D&D 5E Why my friends hate talking to me about 5e.

[DEFCON 1]

I agree, but if you can gain exhaustion in combat, I'm not sure I like halving speed at the start of the track either. It makes fleeing nigh impossible.

For some tables, sure. Probably depends on how the other players play it.

But any time my players bring it up... I remind them that they are a team, and sometimes you need to take one for the team. If the tank up front has reached 0 HP and needs to retreat to get back to the healer (because in my particular house ruled system for all of this, you don't fall Unconscious at 0 HP, you are only Incapacitated and thus can still move)... someone else's PC should move up to engage the monster that the tank is on so that way the monster won't follow after the tank if he retreats.

Of course... that requires my players to actually get some guts, which oftentimes is in short supply. I am constantly amazed at how often a player chooses to play a ranged warrior-- like a DEX Fighter or Ranger-- but then thinks because they are using a bow and arrow most of the time their character is now a glass cannon. "I fight at range! I can't take a hit!" And I'm like "Dude! You have a d10 for hit dice! Just as much as the tank! And your AC is only a point or two less! Get some guts and rush up and get into melee for once and save your fricking tank!"

 

[CleverNickName]

I tried that whittling away, but it was more like wrestling, it was exhausting. I gave up on it, and we moved to an earlier edition.

There's a lot of gold in those earlier editions. I still play the occasional game of Red-Box Basic with my buddies back home over Roll20, and it is so refreshing. It's nice to be reminded every now and then how much simpler the game used to be, while still being just as fun.

 

[Gadget]

The option is not as cut and dried as the OP makes it out. Sure, this particular option from social media may not be the best, but I've seen multiple experienced gamers implement a similar House Rule with Exhaustion, with varying levels of success. Here are a few issues:

1. In combat healing in 5e is, by design, supposed to be so-so and not really keep up with incoming damage; this prevents the perceived need for the healing and the ever popular refrain of "Whose going to play the cleric?" at the beginning of the campaign. This is somewhat mitigated by very robust default out of combat healing in 5e. Unfortunately, it leads to the yo-yo healing effect in 5e, where the relatively meager in combat healing is best applied after a subject has dropped to 0 hp to maximize healing affect.
2. The Exhaustion system can be a good way to incentivize players to not drop to 0 hp; but it is unfortunately somewhat half-baked, as pointed out up thread. Unlike 5e's rather robust and forgiving out of combat healing/recovery, it is long lasting, debilitating and hard to recover from. This is probably why the devs have made little use of it in 5e. I think a few tweaks to exhaustion can help mitigate this, as I've always found it strange that it is easier to recover from death (via Revivify at 3rd level) than Exhaustion (Greater Restoration at 5th level). A nice solution would be to have Lesser Restoration recover a level of Exhaustion, with the Greater version removing two levels (or more). Perhaps a long rest could restore more as well, depending on how gritty a game one wants.
3. As to the six to eight encounter pattern being disrupted, hasn't the D&D community argued about the validity of that pattern for years now? With the whole short rest vs long rest class balance debate, I think it is safe to say that many groups (though certainly not all) do not follow that pattern at all, outside of maybe running Tomb of Horrors or some such.

So that said, it is not beyond the pale to make us the the Exhaustion system in a similar way, with the caveat that it could: a) unduly punish front line fighters, who will take the brunt of the damage; and b) cause more of a 5 minute work day, as players will want to stop and do a long rest whenever Exhaustion rears its ugly head. But for groups that have few encounters per day anyway, and spread the damage around more, it could be a very viable style of play.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It really should be noted that people wanting a grittier combat in D&D, the long slow recovery is a feature not a bug.

 

[nevin]

There's a game called GURPS for that.

 

[James Gasik]

I agree, but if you can gain exhaustion in combat, I'm not sure I like halving speed at the start of the track either. It makes fleeing nigh impossible.

But the disadvantage on the Con checks for the subsequent chase would be better?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But the disadvantage on the Con checks for the subsequent chase would be better?

No, I don't think either of them should be the first. I don't know, this is hard to design.

 

[James Gasik]

The problem is, 5e moved away from "small modifiers". Everything has to be advantage or disadvantage (or a die roll, like Bless or the Bard's Inspiration Dice).

I mean, I guess you could make it -1d4 to Ability Checks, but that still seems like a bigger penalty to me than what you'd really like to have.

The way I see it, if you're annoyed by "yo-yo healing", then players are falling to 0 hit points a lot. Better to examine why that's happening, than to implement a system to make sure they stay down!

 

[Vaalingrade]

The way I see it, if you're annoyed by "yo-yo healing", then players are falling to 0 hit points a lot. Better to examine why that's happening, than to implement a system to make sure they stay down!

Combat healing being not even a band-aid and more like a piece of used Kleenex and a piece of filthy string?

 

[James Gasik]

Combat healing being not even a band-aid and more like a piece of used Kleenex and a piece of filthy string?

Well as so many people told me, "healing in 5e is fine because of Hit Dice".