So im basically porting over content from grim hollow into dndbeyond as a homebrew for my players, and basically one bit of content allows them to transform themselves into a ghost, but as im porting it i noticed ghosts can get immunity from exhaustion, as an undead that makes perfect sense but im afraid that itself is a bit overpowered, i have been discussing it with my players and they all will respect my decision in the end regardless but i wanna ask my fellow DMS on there feedback, would immunity be to OP?
To be honest, I find exhaustion a rather underused and overpowered mechanic in general. Underused in that the condition doesn't get nearly as much airtime as things like frightened, charmed, blinded or even paralyzed. Overpowered in that when it stacks, it can quickly become deadly at low-level tiers, especially in dungeon crawls.
Unless you're planning to throw a lot of monsters/environments/spells that impose exhaustion levels on failed saves, or you are constructing a universe where they'll have to skip long rests, it's likely you won't run into a need for exhaustion much at all and the immunity will be so niche it doesn't affect much.
If you're worried about it being too strong, however, you can always say that the feature gives advantage on saves against exhaustion - or that the character can get rid of exhaustion on short rests instead of long rests. That way you still preserve the flavor and some function of the original without it being one-to-one.
Exhaustion is rather limited as a mechanic, so unless you use it a lot, I wouldn't worry too much about exhaustion immunity. It also doesn't let you bypass the requirements to rest- you still need to short/long rest to recover resources. All it does in most cases is directly counter exhaustion causing effects, but those tend to be relatively uncommon in many circumstances (barring extreme weather and long journeys).
There is like one spell in the game that inflicts exhaustion on enemies and it's sickening radiance. Immunity to it, isn't a huge deal for a monster. For a PC it can be very powerful as it abolishes much of the need to eat and sleep as well as removing a bunch of item and ability penalties.
Immunity to exhaustion isn't a big deal most of the time since exhaustion itself doesn't come up much.
The only issue would arise when a player chooses to build a character around it. For example, a sorcerer/warlock ghost character immune to exhaustion would never have any penalty for skipping long rests. They could just do multiple short rests (DM discretion) every night and stock up an "infinite" number of spell slots. There are ways to build such a character without immunity to exhaustion (divine soul sorcerer 9/warlock 3) has greater restoration and can cure their own exhaustion every day) but it is perhaps more difficult.
I might be more concerned with some of the other capabilities of ghosts - ethereal travel, horrific visage, passing through solid objects, resistance or immunity to several types of damage and conditions - which all might be more of an issue depending on context than exhaustion immunity.
In my games, Exhaustion is SUPER common as we have a homebrew rule where every time you're healed up from 0hp, you gain a level of exhaustion. In my games, immunity would be craaaaaazy busted lol
But without that homebrew rule, Its actually harder to GET exhaustion than to cure it so I'd say its fine lol
If you want to include the flavour without overpowerin it, you could make it a once per long rest ability to ignore one point of exhaustion.
EG, they become a ghost, then take 1 point of exhaustion, and pop their "once per long rest, ignore a point of exhaustion" power to shrug it off. if they take another, they take it, but given 6 points kills you, ignoring the first is going to be a good power - if exhaustion comes up!
I also intend to use the houserule of gaining exhaustion when you are brought back from 0hp, so it will likely come up often when I get back into DMing!
I also intend to use the houserule of gaining exhaustion when you are brought back from 0hp, so it will likely come up often when I get back into DMing!
Its really fun! It makes combat super tense. In my group, its started a running joke of "Exhaustion is a resource" lol "You just fell the third time in the same combat? Get back up! you still have 2 exhaustions left and we need the dps! Exhaustion's a resource!"
