[RPG] n effect that will cause more than one level of exhaustion to be gained

conditionsdnd-5e

In discussions for exhaustion (like this one or this one), bandwidth is spent on what happens if exhaustion would exceed six levels.

The definition of exhaustion also says:

An effect can give a creature one or more levels of exhaustion, as
specified in the effect’s description.

However, I was not able to find any effect that would add more than one level of exhaustion at a time in the core rules. Is there any published effect (from a spell, magic item or monster, or any other source) that is able to do this?

Best Answer

Be tired and thirsty

There's a weird little rule tucked away in the food and water rules in the PHB (Chapter 8 > The Environment > Food and Water) which says that if you already have any exhaustion, you suffer two levels of it from lack of water.

If the character already has one or more levels of exhaustion, the character takes two levels [of exhaustion].

Run yourself into the ground

This requires a bit more setup and lands into a slightly ambiguous territory, but using the chase rules from the DMG (Chapter 8 > Chases) it's possible to gain two levels (or more) at the end of your turn. In short, if you've already taken a bunch of dashes in that chase, each one you take forces a Con save with failure gaining you an exhaustion level at the end of your turn. So, if you Dash twice on a turn (eg. rogue, monk, fighter) you will be subjected to two such saving throws, for as many levels of exhaustion.

There's some ambiguity as to how simultaneous this is. Both levels are gained at the end of the same turn, though behind separate saving throws. Whether they're fully simultaneous will depend on what goal they need to simultaneous for. You can certainly jump from exhaustion 4 to dead without getting stuck at that pesky speed of 0, if that was your goal for some reason.

Hot teeth

Teeth of Dahlver-Nar is an artefact from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Skipping over how the item works, we want effect number 19 which allows us to make a whopper breath attack at the low-low cost of two exhaustion levels.

as an action, you can exhale fire in a 90-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 24 Dexterity saving throw, taking 26d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. After using the breath weapon, you gain 2 levels of exhaustion.

Break a Vow

The Broken Vow sample curse (in the Horror Adventures chapter) from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft includes:

The character gains 3 levels of exhaustion that can’t be removed until the curse ends.

Adventures and Monsters

I'll cover these briefly as they're already covered by Tobias F's excellent answer.

  • A Loup Garau's lycanthropy being lifted (Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft)

    On a success, the curse is broken, and the target returns to its normal form and gains 3 levels of exhaustion.

  • The Mystery Mine from The Wild Beyond the Witchlight includes after failing a sufficient number of saving throws

    the character must succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw after finishing a long rest or gain 1d3 levels of exhaustion.

  • The Zikran’s Zephyrean Tome from Candlekeep Mysteries includes exhaustion as the fail state for a specific climbing check

    On a failed check, the character still makes it to the top but gains [...] 2 levels of exhaustion if the check fails by 5 or more.

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