Level Up (A5E) What are we doing with fatigue and strife?

[Stalker0]

That's one part of the section. There's a line before and a line after that which put it into context:

"Sometimes during an encounter, a creature will gain an injury representing a serious wound. This is represented by fatigue."
"During the heat of battle it is easy to fight on without realizing the extent of your injuries."

Not the extent of your Tiredness. Not the extent of your Fatigue. The Injuries that are only being -represented- as Fatigue.

Taken in context, especially since there are 6 levels of Fatigue before Doomed on the standard track and only 4 levels of fatigue before Doomed on the Suffering track, it only applies to Suffering Fatigue. Not general fatigue, but fatigue -caused- by Suffering.

Putting on my old 3.5 rules lawyer glasses, that seems an exceptionally strong reading of the flavor text. For example, there is nothing in the sprint section that doesn't say its an injury...maybe I pulled a hamstring or something.

The mechanics as written right now are pretty darn clear. There is no "injury fatigue, social fatigue, tired fatigued, etc etc" there is fatigue. Fatigue gained during combat does not affect you during that combat. That's it....there is nothing else. The ONLY thing that makes sprint special is that its fatigue ends more quickly, and that is specifically noted. You cannot push that phrasing to mean any more than what it says it means....it does not create some special category for sprint that makes it immune to all the other rules of fatigue.

And just for one more log on the fire....if we do want to go down the flavor text debate you noted at the beginning....than does it really make sense that I can ignore the effects of a heinous injury, an injury bad enough that it requires 5th level healing magic to undo, but I can't ignore the effect of getting a bit winded after a 6 second run?

 

[Steampunkette]

Putting on my old 3.5 rules lawyer glasses, that seems an exceptionally strong reading of the flavor text. For example, there is nothing in the sprint section that doesn't say its an injury...maybe I pulled a hamstring or something.

The mechanics as written right now are pretty darn clear. There is no "injury fatigue, social fatigue, tired fatigued, etc etc" there is fatigue. Fatigue gained during combat does not affect you during that combat. That's it....there is nothing else. The ONLY thing that makes sprint special is that its fatigue ends more quickly, and that is specifically noted. You cannot push that phrasing to mean any more than what it says it means....it does not create some special category for sprint that makes it immune to all the other rules of fatigue.

And just for one more log on the fire....if we do want to go down the flavor text debate you noted at the beginning....than does it really make sense that I can ignore the effects of a heinous injury, an injury bad enough that it requires 5th level healing magic to undo, but I can't ignore the effect of getting a bit winded after a 6 second run?

There are 7 levels of Fatigue that Morrus presented in OP of this thread. with the last level being Doomed. But only 5 levels with the last being Doomed in this segment of the Combat Chapter.

Which one is the "Real" one, if there's only one kind of fatigue with the same end point? Is it 5 or 7?

Why does it say "Serious Injury REPRESENTED by Fatigue" rather than "Serious Injury gives you a level of Fatigue"?

Why does it specify that you can ignore -injury- during the heat of battle?

What you call Flavor I call Context.

 

[dave2008]

There are 7 levels of Fatigue that Morrus presented in OP of this thread. with the last level being Doomed. But only 5 levels with the last being Doomed in this segment of the Combat Chapter.

Which one is the "Real" one, if there's only one kind of fatigue with the same end point? Is it 5 or 7?

Why does it say "Serious Injury REPRESENTED by Fatigue" rather than "Serious Injury gives you a level of Fatigue"?

Why does it specify that you can ignore -injury- during the heat of battle?

What you call Flavor I call Context.

Just keep in mind these are not finalized rules. It is possible there will only be one fatigue list when it is all said and done. That would be my expectation at least. I find it highly unlikely the LevelUp team plans to have to different fatigue tracks in the final game. But I could be wrong.

 

[dave2008]

D&D Beyond is a moneysink capitalizing on 5e's neutered OGL by rendering the game actively difficult to play on other VTTs. From the Licensing article that went up it sounds like LU is going to have a more open OGL, at least I severely hope it is. Only having to buy LU content once and, say, a Foundry VTT license once, you end up saving money once you're two books in.

How is the 5e OGL neutered? As far as I can tell it is the same OGL as the original.

 

[Steampunkette]

Just keep in mind these are not finalized rules. It is possible there will only be one fatigue list when it is all said and done. That would be my expectation at least. I find it highly unlikely the LevelUp team plans to have to different fatigue tracks in the final game. But I could be wrong.

It's certainly possible. Even likely that there'll only be one track in the end. It's also possible that I'm dead wrong and interpreting flavor as context.

