D&D 5E Each 5E Condition Should Do Something Different

[ren1999]

Each condition should do something different but just one or two things.

For example,

If you are Stunned, you loose one standard action round in order to ready your weapons again.

Dazed Intelligence-3 Skills-3

Fatigued/Exhausted Constitution-3

If you are Blinded, you suffer Dexterity-3.

Deafened Initiative-3.

If you are Sleeping, you lose all actions until slapped or hit.

If you are Grappled/Restrained, you suffer Attack-3.

Weakened, Strength-3.

Helpless/Unconscious take maximum damage per hit

Slowed Speed 3 or 0

Flanked AC-3 Reflex(Save)-3

Prone AC-3 Reflex+3

Any other ideas?

 

[YRUSirius]

I'm not sure if I like conditions giving ability penalties. Ad-hoc math and all that.

-YRUSirius

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I would prefer that a condition be a little more "believable" which means several details attached to a specific condition. To compensate for this in terms of playability, I would want to limit the occurrence of such conditions where possible. I would do this by separating defensive resolution into three fields (success/failure/critical faillure) rather than two (success/failure).

So for example, if a character was the victim of a blinding attack, they could either: a) successfully avoid the attack suffering zero penalties, b) fail to completely avoid and thus be momentarily visually hampered using hit point loss to represent a dent in their combat capacity (with the possible loss of a further immediate resource such as a "hero/combat" point or a minor action if appropriate), and c) Critical Failure representing full blinding and incurring all the nasty ongoing (rather than immediate) penalties and repercussions implicit in being blind in and possibly out of combat. Such a condition will be ongoing for a duration of at least that encounter (although if healed/alleviated in some way, this could make the condition go away).

The key here is that most of the time, you cop an immediate loss of something (such as hit points, an action, a "bennie" or "hero/combat" point) rather than suffer an ongoing condition. Leave the run of the mill combat incidents to an immediate but finite loss of resources so that the bigger rarer combat incidents can attract an ongoing (and thus needing to be tracked) set of believable penalties and restrictions.

Not everyone's cup of tea I know but I would much prefer that to an intrusive table of ongoing minor trackable adjustments.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[trancejeremy]

I would prefer not to have to constantly refer to a chart for something like this.

If conditions are used, they should be obvious and non-mechanical. I don't want to worry about little details, like small bonuses or something. It should just be for something major.

Like have you been turned into a statue? Are you poisoned? Stunned? Deaf? Blind?

While you could simply give a to hit penalty when they are blind, I think that probably isn't very realistic. In reality, you'd just be taking wild swings at where you think the opponent is, and likely be almost helpless