Dungeons and Dragons characters need to work on their cardio, as according to the new core rulebooks, a player character sprinting for exactly one minute is at risk of dropping down dead.
That’s according to the section on chases in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, which comes out next week. Reddit user Cranyx spotted the amusing rules implication in this DnD book. Here’s how it works…
The rules in question are designed to add an element of randomness to chases which, if run with Dungeons and Dragons’ rules for combat movement, would immediately become predictable and tedious.
The chase rules state that both chasers and chasees can take the Dash action three times plus their Constitution modifier during a chase, after which they begin to risk exhaustion. After you’ve used your free dashes, you have to make a DC 10 Constitution each time you sprint, and if you fail, you gain a level of exhaustion.
The DnD exhaustion condition is debilitating. First off, you get a penalty to your dice checks which makes the Constitution save progressively harder. Each exhaustion level also reduces your speed by five. And, crucially, if you ever hit exhaustion level six, whether it’s from playing out in the snow or excessive sprinting, you die.
Now let’s imagine a chase with an average DnD human (+0 Con modifier) following these rules. First they sprint for 18 seconds, covering 180 feet at 6.8 mph. That’s already not great given that the average runner can complete 100 meters (double this distance) at 10-20 mph, but we’ll cut them some slack. Perhaps they’re carrying a pack, wearing armor, and swinging a polearm.
After this point, they start making saves. If they fail every time they soon start to slow. Their speed drops to 25 feet, then 20, then 15, as the exhaustion levels pile up. Over the next 36 seconds they make it another grueling 210 feet, then promptly hit exhaustion level six and drop down dead.
In the last six seconds of this PC’s life they’ll be ‘running’ at half a meter per second, about a third of the average walking pace. In a busy urban environment, townsfolk would be tutting; the character’s doomed attempts to run would be holding up foot traffic. Despite pushing themselves over the brink, they would appear to onlookers to be dawdling.
In the end, this deadly run will take 54 seconds from start to finish and cover 390 feet (just over the length of a football field). It’s not a very impressive look for a hero is it?
What’s funny is that even though we fudged the dice rolls, this scenario isn’t even that unlikely. Each exhaustion level gives you a -2 penalty to your rolls, so you only need to get unlucky a couple of times before the odds are heavily stacked against you.
These aren’t the only silly interactions we’ve spotted in the 2024 Dungeons and Dragons rules. Powergamers may be interested in this broken build which combines feats with the perfect DnD class and DnD race to create ‘the divine lawnmower’. There’s also an amusing feature that lets the Cleric call time out during combat.
Source: Wargamer
