lichmaster
Hero
On second thought, why not using an approach similar to the one proposed but changing it so that instead of everything becoming a level of strife/fatigue, it is trasformed into the less severe version of the condition, but the new condition persistes for the rest of the fight?
You use a reaction and transform the condition just suffered into its less severe version, but you suffer the less severe version for the rest of the combat, no other saves allowed, unless another member of the party (or a spell) helps you get rid of it. You can only do so once per condition.
So for example if you get stunned and don't want to risk doing nothing for the rest of the combat (because you can fail the save multiple times), you instead accept being rattled for the rest of it. You'll still be able to contribute to the fight, but not to your full capacity.
This is just a very rough draft, but I think it sidesteps many of the limitations and loss of nuance given by turning everything into strife/fatigue.
You use a reaction and transform the condition just suffered into its less severe version, but you suffer the less severe version for the rest of the combat, no other saves allowed, unless another member of the party (or a spell) helps you get rid of it. You can only do so once per condition.
So for example if you get stunned and don't want to risk doing nothing for the rest of the combat (because you can fail the save multiple times), you instead accept being rattled for the rest of it. You'll still be able to contribute to the fight, but not to your full capacity.
This is just a very rough draft, but I think it sidesteps many of the limitations and loss of nuance given by turning everything into strife/fatigue.