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.
I'm going to try a variation of this tonight. The party is exploring a cursed forest. One of the first encounters will be low CR creatures that deal exhaustion points instead of damage. It should make the rest of the adventure interesting.
Okay I am late to this post, but I think this idea is a bit more flexible and introduces a long term punishment that incorporates James' ideology of the Exhaustion mechanic as an integral part of DnD:
1. Once you are down to zero Hit Points, you go into Death Save state as per Core Rule. Additionally you take +1 Level Exhaustion.
2. Instead of instant death on receiving Max HP as remaining damage, you incur +2 levels of Exhaustion before starting your Death Save state.
3. Long Rest removes 1 level of Exhaustion as per Core Rule.
4. Potions remove 1 Level of Exhaustion. Greater Potions remove 2 Levels of Exhaustion.
What if Hit points and exhaustion where instead combined? Like a PC's health was divided by 8 and each division of health has a corresponding level of exhaustion? So when a PC loses the first 1/8 of their health everything behaves as normal, and the same up until they lose their 2nd 1/8 of health. Then, when they are below 6/8 of their hp, they suffer the effects of 1 level of exhaustion. 5/8 of hp? 2 levels of exhaustion. Get healed back to full? No levels of exhaustion. Basically use exhaustion as a condition/reflection of their current hp and general health. Sort of like how a person at 50% hp is considered "Bloodied".
Thaseus, you'd probably like the Active Initiative rules from Giffyglyph's Darker Dungeons ruleset. Go give it a look, it a pretty interesting set of modular rules, and it sounds like something that might fit what you are looking for.
Cool, that sounds like a really interesting premise for a campaign, I like the in built time crunch of only a few months to finish a campaign arc and a fun way to amp the challenge later in the game by having something cataclysmic happen in winter to force them into a risky winter adventure. I might steal some of that for my next campaign.
@Uller makes me think about an alternative rule where characters can choose to either than 1 point of exhaustion or the damage from a hit (2 points if a critical) - they have to pick before the damage is announced - since the exhaustion penalties are less of a problem for squishy wizards this might encourage them to not hide as much, whereas the front liners will probably prefer the damage unless they are running low on HP.
Thanks, I'll check it out!
This is a really cool idea! The obvious downsides are that hit points would be removed and that each time a character took damage it would have a uniform effect, IE, just taking damage instead of there being a varying amount of damage based on luck and weapon type. So I did some work and came up with a variation. When someone drops below a given hit point threshold, they gain a level of exhaustion, so there is a threshold for each exhaustion level all the way through exhaustion level 6, which is unconsciousness, which is reached at zero hit points. The exhaustion thresholds are based on a character's number and type of hit die, so I created a table to show that. Roughly speaking, a character would have to lose slightly more than half of his or her hit points to reach the first level of exhaustion. There are more details, but that's the gist of it.
Keep HP and let that be your buffer instead of larger exhaustion tracks. Then, when a party member hits 0 hp, they start down the exhaustion track defined already in the source material, gaining 1 level of exhaustion every time they take damage. If you have hit points and are hit hard enough to go negative but not to die outright, you take a single point of exhaustion and your current hit points become 0. For example, your lvl 1 wizard with 7 hp takes a huge hit (10 dmg) and is reduced to -3 hit points. The next round they have a point of exhaustion and 0 hit points, but can continue to act. If they are healed, they do not regain their point of exhaustion, but do regain hp to protect from further exhaustion. It simplifies the healing spells issue (what to do about cure wounds vs heal) as those spells still just restore hp which now acts as a buffer from taking exhaustion. Further, it makes multi attacks no more dangerous than they were previously, and a huge hit can still outright kill you based on the instant death rules, making rebalancing the game no longer necessary.
I had this exact same idea where Hit Points acts a buffer / safety-gate to Exhaustion Levels, this introduces a dynamic mechanic where Players are not totally out of the game when they reach 0 Hit Points but suffer a relatively long term cumulative disadvantage. However I feel PCs should be at-least knocked unconscious when they reach 0 Hit Points. (Gaining HP wakes them up and makes them in Prone state)
However instant deaths are good for certain games, but most players hate it! Instead of instant death I propose +2 levels of Exhaustion instead, furthering the "death spiral" effect.
