D&D 5E Why my friends hate talking to me about 5e.

[Sacrosanct]

Keep in mind that long healing times in early D&D were there to eat up time (the most valuable resource according to Gygax), which the characters have to pay for in lodging etc with an aim to keeping them poor and thus justifying more adventuring for gold.

Pretty sure that's not the reason why time was so important in AD&D. It was important because when you leave to recoup or recover, the monsters organize and restock to be prepared for you when you get back. Guidelines in those adventures said this happens over a span of 1 to a half dozen days or so*. In a low level adventure that has thousands of gp of treasure in it, that 1cp meal at the inn doesn't keep you poor.

*Edit: I'm starting Night Below tomorrow as a matter of fact, and in my prep reading, it's mentioned all over how monsters will react and restock when PCs have to leave and regroup and rest in town (the adventure heavily assumes PCs will do that fairly often or most assuredly have a TPK.). Speaking of, that's something much different from old school to new school. In old school, it was assumed you frequently retreated and went back to your base of operations. In 5e for instance, PCs are assumed to almost never do that, but to keep trudging forward. Imagine if in 5e you couldn't level up until you went back and spent weeks with a trainer?

 

[Cruentus]

Definately try it out - the more eyes on it, the better!

I used that exact mechanic in my last campaign in 5e (if you fall to 0, you gain a level of exhaustion). It worked very well. If people yoyo'd in fights, they paid for it. It did cause my players to consider and think about their fatigue levels, and whether they wanted to press on or not. It still didn't address @CleverNickName s comment about how weird it was for characters to be in a monster infested ruin, and get a goods night sleep, recover all their abilities and spells, and be all healed up. (Naturally, Leomund's Hut of Invulnerability helped immensely ).

But, overall, the mechanic worked. And I also had a super slow pace - more hexcrawl/lots of travel rather than 6-8 encounters per day. We also didn't get past 6th level or so, as the razor edge of how to challenge parties to not cause TPKs, was elusive. It was either "we're dead" or cakewalk. And our frontline fighter was an Arcane Archer... everyone else was a spellcaster of some wort/cleric/sorcerer/wizard.

*edit, I also did change the exhaustion mechanics to a 6 level system where there was cumulative -1 or -2 modifiers to attack/save/Con checks/AC, etc. We were ok with futzing with more fine adjustments, as the 5e exhaustion mechanic is heavy handed out of the gate. You still didn't want to get to higher levels using my house rules, and players paid attention to it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The Exhaustion table as-is does make things less fun for the rest of the game in my estimation because Disadvantage on Ability Checks at Level 1 means that a bad encounter in combat now makes everything outside of combat bad too. The placement of that effect on the chart is what is the real issue in my opinion.

But once I moved the effects around on my personal chart, everything became much more useable. Having a level or two of exhaustion was fine and not as punishing, because it only really impacted additional combats (which if you were that bad off already, you should have been doing your best to avoid them.) But exhausted characters could still participate in things outside of combat without being hosed (until the level at which you're getting closer to death and thus should be hosed on almost everything.)

My version:

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: Speed reduced to 0.
Level 6: Death.

 

[Stalker0]

The problem with exhaustion is that it simply makes you suck, so once you have it the rest of the session becomes frustrating as your character is either constantly failing, or doing nothing because the risk of failure is too high. Dealing with exhaustion occasionally can be a challenge and roleplaying opportunity, but if it becomes routine then all it does is reduce player agency and suck the fun out of the game.

I think the real pain of exhaustion is its longevity, you can't even get rid of it with a short rest (even though you can heal on a short rest). magically it takes a 5th level spell, and you only drop 1 level.

That's what makes it so brutal, in a game where a serious injury is just one 1st level spell or an hours rest away from being fixed up.... the fact that exhaustion still lingers on is narratively very weird, and mechanically very strong.

 

[Cruentus]

I don't disagree; there are lots of good games out there to suit a lot of playstyles.

