each level of exhaustion huh, 1. disadv. ability checks 2. half movement speed 3. disadv. saving throws and attack rolls 4. half max hp 5. movement speed = 0 6. 💀 I think... though maybe attack rolls is at 1 instead of 3
1. Disadvantage on rolls, Lose prof bonus, 3.Half speed, Can’t heal, 5Speed 0, 6Death, I’m sure of the numbers ones inclusions, and of their positions (less so for the half speed one)
I will houserule this to "when your exhaustion level exeedes you constitution you die" This will make a Barbarian more fit than a Wizard. I'll also steal your Exhaustion for being reduced to 0 hitpoints and per failed death save. Though i already run Deathsaves as a DC 15 Con save.. but still.
Low levels of Exhaustion are NOT barely noticeable. At level ONE you have disadvantage on ability checks, including, but not limited to: Initiative rolls, swimming and flying checks, influencing NPCs, identifying magical effects that are highly unusual and rare, finding secret doors, etc. Even Initiative rolls alone could be a death sentence.
Depends on what killed them. An arrow through the heart shouldn't leave you at level 5 exhaustion. Maybe level 1. The body has been mended of its mortal wound. But if the cause of death was exhaustion itself (e.g. starving to death), the resurrected body didn't have any of the nutrients needed to sustain life, let alone move about. You could expand on this to depend on the state of the corpse upon resurrection. Raising a dessicated corpse could certainly require you to get the new living entity back to health.
an interesting byproduct of the old exhaustion rules that I liked is that having half your usual hitpoints makes you much more vulnerable to the sleep spell lol
hehe, would be nice if sleep spell had some wording to make it more effective with exaustion :D that way we would have a way to actually explore exaustion, and if they add spells/features that inflict exaustion it could provide interesting combos and dynamics (and maybe allow the spell to see some play at later levels)
Likely because when they were making 5e originally, due to the plentiful amount of revival, they just expected the dragon to focus down the wizard, kill him, and the cleric just casually turns around and revives them; and no one at the table gets super crazy about the death because they know the cleric still has 4 more revives in them.
They added that line about exhaustion being reduced when you’re raised from the dead, because before, if you died from exhaustion, you technically died again the instant you were raised.
was going to say I feel like death should add a level of exhaustion since coming back from the dead if you were dead awhile (say more then a day to give an example) but saw that obvious problem with "you died of exhaustion. your team revived you. .you gain a level of exhaustion and die. being an thing that could happen. maybe only giving stage 1 or 2 exhaustion to reflect the strain of coming back from the dead and getting the body back into proper shape.
@@RomanII1997 it could work. it depends on how you feel about being back to 100% on a successful revival. some people might want it others might want the negative of it for the sake of some kind of stake for dying.
1 lvl: disadvantage on ability rolls, checks 2 lvl speed halved 3 lvl saves and attacks at disadvantage 4 hp halved 5 lvl 0 speed 6 ded I used it... A lot.
I had a very hardcore game so I knew them all, but the DM let us choose the order. We made a lot of skill checks so we'd frequently take half speed first. Then if we were avoiding combat we might take half HP.
I like the first more than the latter, since there are so few ways to make Death saving throws easier. If you pick someone up to avoid their 50/50 chance of acquiring another level of exhaustion, a single hit puts them right back down. With the first in isolation, Healing Word spam becomes more of a gamble.
Since a Death Save is a D20 check, wouldn't each level of exhaustion also subtract 1 from the die roll for a Death Save? So, if you gain a level of exhaustion for falling to 0 hp, you'd be -1 on your Death Save. Then, if you fail the first Death Save, you'd be -2 on the next Death Save, and so on. Is that correct?
@@michaelcaplan1589 How I would implement it: you don't get the levels of exhaustion when you drop to 0, but only when you get back up - so when you get up, you'd get 1 + number of failed death saves levels of exhaustion.
I had a character that, due to the guilt of a horrible series of actions (warlock stuff), missed sleeping one night. However, it ended up being the longest day of his entire life where I racked up three levels of exhaustion while facing the bbeg of that arc. But it made for such a memorable experience for the party seeing him struggle mightily to function basic battle functions.
Meanwhile, most groups will either never experience exhaustion or experience situations in which they are forced to drag a game across several sessions with a player or 2 feeling like they are just there to make everyone's life harder, until they finally die and either wish they could have done something about it or that it would have come faster so they wouldn't have spent so much time literally unable to do anything. The reason not many people play survival campaigns is because if the DM doesn't keep a hand on the dial, things tend to devolve into a situation that can't be reverted, only delayed. Generally, you either have stuff that make it a breeze, like Goodberry or Tiny Hut (usually banned from survival campaigns), or you can easily be stuck without benefit from long rest for weeks in-game, meaning you can't recover from exhaustion. Also, even in a non-survival campaign, there's a reason people avoid playing Berserker Barbs. Now, I'm quite looking forward to it when they release the martials doc.
As anyone who's ever taken the Sickening Radiance spell can probably tell you, the 6 levels of exhaustion are: 1. Disadvantage on ability checks 2. Movement speed halved 3. Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws 4. Hit point max halved 5. Speed = 0 6. Death
I'm pretty sure that the rule that reduces exhaustion by one when resurrected is to make it so that if you died from lvl 6 exhaustion, then you don't immediately die again. And you keep levels so that you can't just spend a spell slot on revivify to remove all exhaustion.
Maybe it should work like if you are dead for any reason you count always as having 6 levels of exhaustion because you are dead. (or 11 Levels for the new one*)
@@kesc170 If memory serves, that is how things worked in older editions. Basically, you needed a recovery period after being revived and were effectively useless during that period. The duration varied depending on how long you were dead.
@@daltigoth3970 Raise Dead is still like that; Revivify is more of a defiblerator anyway, considering the 1 minute time to pull it off actually falls in line with the 1 minute before brain death
Any form of resurrection would be an extremely expensive way to wipe your exhaustion slate clean. I doubt that was a concern. I think the reason is simpler - spells do what they say they do and no more. Revivify doesn't fix starvation or sleep deprivation any more than it'd fix a lost limb. You're presumably just as starved (and exhausted) when you come back. But as you observed, if the exhaustion is what killed you, you'd die again immediately, so they opted to take one exhaustion level off to compensate.
Actually, death doesn't make sense. IRL, people have gone some 20 days without sleep and lived ok. The issue is they become vegetable and it's very hard to keep awake. They lose cognitive functions and stop responding to stimuli. Also, goin that long without sleep may have long term consequences such as frequent headaches and fuzzier memory. However, no one has ever died from sleep deprivation. *if* it wanted to be more "realistic", the final exhaustion level would be the effects of the Feeble Mind spell.
@@TomasLKarlik I was talking about retaining exhaustion through death and resurrection. It makes sense because being revived doesn't make you go back up with full strength and vitality. So retaining the effects of exhaustion when being revived (minus a level for obvious balance reasons) makes sense. As far as being realistic I'm against full-on realism in any kind of games for the sake of it. If it calls for it then sure. But immersion doesn't require realism, and as far as game balance goes, I feel like death is a pretty good incentive for players to not raise their exhaustion too high (be it the old or the new system). But yeah depending on the kind of campaign (like a super survival-based one) you run actually making the final effect to suffer the same effects as a feeble mind spell until exhaustion gets back below 10 would be a pretty good idea.
@@devilblackdeath Oh alright, I didn't get that... that's on me. And sure with the realism, I agree with that too. It hinders things more often than not. I was coming from a false assumption you were talking about death from exhaustion in general. I could easily get behind the idea that any sort of resurrection puts a character at one exhaustion level before death (Raise Dead does it automatically with its own ressurection sickness mechanic), thus forcing the character to rest to get back up on their feet (or use even more magic/resources). With the only exception being Revivify, as that is a clear mid-combat res and I've always seen it as a sort of "prevent true death" than a resurrection per se, as in the soul hasn't yet fully transitioned to afterlife. That aside, I'm glad you liked the Feeble Mind bit. Its only downside is a non-casting character could still somewhat get by, even with -10 to all rolls. It would synergize better with the 5e version, where by the 5th level, your hit points are already halved and you cannot move, so you're not an effective combatant anyway, and with this you also wouldn't be able to cast spells or speak, but wouldn't die straightaway. But I'd leave that open, if anyone wants to experiment with it.
@@TomasLKarlik One level of exhaustion before death might be a bit harsh but something like 5th/6th level in the new system (or the player's current level of exhaustion, whichever is highest) could be a good idea and a good deterrent to too-high risk taking without preventing the player from doing so if they feel they really have to ! As for feeble mind you could always add any of the effects that synergize well with the new 10th level. It does add a special case, which is what is trying to be avoided by the system, but the 10th level is already a special case, doesn't add much to remember. So in sum you could have a 10th level that is feeblemind (minus the psychic damage since it's not a targetted attack), halved HP, disadvantages on checks and saving throws, -10 to rolls. Makes it a non-lethal but completely lethargic extreme exhaustion. You know what actually I think I like that very much, thanks for the idea :)
I like the idea of them falling unconscious rather than death. I feel like this exhaustion is missing the speed reduction. When you're tired, you get slow.
Maybe have the unconscious happen at level 8, but the unconsciousness does not recover a level of exhaustion unless the player is in a safe place with a comfortable setting(beds, warm meals, plenty of water etc) otherwise they stay at level 8
I absolutely love dScryb! I'm on the aphantasia spectrum, which makes D&D a little harder for me, but I still enjoy a lot. Recently, I started a text-based campaign and as a DM, it honestly saves my life. Most of the time, I pick and choose what descriptions I like from dScryb and then put my own spin on them. I would have never found it without this channel.
The scariest part of the new exhausted is that it's all D20 Tests, so it penalizes death saves. At 5 levels of exhausted, you need to roll at least a 15 on the die to succeed a death save. I like it.
I actually use the exhaustion rules all the time (almost every session). They are a great tool to add some grittiness and sense of danger to the adventures. Anyway, great work on the channel!
Agreed. It can also be done with spacing (9+ hours of travel between "safe" places in an otherwise dangerous land), and really help with causing tension.
Coming back from the dead and having 5 levels of exhaustion, 0 movement, that you slowly recover from is exactly what Westley experienced after being mostly dead all day in Princess Bride.
This new mechanic of exhaustion is basically the stress from van richten's guide to Ravenloft. Since I'm playing Curse of Strahd, we're using both og exhaustion and stress
@@miguletio9175 in Van Richten’s it’s at the DMs discretion and just increases by one, no save. We play it thus: Stress When experiencing a challenging or difficult situation roll DC15 resilience check, using your strongest saving throw bonus or take 1 point of stress. Like Van Richten’s we also apply the following: Causes might include… A tense, dramatic moment, especially one involving one of a character’s Seeds of Fear Every 24 hours the character goes without finishing a long rest Witnessing the death of a loved one A nightmare or darkest fear made real Shattering the character’s fundamental understanding of reality Witnessing a person transform into a horrid or unnatural creature For each stress point your character possesses, you subtract 1 from all attack rolls, skill checks and saving throws you make. Calm emotions will suppress this effect for the duration of the spell Lesser restoration removes 1 point of stress A Long Rest removes 1 point of stress Greater restoration reduces your stress to 0.
It's interesting that exhaustion now goes up to ten, considering that it's rare for players to accrue a single level of it. I hope this means D&D will make more use of it moving forward. A flat penalty makes it is applicable many more contexts than just travel and survival, so I hope that your suggestion of using it as a way to have the players experience longer lasting consequences for failure will make it into the base game. Maybe they could also add a scaling HP maximum reduction, to make more sense of the death past level 10 and to retain that survival element.
Yeah, this is similar to my own system for it (granted, no longer a 5e hack but a different ttrpg entirely at now). It inflicts a -1 to all ability scores instead of to rolls, so each point reduces your maximum HP. Take enough points to have a 0 or lower maximum HP, you die.
