I have been running a 5e game set in Al-Qadim for a while now, and one of the themes of the setting is the struggle between enlightenment and savagery. One of the elements of savagery is giving into your base desires. Thus, the players are often offered “help” from otherworldly forces to allow them to perform supernatural or legendary deeds. Doing so, however, causes them to gain a level of exhaustion each time they give into these desires. For me, the exhaustion track is absolutely fantastic to convey the risks and dangers associated with these lapses, giving some further weight to their decision making. The track is long enough and generally advances slow enough that it’s not really a death spiral, in my experience.

Many characters have had various levels of exhaustion for months worth of sessions now, and it seems to be working very well in this regard.

While it’s certainly not a “one-size fits everything” solution, I like exhaustion as an addition to the edition quite a lot.

When I mean hard, it’s just that: Basically no other mechanisms besides rest. One level 5 spell that eliminates only one level of exhaustion and hard to get magic item? No way to alleviate an exhaustion level, even for a short period of time? You become progressively more useless and a death spiral sets in fast, so the consequences are pretty dire if you get up past 3.

It’s not a bad mechanic but it, like Inspiration, is pretty clearly grafted onto D&D, which really never had a mechanism like it before, and the authors didn’t really think it through.

Players recover one exhaustion level per long rest they complete. I wouldn’t say it is hard, but it certainly poses a challenge to recover from exhaustion while still wishing to continue adventuring. However, once you reach exhaustion level 5 your speed becomes 0, so that also puts a damper on it 🙂

The Tsunami spell is a good start if you need damage I think.

I handled creating it as a skill challenge, which involved several skill checks on Survival, Arcana, and Perception. (I know… I know… skill challenge is a 4E term, but it’s not like I didn’t use multiple skill checks before.) Ultimately I think they used a targeted Lightning Bolt to set the slide off, but I’d have allowed some other spells that created loud sounds or disintegrated something holding up the slide.

The exhaustion rules are OK but it’s pretty evident that WotC didn’t put much thought into them. For instance, it’s very HARD to get rid of Exhaustion levels (one level for a fifth level spell!), which to me is a problem. I think they could use some work. I started writing something on it but haven’t finished it.

Can you share your avalanche stats?

In my recent sessions, I made periodic exhaustion checks. This only put a burden on the players who didn’t plan for the cold expedition with winter clothing, cold resistance potions and cold weather magic items. The players who put in effort to prepare were left toasty and allowed to ignore the checks.

One thing I did that definitely brought the feel home was escalating Con saves or gaining an Exhaustion level, which I used to simulate the cold and air. People who had cold resistance had advantage on these saves. I also had some avalanches feature. In one case enemies set off the avalanche. In another they PCs set one off to mess up the plans of adversaries.

If you do start piling on Exhaustion be sure to have some methods to get rid of it or alleviate it for a short period of time available or you’ll find out just how short the five minute workday is.

http://www.tribality.com/2016/12/21/6-wintery-mythological-creatures-that-arent-yetis-and-giants/