Conditions

If we're honest, conditions in 5e are a wee bit of a mess. They look like the last last hangover from 3.5e with complex interactions and, unlike practically every other bit of rules, you have to look them up in a table instead of it being printed in the stat block, spell description, class feature or similar. 

You want to know about a door, every time the rules tell you. A creature has multiple attacks with saving throws, every single time, there is the saving throw DC - even though it's the same for all of them. If the creature is a spell-slinger it often reprints a summary of the spell's effect (which is sometimes different for a monster than a PC). 

When it comes to conditions though, the target is stunned. The target is charmed. The target is frightened. The target is poisoned. The target is grappled. The target is grappled and restrained. And so on. Unless you happen to know them from memory, off you trot to the table and look them up. 

So one of the changes I'd make is that I would make sure to include the text for what the condition does, there with what causes it. Monk's Stunning Fist explains what the Stunned condition does. Cause Fear explains what the Frightened condition does. That's not too controversial, although it will make the PHB and MM for 6e bigger. I'd also take out the chaining. For example, the paralysed condition states that the paralysed condition is also incapacitated (see the condition). I don't mind saying they're also incapacitated, but I would spell out what that means where you are. Especially since that one is barely longer than (see the condition) ... and so cannot take actions or reactions.

What might be more controversial is changing how they work. 

I would like to keep the number of things conditions, overall, can do, down. Obviously not every condition can do everything, but I broadly want the list to be taken from:

• You cannot do:
• Attack Rolls
• Defence (attacks within 5' that hit are criticals)
• Ability checks tied to a stat/All Ability checks
• Saving throws tied to a stat/All saving throws
• You are at disadvantage on:
• Attack Rolls
• Defence (attacks gain advantage)
• Ability checks tied to a stat/All Ability checks
• Saving throws tied to a stat/All saving throws
• You cannot move
• Your speed is reduced by x feet/round
• You lose x actions (all, reactions, only 1 action or bonus action)
• Forced movement (e.g. Frightened)
• Damage over Time (DOT).
• Special (e.g. turned to stone)

Of these, I think DOT is likely to be the most controversial. You can see that most of the current conditions could be built from that list, although I wouldn't necessarily build them as they are. But, to go back to Petrified you'd pick: you cannot move, you cannot act in any way, all attacks gain advantage, all attacks within 5' that hit are critical hits, you are turned to stone and can only be saved by Stone to Flesh, Wish, Miracle or similar. As stone you are resistant to all damage types and immune to the following conditions... and then a list depending on what gets through. Petrified was probably the wrong example, because it's just about the most complicated one out there. The aim would be for most conditions to take one or rarely two items from this list and apply them and tell everyone in the text every time. 

While thinking about this, why is there no bleeding condition? Why does poisoned give you disadvantage on attack rolls instead of doing DOT? Spells like Melf's Acid Arrow still do DOT (albeit in a very limited way) who why can't other things? It's no harder to track and while piling more damage onto the characters may kill them (automatic damage is automatically a failed death saving throw), it makes both Spare the Dying and a Healer's Kit suddenly much more valuable, especially if Spare the Dying is slightly reworded to cleanse any damaging conditions. 

If you can't track the turns for DOT and you're playing on the real tabletop, get a stack of oversize d12's (because they're rarely used for much else) and when a player is afflicted, or a monster, put one (or more) out with the numbers showing how many turns. If you need to, a post-it showing how much damage. Tick down the turns on the dice. Players might meta-game a bit, but it's fast and easy and you're unlikely to forget what's going on. If they meta-game too much, just forget to change the counters a time or two!

I also want to take away the current obsession in 5e with rolling saves every round. I have two models for approaching this. One is based on the spell description, where the spell includes text that says how long the effect lasts. Charm Person lasts 1 minute or until the target takes damage from one of their new friends. Death of a Thousand Cuts causes d6 bleeding damage every round for 3d4 rounds. That kind of thing. The other requires a little bit of maths. How much did you fail your save by? Charm Person lasts 1 round per point by which you fail your save, or until you take damage from one of your new friends. Death of a Thousand Cuts last 2 rounds per point by which you fail your save. That kind of thing. Honestly I can see benefits to both so I don't have strong feelings either way. I guess the former is closer to "pure" D&D where the amount by which you succeed or fail rarely matters in combat, but it makes using Bardic Inspiration and so on more valuable even on rolls where you can't succeed which is also an interesting possibility.

