Level Up (A5E) Does Fatigue only hit you after combat?

[Tessarael]

LUA5E page 449 states, "The effects of fatigue gained during combat are only felt after the encounter in which they were inflicted has ended. During the heat of battle it is easy to fight on without realizing the extent of your injuries."

Confusingly, there are other rules contrary to this, such as:

• Perfect Fist on page 119 can cause a level of fatigue to a creature, but when would you do that in combat, if the fatigue only applies outside of combat.
• Critical Failure on page 416, "You suffer 2 levels of fatigue. After 1 round, one of these levels of fatigue is removed, and the other is gone after 1 hour." The first level of fatigue seems a bit moot if it only applies outside of combat, given you can wait a round for it to go.
• Gut Strike on page 486, "When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can use your reaction to give the target one level of fatigue for 1 minute. On a critical hit, the target gains two levels of fatigue instead." This wouldn't make sense if the fatigue doesn't apply until after combat, as a minute will soon be up after that.
• Beshala's Wild Irresistible Dance on page 563 causes a level of fatigue when the spell ends.

I suspect that the suffering fatigue rule on LUA5E page 449 is intended to be specific to falling unconscious, or blocking a critical by taking a level of fatigue.

Thoughts?

 

[lichmaster]

Thoughts?

Fatigue lasting a specific amount of time does indeed seem moot if the bolded part is applicable, esp the one lasting for 1 round only. This seems a major oversight to me.

Longer lasting ones may be ok since one may find himself doomed even after surviving a fight, but what happens if one is doomed only for less than 1 minute? The doomed condition is supposed to kill the character at a moment decided by the GM, or within 2d12 hours, and persists even after character death.

Fatigue without a specific duration instead makes sense to me, as it can severely hinder the character after the fight is done as it normally cannot be recovered without resting in a haven. Simple encounters causing fatigue can indeed become quite the problem on the way to the BBEG.

IMO the best way out of this apparent mootness of temporary fatigue inducing effects (before official clarifications hopefully arrive) is to consider them immediately applicable during fight, while fatigue induced without a specific duration only kicks in after the fight.

Edit: the other option of course is to completely ignore the bolded part at pag 449

 

[Tessarael]

Having fatigue only hit after combat from avoiding a critical or being brought from unconscious is a good thing, in that it can avoid a fatigue death spiral in combat from being repeatedly taken down to 0 HP and healed.

I'm fine with fatigue only accumulating outside of combat, so your adrenaline pushes you through during combat. But that does mean that spells and attacks causing fatigue should do so for more than a minute, or simply not cause fatigue at all:

• For Perfect Fist that works okay, though you would rarely bother fatiguing an opponent.
• Critical Failure would just give one level of fatigue for an hour.
• The Gut Strike maneuver would be ruled out, as 1 minute fatigue is too short.
• And the fatigue from Beshala's Wild Irresistible Dance is fine as longer duration.

In our A5E session, the issue came up regarding Sickening Radiance from 5E D&D. I'd be fine if that spell didn't cause any fatigue, as it is still a decent spell to cast. And the fatigue ends when the spell ends, hence it wouldn't cause fatigue by the above ruling.

 

[Distracted DM]

RAW yes fatigue only takes effect after combat, and there are features spells etc that would seem to be pointless with that rule in place like the ones you list. The same questions have been asked on the Discord server- we don't have official answers, so rule it as makes sense to you... I'd say that things like Gut Strike take effect during combat, yes.