Steampunkette
2017-04-18, 11:25 AM
I'm actually doing something a little off with rests for the upcoming Dark Sun game I'm planning out, and I could use some other eyes on it to make sure I'm not being ridiculous.
Exhaustion will be a serious issue in the game due to heat and difficulty of procuring water. Each day a person will need 1 water ration just to survive and a second water ration if they're out and about when the temperature hits 115 or higher (Around noonish). Any time they don't have their ration, they get hit with exhaustion.
Further, being particularly active during the 115+ range will require a further ration to avoid exhaustion. Combat, chases, and other high energy activities.
To offset some of the incredible danger, once per day you can expend a water ration during a short rest to remove one level of exhaustion. This is in addition to any other water rations you otherwise need to survive and avoid exhaustion.
To add back some danger, Critical Hits and reaching 0hp will both result in gaining a wound. These wounds are things like broken arms, your eye being swollen shut, punctured lungs, and other serious life-threatening and debilitating issues. Some spells, Restoration and Regeneration for example, can fix these issues. Otherwise it takes rest.
With that in mind:
Short Rests are 15 minutes. It's a heroic adventure with powerful characters overcoming horrible foes in a hellish environment. There should be some heroism to it. Stuff that normally recovers on a short rest does, but with a catch: Expending Hit Dice while wounded requires a healer's kit charge.
Long Rests are 8 hours. These mostly function in the normal way, but you won't recover from ability score damage, wounds, hit point reductions, diseases, or long-term poisons with a long rest. You do get half your Hit Dice back and can spend them to recover HP. One exhaustion clears. Spells, class abilities, and racial abilities recover on a long rest as normal.
Extended Rests are a Week. At the end of the week you get all your HD, recover HP, Exhaustion removed , and HP reduction is removed. Diseases are gone, long-term poisoning is gone. And you remove 1 wound.
Dark Sun is meant to be a fairly brutal setting, but it's also meant to be impressively heroic with characters starting out with More HP, Wild Talents, Higher Stats (4d4+4), and the like. So I want to try and combine those two ideas, to some degree or another. Did I go too far? Not far enough? Do I need more heroism or more brutality?
Lemme know what you think.
Exhaustion will be a serious issue in the game due to heat and difficulty of procuring water. Each day a person will need 1 water ration just to survive and a second water ration if they're out and about when the temperature hits 115 or higher (Around noonish). Any time they don't have their ration, they get hit with exhaustion.
Further, being particularly active during the 115+ range will require a further ration to avoid exhaustion. Combat, chases, and other high energy activities.
To offset some of the incredible danger, once per day you can expend a water ration during a short rest to remove one level of exhaustion. This is in addition to any other water rations you otherwise need to survive and avoid exhaustion.
To add back some danger, Critical Hits and reaching 0hp will both result in gaining a wound. These wounds are things like broken arms, your eye being swollen shut, punctured lungs, and other serious life-threatening and debilitating issues. Some spells, Restoration and Regeneration for example, can fix these issues. Otherwise it takes rest.
With that in mind:
Short Rests are 15 minutes. It's a heroic adventure with powerful characters overcoming horrible foes in a hellish environment. There should be some heroism to it. Stuff that normally recovers on a short rest does, but with a catch: Expending Hit Dice while wounded requires a healer's kit charge.
Long Rests are 8 hours. These mostly function in the normal way, but you won't recover from ability score damage, wounds, hit point reductions, diseases, or long-term poisons with a long rest. You do get half your Hit Dice back and can spend them to recover HP. One exhaustion clears. Spells, class abilities, and racial abilities recover on a long rest as normal.
Extended Rests are a Week. At the end of the week you get all your HD, recover HP, Exhaustion removed , and HP reduction is removed. Diseases are gone, long-term poisoning is gone. And you remove 1 wound.
Dark Sun is meant to be a fairly brutal setting, but it's also meant to be impressively heroic with characters starting out with More HP, Wild Talents, Higher Stats (4d4+4), and the like. So I want to try and combine those two ideas, to some degree or another. Did I go too far? Not far enough? Do I need more heroism or more brutality?
Lemme know what you think.