So what are your thoughts on the following house rules:
Hit dice removed
Short Rest- 1 HP restored
Long Rest- 1/10 of total HP restored
Exhaustion Levels add when downed in combat
4 levels of exhaustion added when downed
The way this is balanced is that there is normally about 1-2 encounters per 6 hour session with fairly ample opportunity to long rest/short rest without getting disturbed.
Do you all think this is a fair balance? What modifications would you suggest?
Regaining 1 hit point on a short rest seems so low as to be useless - it almost never will actually impact anything.
Not having any means of recovering hit points in noteworthy quantities besides taking multiple long rests or using magic will do one of two things: 1) result in full-healing through magical means, whether that is players all favoring classes with healing powers and hording their spell slots to use for healing, or the DM putting in an abundance of magical items that provide healing - basically to the effect of how often the characters are healed to full or how many challenges they face between one full-heal to the next being no different than if you left the rules as written. Or 2) result in player character death being extremely common.
As for exhaustion levels when downed in combat... which I am assuming means if you drop to 0 HP, having 4 added at once will make any character that drops to 0 HP better off staying at 0 HP and hoping something doesn't kill them off, because the penalties racked up for those levels of exhaustion makes the most likely outcome of getting back into the fight ending up dead - because when getting back up from 0, you are usually only 1 more hit from falling to 0 again, and 6 total levels of exhaustion = death.
Plus, such a hefty penalty for hitting 0 HP during a battle will mean either the party takes a prolonged period of rest every time someone gets unlucky and runs out of HP to overcome the exhaustion - meaning they won't be facing any challenges with the penalty, despite adding it to the rules, or you will again see a sharp rise in character death as they try to push on with multiple levels of exhaustion and cannot perform at the appropriate capacity to actually overcome any challenges.
Effectively, these changes to the rules will either have only the effect of the narrative including more time spent resting, or will create a "death spiral" effect wherein the party becomes more and more likely to all end up dead as play continues.
I would suggest looking at the variant rules in the DMG that simply change the time required for a short rest to 8 hours and a long rest to 1 week, if your goal is to make getting back to full resources take greater time, rather than to make death almost inevitable.
I think I like the idea of adding exhaustion as a penalty for being reduced to 0 hitpoints, but would limit it to 1 level of exhaustion per encounter/combat, applied after the combat ends, and with the caveat that this can never push you from 5 to 6 (death). To balance that, I think it is sensible to allow 1 exhaustion point to be replenished per long or short rest (rather than long only) - in my games a day is long rest and two optional short rests so people could get 3 back per day at most. This also changes how often a Berserker could "safely" frenzy, but that doesn't upset me.
I personally have made exhaustion a little more granular in that I have added a lesser version dubbed "fatigue". It essentially works giving the penalties of exhaustion but caps out at the third level penalties (so disadvantage to checks and half move speed), and a short rest will reduce fatigue by one level while a long rest removes all of them. Once a player gains 3 levels of fatigue (or gains any more fatigue after that) they make a constitution save with a DC 10 (+5 to the DC for any fatigue levels above 3), or take a level of exhaustion (which doesn't stack with fatigue penalties, but takes a long rest to recover from).
If a character is rendered unconscious from damage they suffer one level of fatigue. Players can stay 'unconscious' to the end of a battle if they wish to do so even if being on 1hp.
Still, I like the idea of penalizing whack-a-mole play, at least in a minor fatigue way, I’ve seen some options for semi-permanent scarring and wounds as well
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Playtesting Fugare Draconis, an epic tale of adventure, loss, and redemption
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So what are your thoughts on the following house rules:
The way this is balanced is that there is normally about 1-2 encounters per 6 hour session with fairly ample opportunity to long rest/short rest without getting disturbed.
Do you all think this is a fair balance? What modifications would you suggest?
Regaining 1 hit point on a short rest seems so low as to be useless - it almost never will actually impact anything.
Not having any means of recovering hit points in noteworthy quantities besides taking multiple long rests or using magic will do one of two things: 1) result in full-healing through magical means, whether that is players all favoring classes with healing powers and hording their spell slots to use for healing, or the DM putting in an abundance of magical items that provide healing - basically to the effect of how often the characters are healed to full or how many challenges they face between one full-heal to the next being no different than if you left the rules as written. Or 2) result in player character death being extremely common.
As for exhaustion levels when downed in combat... which I am assuming means if you drop to 0 HP, having 4 added at once will make any character that drops to 0 HP better off staying at 0 HP and hoping something doesn't kill them off, because the penalties racked up for those levels of exhaustion makes the most likely outcome of getting back into the fight ending up dead - because when getting back up from 0, you are usually only 1 more hit from falling to 0 again, and 6 total levels of exhaustion = death.
Plus, such a hefty penalty for hitting 0 HP during a battle will mean either the party takes a prolonged period of rest every time someone gets unlucky and runs out of HP to overcome the exhaustion - meaning they won't be facing any challenges with the penalty, despite adding it to the rules, or you will again see a sharp rise in character death as they try to push on with multiple levels of exhaustion and cannot perform at the appropriate capacity to actually overcome any challenges.
Effectively, these changes to the rules will either have only the effect of the narrative including more time spent resting, or will create a "death spiral" effect wherein the party becomes more and more likely to all end up dead as play continues.
I would suggest looking at the variant rules in the DMG that simply change the time required for a short rest to 8 hours and a long rest to 1 week, if your goal is to make getting back to full resources take greater time, rather than to make death almost inevitable.
I think I like the idea of adding exhaustion as a penalty for being reduced to 0 hitpoints, but would limit it to 1 level of exhaustion per encounter/combat, applied after the combat ends, and with the caveat that this can never push you from 5 to 6 (death). To balance that, I think it is sensible to allow 1 exhaustion point to be replenished per long or short rest (rather than long only) - in my games a day is long rest and two optional short rests so people could get 3 back per day at most. This also changes how often a Berserker could "safely" frenzy, but that doesn't upset me.
I personally have made exhaustion a little more granular in that I have added a lesser version dubbed "fatigue". It essentially works giving the penalties of exhaustion but caps out at the third level penalties (so disadvantage to checks and half move speed), and a short rest will reduce fatigue by one level while a long rest removes all of them.
Once a player gains 3 levels of fatigue (or gains any more fatigue after that) they make a constitution save with a DC 10 (+5 to the DC for any fatigue levels above 3), or take a level of exhaustion (which doesn't stack with fatigue penalties, but takes a long rest to recover from).
If a character is rendered unconscious from damage they suffer one level of fatigue. Players can stay 'unconscious' to the end of a battle if they wish to do so even if being on 1hp.
- Loswaith
I appreciate all the thoughtful commentary. I think I will retool my thoughts based on all your suggestions.
Still, I like the idea of penalizing whack-a-mole play, at least in a minor fatigue way, I’ve seen some options for semi-permanent scarring and wounds as well
Playtesting Fugare Draconis, an epic tale of adventure, loss, and redemption