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 really like the concept, and I think it would make a great spin-off rule set. If combined with some of the no-initiative combat systems you could have completely different combat style to traditional D&D. The tricky thing is rebalancing the game to use it. Since it makes some abilities/strategies extremely powerful - e.g. anything that sets your enemies on fire, or the conjuration spells that would let you summon 8 weak creatures - suddenly 8 wolves with 2d4 bite attacks at advantage from Pack Tactics is extremely deadly, and the Animate Objects spell applied to some ball bearing could one-turn-kill a lot of monsters. Whereas others are made extremely weak - e.g. Rogue sneak attack. It also eliminates all damage-resistance features/abilities and negates the point of saving throws for 1/2 damage.
Some ideas for improvement:
Critical hits deal 2 levels of exhaustion.
Attacks that deal less than a certain value (dependent on a creature's AC) only impose 1 level of exhaustion if it is a critical hit, and none otherwise.
Though I think you basically need to write a whole new version of the game with this rule in mind.
I think a good way to balance this feature out so it doesn't make characters very strong at lower levels compared to higher levels is to include a Damage Threshold before you take an exhaustion levels. So for example, this might be:
- When you take damage greater than or equal to your Damage Threshold, you take a level of exhaustion. Your Damage Threshold = your character level + con modifier.
Then, to make it so that bigger attacks hurt more add the following:
- For every 5 points of damage you take beyond your damage Threshold, you gain an additional level of exhaustion.
Yeah, the damage to levels of exhaustion needs some sort of conversion, because just 1 or 2 doesn't cut it.
Casting Meteor Swarm in the middle of town square simply tires out everyone in town? Zero casualties against commoners from a 9th level spell?
How would this work in relation to damage resistances and immunities?
I seriously just designed something similar to this the other day. Mine came out very different, but it did use exhaustion as an aspect.
I was combining it with the UA Vitality system (which, IIRC, was also inspired by a Star Wars game). Below is my first draft (please don't be over-judgmental of mistakes over oversights:P) of writing it up. I split up the Level 3 effects to cover the HP part.
Vitality
In addition to Hit Points, characters have Vitality. Where as in the Ynys Bryddoni Campaign, Hit Points represent more of an abstract battle fatigue, Vitality is where the true life force of the character lives; his or her physical well-being.
A character’s Vitality is equal to his or her Constitution score. Anytime a character takes at least 10 damage from a single source, 10% of that amount is applied to Vitality (minimum one) and the rest to Hit Points as normal. If the damage comes from a critical hit, double the amount applied to Vitality (20%, with 80% applied to Hit Points).
Upon reaching 50% Vitality, the character gains 1 level of Wounded (similar to exhaustion, with slight differences, see table below), and another for every 10% thereafter.
Vitality Remaining
Wounded Level
Effect
100%
0
None
50%
1
Disadvantage on Ability Checks
40%
2
Speed halved
30%
3
Disadvantage on Attacks
20%
4
Disadvantage on Saving Throws
10%
5
Speed 0
0%
6
Unconscious, dying
Healing spells heal Hit Points first, then once Hit Points are at maximum, Vitality is replenished at the same 10% rate as it is consumed. Vitality can be regained through extended rests as well, see below.
Hit Points
Hit Points now represent less wounding than combat fatigue. The rules are basically unchanged, except that once a character reaches 0 HP, instead of making death saves, he falls unconscious and begins losing Vitality.
Beginning the round after the character reaches zero HP, he or she must make a Constitution Saving Throw (DC 12) or lose 1 Vitality. This will continue each round until the character is either stable or reaches 0 Vitality, at which time he or she dies.
A character can be stabilized through the use of a Healing Kit, a healing spell that brings the character above 0 Hit Points, a Healing proficiency check (DC 12), or by rolling a natural 20 one the Constitution saving throw.
Short Rest
A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.
A character can spend one or more Hit Dice, up to the character’s maximum number of Hit Dice, which is equal to the character’s level. For each Hit Dice spent this way, the character rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains Hit Points equal to the total. The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll. A character regains some spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest, as explained below.
Any character who has the Medicine or a Healing Kit may tend to one other character per hour per skill bonus (i.e. a character with a +2 proficiency bonus and a +2 wisdom bonus may tend to 4 characters. A character without the healing skill but with a healing kit may tend up to their wisdom bonus). Characters tended to in this way may roll each Hit Die twice, applying the higher roll to that character’s HP.
Characters also regain any per-encounter or per-short rest abilities.
Long Rest
A long rest is an period of extended downtime during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity - at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity- the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
The length of a long rest varies by where the rest is taken. In a comfortable setting, such as an inn or home, the rest must last 10 hours. In a wilderness setting or other less comfortable locale, it must take at least 14 hours.
