Mechanical Thinking is a series that presents new houserules that you can add to your home D&D games, and then interrogates the underlying mechanics, examines what problems the rule solves, and identifies what the rule can do to improve your game. Then, once all is said and done, join me and other readers in the comments for a discussion about the proposed rule. Just remember that all rules have their place, and while they might not fit your table, they might be perfect for another gaming group.
If you have a mind for mechanics or for the process of game design, or if you want hone the mechanical side of your RPG knowledge, this series is for you!
Exhaustion
Exhaustion is a six-step stamina counter unique to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons that tracks a creature’s physical state from peak condition to death. Unlike hit points, which increase as a character gains levels, exhaustion always remains the same. Likewise, every point of exhaustion a creature gains imposes a cumulative and debilitating effect, ranging from unpleasant-but-minor disadvantage on ability checks at a single point of exhaustion, to complete immobility at five points, to instant death at six points.
Exhaustion’s “death spiral” effect sometimes feels at odds with D&D’s heroic nature, which is best exemplified by hit points—a health tracker that allows a character with only a single remaining hit point to fight just as effectively as a character at full hit points. For that reason, effects that impose exhaustion are mercifully rare in D&D’s rules and adventures—and this scarcity is merciful, as there are precious few ways of recovering from exhaustion. Nevertheless, if you want to add a bit of grit to your D&D game, consider expanding the role of exhaustion:
Exhaustion as Damage
If you want to make combat more ruthless and visceral, try removing the abstract concept of hit points from your D&D and replacing it with an exhaustion track. This method is similar to, but distinct from, a mechanic introduced in the Star Wars Saga Edition roleplaying game, published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000 and revised in 2002. This mechanic was known as the Condition Track. In addition to damage (which drained a creature’s D&D-style hit points), Star Wars Saga Edition included effects that pushed their target down the Condition Track. Every time a creature advanced down the Condition Track, it suffered mounting cumulative penalties, ultimately resulting in unconsciousness. As was typical of the third edition D&D and the d20 System, these condition penalties were granular penalties to rolls; a character would advance from a –1 penalty to attack rolls, ability checks, and skill checks to a –2, a –5, and so forth.
Exhaustion in fifth edition bears some similarities to Star Wars-style conditions, but by making the penalties of exhaustion less granular, fifth edition actually made exhaustion more debilitating. Being able to move only half speed is a huge deal for only two points of exhaustion, and disadvantage on attack rolls at three points is massive, but to have your hit point maximum halved at four points? Fifth edition exhaustion doesn’t play around. Notably, a creature’s condition could be much more easily restored than D&D exhaustion, which can only be recovered point-by-point by completing a long rest, being soothed by greater restoration, or by consuming a rare potion.
Replacing Hit Points with an Exhaustion Track
You can adapt this idea to D&D by removing hit points entirely, and giving each class their own exhaustion track. A character’s exhaustion track is determined by the size of your class’s hit die, plus your Constitution modifier. For instance, a wizard or a sorcerer has a 6-step exhaustion track, because the wizard and sorcerer classes have a d6 hit die. Likewise, a fighter, paladin, or ranger has a 10-step exhaustion track because those classes have a d10 hit die. Finally, your character’s exhaustion track is extended by a number equal to your Constitution modifier; if your character’s Constitution modifier is negative, your track is reduced by that number of steps.
Whenever you gain a level, your exhaustion track increases by one.
Also, since the fourth step of the exhaustion track in the core rules is "hit point maximum halved," this step will have to be replaced. Instead, creatures that have reached this step can only take an action or a bonus action on their turn, not both. Additionally, they can't take reactions.
Creatures with Exhaustion Tracks Longer or Shorter than Six Steps
Under this system, most creatures have an exhaustion track more than six-steps long. For instance, a wizard with a +1 Constitution modifier has a 7-step exhaustion track. However, since there are only six steps of exhaustion in D&D, every step of your track your character has above 6 is “safe.” Gaining a point of exhaustion has no effect until you enter the final six steps of your exhaustion track.
For example, a rogue (d8 hit die) and a +2 Constitution modifier has an exhaustion track that looks like this:
Level of Exhaustion |
Effect |
1 |
— |
2 |
— |
3 |
— |
4 |
— |
5 |
Disadvantage on ability checks |
6 |
Speed halved |
7 |
Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws |
8 |
Can only take an action or a bonus action on a turn, and can't take reactions |
9 |
Speed Reduced to 0 |
10 |
Death |
Similarly, if your exhaustion track is shorter than six steps, you suffer the effects of exhaustion in order (starting with disadvantage on ability checks at one point of exhaustion) but die when you reach the end of your exhaustion track. For example, a character with a 5-step exhaustion track dies after gaining five points of exhaustion, rather than having its speed reduced to 0 first.
Gaining Exhaustion when Taking Damage
In addition to the usual ways a creature become exhausted (such as through strenuous travel and dangerous environments), a creature gains a point of exhaustion whenever it takes damage. This damage could come from any source, such as an attack, a spell, or an environmental effect. Especially powerful attacks, environmental effects, and spells could cause more than 1 point of exhaustion, at the DM’s discretion. If a single attack or effect deals multiple types of damage, such as a flying snake's bite dealing both piercing and poison damage, this attack still only inflicts 1 point of exhaustion.
