Level Up (A5E) Taking Fatigue/Strife to act while Stunned?

Distracted DM

Distracted DM
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This came up in the Losing Your Turn thread: How about houseruling disabling conditions like Stunned so that the player can choose to take Fatigue or Strife in exchange for acting? Thoughts?
Should it only affect Stunned? What about Paralyzed? Normally there are a couple ways to end Paralyze (breaking concentration, lesser restoration); Stunned less so, it's usually save or suck.

I was thinking the PC would choose one level of Fatigue or Strife... they're pretty nasty when they stack up so introducing the additional choice of which one would be interesting. Is this too powerful? Should monsters benefit from it as well? You have to take into account the fact that Fatigue RAW doesn't kick in 'til the encounter's over... that's one reason I usually don't reduce Crits with monsters for a level of fatigue, it feels crappy for the player and doesn't really affect the monster at all besides losing their reaction. Breaking a shield, yeah, I'll use that to reduce a crit for a baddie.
So should this Fatigue kick in immediately? I don't believe Strife has any such delaying rule.
 

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maybe they have to roll a d2 to determine if it's fatigue or strife in order to act as if they're slowed for the turn, and fatigue kicks in immediately? stun SHOULD be pretty punishing.
 

This came up in the Losing Your Turn thread: How about houseruling disabling conditions like Stunned so that the player can choose to take Fatigue or Strife in exchange for acting? Thoughts?
Should it only affect Stunned? What about Paralyzed? Normally there are a couple ways to end Paralyze (breaking concentration, lesser restoration); Stunned less so, it's usually save or suck.

I was thinking the PC would choose one level of Fatigue or Strife... they're pretty nasty when they stack up so introducing the additional choice of which one would be interesting. Is this too powerful? Should monsters benefit from it as well? You have to take into account the fact that Fatigue RAW doesn't kick in 'til the encounter's over... that's one reason I usually don't reduce Crits with monsters for a level of fatigue, it feels crappy for the player and doesn't really affect the monster at all besides losing their reaction. Breaking a shield, yeah, I'll use that to reduce a crit for a baddie.
So should this Fatigue kick in immediately? I don't believe Strife has any such delaying rule.
I think whether or not you get fatigue or strife should be up to what specific effect is causing the stun, not the player. Makes more setting sense to me, and you know that's my priority. I'm cool with it not taking effect until after the combat though, because the idea if all that stress coming down on you at once when the adrenaline wears off makes a lot of sense to me too.
 

Honestly... I kinda love it. Though I think, maybe, the best way to do it is to make it ability specific. You're using your highest attribute to overcome the effect.

Physical attributes, Str, Dex, and Con, gain Fatigue. Mental attributes, Int, Wis, and Cha, gain Strife.

That way the penalty is always the harshest for what your character's likely build is, and it better represents HOW you overcome the stun/paralysis/etc.

Add in a rule that you don't get a save against the effect at the end of your turn if you take the exhaustion mechanic, so that you're not able to completely negate the effect, only act against it. Maybe even add in a rule that you can only use this option a number of times per combat equal to your relevant ability modifier, too? That way it's both not a "Get out of Jail Free" card -and- it has limited uses so you have to pick your moment!

Ooo... have it use your reaction on your turn to do? That way it still "Locks you down" between your turns when you're fighting against it?

Could be fun.
 

It kinda makes all conditions the same though—they all end up being taking a level of fatigue or strife. Takes away any flavour or difference between them. At that point it’s a similar effect to simply getting rid of the conditions and replacing them all with fatigue or strife.
 

Y'know... You could, instead, make this a universal Knack. Something you can take with one of your slots to give it an opportunity cost while making it available to everyone.

I bet you could make a GPG article out of a series of "Universal Knacks" that anyone can take.


New Reaction: Struggle

As a reaction to being under an effect that would normally impair your character at the start of your turn, you may choose to struggle. If your highest attribute is Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution you gain a level of Fatigue. If your highest attribute is Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma you gain a level of Strife.

Once you have done so, you are able to act is if you are not under the effects of the Paralyzed or Stunned condition until the end of your turn. If you are under this condition from a spell or effect that grants a saving throw at the end of your turn, you do not make that saving throw.

You may use this reaction a number of times per long rest equal to your highest ability modifier, regaining all uses at the end of a long rest.


Could even make it have slight variations to add class specificity to it. Like Fighters and Barbarians also being able to overcome Frightened, Heralds and Clerics ignoring Poisoned, Bards and Wizards ignoring Charmed... Things like that.
 