At the end of the long rest, a character may spend Hit Dice in the same manner of a short rest. The character also regains all daily or per-long-rest powers, and may prepare spells if they are a caster. It is assumed that basic provisions such as firewood and spell components are gathered and prepared during this time as well.
A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24 hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits.
Extended Rest
An extended rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 24 hours, during which a character receives care for serious wounds and replenishes his or her strength. If the rest is interrupted by a period of light activity- anything more strenuous than eating, talking, reading- the character must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
During this time, the character may permanently expend one Hit Die to regain Vitality. The player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains Vitality equal to the total. The character may only use one Hit Die per extended rest in this way.
A character may forego expending Hit Dice if he or she is tended to by a qualified character. Use the chart below to determine how much Vitality is replenished by tending.
Caregiver
Benefit
Has Healing Kit
Heals 1 Vitality + Caregiver’s WIS bonus
Has Healing Proficiency
Heals 1 Vitality + Caregiver’s Healing skill bonus
Has Both
May take this benefit twice, see below.
No Hit Dice must be used to gain this benefit, but no Hit Dice may be used to gain this benefit if caregiver healing is accepted.
Alternatively, the character may elect for simple bedrest if he or she has already healed enough to reduce his or her current Wounded level. If the character’s current Vitality level permits, the character may regain one level of exhaustion per extended rest, up to the point the character’s current Vitality level allows. For example, if the character is at Level 5 Exhaustion, but has healed enough vitality to permit level 3 Wounded, the character may elect for bedrest twice to reach level 3, but cannot achieve level 2 until his or her Vitality level allows it.
A caregiver who has both the Medicine proficiency and expends a Healing Kit use on the character allows the character to double the effectiveness of an extended rest. The character may choose healing Vitality twice, bedrest twice, or a combination of the two.
A caregiver may tend to up to a number of characters per day equal to their proficiency bonus. Characters without the Medicine skill may tend to only one, and only if they expend a healing kit use.
Interesting system. I really like the way it gives another use for the medicine skill and healing kits b/c I feel like once you get to tier 2 play those are almost never used. My only concern is that it will push players into asking for downtime too often which could break up story flow. Since your vitality doesn't scale with character level but enemy attack damage does, so high level characters will be running out of vitality long before their hit points/hit dice are drained whereas the opposite is true for low level characters. I could see it being a great addition to a more realistic tier 1-2/3 game though.
In The Sleeping Dragon by Joel Rosenberg, it seemed their "Wizards and Warriors" campaign followed something similar to this. I like it. I'd be interested to play this by replacing damage-dealing class mechanics this way, too. For example: how about the damage from each dice of a Fighters Superiority Dice, or Paladin's Divine Smite, or a Rogue's Sneak attack dealing a point of exhaustion? What about a 2-weapon-fighting Ranger on the Hunter track with Collossus Slayer and who had cast Hunters Mark? Imagine the extra damage from Slayer and from Mark as 1 additional exhaustion point? Shall we talk Warlocks with Hex, too? Yeah, some balancing work would need to be done, for certain. That said, I'm all for exploring this as a simplifying measure. My kids are 9 and 7 and reducing the number scale to make their play simpler is always good.
If you're okay with a little math, you could set the point that you gain exhaustion as half or a quarter of your max HP, making it tougher for the folks that like to skirt the line.
I've used a homebrew system similar to this, with the most major difference being this: Hit Saving Throws. Damage is rolled, then the defender rolls a Hit Die (plus ConMod). If the defender fails, he rolls another Hit Die and so forth until he rolls higher than the damage. All dice are lost except the one that brought your Hit Save above the Damage Roll. Proportionately, this means Hit Points and Damage remain mostly the same, you're just rolling your HP every turn instead of once per level, and 1-damage hits dont hurt at all. It's easier to track a pool of physical hit dice than a wildly varying number.
I was googling for a rule that surely added exhaustion levels if a character went down and got back to 1 hp by nonmagical means. It seems I have a new houserule then. ^^
My suggestion for the number-of-attacks conundrum: let creatures (including PCs) have a damage threshold for reducing exhaustion.
First draft of a system like this: damage equal to or higher than a creature's constitution SCORE reduce their exhaustion by one point, cumulative for a single creature on a single turn (three small hits may reduce a powerful creature by one where one or two hits would have done nothing).
You could always look to Undead Fortitude as a guide, to essentially 'soak' the damage.
Soak DC = Damage taken
Modifiers = +1 for every 10 points of your hit dice (So if you were a 5th Rogue 2nd Barbarian, you would have 5d8+2d12 or 64, meaning you add 6 to the roll)
If successful, nothing happens. If you fail, move the exhaustion tracker on 1.
For every 10 points you fail the roll by, move it forward an additional 1.
The exhaustion tracker would look something like this:
1 - No Effect
2 - You cannot gain advantage on rolls in combat.
