you and anything you wear or carry. They cannot notice, locate, or study you by sight, and any ability check that would rely on doing so fails, as if there were nothing for their eyes to work with.
The effect that grants this condition specifies if any of the following applies, and which one.
Light Aberration. Light passes around you rather than through you, and the distortion shows when you move. On any turn in which you move, a creature can use the Search action to notice and locate you by sight despite Unseen. You remain Unseen whether or not it succeeds.
No Light. Light passes through you, without interacting with you, and through your own eyes as well. You have the Blinded condition for the duration.
Paralysed
While you have the Paralysed condition, you experience the following effects.
Motionless. Your Speed is 0 and can’t increase. You can’t take any action, Bonus Action, Free Action, or Reaction requiring movement of your body or hands, and your Concentration is broken. You remain aware of yourself and of your surroundings, and you can speak.
Defenceless. You don’t add your Dexterity modifier to your Armour Class, attack rolls against you have Advantage, you automatically fail Strength and Dexterity saving throws, and any attack that hits you from within 5 feet is a Critical Hit.
Petrified
While you have the Petrified condition, you experience the following effects.
Turned to Inanimate Substance. You and any nonmagical objects you wear or carry are transformed into a solid inanimate substance, usually stone. Your weight increases tenfold, and you cease aging.
Motionless. You can’t move, speak, take any action, Bonus Action, Free Action, or Reaction. You cannot perceive your surroundings, unless the effect that causes the Petrified condition says otherwise. Your Concentration is broken.
Inanimate. You don’t need to sleep, eat, drink, or breathe.
Enduring. You have +10 Resistance Points against all damage.
Defenceless. Attack rolls against you have Advantage, and you automatically fail Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
Prone
While you have the Prone condition, you experience the following effects.
Restricted Movement. You can crawl at half your Speed, or spend an amount of movement equal to half your Speed to right yourself and end the condition. If your Speed is 0, you can’t right yourself.
Attacks Affected. You have Disadvantage on attack rolls. An attack roll against you has Advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of you and not Prone itself. Otherwise, that attack roll has Disadvantage.
Restrained
While you have the Restrained condition, you experience the following effects.
Bound. Your Speed is 0 and can’t increase, and you can’t be moved except by a creature that carries or drags you.
Tied. You can’t take any action, Bonus Action, Free Action, or Reaction requiring movement of your body or hands, other than an action aimed at freeing yourself.
Hampered. You have Disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws, you add half your Dexterity modifier to your Armour Class, and attack rolls against you have Advantage.
Stunned
While you have the Stunned condition, you experience the following effects.
Delayed. You can’t take Reactions, and your Concentration is broken.
Clumsy. You have Disadvantage on attack rolls and on Strength and Dexterity checks.
Alone. You can’t take the Help action, and you can’t benefit from it.
Blank. You have Disadvantage on the Study action. When you cast a spell, roll 1d10. The spell fails if the roll is above your Skill Rank in its school, minus the spell’s level, plus 1. A failed spell consumes half the Spell Points it would have cost.
Suffocating
While you have the Suffocating condition, you experience the following effects.
Starved of Air. At the end of each of your turns, you take 1d6 Vital damage.
Failing. You have Disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws.
Unconscious
While you have the Unconscious condition, you experience the following effects.
Insensible. You are not aware of yourself or of anything around you. You cannot take any action, Bonus Action, Free Action, or Reaction, you perceive nothing and lose all Senses, your Concentration is broken, and you drop whatever you’re holding. You have the Prone condition, and remain Prone when this condition ends.
Defenceless. Your Speed is 0 and can’t increase, you don’t add your Dexterity modifier to your Armour Class, attack rolls against you have Advantage, you automatically fail Strength and Dexterity saving throws, and any attack that hits you from within 5 feet is a Critical Hit.
Weakened
While you have the Weakened condition, you experience the following effects.
Feeble. Your Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution modifiers are each reduced by 2 for attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws, to a minimum of −5.
