D&D 5E Impacts of allowing using a HD to reduce Exhaustion during a short rest break?

[sable_twilight]

I think it might be worth creating some kind of substance in your setting - perhaps a valuable herb or spice or reagent of some kind - that can be found in the world that removes exhaustion. Like some kind of goblin snuff or nixie smelling salts or a mushroom that only grows where someone has died. Maybe you can buy it or find it by foraging (see DMG). This way you can control the supply of it and it creates an incentive for the players to engage in exploration or social interaction to get it.

I like this idea a lot.

 

[Dragonsbane]

Hard pass. We use exhaustion when you drop below 0 hp, and we do 1/hp lv healing on long rests. Can't say I like this idea.

 

[Li Shenron]

I've been thinking giving levels exhaustion when characters go down to zero hit points. However, the way exhaustion currently plays out, even one level of exhaustion is pretty rough. I am considering increasing the frequency and ways in which characters can gain exhaustion, such as through traps or magical effects.

I think it can be a good idea overall, more frequent exhaustion + faster way to get rid of it.

Exhaustion penalties can be pretty harsh, so using them more can motivate the PCs to stay away from 0hp and generally be less careless, but at the same time they are slow to get rid of and can instead encourage the party to take days off instead of pursuing their quests (which could be good or bad depending on your typical adventures). Your house rule will work towards your goal.

The order of exhaustion effects can be a bit boring, so I would consider randomizing it a bit (except for the last level i.e. dead).

 

[Sword of Spirit]

There is the Berserker's Frenzy issue, but the solution to that could addressed by adding this as a specific class feature or burn a HD or gain a level of exhaustion at the end of frenzy.

If you are house-ruling the Berserker, just eliminate exhaustion from Frenzy entirely. That actually balances the sub-class with Zealot. Otherwise the Zealot is clearly superior.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If it helps at all (for ideas to pull from if anything else)... here are my houserules that I made for my upcoming Theros game that replaces the "three death saves" at 0 HP with the exhaustion table. It includes all the different ways I have changed exhaustion, rests, and exhaustion recovery to make it one complete package. If it is at all useful to you in any way, then that's cool. If not, no biggie.

***

Rests

• A Short Rest is 10 minutes, during which you may spend hit dice to regain hit points and regain features that refresh on a Short Rest.
• A Long Rest is 8 hours of light activity or sleep, after which you regain all of your spent hit dice, regain all features that refresh on a Long Rest, and you lose your level of exhaustion if currently at Level 1 (creatures at any higher exhaustion levels do not lose any.) You do not automatically regain all hit points following a Long Rest. The effects of a Short Rest are included at both the beginning and end of a Long Rest. (I.E. you may spend any remaining hit dice you have at the beginning of the Long Rest to regain hit points, and then may spend any new hit dice you just regained following the Long Rest to regain more hit points.)
• An Extended Rest is 24 hours of uninterrupted bed rest in a safe location and counts as a Short and Long Rest. You regain all hit points, all hit dice, all class features, and may possibly reduce levels of Exhaustion you currently have. At the end of the Extended Rest another character may attempt a WIS (Medicine) check. A successful DC 10 check reduces your Exhaustion level by 1, a DC 20 check by 2 levels, and a DC 30 check by 3 levels.

Dying and Exhaustion

• When a creature reaches 0 hit points, they are Dying. They remain Dying until they are Stabilized.
• A Dying creature has the Incapacitated condition (instead of Unconscious) and at the start of each of their turns make Death saving throws with a DC 10 to succeed. (An Incapacitated creature can’t take actions or reactions but may still move.)
• Every level of Exhaustion a creature has raises the DC by 1.
• Each failed Death saving throw causes one level of Exhaustion.
• Death occurs at Exhaustion Level 6 as per the Exhaustion chart (and not 3 failed Death saving throws as normal.)
• A creature may regain hit points while Dying (via abilities, spells and items as normal), but that does not remove the Incapacitated condition, does not stop the rolling of Death saving throws, and does not adjust or affect their Exhaustion level. They are still considered Dying even though they are no longer at 0 HP.
• To no longer be considered Dying (and thus remove the Incapacitated condition and stop the rolling of Death saving throws) requires the target to be Stabilized.

Stabilizing a Dying Creature

• A Dying creature that makes three successful Death saving throws or rolls a Natural 20 on a Death saving throw automatically Stabilizes.
• Another character adjacent to an Incapacitated character can attempt to Stabilize them by using an Action to make a WIS (Medicine) check with a DC equal to the target’s current Death save DC.
• Stabilizing a creature does not remove any levels of Exhaustion.
• A Stabilized creature has however many hit points they have received (if any) while Dying. A Stabilized creature who was not healed while Dying is still at 0 HP but can act normally.

Combat While Dying or Stabilized

• Any successful attack made on a Dying creature immediately results in one automatic failed Death saving throw.
• Any attack on a Dying creature that has hit points does not cause hit point damage but rather still causes an immediate automatic failed Death saving throw.
• An attack on a Stabilized creature causes hit point damage. If the creature is at 0 HP or the attack drops them back to 0 HP, it immediately ends the Stabilization and they are considered Dying again.
• A creature that begins Dying again has their successful Death saving throws reset to 0. Their Exhaustion level is at whatever it was previously.

