I think the problem with Exhaustion is that it's just... not fun.
I'm pretty generally unfond of the Exhaustion rules. Particularly the whole business of recovering only a single level per day (getting stabbed multiple times, sure, you'll be better tomorrow. Get tired, well, you're SOL).
It isn’t just “tired” though. Severe exhaustion IRL can take several days to recover from.
For real. I can attest to this being true of my own experiences, and of patients I've worked with. Ask a weight-lifter what happens when they skip leg day for a week then trying to do a full session with the same weights as before... noodle legs for days.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I think the problem with Exhaustion is that it's just... not fun.
I'm pretty generally unfond of the Exhaustion rules. Particularly the whole business of recovering only a single level per day (getting stabbed multiple times, sure, you'll be better tomorrow. Get tired, well, you're SOL).
It isn’t just “tired” though. Severe exhaustion IRL can take several days to recover from.
Being stabbed multiple times can take months of physical therapy to recover from, if you ever do. D&D isn't RL.
I think the problem with Exhaustion is that it's just... not fun.
I'm pretty generally unfond of the Exhaustion rules. Particularly the whole business of recovering only a single level per day (getting stabbed multiple times, sure, you'll be better tomorrow. Get tired, well, you're SOL).
It isn’t just “tired” though. Severe exhaustion IRL can take several days to recover from.
Being stabbed multiple times can take months of physical therapy to recover from, if you ever do. D&D isn't RL.
HP doesn’t specifically measure physical injury either. Technically speaking, losing HP just means you lost some of your survivability for the day. You burned a resource to not get injured. Strictly speaking, you don’t actually take any injury until you hit 0 HP.
I think the problem with Exhaustion is that it's just... not fun.
I'm pretty generally unfond of the Exhaustion rules. Particularly the whole business of recovering only a single level per day (getting stabbed multiple times, sure, you'll be better tomorrow. Get tired, well, you're SOL).
It isn’t just “tired” though. Severe exhaustion IRL can take several days to recover from.
Being stabbed multiple times can take months of physical therapy to recover from, if you ever do. D&D isn't RL.
HP doesn’t specifically measure physical injury either. Technically speaking, losing HP just means you lost some of your survivability for the day. You burned a resource to not get injured. Strictly speaking, you don’t actually take any injury until you hit 0 HP.
This. RL/Game distinction is not applicable in this case as HP does not represent injuries either. HP is basically just stamina; combat wears you down, but you aren't wounded. Technically, you aren't even really injured at 0 HP either, but it's semantic since you are dying until healed or stabilized.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I think the problem with Exhaustion is that it's just... not fun.
I'm pretty generally unfond of the Exhaustion rules. Particularly the whole business of recovering only a single level per day (getting stabbed multiple times, sure, you'll be better tomorrow. Get tired, well, you're SOL).
It isn’t just “tired” though. Severe exhaustion IRL can take several days to recover from.
Being stabbed multiple times can take months of physical therapy to recover from, if you ever do. D&D isn't RL.
HP doesn’t specifically measure physical injury either. Technically speaking, losing HP just means you lost some of your survivability for the day. You burned a resource to not get injured. Strictly speaking, you don’t actually take any injury until you hit 0 HP.
This. RL/Game distinction is not applicable in this case as HP does not represent injuries either. HP is basically just stamina; combat wears you down, but you aren't wounded. Technically, you aren't even really injured at 0 HP either, but it's semantic since you are dying until healed or stabilized.
If we want to be really real about hitpoints, they were originally created to represent how many hits warships could take from from large naval guns before losing their fighting capability. So any PC or enemy short of deities probably only have 1 hit point.
This. RL/Game distinction is not applicable in this case as HP does not represent injuries either. HP is basically just stamina; combat wears you down, but you aren't wounded.
In other words, fatigue attacks should just do hit point damage....
I think the problem with Exhaustion is that it's just... not fun.
I'm pretty generally unfond of the Exhaustion rules. Particularly the whole business of recovering only a single level per day (getting stabbed multiple times, sure, you'll be better tomorrow. Get tired, well, you're SOL).