If they don’t make further use of exhaustion by adding more ways to accrue it that will actually happen, then I think this is a terrible change. Skipping a night’s rest to keep pursuing something shouldn’t be such a trivial decision. It should be a serious decision that needs to be weighed.
I mean, following the other rules in One D&D, some parties will be dealing with exhaustion a lot. Remember: Long rests are now interrupted by ANY length of combat, so parties with DMs that like random chance encounters during long rests will probably unwillingly skip them often. But yeah, I feel like they may have also made it more prevalent in other rules, given that they doubled the number of levels you can survive (new rules have death at *exceeding* 10).
Another thing I would add to the Exhausted condition is the following: Every 2 levels of Exhaustion, you also lose 5 feet of your movement speed. I am already using this rule on my campaign and it's way better than the previous version. It feels more progressive and gradual, not to mention way easier to remember. Edit: Everytime my players finish a combat or a strenuous physical activity, I make them roll a constitution saving throw with DC 10. If they fail, they gain a level of exhaustion.
I think I would just make it 5ft per level, makes the rules simpler. If that means most characters can't walk after 6 levels... that seems fine. Gaining exhaustion after combat though, that could be rough unless they have a way to get rid of it other than sleeping. You could easily initiate a death spiral where the increasing exhausting makes successful saves harder and harder. Yeah, it's an easy DC, but it feels like a rule that would overly punish a few unlucky rolls. Here's a crazy idea: The DC is 5+ the number of rounds of combat. In most battles, this will be a DC of 7 or 8, only big combats will have enough rounds to push 10 or higher.
@@Lord_zeel that’s a very good idea to add the number of rounds of combat to the DC! Thanks for the idea, I think I’ll implement that. And about making the save more difficult if they’re already exhausted, exhaustion already gives you penalty in saving throws, so more than that would be a bit too much I think. And about given my players more ways to end the exhausted condition, I let my players end one level of exhaustion on a short rest and two on a long rest, so it’s a bit easier and makes up for the now 10 levels of exhaustion compared to the 6 there were before.
Exhaustion is a key mechanic in Chult in Tomb of Annihilation, and in a certain smoke-filled room in that module. It's really cool if you like the survival mechanics (including the food and water part). I know that survival where tracking food, water, heat effects, etc is not really most 5e players' groove. But for those that like it, the current rules really give it a punch.
I think my only problem with 5e exhaustion it is that the berserker barbarian subclass gets exhaustion as a penalty for using frenzy, which is way too steep a price in my opinion. This new exhaustion works better as a consequence for that specific ability, but is a little less stressful everywhere else, which kinda defeats the purpose of exhaustion.
The new exhaustion system does seem to be abrupt on the death thing, but basically having your mind and body slow and weaken by being exhausted so you're less capable of fending off enemies and traps makes a lot of sense. The onlder system does just seem to be a touch all over the place in terms of actual effects. Though, mostly still making a certain amount of sense.
Adding to that possibility of 'Death being a sub-condition of Exhaustion' it would be really cool to have death saving throws add 1 level of Exhaustion each time you drop to 0 HP.
Yup this is already a house rule for us as well. It helps prevent the healers from relying solely on something like Healing Word to bounce a downed player back to life repeatedly.
When I first skimmed the document I just saw the "oh minus from rolls, eh that's so lame and boring". I actually am a bit partial to the original exhaustion rules, just sad that I can never get folks past the first level. Then watching this video and seeing the "minus the number of levels from your spell DC and also you die if you get more than 10" I'm sold. I'm sold. I'm using this. Mwuah, chef's kiss.
I mean, hit point damage doesn't scale any better. The first few hits you can ignore, they don't impede your abilities at all. Getting hit too many times suddenly means you're KO'd or dead. That said, I'm happy to see OneDnD bringing back the -1's and -2's of yesteryear. New exhaustion sounds like easy-to-remember negative levels, and I could get behind that.
I like having it drop them to unconscious, and that you gain levels for every failed Death Save, but I think being sluggish also fits so maybe you loose 5ft of movement for each level, also giving a perk to characters with higher movement speeds
I think this idea is a good one. Feels weird being exhausted, having that affect your skills and abilities but not your movement. I know my movement is reduced with levels of exhaustion!
I like the original idea of halving movement because it scales with player’s movement. My group and I play with flanking rules on melee strikes, so movement is important.
@@Felixr2 there would be too many times that your speed would be at an odd number. For example if you started at 35ft it would drop to 28, 21, 14, 7. That's not a nice set of numbers unless you play gridless.
They should also add a -5ft movement per lv of exhaustion. Most characters will be immobile by 6th level exhaustion, but other classes like monk would still be able to move a bit more
Yeah but it's an unfun mechanic that way, as each level of exhaustion increases the likelihood of the next level of exhaustion occurring. The less you can move, the less you can spend to find water, shade, or whatever. Nobody likes hopeless situations.
I agree with a reduction to max distance, but let it never go below 25% of your max, to prevent the hopeless part mentioned by the other commenter. In combat movement and out of combat movement are very different things and I don't think we want someone immobile in combat to also never be able to move again after combat. Alternatively exhaustion could reduce max carry weight by 10% per stack so you get encumbered easier and have to leave things behind to make the trip.
Well, we DID talk about it in our (german) video last week but it's kinda obvious why you didn't see it (: It's by far the best new rule and I really like your tweaks for adding extra exhaustion for dropping to zero.
I'm pretty sure the intention behind the "Lose one exhaustion if you're brought back from the dead" thing was to ensure that someone who died at 6 exhaustion and was brought back would return at 5 exhaustion and not just instantly die from exhaustion again. It's logical enough that they shouldn't need to say it, but if they didn't, I'm sure some DMs would end up pulling that on some poor player.
@@LightPink Sorry, I was basing my comment off the assumption of 6 levels of exhaustion, as the Op posted. And IF the deceased is at 6 exhaustion, 1 revivify wont do anything, but lower the exhaustion to 5, which is speed = 0. So you would have to MURDER your own party member and revive again to bring their exhaustion down to 4, which, in case you don't know is HP Max halved. Also, this is a pointless discussion, because exhaustion almost never gets that bad.
My games are infamous because I keep using the exhaustion rules. The original rules were fun already for us, although quite punishing for players so they hated it as much as they loved it. Challange accepted Bob Level 1 -Disadvantage on ability checks Level 2- Speed reduced to half Level 3-Disadvantage on attacks and saving throws Level 4- Hit point reduced to half along with it's maximum Level 5- Speed is 0. Level 6- Death!
Yeah, I liked the 5e Exhaustion mechanics because they were different, also having this stuff online made finding the rules (or having them ready) real easy. I feel like 10 levels is a bit excessive, and may apply multiple levels at a time now. If we still kept the 6 levels system we could do {-1, -1, -2, -2, -3, Dead} for the levels (cumulative -1, -2, -4, -6, -9, Dead).
I actually like it at 10 levels, because it implies we could get hit by it more often without worry of the instant death in a single situation. it feels like a way to work level drain abilities back into the game as "exhaustion damage"
@@werewolfjedi38 I think what this really shows is that players would like more lingering effects that don't disappear right away by a single long rest or low cost spell slot. Exhaustion, level drain, lingering injuries, etc.
@@orwin5445 Agree, though equally I wonder if some players might find it's too long a slog coming back from 7/8/etc levels of exhaustion, before they can finally stop deducting from every single D20 check (particularly if they are hit by more exhaustion penalties before getting in those 7/8/etc long rests). Might start to grate a bit, especially if exhaustion does end up getting used more. But I guess that's what the playtesting is for!
I like the exhaustion level consequence of going down. Without it, it's hard to want to fear damage because you're either perfectly capable, or completely unconscious. And one little potion brings you back like nothing happened. You can even go down multiple times with no penalty other than a skipped turn.
7:22 the Yuan-ti transformation ritual in Tomb of Annihilation gives you 1d6 Levels of Exhaustion. There are also some Adventurers League modules with traps and regional effects that give you 2 Exhaustion Levels in one go.
This also brings opportunity for a “well-rested mechanic”. If you spend a week relaxing in good accommodation, you may be more rested than usual and get a +1 to everything or whatever. Or if you prepare super well maybe you give it for that. Could be fun, probably would be op but I’d be tempted to play around with it
I don't think that would be op. If +1 to everything was OP, by same measure, -1 or more is far too crippling. On one had creators are too scared of +2 to hit for flanking because "bounded accuracy" but going as far as -10 to everything sounds like great idea?
The level of exhaustion being taken away by being raised is clearly to make sure that clerics raising an exhausted character from death doesnt immediately kill them again. It persisting beyond death makes sense because poisons and other conditions often do too. That said, this is a much better version of the rule
I would half the levels of exhaustion, if not outright remove them. You get the best sleep - better sleep than any being has ever lived through, and then filled with enough magical energy to create life. Your probably going to feel more like you chugged a pot of coffee than just climbed a mountain.
I absolutely LOVE exhaustion rules. One of my biggest problems with 5e is that very few effects last beyond a long rest. No matter how beat up a party gets, they're back to full HP after 8 hours of sleep. Exhaustion is a tool the DM can use to make a long slog on the road feel meaningful. I like to include the homebrew rule that you cannot completely recover from exhaustion while roughing it in the wilderness. You have to go back to town for a room, a good meal, and some rest. I'm going to experiment with combining the old rules and the new. I'm thinking of using the new rules, but have levels 5 thru 10 mirror the effects of the old levels 1 thru 6.
There needs to be a high level spell that causes a character to be purged of exhaustion levels, possibly by teleporting them to some sort of Riviera side vacation town on a trajectory outside of time so they arrive back a round later with a week of beachside naps and buffet meals under their belt. You could call it a Cannes Trip.
That’s a shame that you never used it before. I use it all the time and I love the effects of each level getting more serious. I like the simplicity of the new version, kind of, but I like disadvantage over numerical penalties, and it’s odd to me that movement speed isn’t affected with the new one. It’s not hard to memorize either: 1. Ability checks 2. Movement speed 3. All d20s The levels after that come up really rarely so I don’t care much past that.
I use a very similar system but it’s for being grappled and restrained. Instead of being killed you’re held prone but you might suffer some exhaustion from your escape attempts.
To clarify, I've used exhaustion plenty of times haha, it just rarely if ever went beyond level 3 for me as well. And based on the comments, 4 is where people seem to forget the levels. I think we need a poll for this...
@@BobWorldBuilder I'd be interested to see what people think. I can see each way having its own pros and cons. I also think that if you need 11 points of exhaustion to die, there need to be a lot of monster attacks that inflict points of exhaustion or something or it'll never really be used.
-Disadvantage on ability checks and saving throws -Speed halved -Disadvantage on attack rolls -Max HP halved -Speed set to 0 -Death from off the top of my head. I might've gotten a few things mixed up but the good news is that with D&D Beyond the rule is never more than 2 clicks away from my character sheet.
I’ve been DM’ing that coming back from full death puts you to the fifth level of exhaustion. I don’t care that you didn’t die from exhaustion, if you’re mad about it get a few Greater Restorations thrown on you!
I do use exhaustion in my campaign but have already house-ruled it to scale more steadily through 8 levels... and also includes spell DCs. (That was a good catch for Wizards to include in the new version.) I did have my PCs to level 4 exhaustion recently, but that is "just" disadvantage on attacks/saves/skills and -4 on spell DCs.
I do like this ruling, its very helpful as a dm tool to give weight to environments without making characters simply die. I don't think you weigh the first level of exhaustion high enough though, disadvantage on ability checks feels really bad as a player, especially a skill focused character like a rogue. I also think that 5 levels (or 4 so the person can at least move) would be a good penalty for being raised from the dead, and plan to use that ruling even if i'm still on the fence about the 10 levels variant from oneD&D.
