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

[Distracted DM]

Not in my experience. And I play fighters and rogues more than any other class. When I'm not DMing. Which I do at a rate of ~3 games a week. Front liners spend less time at full HP, maybe.

What makes you think that they drop more often?


That's silly. It's the same thing as an attack roll with the math backwards.

Yeah the fighters and barbarians in my games basically don't go down first unless something is built specifically to neutralize them. It's the squishies that are more likely to get... Well, squished.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

It's the squishies that are more likely to get... Well, squished.

Casters are far more durable than martials in 5e if they are optimized properly. Lower HP but higher AC and all sorts of reactions to reduce/avoid damage (shield, absorb elements, silvery barbs, counterspell, etc)

 

[Distracted DM]

Casters are far more durable than martials in 5e if they are optimized properly. Lower HP but higher AC and all sorts of reactions to reduce/avoid damage (shield, absorb elements, silvery barbs, counterspell, etc)

Yeah, the really cheesy multiclass-dip combo casters are usually more resilient than the martials. I have one of those players. Level 1 artificer, level 16 chronology wizard in the last campaign.

But most of the others play straight classes without that kind of optimization- and I don't use a lot of the post-Xanathars or setting-specific books like Ravnica for Silvery Barbs etc. in my current campaigns.

I only have one shameless optimize-builder in a dozen players, so squishies are usually squishy.

 

[Li Shenron]

No thanks. I'm hoping the improvements to healing will fix the not very much of a problem of 'pop-up healing' and would never use an intentional death spiral mechanic anyway.

As a note, it is a death spiral only if the PCs stubbornly insist on continuing with combats after combats.

It is more supposed to be a deterrent: first, always play you best in combat because you might get a lingering penalty for failure; second, once you have a lingering penalty consider non-combat solutions to your problem.

But then yeah I agree that cumulative -1s look a lot like a slow degradation of capabilities, which doesn't make it clear when maybe it's really time to take a break.

 

[Li Shenron]

I mean, the answer there is to not give injuries that only affect one type of character. So, something like...

• Broken arm. Cannot be used for any purpose, including holding a weapon, shield, or spellcasting focus, or pulling out material components. You automatically fail any ability check or saving throw that would require the use of both arms, and take a -5 penalty to any saving throw to catch onto a ledge when pushed off.
• Broken leg. Your normal speed is set to 10 feet, unless something else would cause it to be lower, you must use all of your speed to stand up from prone, and you automatically fail any ability check or saving throw related to balance or forced movement.
• Skull fracture. You have a -3 penalty to your attack rolls, saving throws, saving throw DCs, and AC, and when you roll damage, roll twice and take the lower result.
• Gut wound. While you are in combat with an untreated gut wound, you must make a Constitution saving throw each time you take an Action, Bonus Action, Reaction, or begin to move (only the first time you choose to move during your turn). The DC of this save is 10 plus twice the number of times you have made this save during the current round. If you fail this save, you take 2d6 damage, or half as much on a successful save. Other than a successful save, this damage cannot be reduced in any way, not even by resistance or immunity.
• Punctured lung. You cannot speak and your speed is halved. Further, you must choose whether you move, take an Action, or take a Bonus Action--you can only do one of these things until the punctured lung is healed.
• Severe concussion. You are permanently blind and deaf until the injury is healed, and you have disadvantage on all attack rolls and ability checks. If your spells cause any targets to make saving throws, those targets have advantage on such saves.

Naturally, some folks will take some injuries more easily than others. A Con 24 Barbarian 20 who took Tough (and thus has a +13 Con save and ~325 HP) is going to shrug off Gut Wound--but one would expect that a 20th level Barbarian could take a wound to the gut and hardly even notice. For a more typical character, though, that's rough--spellcasters can lose concentration, and the checks keep coming. You're on a death clock unless you get that injury healed. Broken arm is kinda-sorta tolerable for Dueling characters that (for some reason) aren't using a shield...but still sucks. That's probably the only one that needs beefing up though. Maybe force a saving throw at the start of each turn or be incapacitated (can't take actions nor reactions) from the pain? I'm sure there's something that can be done.

Of course, personally I think all of this is...well, it just sounds like exactly the opposite of a fun time. "Here's all the ways the game WILL torture you, HAVE FUN!!!!" I just...I really don't get the point of having all sorts of horrible debilitating injuries that make risk-of-death so much more damaging, because death is a breath away in 5e even when you're getting on in levels. But if you're going to design a subsystem, it should be worthy of existing. For this, that means making penalties where ALL of them are bad options for nearly everyone and you're just trying to not suffer too badly before it can get healed.

I think yours are very good examples, attaching a narrative description can help a lot. It probably sounds a lot like a wound system, so it may not exactly fit with exhaustion levels when they are supposed to represent simply getting tired, but if we want to use exhaustion levels when dropping to 0hp (the premise of this thread) then your descriptions would work very well. In fact, I think you could also attach some of your narrative description to the PHB standard 5e exhaustion levels if using them at 0hp, no need to create new effects (even though they are nice).