> Instead of Speed reaching to 0 in Exhaustion Level 5, I would alter that to 5 /10 feet so that they can still crawl out from danger zones.
Although these are just random speculation I would still suggest Death Save state be reached by all players who reach 0 Hit Points regardless of Exhaustion Level.
This is what I do and it works great!
I use the above rules plus a little twist as to not make it too hard on my players
# of exhaustion slots = hit die + constitution modifier + proficiency
character has to take damage over a threshold in a round to incur a point of exhaustion, damage threshold = player lvl + constitution modifier + proficiency
removal of points expanded to:
1 point removed when eating a ration (meal) when short resting, 1 point removed/ 5 points lay on hands , 1 pt per alcoholic drink cosumed (consumption rules apply)
I hope this helps people, let me know what you think.
I agree with the saving throws instead of instant death with exhaustion. How I run it is when you reach the end of your exhaustion track you fall unconscious and start death saves, however, every time you fall unconscious before recovering a level of exhaustion adds an automatic fail to your death saves. Example: you are in a fight with a pit fiend and are knocked unconscious. On your turn you make a death saving throw as normal. Your cleric heals you and you wake up, but still suffer all the effects of your exhaustion (up to lvl 5). On your turn you get to act as normal, but the pit fiend sees you are weak and knocks you out again on its turn. On your turn, you will have to make death saves, but since this is the second time you were knocked out this fight, you start with 1 failed death save. If someone uses a restoration spell to give you back some exhaustion, your death saves go back to normal.
I like to do it this way because, getting knocked out is a huge deal in real life, you don't wake up and feel great and ready to fight, you can barely move. Even just adding a single level of exhaustion per knock-out feels too weak. This way, you get some reserves when you are about to fall down (any damage less than a kill shot just counts as a level of exhaustion), and being resuscitated feels more real. You are down, can barely move, and everything is spinning.
Just use this as a combine with Hp. If you have 10 tracks for exhaustion then divide your hp into 10% increments. If you have 100 hp and 10 tracks then at 50 hp left you have disadvantage on saving throw. At 40 hp you have your speed halved etc.
This would not break the entire game and half the spells and classes but allows you to attach a reason to heal and keep your hp protected. When first skimming through I thought this was the intent. Also remove death and just make the exhaustion "effects" stay until long rest like current 5e exhaustion. I.e. if you go to 0 hp then you keep disadvantage on saving throws until long rest.
It would make constitution completely impossible to dump, or a squirrel would K/O you in 10 seconds. This is one of the drawbacks I see to this method.
I find this very interesting and I love it
I would disagree with them being null: Make sneak attack add additional points of exhaustion damage to one hit (I mean every 2 levels is 1 extra point like normal) and the critical hits would surely double that hit still from all sources (making the assassin rogue pretty damn strong but that would be what their playstyle is).
In terms of duelling maybe you could change what the plus is for? Instead of damage consider it as an accurate playstyle giving a bonus to hit instead?
Split damage should be accounted for in terms of sneak attack/divine smite for example and they should deal extra damage, so if a spike does poison damage as well as piercing that should be taken into effect (and maybe a constitution save on the poison damage affecting you).
If a spell is split damage (like Ice Storm) I would only consider that flavour and not additional damage though.
I would run spells as slot level = damage with saves halving damage still.
Sounds super complicated but I like it and would try to base a game around the system tweak it here and there to make it work.
I'm sorry, but this idea is terrible. You are punishing the players especially the melee classes (the worst). You're idea only benefits the DM and actually does meddle with the guts of D&D.
This is actually an AMAZING idea! I would love it if it was added. It brings a lot of reality to it.
I like the hit point system as it is, it gives spells and attacks punch, and variance, instead of the same moving down the track, but I like the idea of doing both, like the star wars game, though it may make combat even harder than it already is.
Also, if lots of small creatures are too powerful, you can add a rule that two attacks from creatures at least one size smaller than you cause you to go down one tick down the exhaustion track, or maybe determine it based on the CR of the creature?