There is enough penalties for raised from the dead as is. Starting from cost in gold, to the fact that they don't get to play when party tries to bring them back. There really is no reason to punish the player farther. And i'm sure the mention of rise dead removing a level of exhaustion only exist, so you can raise dead someone who died from exhaustion levels rather then combat. If exhaustion levels persist on death (which makes sense, body is still in need of water, food, temperature etc), Raise dead will bring someone from 6lvls (death) to 5lvls (can be taken care of and recover). Characters who died from exhaustion didn't had to have their hp reach 0. Btw, that also means that if you died from instant death effect, your hp isn't automatically reduced to 0. Rather most resurrection spells will tell you how much hp target has afterwards.
I don't interpret the existing RAW as death causing any exhaustion, though adding a level or 2 (assuming you didn't die of exhaustion) on being raised would be a really good penalty.
I’m a fan of this. One of the guys in our group who DMs hands levels of exhaustion out like it’s candy and it’s a real pain. This isn’t nearly as punitive or difficult to remember.
This was the one rule I saw and right away liked. This will clean up the DM screen a bit, for sure. I would probably add something where your movement was lowered by 5 for each even numbered level of exhaustion you gained ( -5 at lv2, -10 at lv4, -15 at lv6, etc.)
1. Disadvantage on ability checks 2. Half movement 3. Disadvantage on attack roles and savings throws 4. ....I forget this one 5. Speed reduced to 0 6. Death
I have an experience I would like to bring up regarding exhaustion, concerning 'not the best decision' by a DM, but still a valid experience that taught us all a pretty valuable lesson. DM throws together a dungeon which is essentially an underground dwarven fortress which has been invaded and taken over by undead, whomever might be controlling the undead, and has been filled with dangerous fumes because they shutdown all the venting apparatuses meant to extract the harmful gasses from their forges, machinery and such. The party goal was to function like a special ops team, go in and secure the airflow apparatuses so that when the main body of the dwarven excursion to retake the fortress arrived, they would be able to actually breathe. We trekked up the mountain to infiltrate through an air shaft meant expressly for this purpose and has to deal with protective grating and traps around the opening, which wasn't too hard but we couldn't climb the mountain and rest nearby because there were undead patrols and such, so this was pretty much an all-in dungeon, no real opportunity to just "rest" randomly throughout the place either. We had prepared for cold conditions, rough terrain, high altitude conditions and the eventual 'fume' problem with various potions, spells and magical items, but we had not taken into account the effects of exhaustion that might build up. Long story short, the party all ended up at level 4 exhaustion by the end, due to special abilities of an incorporeal undead mini-boss and the effects of the fumes and enemy spells. The big reason I tell this long story, is that the entire dungeon was mapped out, so when the first person in the party hit level 2 exhaustion, it slowed the ENTIRE party down so we didn't leave anyone behind. At first we tried to push on a bit ahead, and to punish it, the straggler was attacked by incorporeal undead that seeped out from the walls of the place only when someone was alone. The whole experience turned out to be a horrific, very long dungeon crawl, but it was also a refreshing reminder of how painful debilitating rules can be. Even just relying on a rogue who is fumbling his sneak and pick lock attempts due to the disadvantages is really painful when failure results in more resource draining minions shuffling to surround the party. By the end we all had a good time and had roleplayed like we all had just run a marathon collapsing at the finish line, we barely survived though, and we never took the exhaustion rules lightly again.
1) Disadvantage on ability checks 2) ½ speed 3) Disadvantage Attack Rolls & Ability checks 4) Hit Point Max ½ 5) 0 Speed 6) Death But I played games with a lot of homebrew that had utilized exhaustion a lot for both the players and the monsters.
1-disadvantage on ability checks 2-disadvantage on attack rolls and saves 3-movement reduced by half 4-idk 5-movement is 0 6-death So, I got 2 and 3 flipped around, and 4 is HP halved.
Hey Bob, if you want you can check the exhaustion mechanic of Level up: advanced 5th edition, what they did is that they basically seperated exhaustion into two: fatigue for the physical side, and strife for the mental, its pretty cool and packed with flavour, something that sourly miss from this one despite it being better than the old exhaustion rule
I can't remember where I saw it but someone house-ruled that ghostly enemies dealt necrotic damage AND gave a point of exhaustion when they succeeded with a melee attack. It made them much more thematic and far more terrifying for the party to encounter.
Absolutely do not have it memorized but I'll take a shot 1: disadvantage on all ability checks 2: -10 feet of movement 3: lose your con bonus to max hp 4: you deal half damage 5: your movement becomes 0 6: death
Levels of Exhaustion in 5e, from memory: 1: Disadvantage on Ability Checks (btw, this includes Initiative) 2: Movement speed reduced by half 3: Disadvantage on Attack Rolls and Saving Throws 4: Maximum HP becomes Half 5: Movement speed becomes 0 6: Death Frankly, the only reason I know of this, is because Exhaustion comes up surprisingly often in the Adventurer's League modules.
I like exhaustion having different effects as it gets worse, but I also like the idea of it just reducing the rolls. Maybe a mix of both would be perfect.
I definitely agree that max exhaustion should be some form of "you fall down and can't do things" but not quite "you die". I had a half-baked idea a while back that max exhaustion dropped your HP to zero and you couldn't regain HP until you brought your exhaustion down, but you didn't die outright until you failed the subsequent death saves. I think what they're trying to do by max exhaustion=death is to not have separate rules for dying of starvation or thirst. But I think having some separate rule (even if it's something simple like "if you're at max exhaustion and don't get fed at least once per whatever time period, you die") is worth it to be able to model "you collapse in the desert from exhaustion but are saved (or captured) while unconscious by some passing nomads" type of story beat.
Definitely think that if they are going to keep this progression then they need to make gaining levels of exhaustion much more common. A minus 1 to your d20 rolls isn’t nothing, but that seems pretty tiny for missing an entire night’s sleep. If they don’t increase the frequency that players gain exhaustion levels then I could see bumping that up to a minus 2. This would also make the jump to dying after ten levels a more fluid transition, at level nine you would be having a minus 18 to everything which means you are basically incapable of performing any actions versus a minus 10 where yeah you suck but you at least have a chance of succeeding if you have lots of bonuses.
Yeah I could see lacking sleep having more than just -1, overall I like the versatility of this rule. They could have a more deailed section in the DMG or something, saying that it becomes -2 or -3 each night after X number of nights
I’ll take the challenge 1. Disadvantage on ability checks 2. Speed halved 3. Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws 4. HP halved 5. Speed 0 6. Death
Great job pointing this out! I am 100% on board with this version of exhaustion. Unless it gets changed to something better in the final version, I may go ahead and adopt this version for my table. Thanks for sharing!
There were some official examples in dnd modules that granted potentially two levels in exhaustion. One that I know off the top of my head is in Tomb of Annihilation. During the jungle exploration phase of the adventure, if the party decides to trek it during a torrential rain storm, they automatically suffer one level of exhaustion, with potentially gaining another level of exhaustion if they failed a Constitution saving throw.
I don't use exhaustion a ton, but I bought Hit Point Press' Deck of Conditions. So pulling that out doesn't slow things down too much. Tbh I don't love either system. I think a blend of the two would be cool. I like the linear nature of the new one, but I would kind of like some roadblocks at, say 5 or 8.
Exhaustion (as a story/game element) just has so much dramatic potential (whether the party is struggling across a frozen/burning/rugged wasteland, fighting an unending series of foes, or just pushing themselves beyond their own limits) that it really benefits from a significant but straightforward-to-implement mechanic to help describe it. In 5e it was too complicated, so you lose the drama, but make it too minor and you lose the sense of consequences. It sounds like they're at least playtesting a better balance for One D&D (or are people just going to call it 5.5e?), which may still go through a few iterations before the "final" version. It's already an improvement.
Keeping levels of exhaustion makes perfect sense when rezzed, considering that most real people who nearly die from the kind of environmental conditions that cause it in game take a long time to recover. And if I recall correctly, the spell Sickening Radiance gives an exhaustion level every round you're in it(to the point of stuff rarely causing more than one level).
I like the change to exhaustion as old exhaustion was a gamekiller in many cases if you got further up. With this new system, you can push it as a consequence more, but I would say remove a level of exhaustion per short rest, 2 per long rest.
you can exchange the "3 death save mechanic" with a "every fail gives you 3 levels of exhaustion" so you have the same effect with one less game mechanic in the rulebook
Having played a bunch of 5e Adventures in Middle Earth, Exhaustion features heavily when we've played those games. Frequently, the entire party will gain an Exhaustion level together from a long journey or harsh conditions. In 5e AIME, there's generally limited opportunities for long rests and healing, so it's brutal. So much so that we needed some slight tweeking to the rule. In any event, while most vanilla 5e games may not have many instances of Exhaustion, I think you're under-selling just how debilitating even one level is. Basically, you suck at trying to do everything that's not an attack. When most of the party has a single level, it killed almost all our non-combat solutions. Sneaking, negotiating, lying, etc. all tend to fail. (Spellcasters do get off a bit freely with Exhaustion rules) Anyway, the new rule looks cool. I wonder if there's a more generic way of wording the last part that doesn't limit the effect of DCs to just spells. I imagine there's a lot of effects that aren't exactly "spells" such as auras or anything contested by your opponents' rolls.
Was doing something similar before these test rules came out and called it Fatigue. -1 per level of Fatigue to all attacks,/saves/ability checks and -5 feet per level (minimum speed never dropped below 5 feet)
I use exhaustion extensively, because it’s actually threatening and terrifying. That being said, I’ve only had one character in any of my games reach 5 levels of exhaustion. It was actually one of the best sessions I’ve ever run, due entirely to the exhaustion.
In the Mythic Odyssey of Theros book there is an underworld player can come to and they keep their exhaustion with them. Each time a soul dies in the Underworld, it reanimates at the start of its next turn with 1 hit point per hit die it possesses and it gains one level of exhaustion which can’t be removed unless the soul is returned to life at which point all exhaustion gained this way vanishes. With each level of permanent exhaustion, the soul becomes faded and dull, its eyes glazing over until they are blank, starting pools. A soul that suffers from level 6 exhaustion from the continued application of this effect petrified into a statue called a misera, and doesn’t rise again
I like the deadly aspect of exhaustion. Having your character pass out from exhaustion would you mean you'd have to figure out new rules for starvation, since passing out doesn't quite exactly solve that. I'd say with the new rules, after a certain level. Let's say at Exhaustion level 10 (arbitrary number), each further level of Exhaustion causes you to lose 1 Hit Die from your Maximum number of Hit Die. Once you hit 0, you die Or some variation of that
@@BobWorldBuilder I myself had the idea of dropping to 0 HP, unstable, instead of immediately dying. Because you have a -10 from your levels of exhaustion your following death saves are almost all fails so it's still an incredibly dangerous state, but it gives your allies a few precious seconds to try and keep you holding on. This slightly rounds off that sudden death whilst providing an opportunity for it to be a dramatic moment, which personally I really like compared to a more gradual decline before death. If you really don't like having a sudden effect at 10 though, I think each level of exhaustion could also reduce your max HP by an amount equal to your level. For example a d6 hit dice class with +0 CON only gains 4HP per level, so accounting for the little extra you get at lvl.1 you're left barely standing on your feet after 4 levels of exhaustion. However a big ol' d12 barbarian with +5 CON gets 12HP per level, so it takes them 12 levels of exhaustion before they're left barely standing. This reduces it by a mostly consistent % and would even allow you to remove the arbitrary number of 10 from the system, instead those factors being determined by how bulky you are whilst allowing it to scale with level. Though I will admit the maths is a tiny bit funky such that at really low levels you may be able to tolerate a couple more levels than for most of your adventuring career, but I think that can be handwaved pretty simply as you being a spry new adventurer.
