HP 2-8 Question

The Ellori in our party wanted to know how much he would grow if he rolled a 4.

Permanence is a very serious matter in a Living Campaign and Arcanis has always limited permanent affects to it’s PCs.

From my experience playing since the 3.5 days (3.5, ARPG, and now 5E). Any affect that doesn’t specifically say it’s permanent, is removed at the end of the module. They created a few exceptions over the years when 2 modules were suppose to be played back to back. But they have always been very clear about what does or doesn’t get healed between those modules.
So even if the module ends in the middle of no where, and its greater than 24 hours away from anything, and someone has been aged 40 years but they can be healed if they get the proper spell in 24 hours, it’s expected they were healed between modules.

Now if an affect becomes permanent within the module i.e. the 24 passes inside the module by playing other encounters, then you are out of luck. But I have never seen a module that didn’t give a temple or NPC who could help the players for the right price when that was a possibility.

Arcanis has never been about punishing players for rolling poorly and leaving them stranded in the wilderness with no solutions. It is about making players excited about the risk they are taking, and dangers they facing. Once the danger is done, what’s the point of leaving the player with the negative affect? I suppose you and your players may find it fun “playing for keeps” if you will. So go ahead, but it’s not the rule as far as I’ve seen.

As written, the effect is very clear. As written, anyone who fails the save by 5 or more will be permanently aged, since no one at 5th level has greater restoration, and they’re more than 24 hours out from any place that can give them greater restoration.

As written, this was run correctly. To me, as a GM, this seems harsh. But since it was laid out very specifically with no wiggle room, I ran it as written.

It seems harsh as well since, so far as I can tell, a similar ability does not appear in the ARG version of the module (unless I missed something, I am not as familiar with ARG as I am with 5E).

That said, this is Arcanis. As someone who was taken prisoner in the very first Battle Interactive and lost every single one of his physical certs, I know that. Arcanis is a campaign where horrific things sometimes do happen.

But since it is different than the ARG version, and since the stat block with the 24 hour limit is in a different part of the module than the description of five days travel, I wanted to make sure that was the intention of the campaign that this be a permanent hazard.

For what its worth, in the past (d20 campaign) permanency was tied to more than a single bad die roll on a savings throw. The loss of items at the first BI only came after a table outright failed a mission and did not get off the board – ergo being captured. That is something that can be attributed to player action rather than a bad die roll.

Likewise, every permanent detrimental effect I can think of from the d20 campaign was tied to character action, inaction, decision, or the overall campaign plot. These sorts of things are thematic and make Arcanis what it is.

I don’t actually remember ever having seen any untreatable permanent detrimental effect in the first campaign that was attributed to a single poor die roll, but it was ten+ years ago so I could be mistaken.

My overall take is that had the effect been from an optional encounter (like breaking open a tomb), a player decision (drinking from a cursed chalice for example), or otherwise something that was directly the result of a player action, then I would whole-heartedly support the idea of having that PC live with the permanent consequences. However, that was not the case here to my knowledge – this is an encounter that the module expects every table to complete, and the only thing the players did was walk into the room where the monster appeared. There is no way to my knowledge to avoid having to make the save (barring some specialized spells that most tables don’t have), and anyone whom rolls badly on that save is subject to the permanent effect. The old Arcanis adage was always “Stupidity leads to character creation, not bad luck”
This situation was not one borne of stupidity, but rather can most accurately be described as bad luck.

Thanks for reading, I hope that my take on it is helpful in some way

In defence of the ARG system, there is absolutely no mechanics in that system for aging. Aside from the Tier IV Time Stop spell, “time magic” and aging effects don’t exist. However, in D&D they definitely do exist, which is why they are used since age is a more developed mechanic.

In defence of the ARG system, there is absolutely no mechanics in that system for aging. Aside from the Tier IV Time Stop spell, “time magic” and aging effects don’t exist. However, in D&D they definitely do exist, which is why they are used since age is a more developed mechanic.

Yes, but in a normal course of play for 5e you can easily get access to that Greater Restoration spell. If Arcanis adjusts some rules to fit the setting, then you can’t use excuse that “them are the 5e rules”. Maybe Lesser Restoration will postpone permanent aging for 24 hours until a character can get to a temple?

I spoke about this with Pedro at Origins after it came up in an additional mod, and he said that he’d look into having the aging part of the ghost ability removed since it is harsh, has no equivalent in ARG, and isn’t pertinent to the story. Hopefully staff has time to follow up on that.