Faltering. When you deal damage with an attack that is not magical, that damage is halved. Magical damage is unaffected, including the damage of a spell, of a magic item, and any magical portion of a weapon’s damage.
Diseases
A disease is an affliction that takes hold in a creature and remains there. It is not a condition; nothing has happened to the creature except that the disease was contracted.
Every disease has a tier, which describes how grave it is. From least to worst, the tiers are Common, Mild, Severe, and Fatal. A disease says nothing about how it is cured. An effect that cures disease says which tiers it can cure, and reaches no further. Nor does a disease say how it is contracted.
A disease may progress through stages. If it does, it lists those stages and a saving throw DC. At the end of each Long Rest, an afflicted creature makes a Constitution saving throw against that DC. On a failure, the disease advances one stage. On a success, it does not. If a disease says its stages can retract, a creature that succeeds by 5 or more moves back one stage instead; a creature that retracts below the first stage has recovered, and no longer has the disease.
Leprosy
Mild disease
The extremities lose sensation. Injuries to them go unnoticed and untended, and the flesh is lost by degrees.
A creature that takes Long Rests in close company with an afflicted creature for a week must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or contract leprosy.
The disease does not progress and does not retract. A creature afflicted with leprosy has its Charisma modifier reduced by 5 for ability checks, to a minimum of −5, and automatically fails any ability check to notice injury to itself by touch.
Leprosy does not kill. It is not cured by any ordinary art, and those who bear it are usually put outside the city walls.
Grippe
Mild disease
Fever, aching limbs, and difficulty breathing. It passes within a week, or it settles in the lungs and does not.
A creature that spends an hour in close company with an afflicted creature must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or contract grippe.
Saving Throw DC 10. Stages retract.
- Stage 1. The creature has the Weakened condition.
- Stage 2. The creature has the Weakened condition and cannot benefit from a Long Rest, but is not Sleep Deprived.
- Stage 3. The creature has the Weakened and Unconscious conditions. At the end of each Long Rest it takes 1d6 Vital damage before making its saving throw.
A creature that fails its saving throw at Stage 3 dies.
Lice
Common disease
The scalp and body itch without relief, worst at night. The affliction is a misery and nothing worse.
A creature that takes a Long Rest in filthy bedding, or in close company with an afflicted creature, must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or contract lice.
A creature afflicted with lice has its Dexterity modifier reduced by 1 for attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws, and cannot benefit from a Long Rest unless it rests for 10 hours rather than 8.
A creature that bathes thoroughly in hot water, launders or replaces all it wears, and does both again a week later is rid of them.
Plague
Severe disease
Fever, followed by hard black swellings at the neck and groin, and the death of the flesh around them.
A creature that spends an hour in close company with an afflicted creature, or in a rat-infested area, or that handles the body of one who has died of it, must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or contract plague.
Saving Throw DC 15.
- Stage 1. The creature has the Weakened condition.
- Stage 2. The creature has the Weakened condition, and its Hit Point maximum is halved.
- Stage 3. The creature has the Weakened and Unconscious conditions.
A creature that fails its saving throw at Stage 3 dies. A creature that succeeds on three consecutive saving throws at any stage has survived the plague, returns to Stage 1, recovers fully after a week, and can never contract it again.
Rabies
Fatal disease
No sign of illness for a long while. Then an aversion to water so complete that the creature cannot drink, followed by madness, and then death.
A creature bitten by an afflicted creature must succeed on a DC 20 Constitution saving throw or contract rabies.
Saving Throw DC 12.
- Stage 1. The creature shows no sign of the disease. It makes no saving throws and suffers no effect. This stage lasts 1d4 months, and the creature advances to Stage 2 at its end regardless of anything it does.
- Stage 2. The creature has the Weakened condition and cannot drink.
- Stage 3. The creature has the Weakened and Insane conditions.
A creature that fails its saving throw at Stage 3 dies.
Mishaps
A mishap is what happens to a creature when something has gone wrong for it.
It is not a thing in the world, as a hazard is, and it is not a state, as a condition or disease is. A mishap is an effect that follows a cause that occurred.