So here's a slight tweak of the Exhaustion rules that I came up with which also implements Constitution. Levels of Exhaustion. This Condition is cumulative. Each time you receive it, you gain 1 level of exhaustion. Exhaustion Penalty. You gain an exhaustion penalty equal to your levels of exhaustion - your Constitution modifier (maximum 0). d20 Rolls Affected. You gain a penalty to your attack, ability checks, and saving throws equal to your exhaustion penalty. Spell Save DCs Affected. You gain a penalty to the Spell save DC of any Spell you cast equal to your exhaustion penalty. Movement Speed Affected. You reduce your base movement speed by an amount equal to 5 x your exhaustion penalty. AC Affected. You reduce your AC by an amount equal to your exhaustion penalty. Hit Points Affected. You reduce your max Hit Dice by an amount equal to your exhaustion penalty. Whenever you would reduce your max Hit Dice your total Hit Points is reduced by an amount equal to the maximum result of your Hit Dice. If your Hit Points reach 0 you fall unconscious until you lose at least one level of exhaustion.
This seems like a good change. I always wanted to use exhaustion, but never remembered stuff. For DCC I was thinking of having players go down the dice chain for different levels of it. But maybe the minus is easier.
This definitely has a lot of potential uses. And it may be a little easier in DCC, but if you have all those awesome dice to use, I'd use them instead!
Let's see... 1. Disadv on skill checks. 2. Speed reduced to half. 3. Disadv on attacks and saves. 4. Max HP reduced to half. 5. Speed reduced to zero. 6. Death. How did I do?
As of now, it does. The rules for d20 Tests make it an umbrella term for attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws. Death saving throws are a special kind of saving throw, so they are also d20 tests. This makes the exhausted condition incredibly nasty, and the proposed house rules that falling to 0 hp and failing a death save incurs a level of exhaustion a bad idea imo.
Oh I really liked this rules knowledge challenge! Let's see if I can get these right: Exhaustion "levels" 1 - Disadvantage in skill checks 2 - Halved movement speed 3 - Disadvantage in attack rolls 4 - Halved Max HP 5 - [can't remember] 6 - Instant death Let's see how that went Edit: Surprisingly I got almost all of that right except for number four. And Bob's take on numbers 4, 5 and 6 almost never coming up is very much right in my experience. Even though I used a homebrew rule that granted 1 level of exhaustion if a PC got to 0 HP in battle (this meant no PC could get more than 1 level of exhaustion in the same combat by getting to 0) in some of my previous campaigns, players never got past level 3 of exhaustion. They'd rather stop what they were doing and rest until they weren't exhausted anymore, which got me to the point that even though this homebrew I mentioned was realistic and gave me the feeling that I was looking for, the results were clogging the pace of the game. I enjoyed the new Exhaustion condition for One D&D a lot and can't wait to playtest it with my players
So when I first read the rules glossary the Exhausted condition jumped out at me and my response was, "Neat, that's so much easier to use and get new players to understand."
I still prefer the old one. This might be easier to memorize in a whiteroom, but during play it's way harder to remember a minus 1 or 2 than it is to know that you're gonna flub skill checks or move slower.
Yeah, it goes against the 5e design principle of not having numerical bonuses or penalties and doing everything with (dis)advantage to avoid the very problem you point out, ie remembering to actually add or subtract the bonus/penalty. If you don't want numerical modifiers, this change is bad. If you want numerical modifiers, you might as well be playing another game.
Editing after seeing the new rules: I like the new rules, they're very simple and fun, but they have the hit points problem where you're functionally okay and then bam you're dead. Plus, you're telling me someone who hasn't slept for 10 days could still jog 30 miles in 8 hours? If it's going to be incremental then speed should also be reduced by, say, 5 feet per level. Maybe even max hp too, as another commentor pointed out that being current exhaustion makes you more susceptible to the sleep spell and I think that's a fun interaction. Original comment: Attempting during the ad! 1: disadvantage on checks 2: speed halved 3: disadvantage on saves and attack rolls 4: health halved 5: speed set to 0 6: death! Edit, 30 seconds later: perfect! I was waffling on where disadvantage on attack rolls went but I guess I was right.
Agree this is a really good change to the exhaustion rules. Will have a lot more utility in games. I’d consider using this as an abstract wounding system rather then the optional graphic DMG wound rules. I can see a lot of uses for this.
But it’s not good to design your system around optional rules and/or homebrew being necessary. This exhaustion change is terrible if they don’t include more uses for the exhaustion system.
I would personally add that your speed is reduced by 5 feet with each level of exhaustion you gain. Additionally I the death at level 10 could be modified to falling unconscious and rolling death saves. So death is an option but there's a chance of simply beeing forced to sleep it out.
I think you are missing the point of what exhaustion is compared to HP. Death saves are there so you can stabilised from wounds suffered in combat. Exhaustion is a not combat death. You aren't magically stabilising from lack of food or extreme cold. If you "sleep it out" in a blizzard, you aren't waking up. You can have full HP and still die from exhaustion. You can die from exhaustion even if all you do is sleep(but no food/water, too cold/hot). So don't think about the condition in combat penalties category (even when combat will be affected).
@@Mithguar I guess it does depend on the circumstances that caused the exhaustion up to a certain degree. I'm well aware that exhaustion is not an in-combat mechanic. The reason I opted for death saves is simply the option of having a roll associated with collapsing but not outright dying from exhaustion - basically being forced to rest no matter the circumstances. Of course resting in a blizzard won't end well, but all sorts of continuous physical activities beyond your limits as well as many other circumstances can also cause exhaustion.
I actually really like the old rules. It feels a bit more flavourful especially with the halved speed mechanic and stuff. But the cumulative negative to rolls is also cool. I'd happily combine the new rule with the old and just bump it up to a -2 penalty per level of exhaustion and have it be super mean since it is such a rare condition but could really add to the intense feeling of tracking harsh environment or pushing yourself beyond your limits
I like both systems but what I tend to do [using the 5e version] is that instead of death you fall unconscious and make death saves. Party members can provide assistance to help them back up and long rests in actual beds or a tiny hut, completely recover from exhaustion [long resting at campsite reduces exhaustion by 1]. Reason for this, players tend to say okay so we'll just stay resting for 2 to 3 days worth of long rest to reduce exhaustion, niche but it helps speed up gameplay for me
I actually memorized the stages of exhaustion (DA on ability checks, half movement, DA on attacks and saves, half hp, zero movement, death... correct?) because of a homebrew I had made to make more use of exhaustion. If the DM really wants to keep a character around AND the player isn't trying to make a new character, failing death saving throws could result in a number of levels of exhaustion that one short of death (5 levels in 5e, 10 levels in One DnD). This would keep the idea of consequences for failing DSTs, and create a mechanical basis for roleplaying the recovery of a grievous wound over the course of several long rests. The roleplay is a bit more prescribed with 5e exhaustion (first you can't stand up and move on your own. Then you can stand, but you have a limp. After some sharp pains go away, your limp eventually goes away, and eventually you regain the reflexes and mental acuity you had before knocking on death's door). Also part of the homebrew is that failing DSTs while you have any level of exhaustion results in death, so the homebrew isn't treated as "I can never die, just become exhausted" homebrew. That encourages roleplaying the recovery and treating the injury seriously. A friend of mine said the homebrew sounds harsh, but I reminded him that this is a homebrew that replaces instant death as the consequence of failing DSTs, so this is actually a soft rule.
I hear you on the 5E rules being hard to memorize (I failed to recall them correctly), but one of the things that I was pleasantly surprised to like about 5E was a reduction in the amount of lookups or arithmetic needed when rolling d20 in combat. 5E exhaustion is consistent with that, employing only advantage/disadvantage or a one-time halving of movement or HP. OneD&D exhaustion means more to keep track of and calculate on the fly.
Agreed. It's annoying enough trying to remember Raise Dead penalties with my character who died and was resurrected like 8 months ago IRL, though hopefully they'll be forced to properly integrate that into D&D Beyond if these exhaustion rules go through.
The OneD&D version basically just means you add an small Exhaustion box to the character sheet, where you put a 0-10 to indicate how bad it is. How is that at all difficult?
@@JarieSuicune It isn't terribly difficult. But in combat, for me, every little calculation, no matter how trivial it may seem when you read the rule, slows things down. So I personally apppreciate the way that 5E tried to minimize that. At the same time, I do love the way crunch can add verisimilitude and a visceral feel. And exhaustion is a great way to add that! So I will be interested to see how this plays out, and I do not pretend to know what it best yet even for my own table. If you have any inspirational ideas on how to make it worth a lazy DM's attention, please share! Thanks for your perspective.
I actually do use exhaustion in my campaigns, and if my memory serves me, I believe level one is disadvantage on ability checks, level two is movement speed halved, level three is disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws, level four is your HP maximum cut in half, level five is your speed reduced to zero, and level six is easy: death
Rules for exhaustion: 1 level: Disadvantage on Ability Checks 2 levels: Speed halved 3 levels: Disadvantage on Attack Rolls and Saving Throws 4 levels: Max hit points halved 5 levels: Speed reduced to 0 6 levels: Death I never thought it was too difficult to remember, and I've barely been playing for more than a year.
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each level of exhaustion huh,
1. disadv. ability checks
2. half movement speed
3. disadv. saving throws and attack rolls
4. half max hp
5. movement speed = 0
6. 💀
I think... though maybe attack rolls is at 1 instead of 3
eyy I was correct
1. Disadvantage on rolls,
Lose prof bonus,
3.Half speed,
Can’t heal,
5Speed 0,
6Death,
I’m sure of the numbers ones inclusions, and of their positions (less so for the half speed one)
I will houserule this to "when your exhaustion level exeedes you constitution you die" This will make a Barbarian more fit than a Wizard. I'll also steal your Exhaustion for being reduced to 0 hitpoints and per failed death save. Though i already run Deathsaves as a DC 15 Con save.. but still.
Low levels of Exhaustion are NOT barely noticeable. At level ONE you have disadvantage on ability checks, including, but not limited to: Initiative rolls, swimming and flying checks, influencing NPCs, identifying magical effects that are highly unusual and rare, finding secret doors, etc. Even Initiative rolls alone could be a death sentence.
I really like the idea of resurrected characters being unable to move and at half hit points. Like Wesley in the Princess Bride.
"I beat you both before, I'll take you on together!"
Depends on what killed them. An arrow through the heart shouldn't leave you at level 5 exhaustion. Maybe level 1. The body has been mended of its mortal wound.
But if the cause of death was exhaustion itself (e.g. starving to death), the resurrected body didn't have any of the nutrients needed to sustain life, let alone move about.
You could expand on this to depend on the state of the corpse upon resurrection. Raising a dessicated corpse could certainly require you to get the new living entity back to health.
Sounds good to me, makes Crossing Death's Threshold a bigger deal than just slightly more wounded
an interesting byproduct of the old exhaustion rules that I liked is that having half your usual hitpoints makes you much more vulnerable to the sleep spell lol
Where two pieces of mechanics mesh together beautifully. You're 2 steps from the grave, of _course_ you're ready to fall asleep!
@@liamwhite3522 They forgot the step where you become a twitchy aggro jerk and need a Snickers. Sorry, where *I* become an etc...
@@benvoliothefirst That's just you failing your disadvantaged Charisma checks, exhaustion level 1.
hehe, would be nice if sleep spell had some wording to make it more effective with exaustion :D that way we would have a way to actually explore exaustion, and if they add spells/features that inflict exaustion it could provide interesting combos and dynamics (and maybe allow the spell to see some play at later levels)
Never noticed that exhaustion persists beyond death, but having worked in the service industry, that seems pretty realistic.
*solemn nod
Likely because when they were making 5e originally, due to the plentiful amount of revival, they just expected the dragon to focus down the wizard, kill him, and the cleric just casually turns around and revives them; and no one at the table gets super crazy about the death because they know the cleric still has 4 more revives in them.
respect.
in my group we use exhaustion a lot. coming back from 0 hp instantly gives 1 level. hoppens quite often.
It is known.
