Them Bones of Adventure - X: Exhaustion

Continuing my exposition on table procedures for common exploration feats & rules, which began here with part one.

Introduction

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Exhaustion as a mechanic (despite its questionable necessity in parallel with Hp), but there remains this itching vagueness about when it is acquired that I would like to downright minimize. The PHB and DMG wax but shortly over exhaustion as it all seems to come down to certain individual actions or extreme weather conditions and even the simple OSR-chic of LotFP has nothing to say about tiredness of any sort, despite having rules governing much less likely things, such as aging.

The Climbing and Chasing posts had me looking askew at this system in a new light. Looks like heartbreaking like it’s last Christmas is what’s on the cards for me once more.

The Crunchy Bits

I wish to generalize, extend and – importantly for me – associate the Exhaustion mechanic by tying it into how demanding any given physical task is. This is intended to be clearly communicated  to a player whenever he is deciding on a course of action but it is also supposed to be straightforward and expectable. It is, after all, a mechanic to emulate weariness of the body so something which anyone should easily get acquainted with.

The concept of Stamina

As distinct tasks translate to different levels of physical exertion, there comes a need for a gauge of some sort beyond the mere difficulty class (which certain actions, such as movement, may altogether lack) that will indicate how tiresome a task is and for how long it can reasonably be pursued.

Tasks are thus divided threefold by how physically demanding they are, like so:

Easy or Undemanding tasks: Marching across even ground while carrying moderate loads, riding (for characters with Animal Handling or any riding ability), anything that a town-dwelling artisan or merchant would think of as work.

- Undemanding activity can be maintained for half an hour per point of Constitution before a short rest is needed.

Medium or Demanding tasks: Swimming on calm waters, rowing a boat, marching through difficult ground or while carrying heavy loads, running at a steady jog, chopping wood, digging; anything, in effect, that a rustic peasant might assume as a typical day’s workload.

- Demanding activity can be kept at for ten minutes per point of Constitution before necessitating a short rest.

Hard or Strenuous tasks: Combat, rock climbing, swimming in a strong current, running at a sprint or over broken terrain,  and most other athletic feats.

- Strenuous activity can be sustained for just thirty seconds (or one resolution roll) for each point of Constitution, with a breather being required to proceed unhindered from that point on.

Very Hard or Extenuating tasks: Holding one's breath, making closed-angle climbs, lifting weights at the edge of backbreaking or swimming in storm-foamed waters.

- Extenuating activity can't be pursued without risking exhaustion for more than ten seconds (or one resolution roll) for each positive Constitution modifier, minimum of one.

Aggravating Circumstances

- As an overarching rule, a character that engages in more hours of physical exertion in a day than his Constitution score will have to aggravate the weariness caused by taking further action (example: forced marches).

- As per the books, particular circumstances of high altitude and inclement weather can increase the harshness of a task or have its elapsed time segments count as double or more in terms of fatigue.

- Encumbrance aggravates a task into the next category of physical demand or, if already at the most demanding, can make it impossible to attempt until weight is shedded.

Depending on how play is being conducted, the above systems can either be treated over a foundation of abstracted time or on a “per roll” basis. If, for example, a party is travelling overland on a structure of narration alone then the decision to push past a character’s stamina will be done outside any further mechanic involvement; on the other hand, if engaging in a long-distance chase, the players will know that as every party roll represents an hour elapsing, someone will have to contend with fatigue past the two hour mark, by the third roll. Particularly strenuous tasks such as rockclimbing may afford only a handful of rolls between pauses as a climber struggles to ascend to a perch where he can gather himself before his endurance gives out.

As stated before, when rolling for the whole party, individual exhaustion levels will be abstracted to a middle ground that enfolds the majority of the party, only getting more specific if having slow molasses aboard risks dooming the group’s chance of success.

As the body gives out - Exhaustion

A character that persists in a task for which he has exceeded his Stamina will be required to pass a check to avoid mounting exhaustion, repeating it for each further timing segment elapsed (half minute, ten minutes or half an hour, depending on how physically demanding the task). This can be done in one of two ways:

- If the task's resolution already includes a roll of the d20, then the check for exhaustion can be folded in, by requiring that the roll's unmodified result be equal or under the character's Constitution score.

- For tasks dispensing with resolution rolls, a [Constitution, DC 10+] check will be required, with the DC increasing by one for each additional check.

In either case, failure will increase the character's exhaustion level.

Interactions with Resting

- Breather

A ten minute pause that serves to counteract an intense but short-lived bout of activity, such as combat, sprinting or other strenuous tasks, having more to do with cooling down, hydrating and normalizing breathing than pure rest. Taking a breather will wipe the first level of exhaustion acquired during a strenuous or extenuating task.

- Short Rest

A short rest is mandated once a character exceeds his stamina for both an undemanding or demanding task. 

- Long Rest

A long rest will act as a short rest for the purposes stated above and, as written before, also reliably lower a character’s exhaustion level by one.

Hunger and Thirst, Supplemental

Whenever a character engages in enough activity to acquire a level of exhaustion (even if the save is passed) he’ll have to both consume a portion of water right afterwards and an additional portion of food at some point during that day or else count a day of privation against his hunger (but not his thirst).