D&D General Fatigue and Non-Lethal Damage

[Xeviat]

Back in 3E, many conditions had progressions. Fatigue > Exhausted, Shaken > Frightened > Terrified, etc. I love the new Exhaustion rules, as scaling penalties are easy to apply.

But exhaustion only recovering 1 on a long rest makes it had to use. So, I started thinking about making a lesser form of exhaustion, which brings us back to Fatigue.

Fatigue is a mechanic that can be utilized for exploration activities. Fatigue applies the same penalties as exhaustion, but it recovers faster. Characters have a Fatigue track, 6 blank squares. When you suffer a point of Fatigue, you slash out a square. When you suffer Exhaustion, you X out a square. If you are at 6 fatigue and suffer another point of fatigue, turn one Slash into an X.

Fatigue recovers 1 per short rest, or fully on a long rest; exhaustion recovers 1 per long rest.

Things that will give fatigue are things like running for multiple rounds, forced marches, and incliment weather.

At the same time, I've been thinking that non-lethal damage could use a comeback. Non-lethal damage is tracked separately from HP, but if your non-lethal damage equals or exceeds your total HP you become fatigued and further non-lethal damage becomes lethal.

Nonlethal damage heals fully on a short rest. It also heals 1 for 1 when you receive HP healing.

Adding rules like this could allow for more robust exploration mechanics.

 

[Dan Dillon]

You can leverage Exhaustion levels in the same way. As an example, 2024 suffocation gives you mounting Exhaustion that all clears when you can breathe again (assuming you don't die first).

You can easily do effects that cause Exhaustion that ends on Short Rest or after some time instead of 1/Long Rest.

 

[Xeviat]

You can leverage Exhaustion levels in the same way. As an example, 2024 suffocation gives you mounting Exhaustion that all clears when you can breathe again (assuming you don't die first).

You can easily do effects that cause Exhaustion that ends on Short Rest or after some time instead of 1/Long Rest.

Yeah, I noticed that about suffocation. But calling it something different would make it more consistent and then it could be used more frequently.