That said, there's nothing wrong with "slowly whittling away at 5th edition" until it plays the way that you and your friends want it to play. The very first page of the DMG says that you aren't beholden to the rules and that you can play the game any way you want so...whittle away, I guess? ¯\(ツ)/¯

I tried that whittling away, but it was more like wrestling, it was exhausting. I gave up on it, and we moved to an earlier edition.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's amazing how quickly these discussions go from "Here's something you can do" to "Nobody should ever do this and here's why."

No one should ever express their opinions without filing in triplicate affirming that their opinion is their opinion.

Otherwise people feels justified in attacking you for badwrongfunning people.

 

[Guest 7034872]

No one should ever express their opinions without filing in triplicate affirming that their opinion is their opinion.

And have it notarized just in case of any legal challenges.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The Exhaustion table as-is does make things less fun for the rest of the game in my estimation because Disadvantage on Ability Checks at Level 1 means that a bad encounter in combat now makes everything outside of combat bad too. The placement of that effect on the chart is what is the real issue in my opinion.

But once I moved the effects around on my personal chart, everything became much more useable. Having a level or two of exhaustion was fine and not as punishing, because it only really impacted additional combats (which if you were that bad off already, you should have been doing your best to avoid them.) But exhausted characters could still participate in things outside of combat without being hosed (until the level at which you're getting closer to death and thus should be hosed on almost everything.)

My version:

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: Speed reduced to 0.
Level 6: Death.

I agree, but if you can gain exhaustion in combat, I'm not sure I like halving speed at the start of the track either. It makes fleeing nigh impossible.

 

[CleverNickName]

If someone says, "you all could jump off that bridge", its pretty natural for people to start saying why its a bad idea

When people give houserule ideas, its very natural for people to jump in and explain why that idea might not be the greatest one for many players. That can always be ignored of course, but its not amazing that we shift into these notions....its very natural.

I stand corrected. What I should have said was,

It's amazing how quickly these discussions go from "here's a house rule for your game" to throwing oneself off a bridge.

 

[Cruentus]

Pretty sure that's not the reason why time was so important in AD&D. It was important because when you leave to recoup or recover, the monsters organize and restock to be prepared for you when you get back. Guidelines in those adventures said this happens over a span of 1 to a half dozen days or so*. In a low level adventure that has thousands of gp of treasure in it, that 1cp meal at the inn doesn't keep you poor.

*Edit: I'm starting Night Below tomorrow as a matter of fact, and in my prep reading, it's mentioned all over how monsters will react and restock when PCs have to leave and regroup and rest in town (the adventure heavily assumes PCs will do that fairly often or most assuredly have a TPK.). Speaking of, that's something much different from old school to new school. In old school, it was assumed you frequently retreated and went back to your base of operations. In 5e for instance, PCs are assumed to almost never do that, but to keep trudging forward. Imagine if in 5e you couldn't level up until you went back and spent weeks with a trainer?

The other reason healing took so long, was they were effectively playing a "west marches" type of group play. Remember, from reports, Gygax's group was about 50 people... If you went out on an adventure, other groups were out adventuring too in the same world. If you got injured, you couldn't go out - you picked up a different character/hireling/henchman, and adventured using that character, while your other character recovered. They didn't have small groups of the same adventurers all the time. That's a more modern iteration (and by modern, I'm talking in the past decades).

They also tracked time very carefully. If you left a dungeon, another party might enter it and finish cleaning it out and take the treasure. So everything was a cost/benefit discussion or more like risk/reward.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I agree, but if you can gain exhaustion in combat, I'm not sure I like halving speed at the start of the track either. It makes fleeing nigh impossible.

For some tables, sure. Probably depends on how the other players play it.

But any time my players bring it up... I remind them that they are a team, and sometimes you need to take one for the team. If the tank up front has reached 0 HP and needs to retreat to get back to the healer (because in my particular house ruled system for all of this, you don't fall Unconscious at 0 HP, you are only Incapacitated and thus can still move)... someone else's PC should move up to engage the monster that the tank is on so that way the monster won't follow after the tank if he retreats.

