combat fatigue

Normally people fighting for a long time get tired, d&d doesnt really represent this very well. How about something fairly easy to keep track of?

At the beginning of a normal combat each character has a number of 'rest points' equal to their con score.

After any given action they either gain or lose some number of points. Lets say each single attack takes 1, each full attack takes 2, moving takes 1, withdrawing takes 2, charging takes 2, a spell takes as many as the spell level, etc.

A move action may be used to rest for a breif time, catching ones breath, and regains 1 rest point. A full round action and doing nothing else may be used to recover 3 points.

Whenever you run out of rest points you get a point of fatigue rating and your rest point pool is refreshed up to half of what it was last time it started going down (round down).

Each fatigue point reduces all die rolls by 1 and they stack with one another.

When you have 3 or more fatigue points you are considered Fatigued until you have less than 3 (if you were already Fatigued then you are exhausted). When you have 6 or more you are considered Exhausted (if you were already exhausted then you are unconscious).

If you ever refresh and your pool stays 0 (ie it was 1 before) then you fall unconscious.

5 ranks in concentration lets you treat yourself as having 1 less fatigue point.
The endurance feat gives you 4 more rest points.

Keep track of each of these with different colored stones and it should be lightning quick and easy. I would say blue stones for rest points and red stones for fatigue points.

Quick, dirty, easy, abstract.. the only fine tuning really needed is how many rest points each action uses up.

Too complex for my taste; how about something along the lines of running? Each round fighting is the same as running?

Here's a simpler mechanic.

At the end of every round, have all combattants take 2 hp of nonlethal damage.

Introduce a 'rest' move action that restores 1 hp of nonlethal damage. So a character can 'rest' twice on their turn, and gain back the 2 hp.

I created a Battle Fatigue system 3 years ago and I've had several DM's report great experiences with it. My Battle Fatigue system only fatigues creatures taking HP Damage, as HP is supposed to represent physical damage, physical strain, mental stress, emotional stress, etc. I also use a Relative Health system in conjunction with my Battle Fatigue system. So the explanation below includes that as well. Basically, the Relative Health system is a color coding system that we use to denote the fighting condition of creature/character tokens. I use Maptools as a VTT for both my tabletop and online gaming groups. Feel free to take it for a spin!


• Battle Fatigue

Damage taken during battle can have serious consequences. We use “Battle Fatigue” to represent the cumulative effects of physical, mental and emotional damage and stress during combat.

76-100% of total HP: Green - Healthy
51-75% of total HP: Yellow - Light Battle Fatigue (-1 STR and -1 DEX)
50% of total HP: Orange - Moderate Battle Fatigue (-2 STR and -2 DEX)
25% of total HP: Red - Heavy Battle Fatigue (-4 STR and -4 DEX)

Battle Fatigue can only be improved/removed by healing, unlike normal Fatigue which wears off after a short time.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I use DM Genie to manage my games, and all of this is scripted automatically, so I don't even have to track this myself. If anyone uses DM Genie to run their games and wants to try this, PM me and I will send you the script and conditions to add Battle Fatigue to your game to work automatically.

I wouldn't go overboard on the fatigue rules.

There has been a few weapon practices I've been to in an attempt to get used to fighting with a shield and maille for LARP where I've been fighting for non stop using kit far heavier than I'm used to (central boss shield so try keeping your arm at full extension for long periods of time and 1/3rd my body weight in steel chain links) for 10 minutes at a go with only short breaks before sparing again. In 3 hours, 2 1/2 was spent fighting. Yes, it is tiring. Yes, I wasn't quite so energetic and had to remove my maille for the last half hour.

However I could fight for 10 minutes without any detrimental effect to my skill with stuff, to put in game terms, I wasn't proficient in. Few minutes breather to rest my shield arm and I could go again.

DnD fights are usually over in less than 3 minutes with characters which are meant to be far fitter, stronger and more skilled than I am. Do you really need fatigue rules for each fight? Lots of book keeping and quite frankly in a typical encounter you aren't going to be going hammer and tongs for several hours.

Keep it quick and abstract for long battles such as becomes fatigued after 10minutes multiplied by (1+fort save) eg a fighter with a fort save of +5 could fight 1 hour before fatigue then 1 more hour before exaustion.

Switchblade - thanks for the real life experiance notes

I have wondered what the actual armor and weapon fatigue limits were. I have read lots of fantasy literature that had realistic training sequences, but timing was always vauge/unreliable.

I am testing a house rule that simulates adrenal shock, based on discussion from RPG.net
"I have never been in a fight, whats it like?" thread.
that has lots of descriptions of real fights from, bar/streetfights, martial arts and modern military.

They tend to agree on tunnel vision, not noticing wounds, or injuries until after the fight.
Including pulling muscles that you didn't think were used, (like in legs) or even brusing or damaging your hands on someone else. The other big component was complete exasution following a life of death struggle. (backed up by medical refrences to effects of adreinal overload)

This is also linked to 4ed teasers and SWSE

Second wind rule: when your character is below half his total HP, he can regain hit points equal to 1/4 of his max hp or equal to his Con score, which is higher. This is usable once per day, as Swift Action. After the encounter anyone who used second wind is fatigued for 3 minutes, due to the adrenal shock. You can also use second wind over 1 minute (with a full round action each round), in which case it does not cause fatigue. PC classes can use second wind, but NPC classes and most monsters cannot.

Click to expand...

Yeah, sounds about right.

I do remember in a night fight when I took an unsafe unpulled blow to the face hard enough to brake the frames on my glasses, crack the lens and take me off my feet. As the adrenaline was flowing I jumped to my feet to carry on and beat my assaliant. Boy did I feel that 5 minutes later though.


Fortunately unsafe idiots like that are fairly rare.