It isn’t just “tired” though. Severe exhaustion IRL can take several days to recover from.
Being stabbed multiple times can take months of physical therapy to recover from, if you ever do. D&D isn't RL.
HP doesn’t specifically measure physical injury either. Technically speaking, losing HP just means you lost some of your survivability for the day. You burned a resource to not get injured. Strictly speaking, you don’t actually take any injury until you hit 0 HP.
This. RL/Game distinction is not applicable in this case as HP does not represent injuries either. HP is basically just stamina; combat wears you down, but you aren't wounded. Technically, you aren't even really injured at 0 HP either, but it's semantic since you are dying until healed or stabilized.
The first thing I said in the post you just quoted was “HP doesn’t specifically measure physical injury either.” but you felt the need to say “HP does not represent injuries either.” Was it the contraction of “does not” into “doesn’t” that you felt the need to correct, the fact that I specified “specifically [sic] physical injuries” instead of “injuries” in general, or mayhaps the fact that I used the verb “measure” instead of “represent” that you objected to?
I had to ask since we basically just wrote the exact same thing.
And I am fully aware of the optional injury rules, to witch I was not referring at all. When I said “injury” what I meant was, if an enemy attacks you with a sword and scores a “hit” against you and you lose HP, that doesn’t actually mean that the sword stabbed you in any way more than a Hollywood style flesh wound. You aren’t really hurt anymore than those Action Heroes are physically wounded to any serious extent. It only represents a potential life threatening “injury” (read wound if that makes it clearer) when you drop to 0 HP.
Nobody does it that way, we all describe and imagine actual wounds, but that’s not really what the abstracted rules of D&D are designed to represent.
It’s actually meant to represent “That attack would have hit you, but you [fill in the blank] and narrowly avoided the blow. Remove X HP, you are that much closer to the attack you won’t be able to avoid.”
I'm not saying it's a good system, or even a believable one, but it is at least consistent with itself. Devs wanted this edition to be easier to streamline gameplay for PUGs. :/
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Oh, shit. I can’t honestly remember the last time that happened, if ever. Damn. I honestly never expected that. My apologies.
Edit: I remember, we agreed about Goodberry not too long ago, but still debating Spirit Guardians and a couple other things. Right? I get confused, we have some of the best debates.
Yeah the whole “HP doesn’t represent actually being hit” is a lie. It’s not how any DM in the history of the game has described combat, it contradicts everything we know about the situations that cause damage (e.g. when you’re swallowed you really are swallowed, when you’re stabbed with a poison dagger it really does apply poison into your bloodstream, etc.), and it has no support in the rule text but instead contradicts pretty much any description of spells and abilities you can think of.
it’s a convenient myth to justify arguing that ‘simulation’ is an attainable goal in 5E, or prior editions. But it’s never been true, even using the optional injury rules, 5E just isn’t a game system designed to realistically simulate bodies, injuries, fatigue, illness, etc... it’s game combat, HP has no real world analogue or rational, and you’re better off embracing that truth and seeking game balance than chasing an impossible ideal of “well what would happen in RL is...”
Oh, shit. I can’t honestly remember the last time that happened, if ever. Damn. I honestly never expected that. My apologies.
Edit: I remember, we agreed about Goodberry not too long ago, but still debating Spirit Guardians and a couple other things. Right? I get confused, we have some of the best debates.
All-in-all, I think we tend to agree on things more than disagree. No prob. :P
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Oh, shit. I can’t honestly remember the last time that happened, if ever. Damn. I honestly never expected that. My apologies.
Edit: I remember, we agreed about Goodberry not too long ago, but still debating Spirit Guardians and a couple other things. Right? I get confused, we have some of the best debates.
All-in-all, I think we tend to agree on things more than disagree. No prob. :P
I don't think there really is a quick fix to the Berserker (or even if it needs a fix, TBH).
Gaining an additional attack as a bonus action using weapons dealing more than D6 damage at level 3 is pretty darned powerful. You are doubling your DPR at that point. Ignoring the penalty and even with limitations on number of uses, this is incredibly OP IMHO at level 3. That's why it needs a severe penalty for use: You can use it whenever you want to help get your party out of a tight spot, but you have to accept the severe negative consequences to do so.
