Fatigue at other skills

[Sty0pa]

I'm curious how/if other people apply fatigue to skills other than combat? Piloting (anything) in rough conditions feels like a good example. Do you count each skill roll as a 'fatigue hit' or do you have them check endurance to see if they're fatigued? Even Science skills should generate fatigue, albeit by the hour or something.

Feels like there's a good place for a consistent approach to non-melee skills, including non-melee combat skills. Pretty sure IRL soldiers in combat get tired without ever engaging in melee at all.

Looking for ideas that aren't too rule-heavy, and would be a nice simple broad approach. I don't mind pushing more dice rolls, people like rolling dice.
THANKS for any suggestions.

 

[rinku]

It's going to vary by how fatiguing the activity is, but CRB p.80 has three examples:

- Staying awake for a number of hours greater than END+18
- After performing heavy labour for a number of hours greater than their END
- After making a number of consecutive Melee attacks greater than their END in a single combat

Fatigued characters suffer a -2 to all checks until they rest.

Are you using some other rules? Possibly the Classic Traveller ones?

 

[Limpin Legin]

I'm curious how/if other people apply fatigue to skills other than combat?

Referees discretion as the demands of each situation is different.

Piloting (anything) in rough conditions feels like a good example.

Even Science skills should generate fatigue, albeit by the hour or something.

Broadly speaking, there are two types of fatigue: physical fatigue or mental fatigue. Perhaps, since some skills are more mentally challenging, use a INT check instead of END, as a test for fatigue.
Could also limit Timeframes to a max of six to sixty minutes, and fiat that Traveller fatigue prevents them concentrating for longer than six to sixty minutes without a recovery nap.

Looking for ideas that aren't too rule-heavy, and would be a nice simple broad approach. I don't mind pushing more dice rolls, people like rolling dice.
THANKS for any suggestions.

Improvising somewhat, if the situation prolongs, could also say that Fatigue is both a direct hindrance negative DM and, scientifically, fatigue depletes the body of vital nutrients, and therefore is a Starvation issue (vis-a-vis 'malnutrition') and treat it as a lack of decent food (see Traveller Companion, pg 80). Recovery then would entail decent rest as well as being replenished with decent nutritious food.
Failing to provide proper nutrition might be considered an external factor that is working against task success, in which case, you could add a bane to all the fatigued Traveller's Task checks, as well as the indicated negative DM.

Anyway, just some ideas that could add a reasonable dilemma to a given situation or task that needs to be completed after hard work or under great stress.

 

[swordtart]

I'd consider the cause of the fatigue affecting the recovery time, the rules don't really address how long you need to rest after becoming fatigued.

After really strenuous sword fights I would be physically shaking but that would be gone after less than an hours rest (I'd still feel the muscle ache but it was no longer affecting my motor skills and the real pain wouldn't start until the next day). After a 30-40 hour stint of being awake monitoring a software update (largely sedentary but having to be alert to changes and with no opportunity to sleep) I'd felt bone tired for at least a day with difficulty concentrating and also feeling vaguely "out of body" until I had two nights sleep. When we did an all day paintball session and I completely over-egged it I felt fine at the time, tired that evening, and for the next few days could barely move due to muscle pain.

The modifier could also be related to the activity you had been conducting. So if the fatigue was due to short term physical activity (normally covered by STR or DEX) and conducted in combat rounds then I'd apply it to either STR or DEX allowing recovery after 1D*10 minutes. If it was END based activity (normally extended activities taking hours) I'd allow recovery after 2D hours. You could parallel the model for the mental stats (so a short burst of intense intellectual challenge might leave you mentally drained for under an hour, while an long discussion into the wee hours of the morning over the best way to repair the drive might take many hours to mentally recharge. Even SOC could be viewed as emotional energy and spending half a day trying to marshal a room full of pre-schoolers might require several hours of rest and beer and pretzels.

Personally I'd consider allowing any effect to taper and rather than just applying a default -2 that magically just disappears after a set time, I'd consider applying fatigue as relevant characteristic damage. Exhaustion is probably no less debilitating than say blood loss, you just recover from it more quickly. Some fatigue might affect multiple characteristics (Sleep depravation might affect all of them for example). You could even read across from the healing rules.

Most recovery would be via natural healing but actual Medic checks could be used to enhance the process. As this is not traumatic damage, merely normal exertion the difficulty of any relevant checks could be reduced by two levels. Even someone with no formal medical training knows to go and have a lie down when they are tired (but also might adhere to some ideas that actually impair rest). Someone with medical training will know the right electrolytes to replace and other tricks to improve productive rest. The equivalent of First Aid would recover a few points instantly using easily portable aids (e.g. energy bars, thermal blankets etc. and simply sitting down for a short while). More severe fatigue would need "specialist" facilities (e.g. a hotel room). Trying to get good rest while cold and wet for example should be at a significant penalty. Mental recovery would require mental rest - dumb down tv or clicker games. Recovery from fatigue would be faster than recovery from damage in the majority of cases of course (maybe each hour being equivalent to a day).

This is probably way too complicated, but I like the way it parallels an existing game mechanic and allows nuance.

 

[rinku]

Or you could run Traveller Hero and make use of that system's involved endurance and stun rules...