Healing
Whenever an effect would cause a creature to regain any number of hit points, it instead loses 1 point of exhaustion. If the healing effect is a spell that only targets a single creature, the spell causes its target to lose a point of exhaustion per level of the spell. Healing spells that target multiple creatures and restore large amounts of hit points, like mass cure wounds and mass heal are left to the DM’s discretion.
Also, lesser restoration now causes its target to lose 1 point of exhaustion in addition to its other effects. Lastly, greater restoration now causes the target to lose 2 points of exhaustion in addition to its other effects. A potion of healing causes the creature who drinks it to lose 1 point of exhaustion, a potion of greater healing restores 2 points of exhaustion, and so forth.
Finally, a creature can lose 1 point of exhaustion by spending a hit die when it completes a short rest. Restoring exhaustion further in the same short rest costs one additional hit die per point cured; for instance, curing three points of exhaustion in a single rest costs six hit dice, one hit die for the first, two for the second, and three for the third.
Monsters
Instead of having hit points, a monster has a number of exhaustion steps equal to its number of hit dice. Monsters exhaustion tracks work similarly to characters’ exhaustion tracks; if this number is less than six, the monster suffers the effects of exhaustion as normal, but dies after it gains points of exhaustion equal to its number of hit dice.
Dying
When a creature reaches the end of its exhaustion track, it dies. Unlike in the core fifth edition rules, no creatures make death saving throws. If you want your game to be more forgiving, consider allowing player characters and important NPCs to start dying when they reach the end of their exhaustion track instead of perishing outright. Dying creatures make death saves as normal.
Points of Stress in this House Rule
This house rule isn’t perfect. Fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons was designed with hit points in mind, and simplifying hit points into an exhaustion track has some serious drawbacks, in exchange for making your games less lethal in earlier levels and potentially more lethal at higher levels. It makes hordes of weak creatures incredibly dangerous, and creatures with many attacks (such as a marilith or a carrion crawler disproportionately powerful, since all attacks have the same effective power under this system, regardless of whether they would have dealt 10 damage or 100 in a hit point-based system.
Because of the way the power of certain spells and features fluctuate with this rule in place, Dungeon Masters may have to make ad hoc adjudications when translating the power of area-of-effect spells from hit point damage to exhaustion damage. As a simple house rule, these sort of adjudications are fine. If this system were translated into a full and exhaustive D&D-like spinoff game, a full rework of many monsters, spells, and features would be in order to suit this new mechanical framework.
Also, no exhaustion-as-damage houserule would be complete without addressing the “death spiral” effect, in which characters become less effect and less likely to succeed in a fight as the fight goes on. This effect is cushioned somewhat by allowing hardy characters to take multiple hits before suffering from exhaustion effects, but it is nevertheless still present. The death spiral effect on monsters also adds to the Dungeon Master’s mental load, as the DM now has to keep track of all the effects clinging onto their monsters throughout the course of an encounter and beyond.
What do you think of this new house rule? Would you use it in your game? What would you change? Let us know in the comments below!
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, the DM of Worlds Apart, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
My original intent for this article was to propose a slew of little house rules involving exhaustion, but this one big idea kind of got away from me. The idea below was actually the original seed of this piece, but it felt like it no longer fit. Take a look at this additional houserule, as well!
If you want a house rule that introduces exhaustion as a common mechanic without meddling with the guts of D&D as deeply as I did here, consider causing any creature that falls unconscious after being reduced to 0 hit points to gain a level of exhaustion. This introduces a penalty for falling unconscious in battle and helps reduce the "whack-a-mole" feel that battles can sometimes have.
So the "Hit Points Halved" level of exhaustion can be removed, and everything move down one step?
I like the idea of combining health points and exhaustion points. Characters no matter their level of class can fight for " hours" on end as it is.
I often throw numerous enemy at them, and then afterward they go on a run of something, the thought of them slumping in exhaustion after fighting an orc raiding party adds a bit of realism.
Never knew of the star wars set up, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Oh! Yes, that's right. This is exactly the reason why having another set of eyes on your work is essential for anyone making house rules, let alone anyone doing full-blown game mechanics design!
Seems like it makes wizards even squishier than they already are, while also giving huge buffs to spells like Vitriolic Sphere, Acid Arrow, Phantasmal Force, Cloudkill, and Flaming Sphere, as well other spells that deal damage over time.
Also, how does this interact with monsters like an Adult Red Dragon, who deals fire damage AND piercing damage in a single Bite attack?
This is actually a brilliant idea that I really liked reading through and could see being incredibly cool to use. The only thing that I would possibly change is the short rest hit dice usage, just because at the lower levels, especially with a smaller party, it could get pretty brutal very quickly if facing larger groups of enemies, or anything with multiattack. I would probably link it into the con modifier somehow, but I don't know what you'd do for characters with negative modifiers. Possibly a one point + con mod for each dice step, with a minimum of 1 point gained. Other than that, a really brilliant and well thought out idea!