One of the biggest problems I see with it is that it doesn't scale well. As soon as you hit level 5, you go from doing double the DPR to only 1.5x. In addition, at level 4 you can choose a feat which will often give you that bonus action anyway. While this denies you an ASI or different Feat, you also get the benefits of the alternative Path you chose, so it is comparable.
Obviously, balancing things is tricky. I think the changes I'd make would be something like:
Suffer a level of exhaustion temporarily (e.g. for 1h or until start of next short or long rest) after the rage ends, Con saving throw after that DC10 to recover it (increases by 5 each additional use)
Recover all levels of exhaustion caused by Frenzy on a long rest
Force reckless attack
Force a check of some kind (possibly WIS?) to do anything in combat except attack an enemy or move straight towards the nearest enemy
Possibly, allow attacking twice on BA when gaining Extra Attack, depending on how it worked out with the above.
That said, I have little idea how balanced this would be. I kinda have to assume that WoTC play tested it and found that giving the bonus attack was OP without something as harsh as Exhaustion.
Could the bonus attack be a bonus action? Kind of like the same side effect of haste. Doing nearly double turns would justify the exhaustion. Maybe end game this could be very strong with 3 barb/x fighter.
What if the fix is the berserker effectively loses their resistance to damage if they frenzy? Like "...when your rage ends, you suffer any damage you resisted while in frenzy." The idea is that if HP resembles not merely flesh wounds and blood loss but stress etc., that when the berserker comes out of their fugue frenzy state it all becomes far more "real" than their normal rages. Their body has no way to cope with all the stress and damage along with the stress of the exertion of their frenzy?
What if the fix is the berserker effectively loses their resistance to damage if they frenzy? Like "...when your rage ends, you suffer any damage you resisted while in frenzy." The idea is that if HP resembles not merely flesh wounds and blood loss but stress etc., that when the berserker comes out of their fugue frenzy state it all becomes far more "real" than their normal rages. Their body has no way to cope with all the stress and damage along with the stress of the exertion of their frenzy?
What do you think?
I think that's a creative twist to the concept, but I feel like it would be frustrating in a different way, since the player then needs to track all of their "banked" damage. Not a terrible inconvenience, but it's not something I wouldn't want to track if I was playing a Barbarian.
For real. I can attest to this being true of my own experiences, and of patients I've worked with. Ask a weight-lifter what happens when they skip leg day for a week then trying to do a full session with the same weights as before... noodle legs for days.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Being stabbed multiple times can take months of physical therapy to recover from, if you ever do. D&D isn't RL.
HP doesn’t specifically measure physical injury either. Technically speaking, losing HP just means you lost some of your survivability for the day. You burned a resource to not get injured. Strictly speaking, you don’t actually take any injury until you hit 0 HP.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
This. RL/Game distinction is not applicable in this case as HP does not represent injuries either. HP is basically just stamina; combat wears you down, but you aren't wounded. Technically, you aren't even really injured at 0 HP either, but it's semantic since you are dying until healed or stabilized.
There are optional rules for injuries, however.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
If we want to be really real about hitpoints, they were originally created to represent how many hits warships could take from from large naval guns before losing their fighting capability. So any PC or enemy short of deities probably only have 1 hit point.
In other words, fatigue attacks should just do hit point damage....
The first thing I said in the post you just quoted was “HP doesn’t specifically measure physical injury either.” but you felt the need to say “HP does not represent injuries either.” Was it the contraction of “does not” into “doesn’t” that you felt the need to correct, the fact that I specified “specifically [sic] physical injuries” instead of “injuries” in general, or mayhaps the fact that I used the verb “measure” instead of “represent” that you objected to?
I had to ask since we basically just wrote the exact same thing.
