Fatigue

Fatigue Checks

Characters performing extended strenuous activity need to pass fatigue checks to avoid accruing penalties from fatigue.
Every time a duration of time dictated by the chart signifies a check, roll Stamina difficulty 3 for the first fatigue check. Difficulty 4 for the check. Difficulty 5 for the third check, and so on and so forth. Resting resets the difficult back to 3.
Failure on a check results in a one die penalty on all dice rolls until the character gets sufficient rest. A second failure result in a two-dice penalty. A third failure results in a three dice penalty. A fourth failure results in the character falling unconscious.
A character can retroactively undo a failed Stamina check by spending a temporary Willpower point.
In the vast majority of everyday situations, it is completely unnecessary to roll fatigue checks. When to take fatigue checks is entirely at the Storyteller’s discretion. Characters on a long journey do not need to roll fatigue checks every day they travel, they only need to roll fatigue checks on days they have special or dangerous encounters where it's critically important to know exactly how alert and well-rested they are.
If your characters are traveling somewhere and they are not in a hurry, they can rest whenever they are tired, so you can probably forgo fatigue checks entirely. If characters must race ahead of an invading army to warn the capital, then you should almost certainly roll fatigue checks.
A lot of animalistic predatory and intelligent adversaries plan to ambush their foes when they are tired. A group of characters about to face a sneak attack should probably roll fatigue checks, but a group of characters having a safe normal day probably shouldn’t bother.

Fatigue Check Time Chart

Casual riding 4 hours
Unhurried travel on foot 3 hours
Hard riding 3 hours
Marching 2 hours
Forced marching (jogging long distance) 1 hour
Swimming 20 minutes
Running 10 minutes
Light work (copying manuscripts, cooking) 3 hours
Medium toil (chopping wood, pulling weeds) 2 hours
Heavy toil (hauling large stones, military drills) 1 hour
Fighting 10 minutes

Fatigue Check Difficulty Modifiers

Wearing armor or carrying heavy loads adds a modifier to the base difficulty of the Stamina roll.
Light armor +1
Medium armor +2
Heavy armor +3
Plate armor +4

Additional Modifiers

Heavy load of gear +1
Hot day +1
Wet +1
Underfed +1
Dehydrated +1
Ill +2