It kinda makes all conditions the same though—they all end up being taking a level of fatigue or strife. Takes away any flavour or difference between them. At that point it’s a similar effect to simply getting rid of the conditions and replacing them all with fatigue or strife.
I'm not sure that I take your meaning here, I probably didn't detail it well enough: for example you get mind-blasted by an illithid. I've had PCs have to sit out entire combats because there's nothing to do but hope that you make the saving throw. The idea here is that the player can still, round-to-round, take a hit elsewhere (fatigue, strife, something else) in exchange for being able to act. I intentionally avoided HP because it's already the most-used resource :D

I wasn't proposing "end stun, get fatigue." it's "continue being affected by Stun, but you can choose to act each round while stunned in exchange for some notable hit to your character elsewhere."
 

I'm not sure that I take your meaning here, I probably didn't detail it well enough: for example you get mind-blasted by an illithid. I've had PCs have to sit out entire combats because there's nothing to do but hope that you make the saving throw. The idea here is that the player can still, round-to-round, take a hit elsewhere (fatigue, strife, something else) in exchange for being able to act. I intentionally avoided HP because it's already the most-used resource :D

I wasn't proposing "end stun, get fatigue." it's "continue being affected by Stun, but you can choose to act each round while stunned in exchange for some notable hit to your character elsewhere."
The issue is that if you can always choose to do so, you should almost always choose to do so.

In which case most conditions become "Gain a level of fatigue or strife each turn and ignore the effect"

This is especially true for stuff that requires Concentration on the part of the antagonist. If I use some spell that keeps someone held but requires concentration and you take a level of fatigue to ignore being held and hit me and I lose concentration... the spell I -actually- cast is "Grant 1 level of Fatigue" not "Hold Person"

Similarly, the differences between being Stunned and Paralyzed vanish because you're neither: You're fatigued.

A Paralyzed creature doesn't get auto-critted if they're just walking around the battlefield with a level of fatigue, which makes it no different from being Stunned since you're just walking around the battlefield with a level of fatigue in that case, too.

It's why in my "Struggle" reaction I said "Act as if you are not" until the end of your turn. Then the stunned/paralyzed condition "Comes Back" and enemies gain advantage and autocrit if you're paralyzed and advantage but no autocrit if you're stunned.
 

The issue is that if you can always choose to do so, you should almost always choose to do so.

In which case most conditions become "Gain a level of fatigue or strife each turn and ignore the effect"

This is especially true for stuff that requires Concentration on the part of the antagonist. If I use some spell that keeps someone held but requires concentration and you take a level of fatigue to ignore being held and hit me and I lose concentration... the spell I -actually- cast is "Grant 1 level of Fatigue" not "Hold Person"

Similarly, the differences between being Stunned and Paralyzed vanish because you're neither: You're fatigued.

A Paralyzed creature doesn't get auto-critted if they're just walking around the battlefield with a level of fatigue, which makes it no different from being Stunned since you're just walking around the battlefield with a level of fatigue in that case, too.

It's why in my "Struggle" reaction I said "Act as if you are not" until the end of your turn. Then the stunned/paralyzed condition "Comes Back" and enemies gain advantage and autocrit if you're paralyzed and advantage but no autocrit if you're stunned.
Oh yeah, I'm a fan of what you wrote up with the knack :)
 

I don't like any of this. The proposed solutions would make those conditions all but disappear from the game, everything would be transformed into a level of strife/fatigue (maybe not even felt during combat but only after), and then when the combat is over some characters will have a quite serious need to rest. This in turn has several side effects:
  • normally levels of fatigue/strife cannot be recovered outside of havens (except for the 1st), so either the party goes back to the inn right after the fight, or those levels of strife/fatigue will burden the characters for much longer, potentially making the rest of the game feel way worse than that 1 action lost due to being stunned
  • the adventuring day has waay more chances of becoming the dreaded "5 min adventuring day". 1 combat and then full rest. Every combat is "nova". Etc.

I think this mostly highlights the problem with many "save or suck" rolls still being present in the game.

IMO there are some fundamental flaws in how 5e was designed: the worst is the "3 rounds combat" IMO, but the presence of save or suck/save or nothing is a very close second.

I already wrote about this in the past, but IMO any condition should have different levels of severity (even just 2), and saving implies suffering only the least severe: saving vs stunned means being rattled, saving vs paralyzed means being restrained, etc.
This would also make many spells less disappointing when the target saves because there's at least some effect, while currently if the target saves the only effect is that the caster wasted both an action and a spell slot!
 
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