They added that line about exhaustion being reduced when you’re raised from the dead, because before, if you died from exhaustion, you technically died again the instant you were raised.
yep, this is the reason. it's a catch to avoid that one niche situation
was going to say I feel like death should add a level of exhaustion since coming back from the dead if you were dead awhile (say more then a day to give an example) but saw that obvious problem with "you died of exhaustion. your team revived you. .you gain a level of exhaustion and die. being an thing that could happen. maybe only giving stage 1 or 2 exhaustion to reflect the strain of coming back from the dead and getting the body back into proper shape.
okay, but hear me out: just let revive remove every level of exhaustion.
@@RomanII1997 it could work. it depends on how you feel about being back to 100% on a successful revival. some people might want it others might want the negative of it for the sake of some kind of stake for dying.
@@RomanII1997 or 1d4 levels or something
1 lvl: disadvantage on ability rolls, checks
2 lvl speed halved
3 lvl saves and attacks at disadvantage
4 hp halved
5 lvl 0 speed
6 ded
I used it... A lot.
I had a very hardcore game so I knew them all, but the DM let us choose the order. We made a lot of skill checks so we'd frequently take half speed first. Then if we were avoiding combat we might take half HP.
Ayyy well done! Haha
ToA run?
Didn't remember AL levels, but we also use it a lot in my games... Usually rarely go beyond levels 1-3...
Sickening Radiance gang
I really like your idea of exhaustion gained after dropping to zero and after each death save.
I like the first more than the latter, since there are so few ways to make Death saving throws easier. If you pick someone up to avoid their 50/50 chance of acquiring another level of exhaustion, a single hit puts them right back down. With the first in isolation, Healing Word spam becomes more of a gamble.
Since a Death Save is a D20 check, wouldn't each level of exhaustion also subtract 1 from the die roll for a Death Save? So, if you gain a level of exhaustion for falling to 0 hp, you'd be -1 on your Death Save. Then, if you fail the first Death Save, you'd be -2 on the next Death Save, and so on. Is that correct?
@@michaelcaplan1589 How I would implement it: you don't get the levels of exhaustion when you drop to 0, but only when you get back up - so when you get up, you'd get 1 + number of failed death saves levels of exhaustion.
I had a character that, due to the guilt of a horrible series of actions (warlock stuff), missed sleeping one night. However, it ended up being the longest day of his entire life where I racked up three levels of exhaustion while facing the bbeg of that arc. But it made for such a memorable experience for the party seeing him struggle mightily to function basic battle functions.
Meanwhile, most groups will either never experience exhaustion or experience situations in which they are forced to drag a game across several sessions with a player or 2 feeling like they are just there to make everyone's life harder, until they finally die and either wish they could have done something about it or that it would have come faster so they wouldn't have spent so much time literally unable to do anything.
The reason not many people play survival campaigns is because if the DM doesn't keep a hand on the dial, things tend to devolve into a situation that can't be reverted, only delayed.
Generally, you either have stuff that make it a breeze, like Goodberry or Tiny Hut (usually banned from survival campaigns), or you can easily be stuck without benefit from long rest for weeks in-game, meaning you can't recover from exhaustion.
Also, even in a non-survival campaign, there's a reason people avoid playing Berserker Barbs. Now, I'm quite looking forward to it when they release the martials doc.
As anyone who's ever taken the Sickening Radiance spell can probably tell you, the 6 levels of exhaustion are:
1. Disadvantage on ability checks
2. Movement speed halved
3. Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws
4. Hit point max halved
5. Speed = 0
6. Death
I'm pretty sure that the rule that reduces exhaustion by one when resurrected is to make it so that if you died from lvl 6 exhaustion, then you don't immediately die again. And you keep levels so that you can't just spend a spell slot on revivify to remove all exhaustion.
Ahhh. That makes sense!
Maybe it should work like if you are dead for any reason you count always as having 6 levels of exhaustion because you are dead. (or 11 Levels for the new one*)
@@kesc170 If memory serves, that is how things worked in older editions. Basically, you needed a recovery period after being revived and were effectively useless during that period. The duration varied depending on how long you were dead.
@@daltigoth3970 Raise Dead is still like that; Revivify is more of a defiblerator anyway, considering the 1 minute time to pull it off actually falls in line with the 1 minute before brain death
Any form of resurrection would be an extremely expensive way to wipe your exhaustion slate clean. I doubt that was a concern.
I think the reason is simpler - spells do what they say they do and no more. Revivify doesn't fix starvation or sleep deprivation any more than it'd fix a lost limb. You're presumably just as starved (and exhausted) when you come back. But as you observed, if the exhaustion is what killed you, you'd die again immediately, so they opted to take one exhaustion level off to compensate.
Retaining exhaustion in the 5e system through death actually makes sense IMO. It would be like expecting a revive to put you at full health !
_Finally_ someone getting it!
Actually, death doesn't make sense. IRL, people have gone some 20 days without sleep and lived ok. The issue is they become vegetable and it's very hard to keep awake. They lose cognitive functions and stop responding to stimuli. Also, goin that long without sleep may have long term consequences such as frequent headaches and fuzzier memory. However, no one has ever died from sleep deprivation.
*if* it wanted to be more "realistic", the final exhaustion level would be the effects of the Feeble Mind spell.
@@TomasLKarlik I was talking about retaining exhaustion through death and resurrection. It makes sense because being revived doesn't make you go back up with full strength and vitality. So retaining the effects of exhaustion when being revived (minus a level for obvious balance reasons) makes sense.
As far as being realistic I'm against full-on realism in any kind of games for the sake of it. If it calls for it then sure. But immersion doesn't require realism, and as far as game balance goes, I feel like death is a pretty good incentive for players to not raise their exhaustion too high (be it the old or the new system). But yeah depending on the kind of campaign (like a super survival-based one) you run actually making the final effect to suffer the same effects as a feeble mind spell until exhaustion gets back below 10 would be a pretty good idea.
@@devilblackdeath Oh alright, I didn't get that... that's on me.
And sure with the realism, I agree with that too. It hinders things more often than not. I was coming from a false assumption you were talking about death from exhaustion in general.
I could easily get behind the idea that any sort of resurrection puts a character at one exhaustion level before death (Raise Dead does it automatically with its own ressurection sickness mechanic), thus forcing the character to rest to get back up on their feet (or use even more magic/resources). With the only exception being Revivify, as that is a clear mid-combat res and I've always seen it as a sort of "prevent true death" than a resurrection per se, as in the soul hasn't yet fully transitioned to afterlife.
That aside, I'm glad you liked the Feeble Mind bit. Its only downside is a non-casting character could still somewhat get by, even with -10 to all rolls. It would synergize better with the 5e version, where by the 5th level, your hit points are already halved and you cannot move, so you're not an effective combatant anyway, and with this you also wouldn't be able to cast spells or speak, but wouldn't die straightaway. But I'd leave that open, if anyone wants to experiment with it.
@@TomasLKarlik One level of exhaustion before death might be a bit harsh but something like 5th/6th level in the new system (or the player's current level of exhaustion, whichever is highest) could be a good idea and a good deterrent to too-high risk taking without preventing the player from doing so if they feel they really have to !
As for feeble mind you could always add any of the effects that synergize well with the new 10th level. It does add a special case, which is what is trying to be avoided by the system, but the 10th level is already a special case, doesn't add much to remember.
So in sum you could have a 10th level that is feeblemind (minus the psychic damage since it's not a targetted attack), halved HP, disadvantages on checks and saving throws, -10 to rolls. Makes it a non-lethal but completely lethargic extreme exhaustion.
You know what actually I think I like that very much, thanks for the idea :)
I like the idea of them falling unconscious rather than death.
I feel like this exhaustion is missing the speed reduction. When you're tired, you get slow.
Maybe lose 5ft every 2 levels
Maybe have the unconscious happen at level 8, but the unconsciousness does not recover a level of exhaustion unless the player is in a safe place with a comfortable setting(beds, warm meals, plenty of water etc) otherwise they stay at level 8
Its not just tired, its not eating, drinking, freezing, etc.
well, keep in mind it is entirely possible to die of exhaustion. hence why you can die of exhaustion in 5e
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The scariest part of the new exhausted is that it's all D20 Tests, so it penalizes death saves. At 5 levels of exhausted, you need to roll at least a 15 on the die to succeed a death save.
I like it.
hehehehehe
That also explains why exceeding tem levels of exhaustion kills you. You can no longer succeed on a death save.
@@Aaarrrgh89 A 20 would still save, not like it matters much
In the current rules, 3 levels gives disadvantage on death saves
Now I love it even more!
I actually use the exhaustion rules all the time (almost every session). They are a great tool to add some grittiness and sense of danger to the adventures. Anyway, great work on the channel!
Agreed. It can also be done with spacing (9+ hours of travel between "safe" places in an otherwise dangerous land), and really help with causing tension.
Coming back from the dead and having 5 levels of exhaustion, 0 movement, that you slowly recover from is exactly what Westley experienced after being mostly dead all day in Princess Bride.
I feel there still should be (maybe optional) speed reduction mechanic at least for grittier games
Maybe do the same for health? Reducing by 10% per level of exhaustion would imply the death at 10th level exhaustion.
5 feet per Level? ... And maybe add a level on failed death throws.
@ You could just become vulnerable to all damage at level 5.
This new mechanic of exhaustion is basically the stress from van richten's guide to Ravenloft. Since I'm playing Curse of Strahd, we're using both og exhaustion and stress
New exhausted rules affect Spell Save DCs too, which is nasty.
I doubt that Bob is not aware of this. Makes me wonder why he decided to publish this...
Cheers!
Me too
How does this stress works?
@@miguletio9175 in Van Richten’s it’s at the DMs discretion and just increases by one, no save. We play it thus:
Stress
When experiencing a challenging or difficult situation roll DC15 resilience check, using your strongest saving throw bonus or take 1 point of stress.
Like Van Richten’s we also apply the following:
Causes might include…
A tense, dramatic moment, especially one involving one of a character’s Seeds of Fear
Every 24 hours the character goes without finishing a long rest
Witnessing the death of a loved one
A nightmare or darkest fear made real
Shattering the character’s fundamental understanding of reality
Witnessing a person transform into a horrid or unnatural creature
For each stress point your character possesses, you subtract 1 from all attack rolls, skill checks and saving throws you make.
Calm emotions will suppress this effect for the duration of the spell
Lesser restoration removes 1 point of stress
A Long Rest removes 1 point of stress
Greater restoration reduces your stress to 0.
The one real problem is that exhaustion also applies during Death Saving Throws.
It's interesting that exhaustion now goes up to ten, considering that it's rare for players to accrue a single level of it. I hope this means D&D will make more use of it moving forward. A flat penalty makes it is applicable many more contexts than just travel and survival, so I hope that your suggestion of using it as a way to have the players experience longer lasting consequences for failure will make it into the base game. Maybe they could also add a scaling HP maximum reduction, to make more sense of the death past level 10 and to retain that survival element.
Yeah, aside from that one Barbarian Archetype it doesn't seem to come up a lot in many games.
Yeah, this is similar to my own system for it (granted, no longer a 5e hack but a different ttrpg entirely at now). It inflicts a -1 to all ability scores instead of to rolls, so each point reduces your maximum HP. Take enough points to have a 0 or lower maximum HP, you die.
Well said!
If they don’t make further use of exhaustion by adding more ways to accrue it that will actually happen, then I think this is a terrible change. Skipping a night’s rest to keep pursuing something shouldn’t be such a trivial decision. It should be a serious decision that needs to be weighed.
I mean, following the other rules in One D&D, some parties will be dealing with exhaustion a lot. Remember: Long rests are now interrupted by ANY length of combat, so parties with DMs that like random chance encounters during long rests will probably unwillingly skip them often.
But yeah, I feel like they may have also made it more prevalent in other rules, given that they doubled the number of levels you can survive (new rules have death at *exceeding* 10).
This would be perfect for the Dark Sun setting, passively making it so much more brutal.
I really liked this update, it was so easy to remember, but also it has reasonable consequences!
Bingo!
Another thing I would add to the Exhausted condition is the following:
Every 2 levels of Exhaustion, you also lose 5 feet of your movement speed.
