One of many largest attracts of Vecna: Eve of Spoil, the ultimate marketing campaign within the decade-long run of fifth version Dungeons & Dragons, is the truth that you may play as a high-level character. Most D&D campaigns finish round degree 10. Eve of Spoil begins there, after which proceeds to go as much as degree 20, the sport’s cap. Meaning gamers will start the story with extraordinarily highly effective, probably game-breaking spells and talents. So how did the designers at Wizards of the Coast handle to maintain characters in line, stopping them from blowing up the complete narrative from the bounce? The reply is very, very fastidiously.
To begin with, the hazard right here is actual. Excessive-level magic customers can take numerous highly effective spells earlier than or at degree 10. These may very well be used to rapidly reveal secrets and techniques that may spoil issues just like the true intentions of main characters, or the places of individuals or objects. Informal use of these talents, particularly early on, may spoil… properly, every part actually. So designers have explicitly famous that some areas in Vecna: Eve of Spoil are totally different from others. That features the blanket use of Nondetection particularly places. It’s a spell within the Participant’s Handbook that ensures individuals and objects “can’t be focused by any divination magic or perceived” by different magical means. Different nerfs aren’t so delicate.
Teleportation talents have been a very huge concern, it appears. Vecna: Eve of Spoil does loads of narrative hand-waving to tone them down or disrupt them fully. As an illustration the hub location for the marketing campaign is Sigil, the Metropolis of Doorways within the Outlands. It’s a whole aircraft of the multiverse that may solely be entered or exited by way of a sequence of obscure portals. As soon as gamers go away the hub, there’s no technique to get again till the job is completed.
In different places, it’s merely famous within the “Regional Results” part of a given chapter that sure spells don’t work as supposed — together with teleportation and summoning spells, and spells that may in any other case permit revealing the situation of a creature or an object gamers may be in search of.
The largest nerfs aren’t actually nerfs in any respect. They’re traits baked into the high-level monsters that gamers bump up towards over the course of the marketing campaign. These embrace the common assortment of options that we’ve seen for a decade now, like response talents that set off when characters acquire the higher hand and potent resistances to sure varieties of injury. There’s additionally the catch-all “legendary resistance” function that’s been a part of this version from the very begin. Meaning for some creatures in Vecna: Eve of Spoil, when a personality will get them good with a spell or different skill that requires them to roll a saving throw and so they fail, they’ll simply select to succeed as a substitute.
Savvy Dungeon Masters count on this stuff, after all, and put together evocative in-fiction descriptions rather than merely saying “Nuh-uh, no you didn’t!” and studying the rule aloud.
There have been loads of instances whereas taking part in D&D I’ve had my butt saved as a DM by some particular rule that designers thoughtfully included proper there within the textual content of the guide. That form of oversight is among the advantages of operating a broadcast journey, in spite of everything. And it ought to come as no shock to gamers, both. In a recreation the place the particular person on the head of the desk can disguise their rolls behind a display and kind of legally deceive your face within the service of creating the story extra thrilling, did you actually count on it to be another approach?