D&D (2024) How many of you would implement the drop to 0 HP, get 1 level of exhaustion house rule?

[MuhVerisimilitude]

I dislike the whole exhaustion system because it doesn't really punish characters equally. I'm not even objecting to this because it is unbalanced, but because I think it's aesthetically bad. It has an important problem: It doesn't really inhibit spell casting.

A caster can have multiple levels of exhaustion and they can still cast spells like a pro, but any other character will attack with disadvantage.

I think the conclusion we can reach regarding magic in the D&D setting, from studying exhaustion, is that casting spells is actually easier than attacking with a weapon, because there's no way for spells to be hampered by being exhausted. This seems wrong to me.

This is compounded by exhaustion being more likely to accumulate on front liners.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

For me, I don't care about going to 0 or not. I just want to reduce the number of whack-a-mole PCs and the exhaustion mechanic does a good job of that.

I just want them to roleplay that they had a near-death experience, and a level of exhaustion does that. I've only implemented it in my Dragonlance campaign, because I like DL to be a bit gritty - and I gave the fighter a "level zero" exhaustion slot (no penalty) to avoid the "unnecessary punishment of the front line" that has been talked about. It works well.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

With Exhaustion from 5.0? Absolutely not ever.

If 5.5e has changed Exhaustion such that six levels of it aren't literally instant death, then perhaps. A stacking -1 to all rolls sucks, but I would consider it if I felt people were in some way abusing something.

The penalty would need to affect spellcasting more or less equally though. E.g. "apply this penalty to the saving throw DC of your spells and actions" or "make a Concentration check to cast any spell while Exhausted, DC = three times the number of levels of Exhaustion you have. If casting the spell specifically to remove any amount of exhaustion from yourself, you automatically pass this check." So casting while exhausted isn't too hard with a good Con score and only one or two Exhaustion, but get up to four or five and suddenly every spell has a serious risk of fizzling. The "if removing exhaustion" clause is simply to avoid death spiral stuff.

If I were going to do this, I'd probably also give mundane but costly methods of removing exhaustion. E.g. take a double-length "short" rest in a fortified camp and you can remove one level of exhaustion by spending an HD and not gaining any HP from it, or something like that.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Works absolutely fine with the old exhaustion track. I let the players decide on which effect at level 1.
Been using it for 5+ years already, no issue at the table.

Our rest mechanics are also harder than standard but easier than gritty.
And we can burn HD to recharge powers/features. WotC is years behind IMO.

Hmm... I like a lot of that. One of the issues I have with things like exhaustion is that I want it to be something that players are willing to keep adventuring while having, but that they remember. The -1 per (of the playtest) works, but most players start to break after about -2 (some earlier, but they are wimps). Disadvantage on attacks will pretty much stop anyone.

So... how to do it? "Pick your Injury" with a short list of penalties might be just the ticket. The players can pick what they are willing to live with, and I assume will have an eye to what caused them to drop.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I don't plan to, but I might if the rule included a boost to healing - I might re-add a rule I tried once:

When you heal hp, you can also spend Hit Dice. Up to one Hit Die per die rolled for healing, or one Hit Die per 5 hp healed if no dice are rolled.

This makes it possible to actually keep other pc's up with healing spells, something not really possible by RAW with the 2014 rules.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This seems a bit backwards IMO...

You find "Disadvantage on INT, WIS, CHA ability checks." more onerous than "Speed reduced to half", "Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws", etc?

Seems more like you're front loading some of the more onerous penalties...

Yep. Because it means you can't do jack-shite during all the parts of the game that aren't combat. The normal first level of Exhaustion is disadvantage on ability checks. And of the three pillars of the game, how many of them RELY on nothing but ability checks to do anything? TWO of them-- Exploration and Social Interaction. So 66% of the game your character is pretty much F-ed at Level 1 of the Exhaustion table. That SUCKS.

And this is why everyone HATED the Berserker Barbarian Frenzy ability that caused a level of Exhaustion when it ended... because people very quickly realized that their Barbarian character might as well just stick a thumb up their butt for the rest of the game until another combat started because they couldn't do anything. The other two pillars were pointless for them all because they used one of their signature abilities.

Now sure... if your personal game is just combat after combat after combat... disadvantage on non-combat ability checks would not be much of a problem. But in my opinion that is the rare table that doesn't play D&D with a large swathe of exploration and social interaction. So for my money... if you gain Exhaustion due to getting your butt handed to you in combat... then it is your combat abilities that should first take the hit. You takes penalties to that which caused the penalties in the first place.

Seeing as how three of the Exhaustion levels are combat related-- half speed, half hit points, disadvantage on attacks and saves-- and only one is non-combat related-- disadvantage on ability checks-- the more onerous one to me is the one that can get destroyed with only single level of Exhaustion, AND which covers more of the pillars of the game.

At least that's my feeling on the matter. If someone disagrees... that's fine. They can use the original Exhaustion chart if they want.

 

[Maxperson]

Hmm... I like a lot of that. One of the issues I have with things like exhaustion is that I want it to be something that players are willing to keep adventuring while having, but that they remember. The -1 per (of the playtest) works, but most players start to break after about -2 (some earlier, but they are wimps). Disadvantage on attacks will pretty much stop anyone.

So... how to do it? "Pick your Injury" with a short list of penalties might be just the ticket. The players can pick what they are willing to live with, and I assume will have an eye to what caused them to drop.

If they are exhausted to the point where they are getting disadvantage on attack rolls, that SHOULD stop anyone. They are literally exhausted halfway to death. Think of the guy in a movie or TV show that is so tired that he can barely stand and is flailing wildly to hit what he is swinging at. That's level 3 of exhaustion.

 

[Horwath]

+1 exhaustion level when you drop to 0 HP
+1 exhaustion level when you fail a death save

those levels are removed if healed to 50% of max HP.
these percentages might be tinkered on how much gritty you want to get,
maybe 25% for heroic game, or 100% HP for gritty, or 100% and a short rest.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Technically the (2014) game has a mechanic for temporary exhaustion, meaning exhaustion that goes away after a short rest. However, nobody knows about it because it is only implemented in the seldom used Chase rules in the DMG.

I think the concept of temporary exhaustion adds a useful tool to the game, and allows for distinguishing between fatigue and long term debilitation. I wouldn't be surprised if it was originally intended to be used more wildly (Berserker Frenzy maybe?), but at some late stage in design was removed and only left as a remnant in the Chase rules.

I bring it up because (other than just wanting to make that little known rule better known) it can potentially be used as a penalty for dropping to zero hp that can affect battles and pacing without the harsh penalty of long-term debilitation.

 

[Yaarel]

It seems like exhaustion is the -1 to all rolls per level of exhaustion that it was in UA at some point. And I know some people here have certainly thought of having such a house rule, if exhaustion was stacking -1's.

When the 2024 Exhaustion rules are official, I will happily implement it for reaching 0 hp.

Moreover, if failing one or more death saves, there will be some kind of permanent scar (players choice) relating to the damage type.

Only a spell of slot 6 or higher (Heal, Regenerate, True Resurrection, Wish) can truly remove such a scar.


Soon, whenever a character reaches zero, I will start having the player roll all three death saves at once, to determine the seriousness of the injury − and especially to describe it narratively. Then the players can roleplay how to respond to such an injury. It may be, the character will die within about twenty seconds if the wound remains unattended.