Of course... that requires my players to actually get some guts, which oftentimes is in short supply. I am constantly amazed at how often a player chooses to play a ranged warrior-- like a DEX Fighter or Ranger-- but then thinks because they are using a bow and arrow most of the time their character is now a glass cannon. "I fight at range! I can't take a hit!" And I'm like "Dude! You have a d10 for hit dice! Just as much as the tank! And your AC is only a point or two less! Get some guts and rush up and get into melee for once and save your fricking tank!"

 

[CleverNickName]

I tried that whittling away, but it was more like wrestling, it was exhausting. I gave up on it, and we moved to an earlier edition.

There's a lot of gold in those earlier editions. I still play the occasional game of Red-Box Basic with my buddies back home over Roll20, and it is so refreshing. It's nice to be reminded every now and then how much simpler the game used to be, while still being just as fun.

 

[Gadget]

The option is not as cut and dried as the OP makes it out. Sure, this particular option from social media may not be the best, but I've seen multiple experienced gamers implement a similar House Rule with Exhaustion, with varying levels of success. Here are a few issues:

1. In combat healing in 5e is, by design, supposed to be so-so and not really keep up with incoming damage; this prevents the perceived need for the healing and the ever popular refrain of "Whose going to play the cleric?" at the beginning of the campaign. This is somewhat mitigated by very robust default out of combat healing in 5e. Unfortunately, it leads to the yo-yo healing effect in 5e, where the relatively meager in combat healing is best applied after a subject has dropped to 0 hp to maximize healing affect.
2. The Exhaustion system can be a good way to incentivize players to not drop to 0 hp; but it is unfortunately somewhat half-baked, as pointed out up thread. Unlike 5e's rather robust and forgiving out of combat healing/recovery, it is long lasting, debilitating and hard to recover from. This is probably why the devs have made little use of it in 5e. I think a few tweaks to exhaustion can help mitigate this, as I've always found it strange that it is easier to recover from death (via Revivify at 3rd level) than Exhaustion (Greater Restoration at 5th level). A nice solution would be to have Lesser Restoration recover a level of Exhaustion, with the Greater version removing two levels (or more). Perhaps a long rest could restore more as well, depending on how gritty a game one wants.
3. As to the six to eight encounter pattern being disrupted, hasn't the D&D community argued about the validity of that pattern for years now? With the whole short rest vs long rest class balance debate, I think it is safe to say that many groups (though certainly not all) do not follow that pattern at all, outside of maybe running Tomb of Horrors or some such.

So that said, it is not beyond the pale to make us the the Exhaustion system in a similar way, with the caveat that it could: a) unduly punish front line fighters, who will take the brunt of the damage; and b) cause more of a 5 minute work day, as players will want to stop and do a long rest whenever Exhaustion rears its ugly head. But for groups that have few encounters per day anyway, and spread the damage around more, it could be a very viable style of play.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It really should be noted that people wanting a grittier combat in D&D, the long slow recovery is a feature not a bug.

 

[nevin]

There's a game called GURPS for that.

 

[James Gasik]

I agree, but if you can gain exhaustion in combat, I'm not sure I like halving speed at the start of the track either. It makes fleeing nigh impossible.

But the disadvantage on the Con checks for the subsequent chase would be better?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But the disadvantage on the Con checks for the subsequent chase would be better?

No, I don't think either of them should be the first. I don't know, this is hard to design.

 

[James Gasik]

The problem is, 5e moved away from "small modifiers". Everything has to be advantage or disadvantage (or a die roll, like Bless or the Bard's Inspiration Dice).

I mean, I guess you could make it -1d4 to Ability Checks, but that still seems like a bigger penalty to me than what you'd really like to have.

The way I see it, if you're annoyed by "yo-yo healing", then players are falling to 0 hit points a lot. Better to examine why that's happening, than to implement a system to make sure they stay down!

 

[Vaalingrade]

The way I see it, if you're annoyed by "yo-yo healing", then players are falling to 0 hit points a lot. Better to examine why that's happening, than to implement a system to make sure they stay down!

Combat healing being not even a band-aid and more like a piece of used Kleenex and a piece of filthy string?

 

[James Gasik]

Combat healing being not even a band-aid and more like a piece of used Kleenex and a piece of filthy string?

Well as so many people told me, "healing in 5e is fine because of Hit Dice".