I am already using this rule on my campaign and it's way better than the previous version. It feels more progressive and gradual, not to mention way easier to remember.
Edit: Everytime my players finish a combat or a strenuous physical activity, I make them roll a constitution saving throw with DC 10. If they fail, they gain a level of exhaustion.
I think I would just make it 5ft per level, makes the rules simpler. If that means most characters can't walk after 6 levels... that seems fine.
Gaining exhaustion after combat though, that could be rough unless they have a way to get rid of it other than sleeping. You could easily initiate a death spiral where the increasing exhausting makes successful saves harder and harder. Yeah, it's an easy DC, but it feels like a rule that would overly punish a few unlucky rolls. Here's a crazy idea: The DC is 5+ the number of rounds of combat. In most battles, this will be a DC of 7 or 8, only big combats will have enough rounds to push 10 or higher.
@@Lord_zeel that’s a very good idea to add the number of rounds of combat to the DC! Thanks for the idea, I think I’ll implement that. And about making the save more difficult if they’re already exhausted, exhaustion already gives you penalty in saving throws, so more than that would be a bit too much I think.
And about given my players more ways to end the exhausted condition, I let my players end one level of exhaustion on a short rest and two on a long rest, so it’s a bit easier and makes up for the now 10 levels of exhaustion compared to the 6 there were before.
I love this idea of -5 ft every 2 levels of exhaustion! Definitely going to implement in my game!
Exhaustion is a key mechanic in Chult in Tomb of Annihilation, and in a certain smoke-filled room in that module. It's really cool if you like the survival mechanics (including the food and water part). I know that survival where tracking food, water, heat effects, etc is not really most 5e players' groove. But for those that like it, the current rules really give it a punch.
I think my only problem with 5e exhaustion it is that the berserker barbarian subclass gets exhaustion as a penalty for using frenzy, which is way too steep a price in my opinion. This new exhaustion works better as a consequence for that specific ability, but is a little less stressful everywhere else, which kinda defeats the purpose of exhaustion.
The new exhaustion system does seem to be abrupt on the death thing, but basically having your mind and body slow and weaken by being exhausted so you're less capable of fending off enemies and traps makes a lot of sense. The onlder system does just seem to be a touch all over the place in terms of actual effects. Though, mostly still making a certain amount of sense.
Adding to that possibility of 'Death being a sub-condition of Exhaustion' it would be really cool to have death saving throws add 1 level of Exhaustion each time you drop to 0 HP.
I already do this. Makes players REALLY want potions of healing lol
Yep, I had a DM do this if you failed a death save.
Yup this is already a house rule for us as well. It helps prevent the healers from relying solely on something like Healing Word to bounce a downed player back to life repeatedly.
When I first skimmed the document I just saw the "oh minus from rolls, eh that's so lame and boring". I actually am a bit partial to the original exhaustion rules, just sad that I can never get folks past the first level.
Then watching this video and seeing the "minus the number of levels from your spell DC and also you die if you get more than 10" I'm sold. I'm sold. I'm using this. Mwuah, chef's kiss.
I mean, hit point damage doesn't scale any better. The first few hits you can ignore, they don't impede your abilities at all. Getting hit too many times suddenly means you're KO'd or dead.
That said, I'm happy to see OneDnD bringing back the -1's and -2's of yesteryear. New exhaustion sounds like easy-to-remember negative levels, and I could get behind that.
Very true!
I like having it drop them to unconscious, and that you gain levels for every failed Death Save, but I think being sluggish also fits so maybe you loose 5ft of movement for each level, also giving a perk to characters with higher movement speeds
I think this idea is a good one. Feels weird being exhausted, having that affect your skills and abilities but not your movement. I know my movement is reduced with levels of exhaustion!
I like the original idea of halving movement because it scales with player’s movement. My group and I play with flanking rules on melee strikes, so movement is important.
@@Nebelum You could also say every level of exhaustion reduces your movement by 10%.
@@Felixr2 there would be too many times that your speed would be at an odd number. For example if you started at 35ft it would drop to 28, 21, 14, 7. That's not a nice set of numbers unless you play gridless.
@@BattleKing00 Just round to the nearest multiple of 5 if you're using a grid. 30, 20, 15, 5.
They should also add a -5ft movement per lv of exhaustion. Most characters will be immobile by 6th level exhaustion, but other classes like monk would still be able to move a bit more
Yeah but it's an unfun mechanic that way, as each level of exhaustion increases the likelihood of the next level of exhaustion occurring. The less you can move, the less you can spend to find water, shade, or whatever. Nobody likes hopeless situations.
I agree with a reduction to max distance, but let it never go below 25% of your max, to prevent the hopeless part mentioned by the other commenter. In combat movement and out of combat movement are very different things and I don't think we want someone immobile in combat to also never be able to move again after combat. Alternatively exhaustion could reduce max carry weight by 10% per stack so you get encumbered easier and have to leave things behind to make the trip.
Remember, this is home brew, you can add that to your table if you need a more gritty adventure or not use it at all, is all your decision!
Well, we DID talk about it in our (german) video last week but it's kinda obvious why you didn't see it (: It's by far the best new rule and I really like your tweaks for adding extra exhaustion for dropping to zero.
I'm pretty sure the intention behind the "Lose one exhaustion if you're brought back from the dead" thing was to ensure that someone who died at 6 exhaustion and was brought back would return at 5 exhaustion and not just instantly die from exhaustion again. It's logical enough that they shouldn't need to say it, but if they didn't, I'm sure some DMs would end up pulling that on some poor player.
@@EdgeLie or not spend several thousand worth of diamonds, and just Revivify/sleep?
@@ianbraun271 sorry queen, our fighter is having a week off because 300 gp to save the kingdom in a timely matter is far too much.
@@LightPink Sorry, I was basing my comment off the assumption of 6 levels of exhaustion, as the Op posted. And IF the deceased is at 6 exhaustion, 1 revivify wont do anything, but lower the exhaustion to 5, which is speed = 0. So you would have to MURDER your own party member and revive again to bring their exhaustion down to 4, which, in case you don't know is HP Max halved.
Also, this is a pointless discussion, because exhaustion almost never gets that bad.
My games are infamous because I keep using the exhaustion rules. The original rules were fun already for us, although quite punishing for players so they hated it as much as they loved it.
Challange accepted Bob
Level 1 -Disadvantage on ability checks
Level 2- Speed reduced to half
Level 3-Disadvantage on attacks and saving throws
Level 4- Hit point reduced to half along with it's maximum
Level 5- Speed is 0.
Level 6- Death!
Yeah, I liked the 5e Exhaustion mechanics because they were different, also having this stuff online made finding the rules (or having them ready) real easy. I feel like 10 levels is a bit excessive, and may apply multiple levels at a time now. If we still kept the 6 levels system we could do {-1, -1, -2, -2, -3, Dead} for the levels (cumulative -1, -2, -4, -6, -9, Dead).
I REALLY like that.
That's a cool idea!
I actually like it at 10 levels, because it implies we could get hit by it more often without worry of the instant death in a single situation. it feels like a way to work level drain abilities back into the game as "exhaustion damage"
@@werewolfjedi38 I think what this really shows is that players would like more lingering effects that don't disappear right away by a single long rest or low cost spell slot. Exhaustion, level drain, lingering injuries, etc.
@@orwin5445 Agree, though equally I wonder if some players might find it's too long a slog coming back from 7/8/etc levels of exhaustion, before they can finally stop deducting from every single D20 check (particularly if they are hit by more exhaustion penalties before getting in those 7/8/etc long rests). Might start to grate a bit, especially if exhaustion does end up getting used more. But I guess that's what the playtesting is for!
I like the exhaustion level consequence of going down. Without it, it's hard to want to fear damage because you're either perfectly capable, or completely unconscious. And one little potion brings you back like nothing happened. You can even go down multiple times with no penalty other than a skipped turn.
7:22 the Yuan-ti transformation ritual in Tomb of Annihilation gives you 1d6 Levels of Exhaustion. There are also some Adventurers League modules with traps and regional effects that give you 2 Exhaustion Levels in one go.
This also brings opportunity for a “well-rested mechanic”. If you spend a week relaxing in good accommodation, you may be more rested than usual and get a +1 to everything or whatever. Or if you prepare super well maybe you give it for that. Could be fun, probably would be op but I’d be tempted to play around with it
I don't think that would be op. If +1 to everything was OP, by same measure, -1 or more is far too crippling. On one had creators are too scared of +2 to hit for flanking because "bounded accuracy" but going as far as -10 to everything sounds like great idea?
The level of exhaustion being taken away by being raised is clearly to make sure that clerics raising an exhausted character from death doesnt immediately kill them again.
It persisting beyond death makes sense because poisons and other conditions often do too.
That said, this is a much better version of the rule
I would half the levels of exhaustion, if not outright remove them. You get the best sleep - better sleep than any being has ever lived through, and then filled with enough magical energy to create life. Your probably going to feel more like you chugged a pot of coffee than just climbed a mountain.
I absolutely LOVE exhaustion rules. One of my biggest problems with 5e is that very few effects last beyond a long rest. No matter how beat up a party gets, they're back to full HP after 8 hours of sleep.
Exhaustion is a tool the DM can use to make a long slog on the road feel meaningful. I like to include the homebrew rule that you cannot completely recover from exhaustion while roughing it in the wilderness. You have to go back to town for a room, a good meal, and some rest.
I'm going to experiment with combining the old rules and the new. I'm thinking of using the new rules, but have levels 5 thru 10 mirror the effects of the old levels 1 thru 6.
There needs to be a high level spell that causes a character to be purged of exhaustion levels, possibly by teleporting them to some sort of Riviera side vacation town on a trajectory outside of time so they arrive back a round later with a week of beachside naps and buffet meals under their belt. You could call it a Cannes Trip.
A good idea! Rod of Security has a similar effect but apparently doesn't remove exhaustion... Might have to homebrew this spell tonight.
The ranger class at higher levels can lose a point of exhaustion per short rest. It’s an awesome feature.
I love that One D&D is moving back towards the older editions' approach of using modifiers to rolls rather than just flat (dis)advantage.
Yes me too. Adv/DisAd doesn't leave any space to design around it
As long as they dpnt gp too far with it, im happy theyre doing it
That’s a shame that you never used it before. I use it all the time and I love the effects of each level getting more serious. I like the simplicity of the new version, kind of, but I like disadvantage over numerical penalties, and it’s odd to me that movement speed isn’t affected with the new one.
It’s not hard to memorize either:
1. Ability checks
2. Movement speed
3. All d20s
The levels after that come up really rarely so I don’t care much past that.
Abelhawk in my Bob comments? What is this, a crossover episode?
I use a very similar system but it’s for being grappled and restrained. Instead of being killed you’re held prone but you might suffer some exhaustion from your escape attempts.
"I use it all the time except the second half of it" lol
To clarify, I've used exhaustion plenty of times haha, it just rarely if ever went beyond level 3 for me as well. And based on the comments, 4 is where people seem to forget the levels. I think we need a poll for this...
@@BobWorldBuilder I'd be interested to see what people think. I can see each way having its own pros and cons. I also think that if you need 11 points of exhaustion to die, there need to be a lot of monster attacks that inflict points of exhaustion or something or it'll never really be used.
-Disadvantage on ability checks and saving throws
-Speed halved
-Disadvantage on attack rolls
-Max HP halved
-Speed set to 0
-Death
from off the top of my head. I might've gotten a few things mixed up but the good news is that with D&D Beyond the rule is never more than 2 clicks away from my character sheet.
Just mixed up the saving throws. Very close!
Im excited to add the exhausted condition to cursed items or even as a penalty for rolling a 1 on physically tasking ability checks.
That's another great use for it!
I’ve been DM’ing that coming back from full death puts you to the fifth level of exhaustion. I don’t care that you didn’t die from exhaustion, if you’re mad about it get a few Greater Restorations thrown on you!