And I am fully aware of the optional injury rules, to witch I was not referring at all. When I said “injury” what I meant was, if an enemy attacks you with a sword and scores a “hit” against you and you lose HP, that doesn’t actually mean that the sword stabbed you in any way more than a Hollywood style flesh wound. You aren’t really hurt anymore than those Action Heroes are physically wounded to any serious extent. It only represents a potential life threatening “injury” (read wound if that makes it clearer) when you drop to 0 HP.
Nobody does it that way, we all describe and imagine actual wounds, but that’s not really what the abstracted rules of D&D are designed to represent.
It’s actually meant to represent “That attack would have hit you, but you [fill in the blank] and narrowly avoided the blow. Remove X HP, you are that much closer to the attack you won’t be able to avoid.”
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I'm not saying it's a good system, or even a believable one, but it is at least consistent with itself. Devs wanted this edition to be easier to streamline gameplay for PUGs. :/
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Sposta I was agreeing with you
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Oh, shit. I can’t honestly remember the last time that happened, if ever. Damn. I honestly never expected that. My apologies.
Edit: I remember, we agreed about Goodberry not too long ago, but still debating Spirit Guardians and a couple other things. Right? I get confused, we have some of the best debates.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Yeah the whole “HP doesn’t represent actually being hit” is a lie. It’s not how any DM in the history of the game has described combat, it contradicts everything we know about the situations that cause damage (e.g. when you’re swallowed you really are swallowed, when you’re stabbed with a poison dagger it really does apply poison into your bloodstream, etc.), and it has no support in the rule text but instead contradicts pretty much any description of spells and abilities you can think of.
it’s a convenient myth to justify arguing that ‘simulation’ is an attainable goal in 5E, or prior editions. But it’s never been true, even using the optional injury rules, 5E just isn’t a game system designed to realistically simulate bodies, injuries, fatigue, illness, etc... it’s game combat, HP has no real world analogue or rational, and you’re better off embracing that truth and seeking game balance than chasing an impossible ideal of “well what would happen in RL is...”
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
All-in-all, I think we tend to agree on things more than disagree. No prob. :P
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Generally yes, I would agree with that. Lol 😂
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
So can getting stabbed. I feel like if you have a mechanic for getting tired in game, you should have a mechanic for wound recovery.
The Gritty Realism variant rule for rests is the mechanic you are looking for.
I don't think there really is a quick fix to the Berserker (or even if it needs a fix, TBH).
Gaining an additional attack as a bonus action using weapons dealing more than D6 damage at level 3 is pretty darned powerful. You are doubling your DPR at that point. Ignoring the penalty and even with limitations on number of uses, this is incredibly OP IMHO at level 3. That's why it needs a severe penalty for use: You can use it whenever you want to help get your party out of a tight spot, but you have to accept the severe negative consequences to do so.
One of the biggest problems I see with it is that it doesn't scale well. As soon as you hit level 5, you go from doing double the DPR to only 1.5x. In addition, at level 4 you can choose a feat which will often give you that bonus action anyway. While this denies you an ASI or different Feat, you also get the benefits of the alternative Path you chose, so it is comparable.
Obviously, balancing things is tricky. I think the changes I'd make would be something like:
That said, I have little idea how balanced this would be. I kinda have to assume that WoTC play tested it and found that giving the bonus attack was OP without something as harsh as Exhaustion.
Could the bonus attack be a bonus action? Kind of like the same side effect of haste. Doing nearly double turns would justify the exhaustion. Maybe end game this could be very strong with 3 barb/x fighter.
What if the fix is the berserker effectively loses their resistance to damage if they frenzy? Like "...when your rage ends, you suffer any damage you resisted while in frenzy." The idea is that if HP resembles not merely flesh wounds and blood loss but stress etc., that when the berserker comes out of their fugue frenzy state it all becomes far more "real" than their normal rages. Their body has no way to cope with all the stress and damage along with the stress of the exertion of their frenzy?
What do you think?
I think that's a creative twist to the concept, but I feel like it would be frustrating in a different way, since the player then needs to track all of their "banked" damage. Not a terrible inconvenience, but it's not something I wouldn't want to track if I was playing a Barbarian.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
The simplest fix is to just make it only usable once per long rest, which is mostly what fatigue does anyway.