B/X House Rule: The Effects of Alcohol & Drugs

There's a player in my bi-weekly game who's character seems obsessed with finding something to drink every time they visit a town or stay in someone's roadside cottage. So I figured it was time I prepared some drinking rules in case his character gets slipped a Mickey and some shit goes down while the character is in their altered state.

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Alcohol

Every time a character consumes an alcoholic beverage there is a chance it will affect them based on their Constitution and the strength of the beverage.

For each alcoholic beverage a character consumes, the Potency Rating of that drink is totaled with all the other drinks that character has consumed to produce their Intoxication Score. A PC can sustain an Intoxication Score equal to their Constitution without being affected. Should they consume in excess of that amount, the difference between the amount consumed and their Constitution determines their Potency Excess which, in turn, determines their State of Intoxication. 

A character’s State of Intoxication affects their performance as outlined by the Intoxication Table below:

Every turn a drunken character remains in a Stupor, they must save vs. poison or pass out for 1d4 hours. Additionally, the result of this roll is modified by their total Potency Excess minus 8 (e.g., a character with a Potency Excess of 10 would suffer a penalty of –2 on the roll).

A character’s Constitution score determines at what rate their Intoxication Score is reduced. The rate of recovery is doubled while the character is sleeping.

If a character awakens from a full-night’s rest after drinking, or has not had a full night's rest since they were drinking, and their Intoxication Score is still greater than 0 (zero), they will remain exhausted until their next full-night’s rest. While exhausted, they suffer a –2 penalty on all “to hit” rolls and saving throws, a +2 penalty to Armor Class, and their movement is halved.

Drugs

Generally, narcotics will have the same effects on a character’s State of Intoxication (as above). However, at the DM’s discretion, these substances may have additional effects on a character’s Morale, Ability Scores, Attack Level, etc. Furthermore, strong stimulants have a 5% chance per use of permanently reducing a character’s Constitution score by 1 point. Mild stimulants are rarely produce this sort of harmful effects.