The Fatigue Die

Combat is a tiring activity, especially since characters are often acting quickly, using all their strength with each movement. Thus, as the combat goes on, all characters are less able to maintain their defenses. In order to represent this gradual fatigue, we use a Fatigue Die. At the end of the first round of combat, the Fatigue Die is set to 1. For the second round of combat, all Defense Rolls suffer a -1 untyped penalty, called Combat Fatigue. To represent this, the GM places a d6 on the table with the ‘1’ facing upwards. A particularly large or flashy die is great for this purpose.

At the end of the second round of combat, the die increases to 2 and the GM turns over the Fatigue Die to display the ‘2’. The Fatigue Die increases at the end of each round, further increasing the Combat Fatigue penalty to Defense Rolls. During the seventh round of combat, the Fatigue Die reaches its maximum value of 6, imposing a dangerous -6 Combat Fatigue penalty to all Defense Rolls.

This rule has two benefits. First, it helps create additional tension and escalation to the combat scene. There is an incentive to act smartly and as quickly as possible to complete the combat goals before things get more dangerous.

The second benefit of the Fatigue Due is to speed up combat resolutions. If two skilled warriors fight one-on-one, they’ll likely be able to avoid taking Stamina damage for quite some time, until an unlucky roll finally takes a character out. The Fatigue Die gradually increases the likelihood of a successful strike to end the combat quickly.