I thank you all for your insight and you all make very good points, considering everything i might just flavor it of mundane exhaustion doesnt effect them but class features and spells still grant exhaustion, i have a few little gremlins in my group who would totally exploit there class if it was total immunity lol
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So im basically porting over content from grim hollow into dndbeyond as a homebrew for my players, and basically one bit of content allows them to transform themselves into a ghost, but as im porting it i noticed ghosts can get immunity from exhaustion, as an undead that makes perfect sense but im afraid that itself is a bit overpowered, i have been discussing it with my players and they all will respect my decision in the end regardless but i wanna ask my fellow DMS on there feedback, would immunity be to OP?
To be honest, I find exhaustion a rather underused and overpowered mechanic in general. Underused in that the condition doesn't get nearly as much airtime as things like frightened, charmed, blinded or even paralyzed. Overpowered in that when it stacks, it can quickly become deadly at low-level tiers, especially in dungeon crawls.
Unless you're planning to throw a lot of monsters/environments/spells that impose exhaustion levels on failed saves, or you are constructing a universe where they'll have to skip long rests, it's likely you won't run into a need for exhaustion much at all and the immunity will be so niche it doesn't affect much.
If you're worried about it being too strong, however, you can always say that the feature gives advantage on saves against exhaustion - or that the character can get rid of exhaustion on short rests instead of long rests. That way you still preserve the flavor and some function of the original without it being one-to-one.
I was honestly considering the advantage on the saving throw so far and you do make a decent point on how often exhaustion even comes up
Exhaustion is rather limited as a mechanic, so unless you use it a lot, I wouldn't worry too much about exhaustion immunity. It also doesn't let you bypass the requirements to rest- you still need to short/long rest to recover resources. All it does in most cases is directly counter exhaustion causing effects, but those tend to be relatively uncommon in many circumstances (barring extreme weather and long journeys).
I rather strongly dislike exhaustion as a mechanic, and there aren't a lot of effects that can cause it that a ghost isn't immune to anyway.
There is like one spell in the game that inflicts exhaustion on enemies and it's sickening radiance. Immunity to it, isn't a huge deal for a monster. For a PC it can be very powerful as it abolishes much of the need to eat and sleep as well as removing a bunch of item and ability penalties.
Immunity to exhaustion isn't a big deal most of the time since exhaustion itself doesn't come up much.
The only issue would arise when a player chooses to build a character around it. For example, a sorcerer/warlock ghost character immune to exhaustion would never have any penalty for skipping long rests. They could just do multiple short rests (DM discretion) every night and stock up an "infinite" number of spell slots. There are ways to build such a character without immunity to exhaustion (divine soul sorcerer 9/warlock 3) has greater restoration and can cure their own exhaustion every day) but it is perhaps more difficult.
I might be more concerned with some of the other capabilities of ghosts - ethereal travel, horrific visage, passing through solid objects, resistance or immunity to several types of damage and conditions - which all might be more of an issue depending on context than exhaustion immunity.
I'm in agreeance with everyone here
In my games, Exhaustion is SUPER common as we have a homebrew rule where every time you're healed up from 0hp, you gain a level of exhaustion. In my games, immunity would be craaaaaazy busted lol
But without that homebrew rule, Its actually harder to GET exhaustion than to cure it so I'd say its fine lol
If you want to include the flavour without overpowerin it, you could make it a once per long rest ability to ignore one point of exhaustion.
EG, they become a ghost, then take 1 point of exhaustion, and pop their "once per long rest, ignore a point of exhaustion" power to shrug it off. if they take another, they take it, but given 6 points kills you, ignoring the first is going to be a good power - if exhaustion comes up!
I also intend to use the houserule of gaining exhaustion when you are brought back from 0hp, so it will likely come up often when I get back into DMing!
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Its really fun! It makes combat super tense. In my group, its started a running joke of "Exhaustion is a resource" lol "You just fell the third time in the same combat? Get back up! you still have 2 exhaustions left and we need the dps! Exhaustion's a resource!"
I thank you all for your insight and you all make very good points, considering everything i might just flavor it of mundane exhaustion doesnt effect them but class features and spells still grant exhaustion, i have a few little gremlins in my group who would totally exploit there class if it was total immunity lol