I’m telling you, just play Pathfinder 2e already. They have great dying rules that prevents up/down abuse with the wounded condition building on the dying condition to stop the up/down cheese seen in 5e.

I used to run 5e for years and also use to make all kinds of house rules and systems just like this to get it to run how I wanted it to because it doesn’t do much outside of combat out of the box. I read through the PF2e rulebook and kicked myself for not switching sooner because they have a rule for damn near everything I would want to run and super balanced at the same time.

Interesting concept, but I just need to ask for some clarification before I can consider using it for my players. Are the Exhaustion points you use disconnected from the condition Exhaustion, where you get various negative effects until death at the 6th point? If I read the last line correctly, you get 10 points and you die? If they’re not regular points of exhaustion, a player can just use an action to heal themselves with a potion or spell, remove themselves from combat. Then they just need a short and long rest and they’re good to go. I think this might make them too powerful in the long run. If you use regular points of Exhaustion, you suddenly raise the stakes, while still keeping the player’s ability to move half movement and talk. Otherwise you’re indtroducing another value to keep track of that might raise more questions than solve problems. Can they be removed with a powerful enough healing spell/potion?

Keep the system, but use regular points of Exhaustion instead. You get one action that’ll really mess you up, where you are able to heal yourself, but you suffer the consequences of it after. Now that seems exciting. Just my two cents.

In your penultimate point you lost me, can you explain more about why 9 = -9, etc?