Dying just got some new flavor in Critical Role, thanks to the new campaign’s first bit of homebrewed rules. When Critical Role announced that it was staying with Dungeons & Dragons for Campaign 4, it teased that it would be introducing some new homebrewed rules in addition to using the new 2024 ruleset. It’s still pretty early in the campaign, with only one of the show’s three groups of players receiving a focus so far, so we’re still not sure whether any players are using homebrewed subclasses. However, we are starting to see some bits of homebrew begin to make their way into the campaign in recent episodes.
Death Saving Throws
In episode 8, Sam Riegel became the third player to roll death saving throws in the campaign. The first two death saving throws occurred either as part of a pre-planned sequence or as a flashback. So Riegel and his character Wicander Halovar was the first character to face the prospect of sudden death during combat. DM Brennan Lee Mulligan announced that death saves would have some additional weight this campaign with a risk/reward style of choice that allowed a dying player to help their party members, but at the cost of continued near-death.
The homebrew rules are as follows: When a player makes a death saving throw and succeeds, they can choose to give another player within line of sight Heroic Inspiration instead of gaining a death saving throw success. Heroic Inspiration, in D&D’s 2024 ruleset, allows players to reroll any die immediately after rolling it. So, players can either choose to inch a little farther away from permanent death. Or they can help their fellow party members still in combat. This provides a valuable choice to players not present in the standard edition of Dungeons & Dragons. It adds a little more agency to players whose characters are dying.
These new death saving rules are a little kinder to players, in part because of another limitation put into place at the start of the campaign. Due to the death of the gods in Araman, magic is more dangerous and unreliable. Mulligan has mentioned that teleportation is dangerous outside of a very limited scope, and resurrection magic is currently unavailable (although that could change thanks to Occtis’ unexpected resurrection at the start of the campaign).
Since players can’t be saved by divine magic, if a player is dying and succeeds on their first death saving throw, they can choose to automatically stabilize, thus removing them from death’s door. Based on our understanding of the rules, a player who keeps succeeding on death saving throws can choose whether to stabilize or continue to pass out Heroic Inspiration to other players.
Desperate Measures
While death saving throws are currently the only bit of revealed homebrew for Critical Role Campaign 4, we know that there are more bits of homebrew rules on the way. While explaining the homebrew death saving throw rules, he mentioned a set of Desperate Measures rules, which activate when players are Bloodied in combat. Within D&D’s new 2024 ruleset, Bloodied is a condition that players gain when they have less than half of their hit points remaining. It appears that Mulligan is giving players more options in combat, likely to help them out due to the lack of resurrection magic in the campaign.
The players have reportedly have access to the Desperate Measures rules since the start of the campaign, although they haven’t used it yet. However, with characters constantly getting backed into corners (as shown in the latest episode when Tyranny is faced with petrification in a top-notch cliffhanger), it seems inevitable that Desperate Measures will be used soon.
Potential Critical Role Campaign 4 Homebrew Subclasses and Species
There’s a couple other places where Critical Role could be leaning into homebrew material. There are still a few characters who either are lacking a subclass due to multiclassing or haven’t revealed their subclass yet. It’s possible that Critical Role could introduce some kind of homebrewed subclass for a character to play, with Taliesin Jaffe’s character Bolaire Lathalia being a strong possibility. Since Taliesin is playing a sentient mask, he will almost certainly have some kind of homebrewed rules to play with. But we don’t know the nature of those rules yet. It’s possible that Bolaire will be able to freely swap species (since he possesses the body of whoever is wearing him). Or it’s possible that Bolaire will have a homebrew species made just for him.
Although several other characters besides Bolaire have non-traditional D&D species, it appears that they’re sticking with existing rules. For instance, Travis is playing a Nama, a lionfolk character that looks like an anthropomorphic lion. He appears to be using the Lionin rules from Mythic Odysseys of Theros, a D&D/Magic: The Gathering crossover book released several years ago. Likewise, Laura Bailey is playing as a pixie, which appears to use the Fairy species rules from Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse.
As for unrevealed subclasses, the strongest possibility for a homebrewed subclass comes from Matt Mercer’s Sir Julien Davinos. Mercer’s character has repeatedly been described as having some kind of curse inflicted upon him, which appears as a shadow following him. It’s possible this could be some kind of stand-in for an Echo Knight (a Dunamantic-powered fighter from Exandria). It’s also possible that this is some kind of brand new subclass introduced just for Campaign 4.
Skill Checks
Although technically not homebrew, Mulligan is showing off a specific DMing style with his use of checks. Mulligan has leaned heavily into tiered successes for knowledge-related checks. These aren’t uncommon in Dungeons & Dragons—official D&D adventures have used tiered successes where the amount of knowledge revealed is depending on how successful a roll is. However, where Mulligan has skewed typical D&D gameplay is that he announces the threshold for various degrees of success in advance.
This style not only elegantly raises the stakes for checks – with players knowing exactly what they need to roll in advance – it also allows players to choose in advance how many resources they want to use to ensure a success. With things like Guidance and aiding another player, there are resources available to a player to add to a check. Mulligan’s DM style gives players a more conscious choice, while also establishing the stakes of a check well in advance of a roll.
Personally, I love knowing the stakes of various roles in advance. It emphasizes that every roll matters and also gives realistic expectations about the success or a failure of a roll in advance. I also like that players have tiers of success, offering players some more realistic options when they don’t have optimized stats for a particular check.