Dead Tired! How Exhaustion Works in Dungeons & Dragons

Tags Game Rules author-riley-silverman

You get tired. I get tired. And while they may exist in a world of swords and spells, your characters get tired, too. But when it comes to exhaustion in fifth-edition Dungeons & Dragons, we’re not just talking about yawning through roleplay as you struggle to focus on your character sheet after a long day of gaming. We’re talking about the moments when your characters aren’t quite as fast as they want to be and when their usual bags of tricks just aren’t coming together. In the most extreme cases, we're talking about a condition that could lead to death.

Today, we’re taking a look at how exhaustion works, how to mitigate it as players, and how Dungeon Masters can use it to amp up the stakes in storytelling. So, try to stay awake, OK?

How exhaustion works

While there is a myriad of ways that one can gain exhaustion in D&D that we’ll get into later, one of the most common ways that a character will risk the effects of exhaustion is by traveling through environments that are physically and mentally taxing, such as extreme heat or cold. A DM will likely ask players to make a Constitution saving throw for every hour spent in these harsh conditions. 

As in real life, exhaustion works in waves. The longer you stay awake or the more you tax your physical and mental resources, the worse the condition becomes. With exhaustion rules, your character moves through six levels of detrimental effects that stack as you move through the list. The levels of exhaustion are: 

Level

Effect

1

Disadvantage on ability checks

2

Speed halved

3

Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws

4

Hit point maximum halved

5

Speed reduced to 0

6

Death

Ways to remove exhaustion

Those later levels might feel pretty bleak, so let’s discuss some ways to remove exhaustion. The simplest way is somewhat obvious: sleep. While characters who stay awake for 24 hours without a long rest will gain a level of exhaustion, a typical 8 hour long rest along with food and drink will reduce exhaustion by one step. Characters who are suffering from multiple levels of exhaustion will need several nights of rest to fully recover.

The greater restoration spell can also reduce exhaustion by one level. This 5th-level spell does cost 100 gp worth of diamond dust though, so it can be quite expensive to use as a treatment. However, if a character is teetering between levels of exhaustion, especially the final two, it may be worth the material cost as a stopgap.

Magic items can also help you recover from exhaustion. The potion of vitality removes any levels currently being suffered. Being raised from the dead either with a spell or with a magic item like the ring of temporal salvation will remove one level of exhaustion. But again, you might want to consider just waiting and sleeping again before going that route.

Avoiding exhaustion altogether

You might also just want to find ways to reduce the risk of exhaustion in the first place. Rather than risk travel exhaustion from cold environments, invest in warmer clothing that will allow you to automatically succeed on the saving throw. Consider taking off medium or heavy armor or finding ways to make yourself resistant to fire damage before traveling through extreme heat. Don’t treat Constitution as a dump stat and instead build it up to aid in those saving throws. If you’re not already proficient in Constitution saving throws, consider taking the Resilient feat if you’re playing in a survivalist campaign like Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus or Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. 

What causes exhaustion?

Drow elves looking up at the sun while walking through a desert

In addition to the extreme travel conditions mentioned above, exhaustion can be inflicted on characters in a few different ways. If characters run out of rations while traveling, they might gain exhaustion from thirst or starvation. Characters who decided to push their travel limits past 8 hours in a single day, aka a forced march, risk gaining exhaustion if they fail a Constitution saving throw. Likewise, characters without an innate swimming speed or magical intervention will need to make Constitution saves every hour they spend swimming.

There are also some special cases that cause exhaustion:

  • Certain monsters like the CR 2 gingwatzim from Candlekeep Mysteries or the CR 18 sibriex from Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes have attacks that can cause exhaustion.
  • The sickening radiance spell causes temporary exhaustion that lasts for the spell’s 10-minute concentrated duration.
  • Those who cast Tenser’s transformation must pass a DC 15 Constitution saving throw when the spell ends or suffer from exhaustion.
  • The dream spell can indirectly cause exhaustion by denying the target the benefits of a long rest if they fail their Wisdom saving throw.  
  • Path of the Berserker barbarians who use their 3rd-level feature, Frenzy, automatically take a point of exhaustion when it ends.
  • There are also a few magic items that can increase the risk of exhaustion, such as the ring of x-ray vision from the basic rules or the Piercer sword from Acquisitions Incorporated.

Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep ties the mysterious substance ruidium from that adventure’s narrative to the exhaustion chart. To avoid spoilers, we won't go into how that works here!

Ways to use exhaustion in your game

As a DM, exhaustion can be one of the most useful tools in your box. Any scenario in the game can be made more challenging simply by putting the characters through the wringer before they get to it. Having characters cross vast, rough terrain in harsh conditions on their way to an encounter can really sell the role of the characters as heroes. Even if you don’t tend to use rations and food in your game typically, setting up resource management struggles when entering into the wasteland of Avernus or the Biting North of Wildemount can raise the stakes on adventures and add some drama to potentially repetitive days of travel.

Exhaustion can also work as a way of upping the difficulty setting on encounters. If you feel like your players are cutting through even some of your higher CR monsters, finding ways to interrupt their long rests prior to a big fight could nudge the scales into a bit more balance.

On a pure roleplay level, exhaustion can make for some fun storytelling. Mechanically, having disadvantage on skill checks might lead to some more creative solutions to common problems. Players who like to get deeply into character at the table might also find some fun new angles to their roleplay when their character is not at their best and brightest. 

Exhaustion FAQ

What does exhaustion do?

Exhaustion is a condition that imposes tiered detriments to characters’ abilities. It can even lead to death if not remedied by the sixth level.

How to remove exhaustion?

One level of exhaustion can be removed with a long rest that is combined with eating and drinking. There are also other ways of removing exhaustion, detailed above.

Does greater restoration cure exhaustion?

Yes, greater restoration removes one level of exhaustion. 

What creatures are immune to exhaustion?

Usually, constructs, elementals, and some undead (but not vampires) are immune to the exhaustion condition. (Here is a list of monsters with immunity to exhaustion.)

Is exhaustion automatic after skipping a long rest?

According to the expanded Dungeon Master’s Tools in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, no. At least, not immediately. At the end of a 24-hour period with no rest, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to ward off a level of exhaustion. The DC for this increases by 5 for every 24 hours the character does not rest.

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Riley Silverman (@rileyjsilverman) is a contributing writer to D&D Beyond, Nerdist, and SYFY Wire. She DMs the Theros-set Dice Ex Machina for the Saving Throw Show, and has been a player on the Wizards of the Coast-sponsored The Broken Pact. Riley also played as Braga in the official tabletop adaptation of the Rat Queens comic for HyperRPG, and currently plays as The Doctor on the Doctor Who RPG podcast The Game of Rassilon. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

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