Revamping heat damage rules

[Snapdragyn]

I'm looking at the damage from extreme heat, & I think it needs reworked.

Currently, in 90-110 F weather, each character must make a DC 15 Fort save every hour (& add 1 to the DC per previous hour of exposure). At that DC, your average (commoner) farmer, with 4 hp & a Fort save of 0, is going to be taking subdual damage from heat exposure every single day in the summer in most temperate climes (to say nothing of subtropical & tropical) even if all they're doing is walking across a field (only 1/4 would succeed on the first roll, & after 6 hours the DC would be too high for any average commoner to make). Furthermore, 1/4 of those who do take this nonlethal damage will take enough to be disabled immediately. These numbers give us the great figure of 18.75% (or almost 1/5th) of the typical commoner farm population being disabled from one hour of farmwork in the summer throughout tropical, subtropical, & warm temperate climes. Um... no -- they'd all starve as the crops failed from lack of workers able to do anything.

Having lived in 90+ weather without air conditioning, I can say that it may not be comfortable, but it's not something that's going to knock out the average person (i.e. average health, neither very old nor very young) unless you're engaging in strenous activity -- & it's by no means automatic then (I've never passed out from the heat, but have seen it happen on rare occasion). The rules, however, make no distinction about the level of activity, & IMHO set the DC too high.

Things I'm considering:

-- Lower the DC to 10. Make the check once per day for normal weather, once per exposure for magical effects.

With this, the average commoner only fails on a roll of 1, resulting in nonlethal damage to 5% of the average population per day (& 1/4 of those, or 1.25% of the total, being damaged enough to be disabled). That still seems a bit high to me, but at least it's an improvement.

-- Require the regular DC 15 check after (5 minutes? 1 hour?) of strenuous activity (melee, running, etc.).

This works in something for the reality of heat stress, though it would increase the (possibly still too high) number of commoners taking nonlethal damage from the temperature. I'm not sure how much time to allow before requiring the check, though; maybe start after 5 minutes, then repeat each hour as per current rules?

-- Replace nonlethal damage due to heat with heat fatigue & heat exhaustion.

First failed check = fatigued, with the save switching to 1/hour, DC 10 + number of previous hours of exposure; any strenous activity automatically leads to the next state.
Second failed check = exhausted, with the save switching to the current rules (1/hour, DC 15 + previous hours of exposure); any strenous activity automatically causes 1d4 nonlethal damage per round of such activity.
Recovering from heat fatigue or exhaustion requires one hour of cooling off to progress to the next state up (exhaustion to fatigue, or fatigue to normal).

(The rules for severe heat (110-140 F) require a Fort DC 15 every 10 minutes; I'm not sure that's too bad, actually, since I've only experienced temperatures that high once & it was pretty severe.)

Anyway, I'm not sure whether to go with all three of those rules, just the first & second (with failed checks immediately resulting in nonlethal damage as currently happens), or with the first & third rule only (ignoring the effects of strenuous activity if the initial save is made).

Thoughts? Other suggestions?

 

[RangerWickett]

I use a Wound Point system, so I would have heat exhaustion (up to 110 degrees) just do HP damage. It might wear you out, but it won't kill you. Higher temperatures could do WP damage if you're out of HP.

 

[Plane Sailing]

To my mind the biggest beneficial change to heat (and cold) damage would be to abandon this attachment to degrees farenheit and instead use descriptive terms - something along the lines of freezing/cold/cool/warm/hot/sweltering/searing

The big problem really lies with the fact that commoners are too fragile IMO. A wound/vitality system as RW says is one way of handling it. Another option would be to consider making most commoners higher level - if 1st level represented 14 year olds, 2nd level was 16 year olds, 3rd level was 20 year olds, 4th level was 30 year olds etc then most farm workers can work through the day (albeit with frequent rest breaks to recover the subdual damage from heat).

Cheers

 

[whatisitgoodfor]

1) SKR actually had a post on his website about what level commoners probably get to before they retire. I tend to agree with him about it, as being a subsistence farmer does have some danger to it (there is a small chance that you won't make it from month to month).

IIRC, his stance was that after about a year, they'll hit level two, another year and a half they hit level three, and two to three more years they'll hit level 4. You might want to go to his site to look it up though.

2) I've worked on a farm in southern Mississippi (Summer Heat Index up to around 115 -120). A large portion of the work that gets done is done between 6 am and noon, then from 3 pm to 8pm or so. Very little if any work is done during the hot part of the day, since that's when the actual temperature is around 90-95 degrees F.

If you try to work during those times, there actually is a pretty decent chance that you'll start suffering from Heat Stroke.