Martial artist immunity fatigue / exhaustion


Rules Questions


When a Martial artist gains immunity to fatigue, that brings up some interesting possibilities.

If you stayed up for several days, since you never get fatigued from it, do you ever progress to exhausted?

If you are force marching or running continually, do you ever become exhausted? While I realize with this you're still probably taking that temporary damage and need to rest/heal it somehow later.

Liberty's Edge

As far as I'm aware, being immune to fatigue makes it impossible to get to exhausted in most circumstances, including the ones you list.

There are other ways to exhausted, such as Ray of Exhaustion, but these are much less common.

So in short: Yes, I believe you could effectively stay up indefinitely and march indefinitely, assuming you could heal the damage in some fashion (a ring of regeneration would suffice).


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I would grant a person full benefit from the immunity, perhaps even negating the damage from a forced march.

Might make for a good barbarian multiclass, since you can rage whenever you wanted without wearing yourself down.

Liberty's Edge

Ravingdork wrote:

I would grant a person full benefit from the immunity, perhaps even negating the damage from a forced march.

Might make for a good barbarian multiclass, since you can rage whenever you wanted without wearing yourself down.

I would likely do this as well, but I believe that RAW is that the damage causes the fatigue, but the fatigue is not required for damage.


I was looking over the movement rules again and it seems that there would still be a limit on how long one could run... But one could Jog forever, literally, if they didn't have to worry about the food & water I guess.


I think you'd still take the 1d6 non-lethal damage for every failed con-check after 8 hours of walking/adventuring, but you'd never become fatigued or exhausted.
Means you'd literally shop-till-you-drop : you'd be fully active until your non-lethal overcomes you and you just pass out.
Nothing in there says or implies you wouldn't take the damage - forced march says you take 1d6 non-lethal on a failed check, and you become fatigued if you take any non-lethal.
MA is just immune to the fatigue effect.


Add in a pearly white spindle ioun stone, a clear spindle ioun stone and then even the non-lethal damage and sustenance doesn't matter. You'll literally just be able to walk the plane without cessation.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
knightstar4 wrote:

When a Martial artist gains immunity to fatigue, that brings up some interesting possibilities.

If you stayed up for several days, since you never get fatigued from it, do you ever progress to exhausted?

If you are force marching or running continually, do you ever become exhausted? While I realize with this you're still probably taking that temporary damage and need to rest/heal it somehow later.

You get exhausted as normal. fatigue is applied as normal, the effects are not It's like the Black Blade's immunity to the broken condition. The condition is applied and can lead to the destroyed condition but the effects are not. But once broken or exhausted come into play, the effects are applied full force.


LazarX wrote:
knightstar4 wrote:

When a Martial artist gains immunity to fatigue, that brings up some interesting possibilities.

If you stayed up for several days, since you never get fatigued from it, do you ever progress to exhausted?

If you are force marching or running continually, do you ever become exhausted? While I realize with this you're still probably taking that temporary damage and need to rest/heal it somehow later.

You get exhausted as normal. fatigue is applied as normal, the effects are not It's like the Black Blade's immunity to the broken condition. The condition is applied and can lead to the destroyed condition but the effects are not. But once broken or exhausted come into play, the effects are applied full force.

I disagree with this. Immunity doesn't mean still affected but don't suffer effects. For example, if there was something that said "max sneak attack damage to poisoned creatures" then you attack something immune to poison with poison -- you wouldn't suffer the full sneak attack damage. They're not affected by the poison because immune.

Same as the many things that are "only works if creature is shaken" (etc) -- creatures who are immune to shaken condition don't still have the shaken condition for purposes of being susceptible to other effects

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

As a real life example, you can ride a horse to death.

So, yes, I'd say you can keep going and going and going...and kill yourself as you force your body onwards. You just don't suffer any combat penalties for doing so. Your mind probably freely slips between an instinct-dominant fugue state and full awareness on need and demand. You'd probably have a really weird view on reality and a distorted sense of time since you aren't a slave to the cycle of days anymore.

I'm not sure 'immunity to fatigue' covers all facets of sleep deprivation, as dreaming is kind of important to our sanity, but I'd probably just go with it.

Those guys sending nightmare spells at me would get pretty annoyed.

Note that you naturally heal 1 hp/level/day, even if exerting yourself, so a higher level person could keep going literally forever by simply healing his damage naturally as he goes. Non-lethal you heal at hp/level/hr, so even 1 hour/day is probably enough physical rest to let your body repair itself and keep on going.

==Aelryinth

Grand Lodge

LazarX wrote:
knightstar4 wrote:

When a Martial artist gains immunity to fatigue, that brings up some interesting possibilities.

If you stayed up for several days, since you never get fatigued from it, do you ever progress to exhausted?

If you are force marching or running continually, do you ever become exhausted? While I realize with this you're still probably taking that temporary damage and need to rest/heal it somehow later.

You get exhausted as normal. fatigue is applied as normal, the effects are not It's like the Black Blade's immunity to the broken condition. The condition is applied and can lead to the destroyed condition but the effects are not. But once broken or exhausted come into play, the effects are applied full force.

You're comparing apples to oranges. The reason that the Black Blade's immunity works the way it does is because it's not immune to damage as well. The broken condition is never applied. The 5th level Martial Artist is immune to fatigue, flat out, so it takes an effect that goes straight to exhausted to make them so.


Jeff Merola wrote:
LazarX wrote:
knightstar4 wrote:

When a Martial artist gains immunity to fatigue, that brings up some interesting possibilities.

If you stayed up for several days, since you never get fatigued from it, do you ever progress to exhausted?

If you are force marching or running continually, do you ever become exhausted? While I realize with this you're still probably taking that temporary damage and need to rest/heal it somehow later.

You get exhausted as normal. fatigue is applied as normal, the effects are not It's like the Black Blade's immunity to the broken condition. The condition is applied and can lead to the destroyed condition but the effects are not. But once broken or exhausted come into play, the effects are applied full force.
You're comparing apples to oranges. The reason that the Black Blade's immunity works the way it does is because it's not immune to damage as well. The broken condition is never applied. The 5th level Martial Artist is immune to fatigue, flat out, so it takes an effect that goes straight to exhausted to make them so.

I understand where he's coming from, though.

Barring the summoner there are extremely few player immunities handed out, most of the available ones being capstone abilities at level 20.

The types of effects he is confusing actual immunity with are a little more common. (not suffering the side effects of, but still having the actual condition).

Grand Lodge

Hydromancer wrote:

I understand where he's coming from, though.

Barring the summoner there are extremely few player immunities handed out, most of the available ones being capstone abilities at level 20.

The types of effects he is confusing actual immunity with are a little more common. (not suffering the side effects of, but still having the actual condition).

Immunity to Disease, Poison, and Fear are relatively common PC immunities that come online "early". And as far as I can tell the number of PC options that grant immunity far outweigh the options that just prevent the penalties of something (the only one I can actually find is the Antipaladin's Plague Bringer ability).


Ah yeah I suppose certain classes get an immunity fairly early on. Perhaps that was just my perspective from not playing those classes often at all.

My bad

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