Level Up (A5E) DOOMED! and temporary Fatigue reduction

[guachi]

One of the PCs in my current game went from 4 levels of Fatigue to 7 levels very quickly. He dropped to 0 HP (+1 to 5 levels) and then rolled a 1 on his first death save (+1 to 6 levels).

After the fight, the Ranger used her Herbal Bitters to brew some tea to reduce his Fatigue 2 levels to 4. The very next fight he failed his Dexterity save and dropped to 0 again from a lightning bolt. Just bad timing, really.

Is he at 7 death saves and Doomed? Is he at 5? Do they have to keep pumping him full of meth (I mean... tea) every 4 hours until they can get him to a Haven?

Obviously, as the DM I can do whatever I want. But I'm curious how you'd rule in this situation and why.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

herbal bitters says it reduces fatigue, which tells me the fatigue genuinely does reduce for the duration for all intents and purposes. so yeah, i'd rule it as he's at 5 but if they want to keep it that way they need to keep him teamaxxing. very scary place to be!

 

[Jacob Vardy]

Herbal Bitters... Imbibing a serving takes an action and reduces fatigue by one level for 4 hours.

Rules as written says it reduces fatigue. So i'd say not doomed. Although i probably wouldn't allow two shots of meth to reduce two levels of fatigue.

Getting back to a have is a big part of the FUN of a5e. I particular it is what lets the ranger shine. I'd let the ranger player have a moment in the spotlight. Off foraging every fourth hour to nurse the wounded comrade back to a haven. And since ther ranger is busy, the other characters will have to do the foraging, tracking, and not-getting-the-party-lost. Another chance for the ranger to feel appreciated.

 

[lichmaster]

Hmm... the description of herbal bitters says "Imbibing a serving takes an action and reduces fatigue by one level for 4 hours.". So RAW when the effect of the tea wears off, the character should be doomed. However, there's no rule saying that the character can't keep drinking tea to remain at 6 fatigue. Since it takes 1 hour to produce 2 servings, with 3h/day of work the ranger should manage to produce enough tea. Stacking of herbal tea is not contemplated by the rules, so that's up to you.
It seems a reasonable tradeoff though, since maintaining the character at 5 instead of 6 takes twice as much work from the ranger.

Thus the life of one character entirely depends on the rest of the party being able to keep him/her alive (like when Frodo was stabbed by the dagger of the nazgul), which depending on the table can be either exciting or annoying.

 

[guachi]

Thus the life of one character entirely depends on the rest of the party being able to keep him/her alive (like when Frodo was stabbed by the dagger of the nazgul), which depending on the table can be either exciting or annoying.

Luckily for the party they are about done with the adventure (A2 Stockade of the Slavelords that I've modified for 5e) and will have 140 freed slaves in tow. Their speed won't be particularly high. The Ranger will likely use Cover Tracks and that's Slow movement. They'll be taking the shortest possible route back to safety so I think they'll be more pleased that I almost-but-not-quite killed them yet again.

The party also has a Dog companion from Pets & Sidekicks (highly recommended!) that gets played by whoever might be at 0 HP at that moment in a fight.

Otherwise, yes, I think it would be really annoying to essentially be out of commission with nothing to do.

 

[lichmaster]

Luckily for the party they are about done with the adventure (A2 Stockade of the Slavelords that I've modified for 5e)

Out of curiosity, how are you finding old modules played with A5e?
I'm having a very strong impression that many ad&d modules offer a far superior baseline than 5e adventures. Maybe it's nostalgia, but I think there's more to it.

 

[guachi]

I had to modify resting rules so that a Long Rest didn't give everything back in one night but otherwise Level Up works great with older modules. The old modules throw a lot more environmental challenges at the party and all of the odd abilities that Level Up gives PCs can be really useful.

I've never run an old-school tournament module before. I've run some other old modules but nothing like this. A2 is absolutely brutal and unforgiving. The biggest upside is that the module has more than you can possibly do so if the party needs to they can just skip things. Even warning the players (8 newbies who are freshmen in college and a dog NPC) every session about the brutality, it took the cleric dying from 3 straight failed death saves at the beginning of the 2nd dungeon level for the party to realize they were in serious danger of a TPK.

There's a big showdown on level 2 with the evil elf and her posse. We've been playing for one year and I've never seen the players that focused before. Every turn, every roll. It's the best session of D&D I think I've ever been a part of.

It's absolutely not how D&D adventures are designed and run today but I highly recommend abusing your players at least once to see if they can rise to the challenge. If my phone-addicted (I confiscated their cell phones for the most recent session. No one complained.) Gen Z party of newbies can do it then your party can, too.

 

[Morrus]

Once you're Doomed, you can't become unDoomed--especially by simply drinking a herbal bitter. Doomed is a one-way street: you're gonna die. It's a toggle, once toggled on, can't be toggled off. Think of it this way: you're dead. The system is just giving you a bit of time to do some stuff first.

(There are a couple of high-level ways to become unDoomed, but recovering fatigue isn't one of them).