As I wrote in my previous post, a wound system works well as a deterrent, or more clearly it should be used sparingly. If you have a lot of PCs often dropping to 0hp in your games, a wound system can become really annoying: you don't want to constantly have multiple PCs in the party with attached penalties. And if your PCs drop to 0hp often, that's normally an indication that there are lots of combats in your game, and perhaps the DM is making battles inevitable, so having half the party constantly injured will mess up with the DM's plans themselves.

The ways I see a wound systems working well, is first of all if I use it to replace death. Death is already a deterrent for playing recklessly or lousy. But at the same time death can occur for honest mistakes, players still in their learning phase, DM's incorrect estimations of difficulties, or sheer bad luck, for all of which it makes sense for me not to want to punish a player excessively. So I use lingering penalties or other drawbacks instead of plain death.

But then also, it works well if this ends up being as infrequent as maximum 1 or maybe 2 PCs affected by a lingering penalty at the same time, and not more than one penalty per PC. This certainly doesn't create a death spiral, it only gives a penalty substantial enough for the party to change tactics for a while as a result. Maybe the Wizard can't cast spells effectively for the rest of the day, and the party has to quit thinking of solving things with magic, or maybe the Rogue is slowed down and the party cannot count on scouting... the wounded character generally has to step back from their full-skill role, and the party has to adapt around the lost capabilities. That is not at all the opposite of fun for me.

 

[Vaalingrade]

As a note, it is a death spiral only if the PCs stubbornly insist on continuing with combats after combats.

1) You're getting these while in combat.

2) Okay, so it's a spiral of not engaging in the game now instead. Gotta run away and nap like heroes!

3) If your DM is unleashing the punishment mechanics to 'fix' the healing issue, you're not going to get to choose your battles because they're actively trying to kill you and will also interrupt your rests with more fights after bitterly banning tiny hut to keep you from avoiding such a thing.

It is more supposed to be a deterrent: first, always play you best in combat because you might get a lingering penalty for failure; second, once you have a lingering penalty consider non-combat solutions to your problem.

What about the classes that are only allowed combat solutions? The ones that totally aren't being heavily penalized by this in the first place apparently?

 

[mellored]

Also: Does anyone know that the 2024 exhaustion mechanic does not include save DCs?

I think the only thing we know for sure is that it changed.

Speculation is cumulative -1.

 

[ECMO3]

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.

I don't know about the new exhaustion rule, but I have played with this house rule and the current exhaustion rule.

It really changes the game a lot. Healing Word is no longer as powerful and you can't just keep bringing people back because it will take days to get rid of the exhaustion and after the first level they lose combat power quickly.

Having played with it I am not a fan. I like being able to use Healing to bring people back without being any worse for the wear.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't know about the new exhaustion rule, but I have played with this house rule and the current exhaustion rule.

It really changes the game a lot. Healing Word is no longer as powerful and you can't just keep bringing people back because it will take days to get rid of the exhaustion and after the first level they lose combat power quickly.

Having played with it I am not a fan. I like being able to use Healing to bring people back without being any worse for the wear.

Precisely the problem with the exhaustion mechanic as it currently exists. It's far too punishing to use liberally, but...there's essentially no alternatives. Much like other ideas in 5e, if it were either one option among several or more mild but still annoying, it wouldn't be a problem--a light sprinkling of Exhaustion here and there plus other things at other times would be plenty, or if it were less dramatic, it could stand on its own as the go-to. But because it has to fill both the "really REALLY nasty problem" space AND the "obvious go-to for lingering consequences" space, it's just not particularly good at either role and thus most people don't use it.

As an example of a weaker but still nasty one, imagine if ANY rest, not just a long rest, could remove one level of exhaustion. That would still be rough, especially for characters that get knocked down a lot. But it would be pretty tolerable. Or, alternatively, maybe you can spend some number of HD when you rest to remove levels of exhaustion. Hey, there's an idea. Perhaps you must spend HD equal to the number of levels of exhaustion you have in order to remove one of them. Full bed rest, specifically long rest, in a safe location (aka, not in just any old camping spot) automatically removes one level, then you have to buy off the rest yourself.

Of course, my true preference would be to have at least two alternatives to Exhaustion as a consequence mechanic. I'm fine with it being nasty; I'm not fine with "nasty consequences" being the ONLY consequences. But then again, I feel the same way about things like Ad/Dis (it's a useful tool...but massively overused), Expertise, and other various stuff. The official rules are so overly committed to never ever EVER having a variety of options, they end up shooting themselves in the foot on multiple fronts.

 

[Marandahir]

I'd love a fatigue or morale mechanic implemented in the game, less extreme than exhaustion but along those lines, and along the lines of inspiration.