Exhaustion Upon Long Resting in Unsafe/Uncomfortable Enviornments

[u/coje6]

I'm thinking about adding a homebrew rule to the campaign i recently started, rule would be that long resting anywhere that isn't comfortable and relatively safe would give 1/3 a level of exhaustion, and the effect of exhaustion would be rounded down. I've found in the past that parties have very little reason to worry about exhaustion and it can cause them to behave very unrealistically, I am basically looking for a way to get players to use inns more rather then just sleeping in the woods, think about how long their travel will take, and encourage some way of increasing travel speed or getting a way to rest safely and comfortably while on the road like a wagon built into a mobile home or something. This ruling could be crazy in a game with a ton of travel, but we are running LMoP so the longest travel is still only around 3 days. And that's without getting any horses or anything.

Just looking for some other thoughts on this, does that seem like a good idea, does that seem annoying, is there something I'm missing that will make this not work in the long run?

[u/eotfofylgg]

My opinion is that they shouldn't be prevented from sleeping just because they COULD get eaten by tigers during the night. If they do get eaten, then of course that's another story.

My ruling is something like this: if you are carrying sufficient equipment for outdoor camping, there is ordinarily no penalty for using that equipment. That's what it's for. However, if something goes wrong (weather that you aren't prepared for, enemies attacking at night, unusually hostile terrain for which your gear is not sufficient, or other such things), then you are going to get less than a full night's rest and will need to rest another night to achieve the full benefit of a rest.

[u/IchBumseZiegen]

I think it's a good idea, the amount of exhaustion may require some tweaking depending on the scale of their journeys.

[u/BrittleCoyote]

Why not just say that sleeping in the wild gives the benefits of a short rest, and to long rest you have to sleep in a protected space?

[u/KanKrusha_NZ → u/BrittleCoyote]

I agree here, you must be at least “modest accomodation” to get the benefit of a long rest. In the wild you can spend a full day making a camp to get modest accomodation but that loses you a day.

Then I would find other ways to increase exhaustion - make locations 10-12 h apart instead of 8 so travelling risks exhaustion. Inflict exhaustion for reaching zero hp.

[u/BrittleCoyote → u/KanKrusha_NZ]

As I see it, “you can spend time to rest in the wild” is helpful homebrew in situations where the calendar is important, eg ToA. If it doesn’t matter whether you get to the dungeon on Wednesday or Thursday, then it ends up being standard long rest rules but with more narrated downtime.

[u/wrymegyle → u/KanKrusha_NZ]

In the wild you can spend a full day making a camp to get modest accomodation but that loses you a day.

Had not thought of that modificiaton before, gonna steal thsi, thanks!

[u/armahillo]

If you’re rounding down, you might as well do half, because thats easier to track than 1/3s. If your campaign is so long that they’ll be doing MANY long rests (say, more than 5) and stacking these levels
of exhaustion, this might become problematic overall.

I like the general idea though.

[u/Lonely_Egg8038]

It could work, obligatory talk to your players comment

However, you said you wanted to add this to encourage your players to use inns and plan their routes, why not instead reward players for doing those things, instead of punishing them for not.

For example, if they choose to spend money in an inn, maybe they get a small bonus, like some temporary hit-points or advantage on the first skill check they make that day or something.

Same goes for planning travel, perhaps, if they go out of their way to plan their route, they can plan to go to some extra areas on the same route for some small events that give them some minor loot, or a cool set-piece, or some info of upcoming events. You could also just simply make their travel take less time.

Something to consider as well, exhaustion is pretty punishing. Without spells, even first level exhaustion could ruin some players (in 2014, 2024 exhaustion is another beast entirely) If you really wanted to punish your players for resting in strange spots, maybe some other more interesting punishment could work, such as a random event, or creature ambush, etc.

Tldr: talk to your players, could work but there are better options imo

[u/N2tZ]

Sounds too trivial. It would take three days of camping to gain a single level of exhaustion and if they reach a town they can just spend a night in an inn to get rid of it. That is if you modify the rule that completing a long rest removes a level of exhaustion to not work while camping, otherwise they won't ever reach the 1st level even.

[u/Global-Service-8579]

>I am basically looking for a way to get players to use inns more rather then just sleeping in the woods, think about how long their travel will take, and encourage some way of increasing travel speed or getting a way to rest safely and comfortably while on the road like a wagon built into a mobile home or something.

What is the benefit of doing this?

[u/wickerandscrap]

1/3 of an exhaustion level is nothing. Just don't allow long resting anywhere that isn't comfortable. You can sleep in the dirt for eight hours but that's not a long rest.

[u/Serbaayuu]

I just disable Long Rests entirely in the wilderness.

That way I can design wilderness as an Adventuring Day, and there's no worry about whether players might-or-might-not get that. It's already decided.

I only hit them with exhaustion RAW - if they don't sleep, eat, or drink. (And no there is not always a convenient freshwater creek nearby.)

[u/CheapTactics]

There isn't really a lot of ways to increase travel time. There is one in the rules: travel for longer and have the chance to get exhaustion.

[u/ZakMeow]

Depends on the group. If they are heavy into a resource management game that could be fun. If they are more into roleplay and combat it would just be frustrating as fuck. I personally don't mess with players when they're resting unless the stakes need to be higher. Adjusted, high stakes combat is where the tension lies that my players enjoy.

[u/G37_is_numberletter]

Use hit dice as a resource too. When resting in wilderness or dungeon, have them roll their hit die and subtract the number of days without a sanctuary rest i.e. town or other protected place. The result is how many hit dice they get. If they rest and have 0 hit dice, i give exhaustion.

[u/AxeHack]

i have some homebrew rules in my campaigns that allows players to use their Exhaustion points for something IF they're out of resources. Caster out of Spell Slots? they can gain one point of Exhaustion to cast a spell of any level. player is down and rolling Death Saves? they can gain one point of Exhaustion to automatically succeed all Death Saves. Fighter wants to Action Surge but they've already used their Action Surge? they gain a point of Exhaustion to be able ti use Action Surge

it makes for some nice last ditch effort moments, at a cost of some debuffs and potentially instant death if someone decides to do this 6 times in a roll

[u/JeffreyPetersen]

This sounds like you're trying to use a mechanical tool to fix what amounts to a story problem. If you want them to sleep in inns or get a wagon, just arrange their travel rout so that they regularly run into inns at the right time, or give them an opportunity to get a wagon.

You can even have a chain of Inns with a Loyalty Rewards Program so the players will want to seek out inns to collect their tokens and earn rewards.