Only to find, not much to my surprise, that it was virtually useless. It was quite obvious that intoxication was seen as a strictly negative influence, and so any level of intoxication began at once to degrade your character. No wonder I hadn't every played the table, nor bothered to keep any accounts of how a player's drinking might affect a player's abilities.
There had to be a greater give and take, I thought. And what better than a meaningful increase in hit points ... which much less of an influence on a player's to hit table.
I think I've come up with a pretty fair gradient, one that allows the players the benefits of practical drinking:
Slight Intoxication: gain 1 hp, -1 wis & int, +1 morale & bravery
Moderate Intoxication: gain 2-5 hp, -2 wis & int, -1 to all other stats, -1 to hit, +2 morale & bravery
Heavy Intoxication: gain 2-7 hp, -3 to all stats, -2 to hit, -1 damage, +3 morale & bravery
Great Intoxication: gain 2-9 hp, -4 wis & int, -5 to all other stats, -3 to hit, -3 damage, +4 morale & bravery
Both the online party and the offline party seem to appreciate this. My offline party especially - they actually got excited at the prospect of being able to drink at least to moderate intoxication, while taking only a -1 on their to hit. For some characters, like a high level fighter with strength and a magic weapon bonus, it's not much of a penalty in exchange for 2-5 hit points. 18/51 strength, +2 sword, +1 for bless, +1 bonus for having a bard singing in the background, and needing only a 9 to hit AC 5 ... hell, what's a -1 to hit penalty? Even a -3 isn't that crippling.
And after all, if you're already at -1 hit points, and you don't figure you're going to do much more combat at this point as you stagger along with the rest of the still-healthy party, why not get plastered drunk? That extra 4 or 6 or 9 hit points might be the difference in being killed by a trap or not.
I suppose some might argue that a trap should kill you no matter how drunk you are ... but what the hell, this is D&D. Perhaps your drunkedness just makes you lucky.
Well, with my offline party talking about playing some of their characters in a permanently drunken state, I thought I should work up another table, one that no one seems to think needs to be made. How much do you have to drink to get drunk:
And this should be adjusted for weight, too. I'd suggest using the base weights for various characters as a measure, modified for some races to be able to drink better than others.
Take the weight of your character and divide it by the average MALE HUMAN weight. For humans, gnomes and halflings, do not adjust the ratio; multiply it against the table above. For elves and half-elves, reduce the ratio by 20%. For dwarves, increase the ratio by 50%.
Thus, assuming everyone has a equal constitution (17), the average elf (100 lbs.) requires 2.8 pints of ale to reach moderate intoxication. An average human (175 lbs.) requires 6.1 pints. An average dwarf (150 lbs.) requires 7.9 pints.
But I never thought elves could hold their liquor. The gentle reader may think otherwise; or they may have an alternative means of taking weight into account. For me, this works ... and a table that works is all I ever need.
Removing morale from the equation?
ReplyDeleteNah. Forgotten. Fixed now.
ReplyDeleteCurious as to why STR and CON (and damage) is affected at the moderate level.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to argue that being drunk makes you stronger. I know some people (primarily frat boys) hold that opinion, but I do not. I think it just makes you stupider and less likely to restrain yourself to prevent injury or breaking something.
However, I'm not sure that drinking, at least a moderate amount on a single occasion, will actually make you weaker.
INT, WIS, CHA, DEX... certainly. Just not sure why STR and CON are included, at least until you reach the point where you are falling down drunk.
While it's probably true that your strength wouldn't actually be diminished, a good part of the EFFECT of strength is your willingness to make an effort. People become less willing to do work when drunk ... so the penalty is a reflection of your tendency not to use your full strength, even though you may have it.
ReplyDeleteThat's actually true across the board. The old adage that drink kills brain cells has long since been debunked - you're not actually stupider when you drink. But you are less inclined to concentrate, so you SEEM stupider. In the case of strength, you're not concentrating it, either.
Your constitution is down because your body is less able to defend itself in a state of drunkedness; you immune system is on the fritz ... so your constitution drop reflects that.
"20 pints of Boddingtons, every Friday night, 20 pints of Boddingtons then outside for a fight" Macc Ladds
ReplyDeleteIn Boot Hill, drinking decreases Accuracy but increases Bravery, which in turn increases both Speed and Accuracy. One of my characters's scores were such that the decrease in Accuracy was offset by the increase in Accuracy from increasing his Bravery.
ReplyDeleteSo he spent the whole game drunk.