Level Up (A5E) What are we doing with fatigue and strife?

[Steampunkette]

These numbers are from all WotC Published materials

25% of level 1 Wizard Spells have Concentration
60% of level 2 Wizard Spells have Concentration
52% of level 3 Wizard Spells have Concentration
65% of level 4 Wizard Spells have Concentration
60% of level 5 Wizard Spells have Concentration
51% of level 6 Wizard Spells have Concentration
20% of level 7 Wizard Spells have Concentration
40% of level 8 Wizard Spells have Concentration
40% of level 9 Wizard Spells have Concentration

Worth noting the two following important pieces of information:

1) Where you see Concentration Spells jump ahead of non-concentration spells really hard are the levels where you have 3-5 spells that do the exact same thing with a different flavor. Like the "Investiture of (Element)" spells or "Summon Aberration/Construct/Elemental/Demon"

2) You can still -cast- a spell which requires Concentration while you have Strife. You just can't -maintain- that concentration across multiple rounds.

So even if you've got Strife you can conjure up a Bigby's Hand and immediately command it to push the Ogre off the cliff. You just can't -keep- the Bigby's Hand the next turn.

 

[NotAYakk]

Casting a concentration spell requires concentration.

As people have noted, the problem with most of these is that it is a step where it doesn't matter, and a step where you are useless.

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Fatigue: Your Fatigue is represented by a die. The first time you are Fatigued, it is a 1d4, and each time you get additional Fatigue it grows in size to 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 then 1d20. If you gain Fatigue when you are at 1d20, you die.

Whenever you make a Strength, Dexterity or Constitution save, attribute check or attack roll, you roll your Fatigue die as a penalty.

In addition, you suffer these penalties:

1d4: You cannot disengage or dash, and your speed is reduced by 5'
1d6: You do not add your attribute bonus to your damage rolls (unless it is negative), and your speed is reduced by 10'
1d8: Your HD maximum is halved (round down) (if you have mixed HD, you lose the larger ones first), and your speed is reduced by 15'
1d10: Creatures who attack you add your Fatigue die to their attack rolls, and your speed is reduced by 20'
1d12: Your HP maximum is halved, and your speed is reduced by 30'.
1d20: You suffer a perminant injury whenever you take a critical hit, or make a strength/dexterity/constitution check, saving throw or attack whose result is less than 0, and your speed is 5'.

The reduction in speed above cannot result in your speed being slower than 5'.

Strife: Your Strife is represented by a die. The first time you are Strife, it is a 1d4, and each time you get additional Strife it grows in size to 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 then 1d20. If you gain Strife when you are at 1d20, you become incapacitated.

Whenever you make a Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma save, attribute check or attack roll, you roll your Strife die as a penalty.

In addition, you suffer these penalties:

1d4: You have disadvantage on concentration saves
1d6: Creatures who make a saving throw against an effect you impose may roll your Strife die as a bonus to their saving throw.
1d8: You can only take a bonus action or an action on your turn, not both.
1d10: You suffer the effects of a random short-term stress effect.
1d12: Whenever you take an action, there is a 50% chance it simply fails (if it was a spell, the slot is lost).
1d20: You gain a major long-term stress effect.

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This makes Fatigue/Strife more continuous. And you can still have gatekeeper penalties at various steps, but it doesn't rely on them to provide the meat of the malus.

The Fatigue is biased towards martial, and the Strife towards casters in the penalties.

The 1d4 level (no dash/disengage, and 5' of movement lost vs concentration save penalty) is relatively minor but situationally annoying.

1d6 Fatigue penalty harms martials more than casters (they add their attribute to damage more often). The 1d6 Strike harms casters more than martials (but note, a maneuver based save is also penalized).

By 1d8 the 15' movement penalty is starting to really hurt. Losing half of your HD is a pain, as is the action economy squeeze on strife.

1d10 tanks your AC with Fatigue and you are quite slow at 20' movement penalty. On the Strife side, you get a problem from the table.

For 1d12, your speed is probably 5' unless you have movement speed boosters on Fatigue side, and your HP are now crappy. For the Strife, you are literally half as effective at doing anything.

1d20 starts applying permanent damage that you'll keep even if you rest up afterwards. For Fatigue, you are so tired doing anything risks breaking a bone. For Stress, you immediately suffer a long-term stress effect (ideally related to the source of the stress).

Then past 1d20, you die or are incapacitated (go catatonic).

 

[TheHand]

(this is a key philosophical question for how you want level up to be... do I want it gritty or heroic.

Quoting this for emphasis. I'm also in the camp that would prefer a heroic-take over gritty (I've done enough gritty in my past, heck I even played Rolemaster at one point...). Gritty-tone wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, but I'd much prefer if the rules presented variants to allow for a deadly flavor vs. a more heroic tone.

In out last campaign we ditched the binary effect of exhaustion and went with slow -1 per level for all attacks/saves/checks,

I like that idea quite a bit, it's quite elegant and easy to remember.