3 - Disadvantage on ability checks
4 - Disadvantage on exhaustion rolls
5 - Disadvantage on saving throws
6 - Disadvantage on attack rolls
7 - Suffer the effects of the Slow spell.
8 - Death's Door (death saving throw time)
With regards to healing, you would look at making them roll a spellcasting ability check. For every spell level of the heal, add +3 to the roll. If the total exceeds 2* current exhaustion, reduce the level by 1. For every 5 points it exceeds by, reduce it by an additional 1.
So a 3rd level cure wounds on someone with exhaustion 6 would be 1d20+6. They require at least a 12 to succeed. If they rolled a 22 they could reduce it by 3 levels!
Its much more simple then this. For 5e...
Go down the track yes. But add one step for every 10 points of damage in one attacks. That way low level monsters are not as big on killing you but as monsters grows bigger you have an easier time dieing.
Hit points and the track are complimentary. Not exclusive. This is something i should do.
Double post
The campaign it's designed for automatically has downtime. The PCs are landed nobles and must tend to their lands annually. The summer months are their campaign season. The harsh winter's of the world make travel prohibitive, so winter's become downtime and court time pretty much automatically.
I like the levels of exhaustion game mechanic in 5e, but I feel the suggested mechanics here wouldn't work with our particular group (we'd be too lazy to try to integrate and adapt an all new health system in 5e). We've been playing since AD&D 1st edition, so we are used to the abstract hit points system.
However, we have a house rule that says you gain a temporary level of exhaustion every time you drop to 0 hit points and gain back hit points. You also gain a temporary level of exhaustion if you are "bloodied" (50% of your hit points maximum or less) *after* a combat encounter. Temporary levels of exhaustion disappear after a short rest or when you are no longer "bloodied".
I mean, if you're going to look to the Star Wars Saga Rules for inspiration (a brilliant idea, BTW) why not go all-in? Part and parcel of the Condition Track was the Damage Threshold. This is just a bit of spitballing/first draft here. All characters/monsters have a Damage Threshold equal to their level/Hit Dice + Con modifier + proficiency bonus. Thus, a 4th level Wizard with a 12 Con would have a Damage Threshold of 7 (4 levels + 1 Con + 2 prof), a 15th level Fighter with a 16 Con would have a Damage Threshold of 23 (15 levels +3 Con +5 prof), an Adult Red Dragon would have a Damage Threshold of 32 (19 Hit Dice +7 Con +6 prof). The Tough feat allows the character to add double their proficiency bonus to their Damage Threshold. So for example, a 10th level Cleric with a 14 Con and the Tough feat would have a Damage Threshold of 20 (10 levels +2 Con +8 prof). Maybe some kind of "Threshold Mulligan" at first level, so that level 1 isn't so hazardous to Exhaustion? Again, just spitballing...
If a single attack equals or exceeds the Damage Threshold, that character goes 1 step down on the Exhaustion Track (with mechanical effects as noted in the article). Like in SW-Saga, you could also possibly have the option of spending actions in combat to go up the Exhaustion Track, say...a total of three reactions over the course of one or more rounds; although that gets a bit wonky with record-keeping. Spells like lesser restoration could improve exhaustion, as could the paladin's Lay On Hands ability.
This probably cuts too deeply into the core mechanic of the game and depending on group dynamic certain characters will have to deal with exhaustion more often than others. I have a player that generally plays ranged casters and is risk averse...he slings spells and hides around corners while other players have no problem absorbing a few hits and even going unconscious a few times a game session. As an experiment we implemented a rule that death save failures equal +1 level of exhaustion and at the end of a long rest you can expend HD to gain HP or lose levels of exhaustion. So a nearly dead PC has to decide...do I want HP...or do I want to shake off some of these penalties. It is fun for us but generally only the tanky players are making that choice. The squishes still hide.
My group has been playing with this as a house rule for a few months with the idea that Exhaustion could represent wounds in addition to fatigue. I was attracted by the Injuries combat option in the DMG but thought this was a bit more streamlined since Exhaustion points are easier to keep track of than the various "lingering injuries" listed on that rule. If following the Injuries rule, you could also give a point of Exhaustion for when a creature takes a critical hit or fails a death saving throw by 5 or more.
This actually makes the exhaustion track usable! It needs a damage threshold conversion, so that you know how damage interacts with the exhaustion track properly. The 'any source = 1 exhaustion' method wouldn't work at all. But this would.
You'd probably not add so many scaling numbers into it though. HD or Prof, not both. A threshold like this is very potent, and just lets you ignore small hits compared to normal rules, so adding too much to it would make combat super slow and uneventful.
You'd need to balance it around the idea of multiplying this threshold by the number of slots on your exhaustion track should be roughly equal or slightly lower than normal rules HP totals would be... if your goal isn't to drastically change combat pace.