D&D 5E Death from Exhaustion

[The Crimson Binome]

So in the case of starvation, you would play that DW would keep you alive, but only for 6 more seconds?

Hence why it would be relatively worthless, yes. It also calls into question when the new level is added, since the per-day starvation rate is really only intended to be used over the course of several days. The book says you can last a number of days equal to three plus your Con bonus before you start starving, and you increment Exhaustion +1 at the end of each day after that, but it doesn't say whether that's at midnight or when you go to sleep or on the same minute that you last finished eating. Death Ward doesn't last 24 hours, so you'd have to try and game the clock in order to make sure it's active at the right time, and that seems like it's beyond the scope of what the starvation rules are intended to reflect.

 

[jaelis]

Sure but the point is there's a significant conceptual difference between "death ward doesn't work for exhaustion" vs "it works but can't negate more that one round of an ongoing effect." A lot of what you said came across as the first, whereas I wouldn't particularly argue against the second as a reasonable DM ruling.

Of course, in the case of starvation or thirst, there's little practical difference. But that's not quite the same thing.

 

[Saeviomagy]

You don't go back by the damage interval, necessarily; you go back by six seconds, because that's the smallest amount of time we can deal with under the resolution of the system.

Conversely the smallest amount of exhaustion we can deal with under the resolution of the system is 1 level. Either way is equally valid.

For that to be comparable to the starvation example, you could figure out how much damage the fire would do to you in a day, and Death Ward would have to un-do all of that damage.

Well, no. The fire mechanic has a time-frame that it operates on: it deals damage at a specific time each round. That's what I'm basing it off of.

Similarly starvation deals damage at a specific time each day.

To more accurately line up with what you're saying, I would have to work out how long that 1d6 fire would take to inflict damage, and have the PC die then, most likely before they even start their next turn.

Only using six levels for Exhaustion, and only applying it once per day, is a book-keeping measure for easy adjudication at the table. The in-game reality which it's attempting to model does not actually have six discrete steps that only increment once per day.

6 second rounds are a book keeping measure for easy adjudication at the table. Lots of things are for easy adjudication at the table. The entire "ridiculously short time to starve to death" thing is just so that a DM doesn't have to do math.

To me, the simplest adjudication at the table for this specific event is to apply each spell and effect as the book says: did you suffer an effect that killed you? Yes? Then the thing that killed you didn't happen. Fast forward to the end of the next day and starvation kicks in again.

Mind you, I'm not sure it matters in the slightest. I've never seen a character come close to starvation, even when playing darksun.

 

[jaelis]

To me, the simplest adjudication at the table for this specific event is to apply each spell and effect as the book says: did you suffer an effect that killed you? Yes? Then the thing that killed you didn't happen. Fast forward to the end of the next day and starvation kicks in again.

To be fair though, it's kind of a DM call whether it was the past 24 hours of starvation that killed you, or just the past round. After all, had you gotten food in the past round, you wouldn't be dead. I'm not sure there's any objective basis for saying "the past 24 hours without food is the thing killed you" vs "the past 6 sec without food is the thing that killed you."

Just from a feels perspective, 24 hours seems too long to me, but 1 round seems too short. If it really came up at my table, I think I'd have the spell give you another hour of life. Same for thirst. Suffocation, 1 round seems good.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

If Death from Exhaustion = Death by SnuSnu, sign me up!

 

[epithet]

...
To me, the simplest adjudication at the table for this specific event is to apply each spell and effect as the book says: did you suffer an effect that killed you? Yes? Then the thing that killed you didn't happen. Fast forward to the end of the next day and starvation kicks in again.
...

That seems like the most elegant and workable approach. It also accommodates the NPC who has been trapped without food for a year, casting death ward on himself every day, and is now completely insane from hunger and exhaustion. The players think they've saved him, but they've just unleashed Hannibal the Cannibal on an unsuspecting world.

 

[epithet]

If Death from Exhaustion = Death by SnuSnu, sign me up!

A slight tweak to the succubus...

 

[Saeviomagy]

To be fair though, it's kind of a DM call whether it was the past 24 hours of starvation that killed you, or just the past round.

So if you're the target of death ward and an ongoing damage spell like witchfire, then do you get restored to 1 hitpoint by the death ward and then immediately drop due to the witchfire?

No, you wait until the next time the witchfire is assessed (ie - the caster's next turn). You don't amortize it at all.

I guess I just don't see value in other readings (including alternate time frames etc) apart from "daily casting of death ward can't save you from starving to death". Is that ever a scenario that's going to happen?

It's such a rare thing that you probably won't tell your players about the ruling, instead assuming it will simply never come up - and if it does happen to come up: which would you rather? The player gets an unexpected side effect and ends up alive for one more day, or the player dies?

 

[jaelis]

So if you're the target of death ward and an ongoing damage spell like witchfire, then do you
a) Get restored to 1 hitpoint by the death ward
b) immediately drop due to the witchfire?

Don't really follow the question, but in any case it's pretty clearly stated how DW works vs a regular damaging effect. The other part is fuzzier because "an effect that would kill it instantaneously without dealing damage" is not perfectly clear. (Heck you could say it doesn't work against starvation at all because starvation doesn't kill you instantaneously.)

I guess I just don't see value in other readings (including alternate time frames etc) apart from "daily casting of death ward can't save you from starving to death". Is that ever a scenario that's going to happen?

Probably not. But if it's not an interesting question why keep discussing it?

 

[Saeviomagy]

Don't really follow the question, but in any case it's pretty clearly stated how DW works vs a regular damaging effect.

Sorry, the a) b) made it unclear. The first bit isn't a pair of alternatives, it's the flow of events.

You don't get restored to a hitpoint and then immediately knocked unconscious by the witchfire because the witchfire has a designated point in time that it takes effect. The flavour is that you're continuously being blasted by it, but the mechanic is on a round by round basis.