A creature steps off a ledge and meets the ground. Nothing here cares how the cause came about. The fall may have been an accident, a misjudgement, or a decision — the body does not distinguish between them, and neither do these rules. What follows the cause follows it regardless.
Some mishaps resolve at once and are done. Others run for days or weeks, and impose a condition that lasts as long as the cause does.
Drowning
A creature that runs out of air underwater gains the Suffocating condition. The condition ends when the creature can breathe again.
A drowning creature’s arms press downward of their own accord, seeking anything solid enough to lever its mouth clear of the water. When a creature comes within 5 feet of a drowning creature, the drowning creature must succeed on a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw or attempt to Grapple it. This is not a decision, and knowing better is no protection: the body does it without asking.
The Drowned Teach the Living
Every scrap of Wisdom in the world began as somebody’s Luck.
A man went into black water and did not drag his rescuer down with him — not because he knew better, for no one knew better yet, but because his hand found driftwood in the dark. He lived. He told it. His sons told it. In time it passed into the blood of every man who has ever swum. Every piece of folk wisdom is somebody’s lucky accident, repeated until it stopped being an accident.
Six of your abilities are what you have become. The seventh is the chance that let your forebears become anything at all, and it has not finished with you yet.
Falling
A falling creature descends 500 feet in the first round and 1,000 feet in each round thereafter.
A creature that falls takes no damage from the first 5 feet, and 1d6 Bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet fallen beyond that, to a maximum of 20d6. When the creature lands, it has the Prone condition unless it took no damage from the fall.
A creature that falls into water or another liquid can use its Reaction to make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to hit the surface head or feet first. The DC is 20, minus 1 for every 10 feet fallen. On a success, damage from the fall is halved.
A creature that has fallen more than 150 feet cannot attempt this check. At that height the surface may as well be stone.
A creature with a Fly Speed that is falling can spend movement to arrest its descent, ending the fall. Doing so costs 5 feet of movement for every 50 feet it has already fallen this round. If the creature lacks the movement to pay the full cost, it arrests as much as it can and continues falling.
Famished
A creature needs an amount of food each day based on its size, as shown in the Food Needs per Day table.
A creature that eats at least half the food it needs can continue for 3 days, but its Long Rest requires 12 hours rather than 8 during that time. At the end of the third such day, and at the end of each day thereafter, it has the Weakened condition.
A creature that eats nothing has the Weakened condition at the end of the first day.
The condition ends when the creature has eaten the full amount of food it needs for a day.
A creature that goes without food long enough dies. These rules give no timeline for it, because it depends on the creature’s size, its Constitution, its body composition, and how hard it labours — a creature weeks without food is dying, and the Game Master decides when.
Food Needs per Day
| Size | Food | Size | Food |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tiny | 1/8 pound | Large | 5 pounds |
| Small | 1/2 pound | Huge | 25 pounds |
| Medium | 1 pound | Gargantuan | 125 pounds |
Sleep Deprived
A creature that does not finish a Long Rest for a full day has the Weakened condition at the end of the night in which it did not rest.
The condition ends when the creature finishes a Long Rest.
A creature that has gone four consecutive days without finishing a Long Rest also has the Insane condition. Both conditions then end only when the creature finishes two Long Rests in immediate succession, resting for 16 hours without interruption.
Thirst
A creature needs an amount of water or other liquids each day based on its size, as shown in the Water Needs per Day table.
A creature that drinks less water than it needs has the Weakened condition at the end of the first day.
The condition ends when the creature has drunk the full amount of water it needs for a day. A creature that drinks nothing for three consecutive days dies at the end of the third day.
Water Needs per Day
| Size | Water | Size | Water |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tiny | 1/32 gallon | Large | 2 gallons |
| Small | 1/4 gallon | Huge | 8 gallons |
| Medium | 1/2 gallon | Gargantuan | 32 gallons |
Boons
A boon is something laid upon a creature by another will. It is a judgement made by one creature about another. Boons are of two kinds: Blessings, freely given, and Curses, laid in anger.
