D&D 5E Healing and Negative HP

[schnee]

ALSO I usually roll all my dice at the same time (including damage if i don't use the average for monsters)to speed things up so it's tough to call which attack happened first, so I would err to scenario B. But if I knew it was two death fails I would have announced that and hopefully other players would have been quicker to come to his aid knowing how grave it was.

As a hopefully humble new DM I would never punish the players for my mistake. I won't retcon the death as already happened, but restate the rules now that I understand them better and hope they make good choices in the next few rounds to save him and get out, and use it as a learning experience for all.

Well, think of it this way. Hit 1 drops the character unconscious. Does that monster keep attacking the unconscious enemy?

In my campaigns, very few will unless they a) are experienced fighting adventurers and have seem how quickly they can revive each other, b) have magic of their own so they know what is possible, c) are mindlessly life-hating and non-conscious like zombies, or d) intentionally horrifying and hateful creatures like demons.

And, when those creatures come into play, I telegraph it a lot, especially to new players. At the start of the fight, they should feel some quivering, primal fear deep within their bones, in the way lots of people say they do after hearing a Lion's roar in the wild. Like, the human combatants move with a practiced cold efficiency that belies any fear or hesitation. Or, the gaze of the undead makes you feel like it hates you in a way you've never seen, and you have a feeling it will stop at nothing to kill. That way, when someone drops and gets hammered to a paste, it feels more fair.

Hell, if you are more of a storyteller-type DM (rather than the verisimilitude-driven 'let the chips fall where they may' type), and the players are new, I'd even intentionally have a situation where someone, not a party member, gets ripped to shreds when they're down, when the party still has a chance to retreat and talk it over. Use these sorts of events to give the players 'world-building' knowledge so they're not surprised.

So, back to the point. First hit knocks the character out. Does the monster keep going?

If the answer is 'no', based on your interpretation, I'd consider retconning it so the character is alive. It's the only fair thing to do, since the more correct interpretation of the rule would mean the monster would have moved on from the unconscious, and still living character, quite possibly sparing his life. It will generate a lot of good will, if that's a likely outcome.

Also, I'd stop rolling all attacks at once, or at least roll the damage in order. It doesn't save much time if you're good. "16 miss, 21 hit, 24 hit. First hit 27 damage, -" Player: "I drop". Then you make up your mind.

 

[Croesus]

If you are rolling your attacks simultaneously, then I would apply the damage simultaneously too. Because if you'd attack sequentially, then the character would be down after the first hit so probably the giant would have attacked someone else with the second.

One consequence of rolling and applying the damage simultaneously is that it actually makes death by massive damage possible at higher levels. Once a character has 50+ hit points, it's awfully difficult to inflict that much damage in a single hit. Even dragons would have trouble in this situation. So while the character avoided all those failed death saves from hits that occurred after the first one, he also risked being killed by the total damage. Applying all damage together also makes concentration checks more difficult, but fewer (which speeds up play).

Despite my argument above, I roll and apply simultaneously just because it's easier and faster. Sadras is right, RAW, but I have enough things to keep track of as GM, and doing this makes the game go more smoothly, at least for me.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Well, think of it this way. Hit 1 drops the character unconscious. Does that monster keep attacking the unconscious enemy?

This all depends on how you run the declaration of actions/attacks. If a DM, or a PC, declares all attacks are aimed at one target, then all attacks go against that target even if the first would put that target to 0 HP.

 

[Sadras]

In my campaigns, very few will unless they a) are experienced fighting adventurers and have seem how quickly they can revive each other, b) have magic of their own so they know what is possible, c) are mindlessly life-hating and non-conscious like zombies, or d) intentionally horrifying and hateful creatures like demons.

Also some animals and monsters with animal-like intelligence/instincts (unless directed otherwise). They pick at you till you're dead, not moving, not breathing.

 

[CapnZapp]

There are no negative HP in 5E. That doesn't mean it's not easy to kill a character if you want.

Yes, but to do so you need to either apply area effects damage, or have your NPC keep attacking fallen heroes.

