Exhaustion poison (Debuffing the wyvern)

[J-H]

Has anyone ever tried having poison inflict an Exhaustion condition instead of HP damage?

There's a really good chance my party of (mostly new) 3rd level PCs are going to go up against a Wyvern, and I don't want to one-shot anyone on a failed save. They'll probably use Antitoxin, and they will have 2-3 PC allies, but it still does enough damage to one-shot someone with a few bad rolls. I'm thinking of having it's poison go down to +1d6 poison and, on a failed save, a level of exhaustion.

Sure, exhaustion can kill you too, but not quickly.

[Bobthewizard]

I think that's a decent idea. I would let antitoxin remove the exhaustion at the next short rest. Exhaustion is pretty debilitating long term.

[Ugmaro]

I've never tried it but I am curious about doing it. If anything, I'd probably do it in a location where long rests are very difficult or exhaustion comes during the day normally. I'm not entirely sure if I like the idea of a wyvern not doing it's massive poison damage, as it's kind of the main reason why the wyvern is feared. Maybe if you make it obvious the wyvern has been modified through magic or somesuch.

If you're specifically looking to try it out please let me know how it works, I'm very curious about it. If however you just like the idea of a wyvern and the poison is too harsh maybe just say the wyvern is missing the stinger venom sack (it's been cut off/heavily damaged by an adventurer or somesuch).

Edit: not the stinger, the reach attack is fun! :)

[sithlordnergal]

I have thought of it, and rejected the idea on the grounds that it is far, far too dangerous. It may take 6 levels to kill you, but it takes 1 level to massively weaken you, and 2 levels to debilitate you. Exhaustion is sort of an uncontrolled death spiral, especially once you hit 3 levels of exhaustion.

[J-H]

The wyvern has definitely been weakened. It doesn't realize it, but it's been cuckooed with its young replaced by a couple of cockatrices.

I'm not sure how to represent that mechanically aside from dropping it's strength score and poison damage.

The cockatrices will be a nasty surprise, as will 2 of the NPCs betraying the party to try to get them killed if it looks like a good idea.

[Ugmaro]

I like the crazy mages in your game, experimenting on placing cockatrice young in a wyvern nest and ruining the wyvern's venom... sounds just the type of nonsense RL crazy scientists would do :D

I had written up a paragraph saying I wouldn't touch the str before realizing wyverns have a massive +4 str bonus, so nvm all of that :D I'd also consider reducing the flying speed from 80 to 50 - it's still plenty to attempt a getaway if things go south but not insanely high that your party has no chance to give chase (I'm hoping they have access to a horse).

[J-H]

They have not asked about horses yet, so no. They're just wandering around doing quests. We've already had one character killed and raised from the dead.

[Sorinth]

Exhaustion might be too slow, especially if they can save against it. They'll just as likely die of HP damage before exhaustion kills them. Maybe do something like a Shadow's Strength Drain but have it target Constitution, have anti-toxin provide resistance to the drain so they only take half damage.

[Psyren]

For exhaustion to be effective in combat, you need a chance to be able to inflict multiple levels of it on the same creature. What makes Sickening Radiance good for example is in combination with effects that let you expose enemies to it multiple times, e.g. a warlock pushing and pulling enemies through it with eldritch blasts. (The damage doesn't hurt either of course.)

Poison is a bit tougher since it tends to be single target and so many enemies are resistant or immune, which makes stacking up exhaustion a bit rough. If you can pull it off though, yes, exhaustion can be a pretty nasty debuff.

[Ugmaro]

I'm not sure I agree with that line of thinking... if you allow the exhaust poison to stack up too much (from several sources as was suggested) it's far too dangerous. One of th issues is that a character that dies from exhaustion can't even be ressed by low level parties as exhaustion does not go away on death. If a character suffers from 2 or more levels of exhaustion it's severely hindered both out of combat as well as in combat, going back to that death spiral Nergal mentioned. I think it can be fun to stress your player(s) in such a way but you really don't want to overdo it by having the entire party debilitated in such a way or having a character die from exhaustion.

tldr: 2-3 levels of exhaustion on 1 character makes a challenge, 2-3 levels of exhaustion on the entire party or 6 levels of exhaustion on 1 character sucks, especially at low levels

[Amnestic]

Another note is that exhaustion is slow to lose: 1 level per long rest. If your party isn't under any sort of time pressure and they can take a week out of adventuring to recuperate that's fine of course, but if they've got things to be getting along with then the effect of the fight will drag on for likely multiple adventuring days.

[sithlordnergal]

I'm not sure I agree with that line of thinking... if you allow the exhaust poison to stack up too much (from several sources as was suggested) it's far too dangerous. One of th issues is that a character that dies from exhaustion can't even be ressed by low level parties as exhaustion does not go away on death. If a character suffers from 2 or more levels of exhaustion it's severely hindered both out of combat as well as in combat, going back to that death spiral Nergal mentioned. I think it can be fun to stress your player(s) in such a way but you really don't want to overdo it by having the entire party debilitated in such a way or having a character die from exhaustion.

tldr: 2-3 levels of exhaustion on 1 character makes a challenge, 2-3 levels of exhaustion on the entire party or 6 levels of exhaustion on 1 character sucks, especially at low levels

Actually fun fact, bringing a person back from the dead does, in fact, lower their Exhaustion level by 1 point. I only know this because I looked up all the methods outside of Long Resting to cure Exhaustion not that long ago on a thread about Exhaustion. Which means, technically, you can cure Exhaustion magically via Revivify, but it costs 300gp per use. Meaning Greater Restoration is usually the cheapest way to magically cure Exhaustion.

Of course, there is an exception to this rule. Its actually cheaper to cure a Zealot Barbarian's Exhaustion levels by killing them and casting Revivify then it is to use Greater Restoration, all thanks to Warrior of the Gods. XD


EDIT: This was added in as an official errata.

Exhaustion (p. 291). The following
sentence is appended to the last paragraph: “Also, being raised from the
dead reduces a creature’s exhaustion
level by 1.”

[J-H]

Thanks everyone.

Right now I am going with:
Wyvern changes: -2 to hit and damage; stinger damage reduced to 2d6 poison + poisoned status for 1 rd. DC reduced to 13. Ground speed reduced by 10’, fly speed by 20’.

[sithlordnergal]

That works =D Hope your party has fun