D&D Mechanics Inspired by Assassin's Creed: Unity

I am loving this Assassin's Creed train! Every game is different in fun new ways, and it's so fun to know there's a lot more games to play after my current one! Assassin's Creed: Rogue was okay, but it was similar to Black Flag and not as interesting with not a very likeable protagonist, so I ended up rushing through the storyline. Unity has a fresh new approach to combat and mechanics, and some of them are improved versions of new ones Rogue came up with, so it works well to talk about them here. 

Urban Settings

Unity is the first Assassin's Creed game I've played that basically (with little exception) takes place in one city. Unlike Edward Kenway and Shay, who sail all over the Caribbean and the North Atlantic seas, Arno spends his time running around the gigantic city of Paris. I guess this isn't really a mechanic adaptable to D&D, per se, but it did help me fathom the scope of how big cities like Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate can be. There are people in every street, doing everything from carrying things in the marketplace to conversing in small groups, from rioting against the government to dancing with their friends. In an urban setting (or at least in a dense one), it should be easy to fade into a crowd or run down an alleyway out of sight of the guards, and only truly noteworthy acts of violence or crime (or levels of fame or conspicuousness) could spark a manhunt. I might be a little easier on my players for the choices they make, depending on the population of the area they're in at the time. What they do in one district of a metropolis probably wouldn't even be known in the next district over.

Lockpicks!

This is such a simple concept that's common in other games as well, so I don't know why I never thought about it before. Instead of "a set of thieves' tools"—or rather, in addition to it since you can use those for things like disabling traps—I think players should have to purchase lockpicks in order to open locks. Picking locks has always been one of the most common ability checks that has kind of a stupid failure result: the ability to just try it again. Sure, you can say "you fail to pick the lock, and further attempts will take longer," but time is rarely an issue in games like this. I've also in the past just said "You jam the lock and it can no longer be picked," but then they just try breaking it with a Strength check, and if that fails, they damage it with their weapons or something.

I think it'd be much simpler to just require lockpicks, and if you fail, snap. The lockpick breaks and you lose it. I think charging something like 5 gp per lockpick, only purchasable from shady folks who know Thieves' cant, is reasonable; and carrying more than, say, 5 or 10 of them at once makes it so that creatures with a passive Perception of 12 notice that you're packing them and are more likely to view you as an untrustworthy crook. I still might raise the DC of the lock each time you fail as well, so that you might just need to end up taking the lockbox home and disassembling it in a workshop over the course of a few hours, but I think this offers a great miniature gold sink for criminals and a way to measure success with locks much more easily.

Satisfying Chases

I've been a player in a chase done by the rules in the 5e Dungeon Master's Guide only once, and it was not a fun experience. I don't like how the rules basically just force you to Dash over and over until you stop from exhaustion, or make Stealth checks in a nebulous environment to escape. The chases in the Assassin's Creed games, and especially Unity, are exciting events that always end up either super satisfying as you tackle your quarry, or heart-poundingly intense as you try to find a corner to round and get out of sight of your pursuers until they give up the search.

There's got to be a better way to do this in 5e. I tried to throw a basic one together myself, but it was too messy, and I need to actually do some in-depth testing of it to find out what's actually fun to do, so I'll have to make a separate post about this later when I figure it out. Some ideas I have for it, though, are:

• Speed modifiers, such as a +1 bonus for every 10 feet above 30 feet a creature can move
• Creatures who can Dash as a bonus action, such as rogues and monks, should be rewarded for this ability, not ignored like they are in the DMG chase rules
• Maybe contested Athletics checks each turn, under the assumption that everyone is Dashing already?
• Automatic levels of exhaustion when 1 + their Constitution modifier is used up?
• Maybe a limited number of rounds, with a result determined by the number of successes on both sides, or a tiebreaker?

Strongholds Done Right

In Unity, the assassins use a café called the Café Théâtre as a front for their guild. Based on just how I felt as a player in renovating this café, using it as a base of operations, and investing money in it, I think I've finally figured out how to make strongholds a worthwhile investment and a good resource in D&D games. Here are some principles that I think apply:

• Strongholds should level up. Like characters looking forward to the next ability they get when they get a few more experience points, a stronghold should have a list of preset perks set up that the players can look forward to unlocking with gold pieces. Characters in 5e tend to get more gold than they know what to do with, so why not have a living, evolving stronghold that "levels up" the more you invest in it? Depending on what the stronghold is, whether that be a ship like the Jackdaw or the homestead in Assassin's Creed III, the perks could vary, and there could certainly be lots of options for branching outward that the players could choose together. I also like the idea of a stronghold's lifestyle cost getting bumped up one level each time it upgrades, making it more costly to maintain to match the growing wealth of the adventurers and their growing reputation.
• Strongholds should give concrete perks and adventure hooks. One of the main benefits of the Café Théâtre in Unity is that it's a source of constant income. The more cafés in Paris you renovate, the higher this income cap is, and you make money just as time goes by. These renovations also unlock new areas to "fast travel" to, as well as new NPCs that offer quest hooks. I love the idea of a stronghold that, when properly outfitted, makes things like finding costly spell components easier, offers a once-per-visit benefit similar to a spell charm, offers discounts on supplies like healing potions; or grants the favor of NPCs who can offer useful information, lend you magic items, or bust you out of jail if you find yourself in trouble. And of course, there should be new options for side quests to gain even better perks that you wouldn't have been able to access otherwise.
• Strongholds should be aside from the main adventure. Though expanding on the Café Théâtre helped me out in the game financially and made gameplay more convenient, ultimately it was not necessary to win the game, and it wasn't even attached to the main quest line. I think what this translates to best in D&D is downtime and side quests. Each expansion of the stronghold could unlock a new type of downtime activity, or make a type of downtime activity much easier to accomplish; for example, a library could be constructed that offers research opportunities, or a lounge where wealthy NPCs can come to offer useful information or make deals. And speaking of deals, just like on Unity, a stronghold could double as a business for the players, rewarding them with a steady flow of income aside from their adventuring, or additional costs they have to make up.

Ultimately, a stronghold should feel like it belongs to the players, that it depends on them, and that they can get more the more they put into it. They should feel excited and satisfied to drop 25,000 gp on a new expansion for the stronghold that will make their adventuring easier afterward, after having scrimped and saved to earn that amount. It will make them more motivated to seek out treasure and lucrative quests, and more invested in the stronghold should enemies threaten it, or should they find out that a hidden traitor lives among its staff. The possibilities for perks and expansions for a stronghold are endless, and I can't wait to try this out in a future game.