Soul-Casting System (5e Variant Rule)

Work In Progress

This content deviates from 5e standards. Its use could dramatically alter campaigns, take extreme care.

Caution - Here there be monsters! This content intends to provide a different experience, or goes beyond the scope of the anticipated subjects and situations, than the 5e rules were intended to handle. Some portions of the content below may not be what you expect from traditional game content. When implementing this content, DMs and Players should read over all the information carefully, and consider the following specific notes of interest:

Due to the limitations put, as well as the environmental suggestions, this is a system of spellcasting thematically for a lower-magic setting, where spellslots would theoretically no longer be viable and spellcasters have to put their very soul on the line in order to use even simple magic. In theory, it can be used to limit spellcasters.

Soul-Casting

There are many attempts to change from spell slots into stuff like blood-casting using points. However, the rate at which points accrue, as well as lack of overall integration leaves much to be desired. In the footsteps of ADND 2nd Edition variant rules to spellcasting, this is a set of radical rules that change how spells work entirely, integrating complex additions drawing from systems like Shadowrun to further immerse the experience in what it really means to use your very soul to cast magic.

Soul Points

Soul points represent what capacity a person's soul has. Your maximum soul points are equal to your Charisma score and proficiency bonus combined. Charisma is the classic score of measuring exertion of your willpower on the world, though it is often just known as the social score nowadays. Proficiency bonuses measure your growth. Based on how many soul points you have remaining at a time, this can affect your body and mind, which will be covered later below.

Replenishing Soul Points

Replenishing your soul is nothing easy. It's not like you just drink a health potion and regain the bits of soul you just shredded to cast that fireball spell. Rather, every day, you get to roll to see how many soul points you recover at the end of your long rest. What you roll, and if you roll at all, depends on how your day went. You can only recover soul points with a healthy body and mind, after all. So, below are a few requisites before you can consider even regaining soul points:

• You must have fulfilled your food and drink requirement for the day.
• You must have finished a long rest without interruption.
• You must have at least half your hit point maximum.
• You must have at least half or more of your mental health score (explained later below) intact.

If you fulfill the above requirements, you can regain soul points equal to your Charisma modifier at the end of your long rest.

Measuring Soul Points

Because soul points represent the actual soul and your very essence, running low on them isn't as simple as running low on spellslots. The amount of soul points you have will directly affect your physiological state. Use the below table to approximate how your current soul points affect your mood, body, and mental capacity, based on how many points (percentage) you have left from your total.

Soul Point Effects

Percentage Remaining	Effect
100%	Your baseline.
75%
50%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
1%
0%	You lose your soul entirely and your body becomes an unmoving shell. For all effects and purposes, you are dead. Your body may still have a shred of heartbeat and such, but you no longer inhabit your own body.

Mind, Body, and Soul

“	A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body	”
—Maka Albarn, Soul Eater

To make this system make even more sense on paper, in addition to your hit points and soul points, you also now have mental health points. These points measure your mental state and can be calculated by adding your Intelligence and Wisdom scores together. So, you now have hit points to represent your physical health, mental health points to measure your mind state, and soul points to measure your soul!

Mental Health Points

One big change with the integration of multiple meters is that psychic damage no longer affects your hit points, but rather your mental health points.

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