In a past campaign (in a previous D&D edition), our house-rule Fatigue system was also designed to be easy and a gradually rising nuisance. Everytime you rolled a strenuous d20 check (attack roll usually), if your natural die was equal or lower to your Fatigue you then experienced a Fumble (with a wacky Fumble chart). Once you accumulated more Fatigue than half your Con score, you took severe exhaustion penalties, then 1 more fatigue after that and you passed out. (I'm not suggesting Level-Up use anything like this, just throwing it out there for a different perspective on a similar concept).

 

[Morrus]

Quoting this for emphasis. I'm also in the camp that would prefer a heroic-take over gritty (I've done enough gritty in my past, heck I even played Rolemaster at one point...). Gritty-tone wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, but I'd much prefer if the rules presented variants to allow for a deadly flavor vs. a more heroic tone.

The goal is less punitive than exhaustion in O5E, so yes, heroic is the target, not gritty. We've increased the number of steps by adding a gateway step, and softened many of the steps.

The concentration item is an excellent point -- and why we put this stuff out there -- and I'm pretty sure it's already being changed to disadvantage on concentration checks.

 

[Faolyn]

I think that's a fair comment; I feel like fatigue would be more of a problem for martial characters and strife more of a problem for spellcasters. The question is whether that's a good thing or a bad thing?

I think that will depend on those mental stress effects.

 

[tetrasodium]

The goal is less punitive than exhaustion in O5E, so yes, heroic is the target, not gritty. We've increased the number of steps by adding a gateway step, and softened many of the steps.

The concentration item is an excellent point -- and why we put this stuff out there -- and I'm pretty sure it's already being changed to disadvantage on concentration checks.

Changing it to check dc=damage taken might be more interesting since it's still going to basically always be dc10 until the damage is so extreme that "omg I'm in fear for my lie screw the spell" levels of damage are being thrown out. dc=damage taken might be less but will often be more & will add a tension point of dramatic anxiety to both the damage as well as the concentration check when that level of strife is in play.

 

[rules.mechanic]

Strife: Your Strife is represented by a die. The first time you are Strife, it is a 1d4, and each time you get additional Strife it grows in size to 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 then 1d20.

I love the idea of an exhaustion die

My groups recently switched over to Horwath's clever system when I saw it here previously:

In out last campaign we ditched the binary effect of exhaustion and went with slow -1 per level for all attacks/saves/checks, -1 max HP per exhaustion level(min of 1 HP per level/HD), -5 speed per level(min of 5ft speed) and -1 to all your DC's per level.

But I like the idea of doing that with an exhaustion die! d4->d6->d8->d10->d12->d20->doomed) which you subtract from your attacks, saves, checks, damage rolls, DCs & speed. When you gain a level of exhaustion/strife/fatigue, lose a hit die if you have one.

 

[Zaukrie]

I'm curious.....how many things cause fatigue or strife? If not many, I'd keep the rules simple, as they get used infrequently they are hard to recall. If often, I'd make them more interesting (like the die above). However, one thing 5e has taught us is the simple is good for attracting players (I think it has taught us that).....personally, I would love the die mechanic above, but I can see others will think it is too fiddly and a simple table like you have is better.

 

[Stalker0]

The goal is less punitive than exhaustion in O5E, so yes, heroic is the target, not gritty.

So another way to frame this is...you want the players to feel "scared" not "incompetent".

So you focus on defensive penalties rather than offensive ones....let the players remain "badass" but increasing the tension because they steadily lose the ability to defend themselves. Penalties to their saving throws is a good one, as that makes enemy attacks more frightening (similar to enemies have advantage against you, or maybe a simple AC penalty). A reduction in hitpoints is another.... maybe at the highest levels of fatigue they are vulnerable to all damage.... which I think is scarier than half hitpoints because the damage number just look so high.

Instead of penalties to speed, make it "unable to disengage or take the dodge action".... which again adds tension because it removes defensive options for the players.

Disadvantage on death saving throws
All movement provokes OAs
Enemies crit on a 19-20
Ongoing damage is doubled
etc

Or if you want to go with the more progressive style some have suggested, could be a simple: "Each level of fatigue is -1 AC and saving throws"

 

[Zaukrie]

So another way to frame this is...you want the players to feel "scared" not "incompetent".

So you focus on defensive penalties rather than offensive ones....let the players remain "badass" but increasing the tension because they steadily lose the ability to defend themselves. Penalties to their saving throws is a good one, as that makes enemy attacks more frightening (similar to enemies have advantage against you, or maybe a simple AC penalty). A reduction in hitpoints is another.... maybe at the highest levels of fatigue they are vulnerable to all damage.... which I think is scarier than half hitpoints because the damage number just look so high.

Instead of penalties to speed, make it "unable to disengage or take the dodge action".... which again adds tension because it removes defensive options for the players.

Disadvantage on death saving throws
All movement provokes OAs
Enemies crit on a 19-20
Ongoing damage is doubled
etc

Or if you want to go with the more progressive style some have suggested, could be a simple: "Each level of fatigue is -1 AC and saving throws"

All true, but you also need to avoid a death spiral.....