But if Sprinting gives you fatigue and you can only sprint in combat as an action on your turn and it is impossible to sprint yourself to death... And it's impossible because the first rank of Fatigue makes it impossible to Sprint...

Then it looks like not all fatigue mechanics can be ignored in combat. Because otherwise as long as the game is in combat rounds you could sprint yourself to death.

 

[Faolyn]

Then it looks like not all fatigue mechanics can be ignored in combat. Because otherwise as long as the game is in combat rounds you could sprint yourself to death.

Wait. Maybe I'm confused, but to me it seems pretty clear: you're in combat with 0 fatigue, you gain fatigue (from whatever source), you don't suffer the effects of that fatigue until after that combat, because of adrenaline rush. However, if you have 1+ levels of fatigue already when you enter combat, you suffer from those effects during the combat. You can ignore new injuries or tiredness due to adrenaline, but you remain aware of existing ones.

 

[Steampunkette]

Wait. Maybe I'm confused, but to me it seems pretty clear: you're in combat with 0 fatigue, you gain fatigue (from whatever source), you don't suffer the effects of that fatigue until after that combat, because of adrenaline rush. However, if you have 1+ levels of fatigue already when you enter combat, you suffer from those effects during the combat. You can ignore new injuries or tiredness due to adrenaline, but you remain aware of existing ones.

So you enter combat with 0 Fatigue. You sprint and roll a nat 1. You now have a level of Fatigue which means you can't sprint. But since you're in combat, you ignore it. So you keep sprinting. Another nat 1. And another. And another. And another. All the way to "Doomed". You have killed yourself by Sprinting.

Which Morrus has explicitly stated you cannot do.

We're still finalizing the fatigue and strife charts, but not being able to sprint is in there somewhere. Not sure offhand what level it's at. So you'll never be able to run yourself to death.

Therefore Fatigue must be applied in combat for Sprint.

Which means there's another type of Fatigue that you get to ignore 'til combat ends, but not all kinds of Fatigue.

 

[NotAYakk]

So, simplified version:

Fatigue:
When you suffer Fatigue, you gain a 1d4 Fatigue die and lose 5' of movement speed (Fatigue cannot reduce your speed below 5'). Then you immediately roll your Fatigue die; on a 1, you suffer an additional level of Fatigue. Repeat until you don't roll a 1.

While you have a Fatigue die, you subtract it from your saving throws, attack rolls, ability checks. When a creature attacks you, they get to roll the fatigue die as a bonus to their attack roll, and when you impose a saving throw on a foe, they roll your fatigue die as a bonus to their saving throw.

If you suffer Fatigue again, you lose another 5' and the Fatigue die grows in size to 1d6, then 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 and finally 1d20.

If you suffer Fatigue when you have a 1d20 Fatigue die, you fall unconscious.

---

I added in "fatigue can explode" to make calcluating "ok, this fatigue is worth it" a bit more complex. The chance is higher at lower levels of Fatigue, and lower at higher levels. Probably can nix it.

---

A fatigue-delay system:

Adrenaline:
At any time while suffering fatigue you can choose to try to push through your fatigue as either a bonus action, or as a reaction to making a save or being attacked. Make a constitution save with DC 15; on a success, you ignore fatigue until the end of your last turn. Whenever you do this, roll your Fatigue die; if it lands on a 1, you gain an additional level of Fatigue.

Design notes

Spoiler

You can only do this while suffering fatigue; so you have your fatigue die as a malus on it.

The chance for the Fatigue to grow from this decreases with die size. So even with a 1d20 Fatigue, you aren't likely to die, but there is a chance.

It takes 4+6+8+10+12+20=60 rounds, or 6 minutes, of pushing through fatigue on average to KO someone with 1 level of Fatigue.

When you have a 1d20 Fatigue, you are rolling 1d20-1d20+con save mod against DC 15; that is not going to auto-succeed. It does mean that high-con characters can push through being tired better than low-con characters can.

I like the verisimilitude of this, but not the mechanics.

 

[Morrus]

I'd note that playtest materials don't necessarily mesh with each other; sometimes they're playtesting different things to see what works.

 

[Faolyn]

So you enter combat with 0 Fatigue. You sprint and roll a nat 1. You now have a level of Fatigue which means you can't sprint. But since you're in combat, you ignore it. So you keep sprinting. Another nat 1. And another. And another. And another. All the way to "Doomed". You have killed yourself by Sprinting.

Which Morrus has explicitly stated you cannot do.

Therefore Fatigue must be applied in combat for Sprint.

Which means there's another type of Fatigue that you get to ignore 'til combat ends, but not all kinds of Fatigue.

Gotcha. Well, hopefully they'll fix it. Personally, I'd say let people run themselves to death if they want to. It worked for Pheidippides.