The Campaign Builder's Guild

As I have mentioned before, I'm in the process of slowly gathering my forces to restart my Dark Silver campaign, and this time will be using Savage Worlds. However, as I'm a cheapskate, I've decided to use the free-download Test Drive rules for Savage Worlds, which basically just provide the core mechanics, and fill in any gaps with houserules. Lots of houserules.

One such gap I've been thinking about is fatigue, and how I want it to work in my campaign. The idea at the moment is that it would be a similar mechanic to Wounds. For those not familiar with SW and how damage and wounds work in it, I will briefly explain...

You do not have HP, instead you have a static Toughness value. If damage dealt to you is less than your Toughness you weather the attack with no ill effects. If it is equal to or over your Toughness you become Shaken (basically unable to do much except stumble around and attempt to recover your wits) unless you were already Shaken when you were hit or it exceeded your Toughness by more than 4, in which case you're either down if you're a mook-type NPC, or you take a Wound if you're a PC or boss-type NPC. PCs and important NPCs can take 3 Wounds, and then when they would take the 4th they go down. You are at -1 to all skill and ability rolls for each Wound you have.

So basically fatigue levels would work like wounds - as you accumulate fatigue, you accumulate -1s to your skill and ability rolls. I'm thinking of saying rather than just three fatigue levels before you collapse, you can carry on until your fatigue exceeds your Toughness, at which point you pass out from exhaustion. This does mean you can keep going for ages through all kinds of fatiguing stuff, but you will be absolutely terrible at trying to do anything at the end of it unless you rest (the average-joe Toughness in SW is 5, and the average-joe roll to do more or less anything is trying to get 4+ on 1d6... )

I'm also thinking that as well as stuff like marching all day with a heavy pack, going without sleep, riding hard through adverse weather, etc, prompting Vigour rolls to resist fatigue, at the end of combat you would have to roll once if you came through unscathed and twice if you became Shaken at all in the combat.

Fatigue could be lost at one level per half-hour's rest (sitting or lying still doing nothing), one per full hour of non-strenuous static activity (reading, keeping lookout), 1d4 from a hearty sit-down meal, one roll of your Vigour dice (1d4 to 1d12 with 1d6 as human average) for a disturbed or partial night's sleep (under 6 hours) and completely cleared with a full night's sleep (6+ hours)

The temporary solution is alcohol. If you pause to catch your breath for a few minutes and drink one "dose" of alcohol (roughly a pint of ale or mead, a half-pint of wine or a manful gulp of spirits) you can make a Vigour roll and lose a level of fatigue if you succeed.

I think I'll try this house rule when I run Savage Worlds (test-drive 6) for a group. Minor tweaks I'd suggest other thematic activities/intoxicants to work as alcohol.

Anyway I really, really, like this.

I like it and am enjoying the booze part.

This is of great interest to me as I'm thinking of incorporating a similar system into my campaign world rules. You've certainly made me think on a few things.

Thanks guys. I really like the lack of HP in SW as it reduces bookkeeping in combat, but I also like the idea of combat wearing characters down in some way, so I'm hoping that the fatigue rolls at the end of fights will mean that several in a row will become a risky prospect - once the fatigue levels start racking up, the characters just won't be able to reliably hit their enemies or recover from being Shaken. The advantage, to my mind, over HP is that it's something that is tracked between combats rather than during them.

It also gives me a fun thing to play with in terms of supernatural powers and special attacks/abilities that my NPCs might have. "The Snaketalker shaman gibbers a curse in his foul, hissing tongue and points a greasy finger at you. You feel a horrific lethargy envelop your limbs and a nauseous torpor cloud your thoughts! Take 2 levels of fatigue!"

The drinking thing was inspired by something from (I think) Barbarians of Lemuria, which, IIRC, briefly mentions a rule where if you pause to catch your breath and take a swig from your wineskin you regain some portion of your HP. I liked the idea of adventurers carrying around booze with them in the way DnD heroes might carry healing potions, and it seemed to suit the flavour of Dark Silver. Of course, as Jaerc says, you could easily substitute something else more thematically suited to the tone of your setting/game.

I can just see my band of shitfaced adventurers passing out after a few combats.,..

Depending on how "wild" Dark Silver is, you could use water and food as mechanics, making it something the players actually care about. I admit dealing with water and food is usually just a pain, but if water and food and healing are taken care of at the same time, it could add a lot to the visceral and dangerous feel of the setting, especially in the North.

Well the whole food thing is kind of a part of it anyway, although I'll consider making it more important... I mean I was thinking that going without food or without adequate food would cause fatigue, and the whole thing of eating healing fatigue is qualified by the "hearty sit-down meal" bit - gnawing dry subsistence rations on horseback might keep you alive, but it's a long way from sitting down to a hot meal in a thane's hall before a roaring fire.

Back when I was using hit location and slash/thrust/mash damage for gs, we also had a separate 'subdual hp' mechanic.  A lot of the time, it allowed for characters to get beaten up or knocked out without a lot of lasting damage, but all wounds that went onto 'physical hp' had higher chances of long term effects, scarring, sprains, etc.
I like what you are doing, and I still love the swig.

Vreeg, http://peginc.com/Downloads/SWD/SWDUpdates_DamageAndHealing.pdf

Of course my fatigue idea is a separate thing, but fatigue penalties would apply to things like recovering from being Shaken, the Vigour roll on becoming incapacitated and Vigour rolls when bleeding out.

EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, maybe not the rolls when bleeding out, that seems a little harsh :P

Quote from: Kindling
Vreeg, http://peginc.com/Downloads/SWD/SWDUpdates_DamageAndHealing.pdf

Of course my fatigue idea is a separate thing, but fatigue penalties would apply to things like recovering from being Shaken, the Vigour roll on becoming incapacitated and Vigour rolls when bleeding out.

EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, maybe not the rolls when bleeding out, that seems a little harsh :P

"fail and die from blood loss.  Ow.  I can see how that would work.