From Cobblestone Streets To Skyscrapers: Explore The Limitless Possibilities Of Sheer In The City DnD

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Post on Feb 08, 2025

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From Cobblestone Streets to Skyscrapers: Explore the Limitless Possibilities of Sheer in the City DnD

The bustling city, a tapestry woven with intrigue, danger, and opportunity. In the world of Dungeons & Dragons, urban settings offer a unique playground for adventurers. But what if you want to take your city campaign to new heights—literally? Introducing Sheer, a homebrew rule system designed to add verticality, danger, and a whole new dimension of tactical possibilities to your city adventures.

Sheer: Climbing, Falling, and Everything in Between

Sheer focuses on the vertical aspects of a city, incorporating the challenges and rewards of navigating buildings, rooftops, and precarious ledges. Instead of simply treating buildings as obstacles, Sheer transforms them into three-dimensional battlefields. This system utilizes a few key mechanics:

Climbing:

• Difficulty: Climbing difficulty is determined by the surface (smooth brick, rough stone, crumbling masonry) and the height. The Dungeon Master (DM) assigns a DC (Difficulty Class) for climbing checks, potentially adding modifiers for environmental hazards (rain, strong winds).
• Advantages: Successful climbing checks allow characters to reach advantageous positions, gaining higher ground for ranged attacks, flanking opportunities, or escaping pursuers.
• Disadvantages: Failed climbing checks can result in falls, with potential for damage based on height and the character's constitution.

Falling:

• Damage: Falling damage is calculated based on height and the character's size and constitution. The system incorporates mitigating factors like landing on soft surfaces (haystacks, awnings) or utilizing skills (Acrobatics) to reduce damage.
• Hazards: Falling might not only cause damage; it could land a character in a precarious position—into a narrow alleyway, onto a hostile group, or into a river.
• Escape Routes: Falling could create unexpected escape routes, allowing a clever adventurer to use the momentum to swing across a gap or land in a hidden passage.

Rooftop Movement:

• Navigation: Rooftops are not uniform. Sheer incorporates rooftop features like chimneys, skylights, and perilous gaps, adding obstacles to rooftop navigation. Successful Acrobatics checks are needed to traverse these areas safely.
• Urban Warfare: Rooftops offer advantageous positions for ranged combat, allowing archers or spellcasters to rain down attacks on enemies below.
• Surprise Attacks: Rooftops provide opportunities for surprise attacks. A character might silently scale a building to ambush unsuspecting enemies.

Integrating Sheer into Your Campaign

Sheer can be integrated into almost any city campaign. Here are some ways to use this system:

1. High-Stakes Chase Scenes: Transform a simple pursuit into a thrilling chase across rooftops and buildings. The DM can introduce obstacles like narrow ledges, crumbling parapets, and unexpected hazards, increasing the tension and excitement.

2. Urban Exploration: Sheer allows for deeper exploration of the city's vertical spaces. Characters might discover hidden pathways, secret societies, or forgotten places only accessible via rooftop routes.

3. Epic Showdowns: Use Sheer to create dramatic battles across multiple levels of a building or across an entire city block. Verticality adds another layer of tactical complexity, forcing players to think creatively about positioning and movement.

4. Environmental Storytelling: The challenges and dangers presented by Sheer become a natural part of the city's personality, adding to the overall feel and atmosphere of your campaign setting.

Expanding the Possibilities of Sheer

Sheer isn't just about climbing and falling; it’s about expanding the possibilities of your city campaign. Consider adding these elements to enhance the experience:

• Specialized Equipment: Introduce specialized equipment designed for vertical movement, such as grappling hooks, climbing gear, or specialized boots.
• Urban Skills: Create new or adapt existing skills to better reflect the challenges of urban traversal.
• Environmental Traps: Incorporate environmental traps into buildings, such as loose bricks, faulty scaffolding, or hidden pits.

By adding Sheer to your city adventures, you'll unlock a whole new dimension of gameplay, making your campaign more dynamic, engaging, and memorable. Your players will experience the city not just as a collection of streets and buildings but as a vast, three-dimensional playground filled with untold possibilities. So, prepare to ascend to new heights—the city awaits!