A boon is either permanent or temporary. A temporary boon says how long it lasts and what ends it: a span of time, a task done, or the purpose it was given for, fulfilled.
Don’t Curse a Man for a Laugh
A boon is a mark, not a modifier. Before it touches a single number it says that somebody noticed the creature, made a judgement about it, and had will enough to make the judgement stick.
A Curse has no off switch. It ends when the one who laid it says so, or when the terms are met, and not an hour sooner. No art rubs it off. That is the whole point of the thing, and it is also why a Curse thrown down on a whim will sit at the table for the rest of the campaign, souring every session it touches.
So: when in doubt, don’t. And never lay a boon for a joke, for colour, or because the scene wants a flourish. A curse with no weight and no way out is not drama. It is a stone in the boot, and the player wearing it will remember who put it there.
Blessings
A blessing is freely given and asks nothing in return. It is usually given in gratitude for what a creature has already done, or as a token of fortune for what it is about to attempt.
Blessing of the Lady
Your Luck score is increased by 1.
Curses
A curse originates from a creature. It may be a slighted neighbour, a dying rival, a priest at the altar, or a god, but there is always someone who willed it, and the curse carries that will with it.
The creature that lays a curse sets the terms of its ending, and those terms are part of the curse itself. A curse persists until its terms are satisfied, and no art removes it otherwise. A creature ignorant of its originator remains unaware of its release, and the discovery of both is the work.
The terms vary widely. A neighbour who suspects a creature of a romance with her spouse may require only the offender’s departure from the village. A king who has lost a war may curse the house of a defeated general to the seventh generation and impose terms no living member of it can satisfy.
A creature that plunders a tomb may find no living being who could have cursed it for the deed. That changes nothing. Someone laid a curse on the tomb to guard it, and the will in it holds whether or not that someone is still alive.
Bad Eye
Your Luck score is decreased by 1.
Areas of Effect
The descriptions of many spells and other features specify that they have an area of effect, and that area takes one of six shapes: Cone, Cube, Cylinder, Emanation, Line, or Sphere. Each shape is defined below.
An area of effect has a point of origin, a location from which the effect’s energy erupts. The rules for each shape specify how to position its point of origin. If every straight line extending from the point of origin to a location within the area is blocked, that location isn’t included in the area of effect. To block a line, an obstruction must provide Total Cover (see “Cover” in “Playing the Game”).
If the creator of an area of effect places it at an unseen point and an obstruction — a wall, for instance — stands between the creator and that point, the point of origin comes into being on the near side of the obstruction.
Cone
A Cone extends in straight lines from a point of origin in a direction its creator chooses. A Cone’s width at any point along its length equals that point’s distance from the point of origin: a Cone is 15 feet wide at a point 15 feet from its origin. The effect that creates a Cone specifies its maximum length.
A Cone’s point of origin isn’t included in the area of effect unless its creator decides otherwise.
Cube
A Cube extends in straight lines from a point of origin located anywhere on one face of the Cube. The effect that creates a Cube specifies its size, which is the length of each side.
A Cube’s point of origin isn’t included in the area of effect unless its creator decides otherwise.
Cylinder
A Cylinder extends in straight lines from a point of origin located at the centre of the circular top or bottom of the Cylinder. The effect that creates a Cylinder specifies the radius of its base and its height.
A Cylinder’s point of origin is included in the area of effect.
Emanation
An Emanation extends in straight lines from a creature or an object in all directions. The effect that creates an Emanation specifies the distance it extends.
An Emanation moves with the creature or object that is its origin, unless it is an instantaneous or a stationary effect.
An Emanation’s origin isn’t included in the area of effect unless its creator decides otherwise.
Line
A Line extends from a point of origin in a straight path along its length and covers an area defined by its width. The effect that creates a Line specifies its length and its width.
A Line’s point of origin isn’t included in the area of effect unless its creator decides otherwise.
Sphere
A Sphere extends in straight lines from a point of origin outward in all directions. The effect that creates a Sphere specifies the distance it extends as the radius of the Sphere.
A Sphere’s point of origin is included in the area of effect.