In response to MasterCryomancer above, re: Dragon Bite.
I feel like that would be very up to the DM, but personally, I'd take it as a single source of damage - so 1 point, maybe 2 depending on the average damage done by the attack.
That's another thing. This system makes it so that Constitution can be dumped by everyone but barbarians and spellcasters.
Why do you think this? Constitution still extends the exhaustion track for all characters, (and shortens it for those with negative modifiers) making it a useful modifier and a dangerous stat to dump, especially for front-line combatants.
I largely like it - conceptually, hit points never did sit well with me. Though it does make combats extremely short as characters do not gain more points on the exhaustion track as they gain levels.
Matt Colville in his Strongholds & Followers book suggests a hit dice based approach, where instead of tracking hit points on your hirelings (which is tedium) he suggests making a Constitution save versus the average damage for an attack: on a save nothing happens, on a loss lose a hit die.
Maybe some blend of the two?
It actually does gain a point every level up.
"Whenever you gain a level, your exhaustion track increases by one."
I implemented this in my campaign and it works fantastically. It makes falling to 0 HP mean a lot more and players take great care to stay conscious and no longer rely on Healing Words to stay up.
This. Is. PERFECT! Definitely gonna start using this in the campaigns I DM. Thanks for all your awesome writing and ideas James! Keep up the extraordinary work!
How would this work with damage modifiers such as Sneak Attack, Dueling, or Critical Hits?
They are all nullified. As a class, rogues become horrible versions of fighters, Dueling becomes useless, and while a natural 20 guarantees a hit, there is no other benefit.
I like the idea of replacing my players HP with exhaustion. However, I would still keep HP for enemies. My players like being able to roll for damage so taking that away in favor of a simple hit or miss and dealing one level of exhaustion would not be as fun. Another issue would be having to judge how many points to take away for spells and attacks that deal massive amounts of damage.
I Appreciate the idea. But the the implementation.
Group of level 1 wizards, or folks with a wand of magic missile, are now dramatically overpowered. (Never miss attack. Split d4s to multiple. Long range. All doing 1 point exhaustion....)
Needs a damage threshold. Let’s say... Con Score, or con score + hit dice. Once damage > threshold in a round, exhaustion point.
I have a possible topic for a future post, James. How about a house rule that more or less eliminates initiative, which has always seemed unrealistic, herky-jerky and problematic to me? A house rule in which opposing sides roll for initiative ONLY as a tie-breaker when the two opposing forces appear to be acting at the same time. Otherwise, all sides declare at the beginning of a turn what they intend to do for that turn and when and where (their movement and attacks). BUT those declarations are more or less resolved simultaneously and in real time with the attacks being resolved in an order that makes sense based on when and where they are initiated. For example: a bowman in turn 1 who announces he is not moving at all and shooting at an Orc he sees 30 feet away would automatically resolve his ranged attacks BEFORE that Orc (which the DM has already announced is charging him with a sword) can move and attack. Another example: a bowman allied to the bowman in the first example says he is also going to draw an arrow and shoot at the first enemy he sees while he runs 20 feet to the right to get behind a low wall for cover (but NOT shoot at the same visible Orc his buddy is currently targeting), and then continue to look for enemies there to shoot at. (Currently, at the beginning of the turn, there are no other enemies in sight). In this case, the bowman in the first example shoots first. Movement proceeds. The second bowman then moves toward the wall for cover. As he does so, the visible Orc (who survived the first bowman's arrow) also moves toward the bowman who shot at it. Meanwhile, a second Orc suddenly appears from around a corner and charges toward the second bowman with an ax. That bowman immediately gets to shoot that Orc before any more movement is resolved. The second Orc falls dead from that shot. The first, wounded, Orc then continues the rest of its movement to close with the first bowman and makes its melee attacks.
Alrighty, I like the direction. I think the use of defining the Exhaustion steps by hit die size is solid. Hardier classes are hardier, and folks with a Con mod should reap the benefits here as well. There's some conflict in adding to that when they level. Coupled with the 'any damage' leading to a point of Exhaustion, and the later part falls short somewhat to grab that gritty feel for me. The 'any damage taken' part is a little mute, since a hit will lead to a step on the Exhaustion track, so there's no need to roll it. Edge cases aside, (like a raging barbarian getting hit for 1 damage when raging, or anything 3 or less for those with the feat), damage leading to a step leads to one less die roll to calculate said damage. Its created the issue you identified, where an attacks damage severity isn't considered.
My proposal would be to keep the damage track set at Hit Die Size + Con, no matter the level, and have a Soak roll after the damage roll, akin to Savage Worlds. We already have rules for such, in the Concentration mechanics when taking damage, and that can be a standard for all characters who get hit; added caveat that someone who fails this check also loses their spell if concentraiting. If they make it, they're dandy. Fail, and you advance one step on your Exhaustion Track. There's still the Disadv' on saving throws causing the death spiral, but a surviving character now has a little control over mitigating it over a (hopefully long) career. Tough classes and Con heavy characters still get their benefits, and the severity of damage on the attack can still be an exciting moment in the micro dramatic tension of an attack roll.