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

[Steampunkette]

I'd note that playtest materials don't necessarily mesh with each other; sometimes they're playtesting different things to see what works.

I'd like to offer this, then:

Wounds

Whenever a character is subjected to certain situations the loose hit point definition doesn't really encapsulate the sort of damage they should be taking. To facilitate this kind of injury, we use a tracked condition called Wounds. Each wound you sustain advances your position on the Wound track, which ultimately leads to the Doomed state. You gain Wounds under the following circumstances:

When you are subjected to a Critical Hit you take 1 Wound.
When you are at 0 hit points and struck by a melee attack you take 1 Wound.

You may also sacrifice a shield that you are wielding when subjected to a Critical Hit to negate the Critical Damage and the resulting Wound. If you sustain Wounds during combat you should keep track of them, but do not apply any cumulative penalties from the Wounds until after combat has ended. This represents your character's ability to ignore severe pain and trauma due to adrenaline, willpower, or magics.

To go with:

Wound Track
1) Your movement speed is halved and you are unable to keep up a fast pace.
2) You are capable of only performing an action or a bonus action on your turn.
3) You take double damage from all sources, unless you have Immunity. Resistance applies normally.
4) You have disadvantage to all saving throws, including death saves.
5) You are Doomed to Die.

And of course:

Wound Recovery
For every twenty four hours of rest you take, you may reduce your current Wound count by 1. During this time you must remain confined to a bed, bedroll, or similar place of rest, receive aid in eating and drinking, and may not perform even light activity.

Certain magics, such as Regeneration or Restoration, can reduce your Wound level by 1 per casting.

By creating another kind of Tracked Condition you slow things down a tiny bit, but it easily conveys your intentions without causing overlapping issues with Fatigue or Strife.

Bonus points: They all three stack!

 

[Morrus]

I'd like to offer this, then:

To go with:

And of course:

By creating another kind of Tracked Condition you slow things down a tiny bit, but it easily conveys your intentions without causing overlapping issues with Fatigue or Strife.

Bonus points: They all three stack!

We had Injuries in earlier versions. It was too many things to track in play. Became cumbersome.

 

[Stalker0]

Gotcha. Well, hopefully they'll fix it. Personally, I'd say let people run themselves to death if they want to. It worked for Pheidippides.

I agree. If a person has 6 fatigue and chooses to sprint….well they are playing with fire, same as if they jumped off a cliff thinking they could tank they damage and instead got an insanely high roll which killed them.

 

[Steampunkette]

We had Injuries in earlier versions. It was too many things to track in play. Became cumbersome.

Drat!

I say Drat because I really like the Suffering Fatigue you've got for Crits and being hit while Downed. I think they're an excellent addition to the system and definitely reward people for using a Shield, which 5e does not do enough of.

Could remove the "Ignore in Combat" function, but that'll be "Death Spirally".

Might have to just make a Sprinting edge-case where the first level of Fatigue applies normally, even in combat, but all others don't? Seems a bit awkward.

Do you use the Bloodied Condition? A nice binaristic condition like that could be useful. Take a Crit, you also get Bloodied, regardless of your current HP, with all associated penalties and benefits thereof, but you can negate that crit with a shield?

 

[Steampunkette]

Other ideas off the top of my head:

Crits and Hits while at 0 cost you Hit Dice. If you run out of Hit Dice you become DOOMED.

Crits and Hits while at 0 deal Ability Score Damage. If you hit 0 you become DOOMED.

Crits and Hits while at 0 Reduce your Maximum Hit Points. If you hit 0 you become DOOMED.

 

[Faolyn]

Other ideas off the top of my head:

Crits and Hits while at 0 cost you Hit Dice. If you run out of Hit Dice you become DOOMED.

Crits and Hits while at 0 deal Ability Score Damage. If you hit 0 you become DOOMED.

Crits and Hits while at 0 Reduce your Maximum Hit Points. If you hit 0 you become DOOMED.

DOOM! DOOOOOMED!

I like the first one. Getting dropped to 0 max hp or a 0 in a an ability score is already death.

 

[Stalker0]

Crits and Hits while at 0 cost you Hit Dice. If you run out of Hit Dice you become DOOMED.

So at 3rd level I do a combat, get beat up a good bit, spend my 3 hit die to short rest....and now every crit past that is instant death?

Hit Die are too swingy. If you make them too much of a death buffer requirement, people won't use them for their actual intended purpose....healing.

 

[Stalker0]

One other thing I've note, and this is based on the vanilla Exhaustion rules.

As a long DM of 5e, I know every other condition inside and out, and yet Exhaustion I still to this day have to look up to know what the penalties are. Now with levelup these conditions look to apply more often, so maybe that will help the memory, but its worth noting.

This is one of the benefits of a standard progressive model like some people have noted above. Having a penalty that simply increases with fatigue level is a lot easier to remember.

 

[Zaukrie]

Does fighting a long time cause either of these?

Frankly, I like the escalation die in 13th age. As you fight more, everyone should get tired, and easier to hit and damage (also, as you study them and get their patterns down, etc).

 

[Faolyn]

This is one of the benefits of a standard progressive model like some people have noted above. Having a penalty that simply increases with fatigue level is a lot easier to remember.

So maybe, as @NotAYakk suggested, each level just gives you a penalty of an increasing die type. Fatigue affects Str/Dex/Con rolls and Strife affects Int/Wis/Cha rolls. Level 1: -d4. Level 2: -d6, and at level 6, you're DOOOOOOMED!!! Or suffer from mental stress/madness.

(Although I have a feeling that this isn't what the writers are actually going to do.)