I do use exhaustion in my campaign but have already house-ruled it to scale more steadily through 8 levels... and also includes spell DCs. (That was a good catch for Wizards to include in the new version.) I did have my PCs to level 4 exhaustion recently, but that is "just" disadvantage on attacks/saves/skills and -4 on spell DCs.
Thanks for the update Bob! This makes Barbarian Berseker viable! - Hector
don't have it memorized, but 6 is dead or one foot in the grave.
Yup, 6 is dead.
I do like this ruling, its very helpful as a dm tool to give weight to environments without making characters simply die. I don't think you weigh the first level of exhaustion high enough though, disadvantage on ability checks feels really bad as a player, especially a skill focused character like a rogue.
I also think that 5 levels (or 4 so the person can at least move) would be a good penalty for being raised from the dead, and plan to use that ruling even if i'm still on the fence about the 10 levels variant from oneD&D.
There is enough penalties for raised from the dead as is. Starting from cost in gold, to the fact that they don't get to play when party tries to bring them back. There really is no reason to punish the player farther.
And i'm sure the mention of rise dead removing a level of exhaustion only exist, so you can raise dead someone who died from exhaustion levels rather then combat. If exhaustion levels persist on death (which makes sense, body is still in need of water, food, temperature etc), Raise dead will bring someone from 6lvls (death) to 5lvls (can be taken care of and recover). Characters who died from exhaustion didn't had to have their hp reach 0.
Btw, that also means that if you died from instant death effect, your hp isn't automatically reduced to 0. Rather most resurrection spells will tell you how much hp target has afterwards.
I don't interpret the existing RAW as death causing any exhaustion, though adding a level or 2 (assuming you didn't die of exhaustion) on being raised would be a really good penalty.
I’m a fan of this. One of the guys in our group who DMs hands levels of exhaustion out like it’s candy and it’s a real pain. This isn’t nearly as punitive or difficult to remember.
This was the one rule I saw and right away liked. This will clean up the DM screen a bit, for sure. I would probably add something where your movement was lowered by 5 for each even numbered level of exhaustion you gained ( -5 at lv2, -10 at lv4, -15 at lv6, etc.)
You could also just use double the exhaustion level as movement penalty. (-4 at lv2, -10 at lv5, -16 at lv8, etc.)
This would leave halflings and dorfs immobile at only exhaustion level 8, though.
@@leXie1337_chan Well, exhaustion level 8 is just two away from death.
1. Disadvantage on ability checks
2. Half movement
3. Disadvantage on attack roles and savings throws
4. ....I forget this one
5. Speed reduced to 0
6. Death
TH-cam Algorithm gives you an automatic level of exhaustion.
I have an experience I would like to bring up regarding exhaustion, concerning 'not the best decision' by a DM, but still a valid experience that taught us all a pretty valuable lesson.
DM throws together a dungeon which is essentially an underground dwarven fortress which has been invaded and taken over by undead, whomever might be controlling the undead, and has been filled with dangerous fumes because they shutdown all the venting apparatuses meant to extract the harmful gasses from their forges, machinery and such.
The party goal was to function like a special ops team, go in and secure the airflow apparatuses so that when the main body of the dwarven excursion to retake the fortress arrived, they would be able to actually breathe.
We trekked up the mountain to infiltrate through an air shaft meant expressly for this purpose and has to deal with protective grating and traps around the opening, which wasn't too hard but we couldn't climb the mountain and rest nearby because there were undead patrols and such, so this was pretty much an all-in dungeon, no real opportunity to just "rest" randomly throughout the place either. We had prepared for cold conditions, rough terrain, high altitude conditions and the eventual 'fume' problem with various potions, spells and magical items, but we had not taken into account the effects of exhaustion that might build up.
Long story short, the party all ended up at level 4 exhaustion by the end, due to special abilities of an incorporeal undead mini-boss and the effects of the fumes and enemy spells.
The big reason I tell this long story, is that the entire dungeon was mapped out, so when the first person in the party hit level 2 exhaustion, it slowed the ENTIRE party down so we didn't leave anyone behind. At first we tried to push on a bit ahead, and to punish it, the straggler was attacked by incorporeal undead that seeped out from the walls of the place only when someone was alone.
The whole experience turned out to be a horrific, very long dungeon crawl, but it was also a refreshing reminder of how painful debilitating rules can be. Even just relying on a rogue who is fumbling his sneak and pick lock attempts due to the disadvantages is really painful when failure results in more resource draining minions shuffling to surround the party. By the end we all had a good time and had roleplayed like we all had just run a marathon collapsing at the finish line, we barely survived though, and we never took the exhaustion rules lightly again.
1) Disadvantage on ability checks
2) ½ speed
3) Disadvantage Attack Rolls & Ability checks
4) Hit Point Max ½
5) 0 Speed
6) Death
But I played games with a lot of homebrew that had utilized exhaustion a lot for both the players and the monsters.
Well done! And using it for monsters too is not something I hear very often!
1-disadvantage on ability checks
2-disadvantage on attack rolls and saves
3-movement reduced by half
4-idk
5-movement is 0
6-death
So, I got 2 and 3 flipped around, and 4 is HP halved.
Using exhaustion quite a lot in the two Frostmaiden games currently.
True! That module has lots of inclement weather!!
@@BobWorldBuilder yup especially if you use the weather system from the Dmsguild product "Caul of Winter".
Hey Bob, if you want you can check the exhaustion mechanic of Level up: advanced 5th edition, what they did is that they basically seperated exhaustion into two: fatigue for the physical side, and strife for the mental, its pretty cool and packed with flavour, something that sourly miss from this one despite it being better than the old exhaustion rule
do you have a pdf maybe?
I can't remember where I saw it but someone house-ruled that ghostly enemies dealt necrotic damage AND gave a point of exhaustion when they succeeded with a melee attack. It made them much more thematic and far more terrifying for the party to encounter.
Absolutely do not have it memorized but I'll take a shot
1: disadvantage on all ability checks
2: -10 feet of movement
3: lose your con bonus to max hp
4: you deal half damage
5: your movement becomes 0
6: death
Excited but apprehensive to see the martial class update
Same, but mostly excited! If there's anything scary, it's probably not going to stay in the rules
@@BobWorldBuilder if they do powerful hits like Minus prof to attack and double prof to damage then I think I can manage on the rest.
Levels of Exhaustion in 5e, from memory:
1: Disadvantage on Ability Checks (btw, this includes Initiative)
2: Movement speed reduced by half
3: Disadvantage on Attack Rolls and Saving Throws
4: Maximum HP becomes Half
5: Movement speed becomes 0
6: Death
Frankly, the only reason I know of this, is because Exhaustion comes up surprisingly often in the Adventurer's League modules.
I like exhaustion having different effects as it gets worse, but I also like the idea of it just reducing the rolls. Maybe a mix of both would be perfect.
I definitely agree that max exhaustion should be some form of "you fall down and can't do things" but not quite "you die". I had a half-baked idea a while back that max exhaustion dropped your HP to zero and you couldn't regain HP until you brought your exhaustion down, but you didn't die outright until you failed the subsequent death saves.
I think what they're trying to do by max exhaustion=death is to not have separate rules for dying of starvation or thirst. But I think having some separate rule (even if it's something simple like "if you're at max exhaustion and don't get fed at least once per whatever time period, you die") is worth it to be able to model "you collapse in the desert from exhaustion but are saved (or captured) while unconscious by some passing nomads" type of story beat.
Definitely think that if they are going to keep this progression then they need to make gaining levels of exhaustion much more common. A minus 1 to your d20 rolls isn’t nothing, but that seems pretty tiny for missing an entire night’s sleep. If they don’t increase the frequency that players gain exhaustion levels then I could see bumping that up to a minus 2. This would also make the jump to dying after ten levels a more fluid transition, at level nine you would be having a minus 18 to everything which means you are basically incapable of performing any actions versus a minus 10 where yeah you suck but you at least have a chance of succeeding if you have lots of bonuses.
Yeah I could see lacking sleep having more than just -1, overall I like the versatility of this rule. They could have a more deailed section in the DMG or something, saying that it becomes -2 or -3 each night after X number of nights
I’ll take the challenge
1. Disadvantage on ability checks
2. Speed halved
3. Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws
4. HP halved
5. Speed 0
6. Death
Great job pointing this out! I am 100% on board with this version of exhaustion. Unless it gets changed to something better in the final version, I may go ahead and adopt this version for my table. Thanks for sharing!
Awesome! Glad you like it!
Probably the same for me
I refuse to use Exhaustion at all!!!
There were some official examples in dnd modules that granted potentially two levels in exhaustion.
One that I know off the top of my head is in Tomb of Annihilation. During the jungle exploration phase of the adventure, if the party decides to trek it during a torrential rain storm, they automatically suffer one level of exhaustion, with potentially gaining another level of exhaustion if they failed a Constitution saving throw.
I don't use exhaustion a ton, but I bought Hit Point Press' Deck of Conditions. So pulling that out doesn't slow things down too much. Tbh I don't love either system. I think a blend of the two would be cool. I like the linear nature of the new one, but I would kind of like some roadblocks at, say 5 or 8.
Solid points and I may have to look into that deck. Never heard of it!
Exhaustion (as a story/game element) just has so much dramatic potential (whether the party is struggling across a frozen/burning/rugged wasteland, fighting an unending series of foes, or just pushing themselves beyond their own limits) that it really benefits from a significant but straightforward-to-implement mechanic to help describe it. In 5e it was too complicated, so you lose the drama, but make it too minor and you lose the sense of consequences. It sounds like they're at least playtesting a better balance for One D&D (or are people just going to call it 5.5e?), which may still go through a few iterations before the "final" version. It's already an improvement.
Keeping levels of exhaustion makes perfect sense when rezzed, considering that most real people who nearly die from the kind of environmental conditions that cause it in game take a long time to recover. And if I recall correctly, the spell Sickening Radiance gives an exhaustion level every round you're in it(to the point of stuff rarely causing more than one level).
I like the change to exhaustion as old exhaustion was a gamekiller in many cases if you got further up. With this new system, you can push it as a consequence more, but I would say remove a level of exhaustion per short rest, 2 per long rest.
Im excited for new exhaustion, it's very similar to the Stress rules in Van Richtens guide to Ravenloft which I love
Ahhh I'll have to check that out!
you can exchange the "3 death save mechanic" with a "every fail gives you 3 levels of exhaustion"
so you have the same effect with one less game mechanic in the rulebook
Having played a bunch of 5e Adventures in Middle Earth, Exhaustion features heavily when we've played those games. Frequently, the entire party will gain an Exhaustion level together from a long journey or harsh conditions. In 5e AIME, there's generally limited opportunities for long rests and healing, so it's brutal. So much so that we needed some slight tweeking to the rule.
In any event, while most vanilla 5e games may not have many instances of Exhaustion, I think you're under-selling just how debilitating even one level is. Basically, you suck at trying to do everything that's not an attack. When most of the party has a single level, it killed almost all our non-combat solutions. Sneaking, negotiating, lying, etc. all tend to fail. (Spellcasters do get off a bit freely with Exhaustion rules)
Anyway, the new rule looks cool. I wonder if there's a more generic way of wording the last part that doesn't limit the effect of DCs to just spells. I imagine there's a lot of effects that aren't exactly "spells" such as auras or anything contested by your opponents' rolls.
Was doing something similar before these test rules came out and called it Fatigue. -1 per level of Fatigue to all attacks,/saves/ability checks and -5 feet per level (minimum speed never dropped below 5 feet)
I use exhaustion extensively, because it’s actually threatening and terrifying.
That being said, I’ve only had one character in any of my games reach 5 levels of exhaustion. It was actually one of the best sessions I’ve ever run, due entirely to the exhaustion.
Yeah if a PC gets to level 3 or 4 of exhaustion, they usually drop everything to try and fix it quick!
In the Mythic Odyssey of Theros book there is an underworld player can come to and they keep their exhaustion with them.