I would like to bring in some other conditions. This is an abbreviated list from Guild Wars 2 (the others broadly duplicate existing 5e conditions, maybe not in the specifics, but in general - blindness, fear etc.):

• Bleeding Deals damage every second; stacks intensity.
• Burning Deals damage every second; stacks intensity.
• Confusion Damage received on skill activation; stacks intensity. (see below)
• Torment Deals damage every second. Deals additional damage to moving foes. Stacks intensity. (see below)
• Chilled Movement speed decreased by 66%; skill cool down increased by 66%; stacks duration. (see below)
• Crippled Movement speed decreased by 50%; stacks duration.
• Weakness 50% of hits are Glancing Blows (50% damage). Stacks duration. (see below).

GW2 has the concept of stacks of condition damage, if you have one stack of bleeding you might take d3 damage, if you have 2 you take 2d3, 25 (the maximum) you take 25d3. For some things, like Chilled, you have a longer duration instead, and you can create builds to Chill your foe and lock them down so they permanently attack 66% slower than normal if you get your chill duration higher than the time it takes you to apply another stack. 

Does this necessarily work in 6e? If Wizard A casts Death of a Thousand Cuts and next round casts it again we know how to handle that already, D&D has different rules for working out how the damage is calculated, we don't need to borrow GW2's intensity stacking. The target takes their d6 from the first spell, their d6 from the second spell, and keeps on doing so until the durations expire. If they get another effect that makes them bleed, they take that damage too. But I took the Frightened condition from GW2 off the list, because 5e has that, and they're quite similar. In GW2, Fear stacks duration. Do we want to consider that? Probably not, because the durations in GW2 are short (typically 5s or lower, more usually for something that stacks duration 1-2s) so stacking duration might leave you affected for 10s maximum. However, if we move ahead with option 2, where the duration is based on the amount by which you fail your save, stacking duration when you don't know if the spell will last 1 round or 15 could become a viable tactic. Adding feats (probably feats, just possibly invocations) to increase your save DC for certain spell types, give you a +n rounds duration on targets that fail to save and the like would also become a facet of the game in this model, whether or not duration stacking is a thing.

The Torment condition is great against creatures who move around a lot (take out those monks!) or if you can inflict it at range - pose a quandary when you ambush melée types from range... stand here and lose my attacks but take less damage, or charge in and be half dead when I get there? The Confusion condition would need to be reworked, but I imagine it would trigger whenever the target used a class feature. That's all spell casting, sneak attacks, most of what a monk does, smites from a paladin and so on. You put your target on one attack per round... ouch. Chilled mostly works with the Fudge system, I think in straight 6e you'd have to choose an action, bonus action or reaction every round. Weakness in 6e would do what it says on the tin. If you hit, roll a d6. Odd you do full damage, even you do half damage.

Fudge D&D

Most of this translates pretty easily into Fudge D&D - it's mechanics of damage, spell duration and the like. As commented above, Chilled really comes alive. Fudge D&D has rolling combat, anything you do has a cool down, and Chilled increases cool downs by 66%. It might not come over as 66%, it might be a flat +2 say, and if there is stacking, stack intensity rather than duration, so 5 stacks of Chilled would give you +10 cool down, rather than +2 for 5x longer. 

One thing I didn't address in my Fudge D&D post was the idea of stacking advantage and/or disadvantage. the Fudge die system is based around rolling 4dF. But there's no reason you can roll 10dF and take the best (or worst) 4. So if you have advantage, why not roll 5dF, keep the best 4, disadvantage, roll 5, keep the worse 4? But if you have advantage from 2 sources, roll 6, keep the best 4 and so on. The only place it gets tricky is if you have advantage from 2 places and disadvantage from 1 what to do? Rather than rolling 7 dice, you'd roll 5, +2-1, leaves you at +1 advantage and so you'd roll 5 keep the best 4. Of course in a post about conditions, I should have done the other calculation, +1 advantage, and -3 disadvantage from different conditions, so that's -2, roll 6 dice (2 extra) and keep the worst 4.