I'd much MUCH rather have a system that doesn't make that the rational option for intelligent enemies. I don't care for the resentment brewed by having enemies specifically spend time in combat on killing off the fallen.

I would much rather reserve this behavior for especially evil or sadistic or cruel foes.

That is why I have added a house rule that makes you count negative hp down to -10, to remove the whack-a-mole effect of the core "no negative hp" rule combined with quick-heals such as Healing Word.

When bringing back fallen allies is no longer a trival task (=a bonus action), it no longer is stupid for monsters to focus on the heroes that are still standing up.

This is how D&D has always worked before, and I do not see why the whole game should change just to accomplish a minor simplification. Sure not having to keep track of negative hp is slightly easier, but the resulting sea change in expected monster behavior is NOT worth the savings. The designers threw out the baby with the bathwater here!

And since I added this rule the game is much better off

 

[Oofta]

That is why I have added a house rule that makes you count negative hp down to -10, to remove the whack-a-mole effect of the core "no negative hp" rule combined with quick-heals such as Healing Word.

If you mean: you're dead if you receive enough damage to send you to -10 HP, I disagree. It never made sense to me that someone with 4 HP could take 13 points of damage and not die, while someone with 100 HP would die after take 110 points of damage. Why would a first level wizard die only after taking 450% of their total HP in damage, while the 10th level fighter dies after taking 110% of their total HP?

At higher levels you're facing creatures that can deal 20-30 points per hit, it's too easy to go from conscious to dead in one hit.

If I were to house rule counting negative HP, it would be tied somehow to total HP. Maybe go back to negative bloodied (1/2 HP) or similar.

If you're just talking a variation of a death countdown that's different.

But I dunno. I've killed my fair share of PCs over the years, but I've never gone out of my way to be a killer DM. To each his own.

 

[Croesus]

I think CapnZapp was suggesting that if a character is dropped (0 or less hp), you keep track of their negative hp up (down?) to -10. That way you can still use healing to get them back to consciousness, but it requires at least 11 points of healing to do so. The 1d4 healing word won't do it. A similar option would be to simply change dropped characters from 0 hp to -10 hp, regardless of how much damage they took.

If that's his intent, then it would indeed make reviving a dropped character more costly in terms of healing resources/actions, somewhat minimizing the whack a mole issue that some have complained about.

 

[cooperjer]

There are massive damage rules and severe injury rules in the DMG. I'm away from my books, but from my memory the massive damage rule suggests rolling on a table after a character fails a Con save if they take damage from one creature greater than their Con score.

I do not play with either rule option. I've talked with my players about using them and although they liked the idea of massive damage to NPCs, they didn't like the idea of massive damage applied to their character. The severe injury table is debilitating in my opinion and significantly affects the character and game play with that character. My players were not willing to risk receiving the affects of the severe injury table.

These are some additional rules options your players may enjoy.

 

[DemonSlayer]

This all depends on how you run the declaration of actions/attacks. If a DM, or a PC, declares all attacks are aimed at one target, then all attacks go against that target even if the first would put that target to 0 HP.

That's not accurate. Nothing in the rules say you must declare all actions and then blindly follow through with them.

Anyone can change their mind after they see the result of any attack (or any action they do). Even Ready an Action allows you to not take your action after the trigger.

You can move between attacks, so if you drop one foe, you can move to the next and keep attacking.

edit:grammar is hard

 

[Oofta]

I think CapnZapp was suggesting that if a character is dropped (0 or less hp), you keep track of their negative hp up (down?) to -10. That way you can still use healing to get them back to consciousness, but it requires at least 11 points of healing to do so. The 1d4 healing word won't do it. A similar option would be to simply change dropped characters from 0 hp to -10 hp, regardless of how much damage they took.

If that's his intent, then it would indeed make reviving a dropped character more costly in terms of healing resources/actions, somewhat minimizing the whack a mole issue that some have complained about.

In a previous edition, if you went to -10 you died which is what I'm assuming he's talking about. I never liked the rule for the reasons I explained. Better than dying when you hit zero I suppose, but that's not saying a lot.

Healing always started from 0 even when we tracked negative HP.