Rules for Drunkenness

[Moulin Rogue]

It came up twice in three weeks on the Rules forum, so I did this up. Could anyone with, uh, practical experience take a look and see if this feels "right" - some of my modifiers at steps 5-7 may be off a bit, and I don't know how well Table 2 really "scales" down at the dangerous end - I like the idea of a Heal check to give dying rock stars a better chance than when they just pass out by themselves, but I don't know exactly how the check should work. And the falling unconscious bit - would a tavern drinking contest work accurately with this set of house rules?

http://www.geocities.com/chrisbjackson/drinking.html

 

[slave269]

Moulin Rouge one thing I can point out is that the mechanic about the characters sex is unnecessary and not correct. The reason the average women can consume less alcohol is due to the average womens body weight compared to a mans. Any mechanics based on the maximum amount of consumable alcohol should only be based on the characters weight and nothing more! There are no biological factors other than body weight that deterimine how much one can drink.

On another note the rules mayalso be a tad bit complicated but they are a good starting point!

I am glad this topic has come up cause we were having trouble determining drunkeness in my campaign. We finally decided to treat it at least temporarily as being poisoned.

 

[Bonedagger]

Moulin Rouge one thing I can point out is that the mechanic about the characters sex is unnecessary and not correct. The reason the average women can consume less alcohol is due to the average womens body weight compared to a mans. Any mechanics based on the maximum amount of consumable alcohol should only be based on the characters weight and nothing more! There are no biological factors other than body weight that deterimine how much one can drink.

Not true!

A womens body contains less fluid than a mans and therefore she will absorb the alcohol faster (How much fluid in the body % consist of alcohol). Psycological and physical diseases can also have an effect plus your liver will grow if your an alcoholic (You will be able to drink more without gettting drunk). Not to mention the state you are in (Have you eaten, how fast do you drink, etc.).

It's fairly easy to find a website describing this.

 

[Moulin Rogue]

If you follow the second link at the very bottom of my page on there, you'll see the BAC calculator uses a different calculation for a male and female, even if they are the exact same weight.

 

[Bonedagger]

I usually just state that if a character is drunk but stil able to fight he/she sees dobble, 50% miss chance (Tripple if it's bad) It goes for all senses so being blind does not help.

 

[RigaMortus]

See if you like these house rules...

- An Alternative Set of Rules for Alcohol Consumption in D&D -
As long as the ol’ tavern and/or inn remain a staple of fantasy settings, groups of adventurers will be found within their confines wither as a prelude or conclusion to adventures epic and not so epic. Maybe it is because that nothing concludes a successful dungeon crawl better than washing down the dank dust of said dungeon with a healthy serving or two of a tankard of stout dwarven ale or a goblet of rich elven wine.

But, what effects do these spirited beverages have on characters. Trying to figure out the results of imbibing in too much alcohol upon a character can fall victim to being a rules-heavy burden chore of number crunching and calculations. Rules for the effects of partaking in spirits have been established many times in many various forms. What is attempted here is a set of streamlined, straightforward rules to establish the effect of alcohol consumption on characters. Here’s how it breaks down.

The Drinking Begins.
The base DC for the first drink is 10. This means that the average commoner (Con 10, Fort +0) will have a little better than 50/50 chance of being in the first stage of intoxication after their first drink. Additional saves versus poison should be included if they apply to the character (per the DM’s discretion of course).

Size Modifiers
Fine+16Large-2 Diminutive+8Huge-4 Tiny+4Gargantuan-8 Small+2Colossal-16 Medium0

A character’s size also plays a part in determining the chances of a character becoming intoxicated. It is a lot easer for a Small character to become drunk than a Large or Huge character. The DC is adjusted according to size. So, a halfling commoner (Con 10, Fort +0) would have a DC of 12 to avoid being drunk after his first goblet of mead.

Each additional serving of alcohol adds +2 cummulatively to the Fortitude save DC. This assumes that a single 12-ounce serving of beer, a single 4-ounce serving of wine, and a single 1-ounce shot have roughly the same alcohol content. Additional modifiers may be applied by the DM for special drinks such as; Orc Blood Brew (+4 DC), Drarven Stone Stout (+3 DC), Elven Sylvenberry Wine (+2), or Kobold Kettle Ale (-1 DC). DMs should feel free
to come up with creative names and recipes for whatever fits their campaign.

When a character fails their Fortitude save they are in a state of
intoxication. If a character continues to consume and fail their Fortitude save, their state of intoxication will increase. There are five states of intoxication.

State of Intoxication Effects
Slight: Dex -0, Int -1, Wis -1. Cha -0, Base Attack -0, Damage Resistance +0, Concentration -2, Spell Failure 15%
Moderate: Dex -1, Int -2, Wis -3. Cha -1, Base Attack -1, Damage Resistance +0, Concentration -4, Spell Failure 30%
Complete: Dex -3, Int -4, Wis -6. Cha -3, Base Attack -2, Damage Resistance +1, Concentration -8, Spell Failure 60%
Severe: Dex -6, Int -6, Wis -8. Cha -6, Base Attack -4, Damage Resistance +2, Concentration -12, Spell Failure 95%

The fifth state of intoxication not listed on the chart above is
Unconsciousness. If the character manages to drink enough to surpass the severe state of intoxication they end up down for the count and sleep it off for the next 1d6+4 hours.

