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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 8539269" data-attributes="member: 20564">I like your concept for that style of game, but I do have one suggestion with your implementation.Don't reach for Exhaustion, it is the wrong mechanic.  It's an existing and underused track that seems like it would be a good fit, but reflection on the nature of it shows it is the wrong tool for the job, and inflict a long term issue on someone who is likely not at fault. And, it actively encourages a selfishness of play that I find opposite of what I want at my table.Let's address the first part of that. The first level of exhaustion grants disadvantage on all ability/skill checks. Know what doesn't happen a lot during combat? Those checks. Know what the primary way to interact mechanically with every other pillar of the game? Those checks.  That's right, falling in combat means that for the rest of the day, you'd much rather enter into combat - because you haven't taken a penalty to it but you now suck at everything else.Exhaustion lasts all day, to then only remove one level with a long rest. So say you're dropped, the cleric heals you, and bang, you're in a fireball radius and you go down again. Two levels of exhaustion. That means two days of suckage, with today being particularly bad. This leads to wanting to stop the adventuring day immediately and rest, or it leads to a player having a lot less fun for a session or maybe several simply because the cleric healed them when they are down.On to the second part. D&D is a team game. A character going down is rarely their sole fault, it's a team failure. A tank that was too good at their job of blocking all the foes and took too many hits so they go down. Or a tank that wasn't as good and let a foe get to a low AC & HP member of the party. A cleric that prioritized healing one party member over another and it was the wrong choice. Or just bad luck on getting critted or some failed saves. Having some sort of detriment to whack-a-mole healing (which is intentional in 5e) I can see. But having it last all day (or multiple) affecting one player when they may not have had a lot to do with them going down is punitive.Third, front line is a valid and needed niche. Being willing to get hit and be in the fray, even if it's a heavily armored cleric who isn't using melee, is a definite thing in D&D. But, as the ones getting attacked the most they are the ones most likely go down to when luck runs poorly. So you are punishing a player for making a choice to play a character that protects others. The melee battlemaster and the archer battlemaster are just as resilient, but one will be targeted a heck of a lot more.So Exhaustion gives inappropriate penalties, for a punitively long period, to someone who likely doesn't deserve it, and unjustly penalizes a class of characters that protect others.That is why while I quite like your concept of heroic last stand, I would suggest not using Exhaustion as part of the mechanic.</blockquote>

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