Exhaustion Chart

• Level 1: Speed halved.
• Level 2: Max HP halved.
• Level 3: Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws.
• Level 4: Disadvantage on ability checks.
• Level 5: Unconscious.
• Level 6: Death.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

Honestly I wouldn't expect it to break the game. If anything handing out levels of exhaustion so cavalierly will have a far worse impact on the game as a whole as it is currently incredibly hard to remove exhaustion.

Regarding the berserker barbarian. There have been numerous threads to suggest that that subclass does not need the exhaustion mechanic and that removing it actually brings the class more in line with other archetypes. Alternatively making exhaustion levels gained from range be removed from short rest or giving them a save vs the level is a fair alternative.

...class tangent aside, were you to implement a exhaustion on zero hp houserule, I'd consider doing the 2 HD to remove one option, and probably on top of that let them get ALL their hit dice back every long rest. Another rule I'd suggest for everyone to consider: let lesser restoration remove one level of exhaustion and greater restoration remove all levels on a cast. A second and fifth level spell slot is nothing to sneeze at and the game as is is quite punishing with exhaustion.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

As far as exhaustion, its interesting that the DMG Chases rules causes exhaustion that can be removed by a short rest—so the game actually already has precedent for short rest recovery. (I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point in development there were more sources of exhaustion that could be removed by a short rest, and then they decided to make it long rest recovery as a rule, but kept it on Chases because they couldn’t think of any better way to do it. If Frenzy were originally short rest recovery it would explain the oddness.)

 

[Blue]

Random thoughts off the top of my head.

1. More than once people have mathed and shown that the Frenzy barbarian was balanced without exhaustion, so I wouldn't worry about it.

2. Exhaustion is primarily an exploration/travel tool, where a condition that will be fully cured by a long rest is not useful. This will completely take that tool away from you. But that doesn't feature in every campaign, so as long as you are sure you will never take your campaign in that direction you are fine. Yes, I put it in such strong terms because it's well suited for that and removing it for no reason will absolutely restrict your toolbox for running those types of adventures.

3. This is a meaningless house rule unless you plan on giving out exhaustion for more thing. So I'm going to assume that you are planning on actually giving out more exhaustion, adn therefore use up HD in removing it.. How are you offsetting the loss of self-healing, or are you planning on shorter adventure days (with all that messes with the balance between long-rest-recovery and at-will classes)?

 

[sable_twilight]

Random thoughts off the top of my head.

1. More than once people have mathed and shown that the Frenzy barbarian was balanced without exhaustion, so I wouldn't worry about it.

I could see where there might be some sort of need for a cost, since, when combined with Reckless Assault, it's giving an additional attack at advantage without any additional risk. That's two attacks with advantage every round at third level. Still, 1 level of Exhaustion is too harsh.

So, I have two ideas around that:
Limiting Frenzy to a number of times per Long Rest equal to their CON mod (minimum 1). This might be the most in keeping with the style of 5e.

The other would be to have Frenzy use either 1 HD or cause 1 level of exhaustion. This might be in most keeping with theme of the Path of Berserker while presenting another way to cost for abilities.

2. Exhaustion is primarily an exploration/travel tool, where a condition that will be fully cured by a long rest is not useful. This will completely take that tool away from you. But that doesn't feature in every campaign, so as long as you are sure you will never take your campaign in that direction you are fine. Yes, I put it in such strong terms because it's well suited for that and removing it for no reason will absolutely restrict your toolbox for running those types of adventures.

This is something good to consider. Thank you for bringing this up. Especially since there does need to be a robust exploration tool, and one of the concerns I had would be making getting rid of the running out of supplies issue too easy.

I had been thinking of using exhaustion to add a little more teeth to getting hit with a critical or dropping to zero HP without the severity of the DMG or substantially complicating bookkeeping. And to also do do without making the characters completely incompetent till their next Long Rest (or three). But going with the Frenzy route, losing 1HD or graining a level of Exhaustion might actually be a better to route to go. Yes, it is still burning through HD, especially for character most in need of them, which I am glad you bring up next, because I had not thought about that part.

3. This is a meaningless house rule unless you plan on giving out exhaustion for more thing. So I'm going to assume that you are planning on actually giving out more exhaustion, adn therefore use up HD in removing it.. How are you offsetting the loss of self-healing, or are you planning on shorter adventure days (with all that messes with the balance between long-rest-recovery and at-will classes)?

I was thinking of going the other way. Long rests would require a full downtime day (which would act as a standard RAW long rest, restoring class abilities, hit points and hit dice) and require a "safe" location or established camp, but also giving 1 HD and Lv + CON Mod HP (min 0) per night's rest in the rough. The intent is to make it possible to Long Rest in the field with the proper supplies, it's going to slow the party down if they are traveling and open them to more risk if they are camping a site of interest.

You bring up a good point about balancing with the martial classes, since their primary resources are hit dice and hit points. This would be a HD tax for tanking damage, which doesn't seem fair. Maybe an easy CON save (DC 5 or 1/2 damage taken, whichever is higher) to avoid the 0 HD tax, This would still allow the average 1st to 3rd level Barbarian or Fighter to safely take 12 to 14 points of damage in a single hit without concern of they go down.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I could see where there might be some sort of need for a cost, since, when combined with Reckless Assault, it's giving an additional attack at advantage without any additional risk. That's two attacks with advantage every round at third level. Still, 1 level of Exhaustion is too harsh.

The cost is the opportunity cost of not getting the benefits of a different subclass at level 3. There are a lot of great options for barbarians at that level.