Each time a soul dies in the Underworld, it reanimates at the start of its next turn with 1 hit point per hit die it possesses and it gains one level of exhaustion which can’t be removed unless the soul is returned to life at which point all exhaustion gained this way vanishes. With each level of permanent exhaustion, the soul becomes faded and dull, its eyes glazing over until they are blank, starting pools. A soul that suffers from level 6 exhaustion from the continued application of this effect petrified into a statue called a misera, and doesn’t rise again
I like the deadly aspect of exhaustion. Having your character pass out from exhaustion would you mean you'd have to figure out new rules for starvation, since passing out doesn't quite exactly solve that.
I'd say with the new rules, after a certain level. Let's say at Exhaustion level 10 (arbitrary number), each further level of Exhaustion causes you to lose 1 Hit Die from your Maximum number of Hit Die. Once you hit 0, you die
Or some variation of that
That's a good point how losing HP should still be a consequence
@@BobWorldBuilder I myself had the idea of dropping to 0 HP, unstable, instead of immediately dying. Because you have a -10 from your levels of exhaustion your following death saves are almost all fails so it's still an incredibly dangerous state, but it gives your allies a few precious seconds to try and keep you holding on.
This slightly rounds off that sudden death whilst providing an opportunity for it to be a dramatic moment, which personally I really like compared to a more gradual decline before death.
If you really don't like having a sudden effect at 10 though, I think each level of exhaustion could also reduce your max HP by an amount equal to your level.
For example a d6 hit dice class with +0 CON only gains 4HP per level, so accounting for the little extra you get at lvl.1 you're left barely standing on your feet after 4 levels of exhaustion. However a big ol' d12 barbarian with +5 CON gets 12HP per level, so it takes them 12 levels of exhaustion before they're left barely standing.
This reduces it by a mostly consistent % and would even allow you to remove the arbitrary number of 10 from the system, instead those factors being determined by how bulky you are whilst allowing it to scale with level.
Though I will admit the maths is a tiny bit funky such that at really low levels you may be able to tolerate a couple more levels than for most of your adventuring career, but I think that can be handwaved pretty simply as you being a spry new adventurer.
So here's a slight tweak of the Exhaustion rules that I came up with which also implements Constitution.
Levels of Exhaustion. This Condition is cumulative. Each time you receive it, you gain 1 level of exhaustion.
Exhaustion Penalty. You gain an exhaustion penalty equal to your levels of exhaustion - your Constitution modifier (maximum 0).
d20 Rolls Affected. You gain a penalty to your attack, ability checks, and saving throws equal to your exhaustion penalty.
Spell Save DCs Affected. You gain a penalty to the Spell save DC of any Spell you cast equal to your exhaustion penalty.
Movement Speed Affected. You reduce your base movement speed by an amount equal to 5 x your exhaustion penalty.
AC Affected. You reduce your AC by an amount equal to your exhaustion penalty.
Hit Points Affected. You reduce your max Hit Dice by an amount equal to your exhaustion penalty. Whenever you would reduce your max Hit Dice your total Hit Points is reduced by an amount equal to the maximum result of your Hit Dice. If your Hit Points reach 0 you fall unconscious until you lose at least one level of exhaustion.
In the beginning phases of the campaign "Out of the Abyss" I had party members reach exhaustion level 3, but never beyond that.
It's kind of rad to be getting good stuff from One D&D already.
I've completely memorized Exhaustion.
Level 1 - You don't remember and don't' feel like stopping play to look it up.
That's it. Just one level.
This seems like a good change. I always wanted to use exhaustion, but never remembered stuff. For DCC I was thinking of having players go down the dice chain for different levels of it. But maybe the minus is easier.
This definitely has a lot of potential uses. And it may be a little easier in DCC, but if you have all those awesome dice to use, I'd use them instead!
Let's see...
1. Disadv on skill checks.
2. Speed reduced to half.
3. Disadv on attacks and saves.
4. Max HP reduced to half.
5. Speed reduced to zero.
6. Death.
How did I do?
If the d20 test include death saves... this is really nasty!
As of now, it does. The rules for d20 Tests make it an umbrella term for attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws. Death saving throws are a special kind of saving throw, so they are also d20 tests. This makes the exhausted condition incredibly nasty, and the proposed house rules that falling to 0 hp and failing a death save incurs a level of exhaustion a bad idea imo.
Bingo!
Oh I really liked this rules knowledge challenge!
Let's see if I can get these right:
Exhaustion "levels"
1 - Disadvantage in skill checks
2 - Halved movement speed
3 - Disadvantage in attack rolls
4 - Halved Max HP
5 - [can't remember]
6 - Instant death
Let's see how that went
Edit: Surprisingly I got almost all of that right except for number four. And Bob's take on numbers 4, 5 and 6 almost never coming up is very much right in my experience. Even though I used a homebrew rule that granted 1 level of exhaustion if a PC got to 0 HP in battle (this meant no PC could get more than 1 level of exhaustion in the same combat by getting to 0) in some of my previous campaigns, players never got past level 3 of exhaustion. They'd rather stop what they were doing and rest until they weren't exhausted anymore, which got me to the point that even though this homebrew I mentioned was realistic and gave me the feeling that I was looking for, the results were clogging the pace of the game.
I enjoyed the new Exhaustion condition for One D&D a lot and can't wait to playtest it with my players
So when I first read the rules glossary the Exhausted condition jumped out at me and my response was, "Neat, that's so much easier to use and get new players to understand."
I still prefer the old one. This might be easier to memorize in a whiteroom, but during play it's way harder to remember a minus 1 or 2 than it is to know that you're gonna flub skill checks or move slower.
Yeah, it goes against the 5e design principle of not having numerical bonuses or penalties and doing everything with (dis)advantage to avoid the very problem you point out, ie remembering to actually add or subtract the bonus/penalty. If you don't want numerical modifiers, this change is bad. If you want numerical modifiers, you might as well be playing another game.
Editing after seeing the new rules: I like the new rules, they're very simple and fun, but they have the hit points problem where you're functionally okay and then bam you're dead. Plus, you're telling me someone who hasn't slept for 10 days could still jog 30 miles in 8 hours?
If it's going to be incremental then speed should also be reduced by, say, 5 feet per level. Maybe even max hp too, as another commentor pointed out that being current exhaustion makes you more susceptible to the sleep spell and I think that's a fun interaction.
Original comment:
Attempting during the ad!
1: disadvantage on checks
2: speed halved
3: disadvantage on saves and attack rolls
4: health halved
5: speed set to 0
6: death!
Edit, 30 seconds later: perfect! I was waffling on where disadvantage on attack rolls went but I guess I was right.
Agree this is a really good change to the exhaustion rules. Will have a lot more utility in games. I’d consider using this as an abstract wounding system rather then the optional graphic DMG wound rules. I can see a lot of uses for this.
Right! It just seems like this has a lot of potential uses
But it’s not good to design your system around optional rules and/or homebrew being necessary. This exhaustion change is terrible if they don’t include more uses for the exhaustion system.
@@BobWorldBuilder 100% agree 👍
I would personally add that your speed is reduced by 5 feet with each level of exhaustion you gain. Additionally I the death at level 10 could be modified to falling unconscious and rolling death saves. So death is an option but there's a chance of simply beeing forced to sleep it out.
I think you are missing the point of what exhaustion is compared to HP. Death saves are there so you can stabilised from wounds suffered in combat. Exhaustion is a not combat death. You aren't magically stabilising from lack of food or extreme cold. If you "sleep it out" in a blizzard, you aren't waking up. You can have full HP and still die from exhaustion. You can die from exhaustion even if all you do is sleep(but no food/water, too cold/hot).
So don't think about the condition in combat penalties category (even when combat will be affected).
@@Mithguar I guess it does depend on the circumstances that caused the exhaustion up to a certain degree. I'm well aware that exhaustion is not an in-combat mechanic. The reason I opted for death saves is simply the option of having a roll associated with collapsing but not outright dying from exhaustion - basically being forced to rest no matter the circumstances. Of course resting in a blizzard won't end well, but all sorts of continuous physical activities beyond your limits as well as many other circumstances can also cause exhaustion.
I actually really like the old rules. It feels a bit more flavourful especially with the halved speed mechanic and stuff. But the cumulative negative to rolls is also cool. I'd happily combine the new rule with the old and just bump it up to a -2 penalty per level of exhaustion and have it be super mean since it is such a rare condition but could really add to the intense feeling of tracking harsh environment or pushing yourself beyond your limits
that's what I think, too. those rules are not mutually exclusive and can work together or parallel to each other
I like both systems but what I tend to do [using the 5e version] is that instead of death you fall unconscious and make death saves. Party members can provide assistance to help them back up and long rests in actual beds or a tiny hut, completely recover from exhaustion [long resting at campsite reduces exhaustion by 1]. Reason for this, players tend to say okay so we'll just stay resting for 2 to 3 days worth of long rest to reduce exhaustion, niche but it helps speed up gameplay for me
I just love what you're doing, Bob!
I actually memorized the stages of exhaustion (DA on ability checks, half movement, DA on attacks and saves, half hp, zero movement, death... correct?) because of a homebrew I had made to make more use of exhaustion.
If the DM really wants to keep a character around AND the player isn't trying to make a new character, failing death saving throws could result in a number of levels of exhaustion that one short of death (5 levels in 5e, 10 levels in One DnD). This would keep the idea of consequences for failing DSTs, and create a mechanical basis for roleplaying the recovery of a grievous wound over the course of several long rests. The roleplay is a bit more prescribed with 5e exhaustion (first you can't stand up and move on your own. Then you can stand, but you have a limp. After some sharp pains go away, your limp eventually goes away, and eventually you regain the reflexes and mental acuity you had before knocking on death's door).
Also part of the homebrew is that failing DSTs while you have any level of exhaustion results in death, so the homebrew isn't treated as "I can never die, just become exhausted" homebrew. That encourages roleplaying the recovery and treating the injury seriously. A friend of mine said the homebrew sounds harsh, but I reminded him that this is a homebrew that replaces instant death as the consequence of failing DSTs, so this is actually a soft rule.
I hear you on the 5E rules being hard to memorize (I failed to recall them correctly), but one of the things that I was pleasantly surprised to like about 5E was a reduction in the amount of lookups or arithmetic needed when rolling d20 in combat. 5E exhaustion is consistent with that, employing only advantage/disadvantage or a one-time halving of movement or HP. OneD&D exhaustion means more to keep track of and calculate on the fly.
Agreed. It's annoying enough trying to remember Raise Dead penalties with my character who died and was resurrected like 8 months ago IRL, though hopefully they'll be forced to properly integrate that into D&D Beyond if these exhaustion rules go through.
The OneD&D version basically just means you add an small Exhaustion box to the character sheet, where you put a 0-10 to indicate how bad it is. How is that at all difficult?
@@JarieSuicune It isn't terribly difficult. But in combat, for me, every little calculation, no matter how trivial it may seem when you read the rule, slows things down. So I personally apppreciate the way that 5E tried to minimize that. At the same time, I do love the way crunch can add verisimilitude and a visceral feel. And exhaustion is a great way to add that! So I will be interested to see how this plays out, and I do not pretend to know what it best yet even for my own table. If you have any inspirational ideas on how to make it worth a lazy DM's attention, please share! Thanks for your perspective.
I actually do use exhaustion in my campaigns, and if my memory serves me, I believe level one is disadvantage on ability checks, level two is movement speed halved, level three is disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws, level four is your HP maximum cut in half, level five is your speed reduced to zero, and level six is easy: death
This is well timed because I was about to use a scenario that focused a lot on exhaustion later today, and now I will use this.
Awesome! It’s important to actually playtest these rules even though they already sound good
Rules for exhaustion:
1 level: Disadvantage on Ability Checks
2 levels: Speed halved
3 levels: Disadvantage on Attack Rolls and Saving Throws
4 levels: Max hit points halved
5 levels: Speed reduced to 0
6 levels: Death
I never thought it was too difficult to remember, and I've barely been playing for more than a year.