The Effects of the Hangover

So, how does the character feel the next morning? How is his condition going to effect his adventuring? The next morning the character needs to make a Fortitude Save according to how intoxicated they got the night before.

State of Intoxication DC
Moderate 10
Complete 15
Severe 20
Unconsious 25

For the following day the character suffers from a hangover according to how much they miss their Fort save. A successful save reduces his state of intoxication by 2 levels. Otherwise, the character only reduces his state by one level. The character may attempt to make a new save every two hours.

 

[Nik_the_Pig]

Not sure where I stole this from but it wasn't long after 3rd Ed came out (tried to follow the link I had for this back to the source but it's now taking me to a German porn site). I've used it for a while (the drinking rules, not the porn site) and form my own drinking habits it seems to work well, especially the hangover rules.

If the creator of these rules is out there, my thanks.

Drinking & Dragons
- An Alternative Set of Rules for Alcohol Consumption in D&D -
As long as the ol’ tavern and/or inn remain a staple of fantasy settings, groups of adventurers will be found within their confines wither as a prelude or conclusion to adventures epic and not so epic. Maybe it is because that nothing concludes a successful dungeon crawl better than washing down the dank dust of said dungeon with a healthy serving or two of a tankard of stout dwarven ale or a goblet of rich elven wine.
But, what effects do these spirited beverages have on characters. Trying to figure out the results of imbibing in too much alcohol upon a character can fall victim to being a rules-heavy burden chore of number crunching and calculations. Rules for the effects of partaking in spirits have been established many times in many various forms. What is attempted here is a set of streamlined, straightforward rules to establish the effect of alcohol consumption on characters.
Here’s how it breaks down. The base DC for the first drink is 10. This means that the average commoner (Con 10, Fort +0) will have a little better than 50/50 chance of being in the first stage of intoxication after their first drink. Additional saves versus poison should be included if they apply to the character (per the DM’s discretion of course).
A character’s size also plays a part in determining the chances of a character becoming intoxicated. It is a lot easer for a Small character to become drunk than a Large or Huge character. The DC is adjusted according to size.

Size Mod.
Fine +16
Diminutive +8
Tiny +4
Small +2
Medium 0
Large -2
Huge -4
Gargantuan -8
Colossal -16
So, a halfling commoner (Con 10, Fort +0) would have a DC of 12 to avoid being drunk after his first goblet of mead.
Each additional serving of alcohol gives an accumulative +2 to the Fortitude save DC. This assumes that a single 12-ounce serving of beer, a single 4-ounce serving of wine, and a single 1-ounce shot have roughly the same alcohol content. Additional modifiers may be applied by the DM for special drinks such as; Orc Blood Brew (+4 DC), Drarven Stone Stout (+3 DC), Elven Sylvenberry Wine (+2), or Kobold Kettle Ale (-1 DC). DMs should feel free to come up with creative names and recipes for whatever fits their campaign.
When a character fails their Fortitude save they are in a state of intoxication. If a character continues to consume and fail their Fortitude save, their state of intoxication will increase. There are five states of intoxication.
State of Intoxication
Effects on... Slight Moderate Complete Severe
Dexterity 0 -1 -3 -6
Intelligence -1 -2 -4 -6
Wisdom -1 -3 -6 -8
Charisma 0 -1 -3 -6
Base Attack 0 -1 -2 -4
Damage Resistance 0 0 +1 +2
Concentration -2 -4 -8 -12
Spell Failure 15% 30% 60% 100%
The fifth state of intoxication not listed on the chart above is Unconsciousness. If the character manages to drink enough to surpass the severe state of intoxication they end up down for the count and sleep it off for the next 1d6+4 hours.
The Effects of the Hangover
So, how does the character feel the next morning? How is his condition going to effect his adventuring? The next morning the character needs to make a Fortitude Save according to how intoxicated they got the night before.

State of Intoxication DC
Moderate 10
Complete 15
Severe 20
Unconsiousness 25
For the following day the character suffers from a hangover according to how much they miss their Fort save. If the character fails by 5 or less he is affected as if he were two states of intoxication less than what he managed to achieve the night before. Thus, if the character drank until he was severely drunk, he would then suffer -1 Dex, -2 Int, -3 Wis, -1 Cha, -1 Base Attack, -4 Concentration, and 30% Spell Failure while suffering from a hangover. If the character misses by more than five they are affected as if he were one state of intoxication less than what he managed to achieve the night before. Thus, the same party-animal character that drank until he was severely drunk would then suffer -3 Dex, -4 Int, -6 Wis, -3 Cha, -2 Base Attack, -8 Concentration, and 60% Spell Failure while suffering from a hangover.
Could these rules be more realistic by taking in account all of the various scientific research that has been dedicated to the study of intoxication and its effects? Sure. But, then they would tend to grow more complicated and muddled. The rules for intoxication offered above are to serve as a basic, easy method of including the hazards of hanging out at the ol’ tavern after a dungeon crawl. Cheers!

 

[CRGreathouse]

I usually just state that if a character is drunk but stil able to fight he/she sees dobble, 50% miss chance (Tripple if it's bad) It goes for all senses so being blind does not help.

50% miss chance is the same as fighting blindfolded.