D&D 5E Healing and Negative HP

[Enevhar Aldarion]

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

And that is why I said it depends on how you run declaring actions. In my games there are no "take backs", so if you say I am using all my attacks on an enemy, then guess what, you are using all your attacks against that enemy, unless you have a feat or ability that specifically lets you retarget after the enemy goes down.

 

[DemonSlayer]

And that is why I said it depends on how you run declaring actions. In my games there are no "take backs", so if you say I am using all my attacks on an enemy, then guess what, you are using all your attacks against that enemy, unless you have a feat or ability that specifically lets you retarget after the enemy goes down.

That's cool if you run it differently than the rules. I would suggest adding that it is a house rule next time, so it's not confusing. With that omission, it came across as required RAW.

 

[Croesus]

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

That's not RAW for version 3.x. The relevant language from the PHB:

"Healing that raises the dying character’s hit points to 0 make him conscious and disabled. Healing that raises his hit points to 1 or more makes him fully functional again, just as if he’d never been reduced to 0 or lower. A spellcaster retains the spellcasting capability she had before dropping below 0 hit points.”

As you can see, the rules assumed the possibility of using healing to get a character to zero, which means that healing didn't always start at zero.

However, what previous editions did is beside the point I was making. If someone has problems with characters dropping to zero and any amount of healing (even a single goodberry) bringing them back to consciousness, then treating unconscious characters as -10 instead of 0 hit points would ameliorate that situation somewhat. My group doesn't have a problem with the RAW, but for those that do, I can see the attraction of changing unconscious from 0 to -10 for healing purposes.

 

[CapnZapp]

If you mean: you're dead if you receive enough damage to send you to -10 HP

Don't worry - I don't.

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

My houserule doesnt change instant death from massive damage, or the way you need three failed death saves to die otherwise.

The only thing it does is have you keep track of hit points down to -10 (instead of down to 0) and related rules tweaks.

The impact is that everything works exactly as normal except a quick Healing Word is less likely to bring a fallen ally back on his feet. (If he was at -1, sure, but not if he's at -9).

You're still stabilized if you recieve a single point of healing, for instance. If you were at -9, now you're at -8 and stable. But you're still unconscious, since you have fewer than 1 hp.

The main (and only) point of the houserule is to make "dot" heals (Paladin Lay on Hands, Healing Word etc) much less stupendously powerful, effectively shutting down the whack-a-mole effect of the default 5e rules.

It works really well in practical play

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

Or I could just have read the very next post before I replied

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

I dislike that too.

With my variant, you still insta-die if the damage would have taken you to negative-max-hp, just like in the default rules.

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

This is exactly what my rule doesn't have, since that is precisely the rules element that feeds the whack-a-mole.

 

[Oofta]

Don't worry - I don't.


My houserule doesnt change instant death from massive damage, or the way you need three failed death saves to die otherwise.

The only thing it does is have you keep track of hit points down to -10 (instead of down to 0) and related rules tweaks.

The impact is that everything works exactly as normal except a quick Healing Word is less likely to bring a fallen ally back on his feet. (If he was at -1, sure, but not if he's at -9).

You're still stabilized if you recieve a single point of healing, for instance. If you were at -9, now you're at -8 and stable. But you're still unconscious, since you have fewer than 1 hp.

The main (and only) point of the houserule is to make "dot" heals (Paladin Lay on Hands, Healing Word etc) much less stupendously powerful, effectively shutting down the whack-a-mole effect of the default 5e rules.

It works really well in practical play

Ah, I see said the blind man. Unfortunately attack rolls still have advantage to hit me and I have disadvantage on attacks.

I assume if you were at 10 HP, took 30 points damage you only go to -10? Unless of course you were killed outright. I'll have to think about trying it.

 

[CapnZapp]

I assume if you were at 10 HP, took 30 points damage you only go to -10? Unless of course you were killed outright.

Exactly.

If you normally have 45 hp, and currently have 10 hp, you instadie if you take 55 damage. If you take 54 damage, you "bottom out" at -10.

The reason for capping negative hp at -10 is because it's only the "free" cheap heals we're concerned about.

A "big heal" (idk, a potion of Superior Healing or sumthin) should still stand a good chance of bringing the fallen ally back up on his feet. Which it does when the reduction in effectiveness is limited to ten points. (Superior Healing's 8d4+8 makes it certain)

Tldr: Ten points is a lot for a Healing Word, but not for a Heal.



Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[schnee]

Negative hit points are awkward and weird, which is why they were eliminated in later redesigns.

The idea of death saves is good; it puts the actual roll of death in a player's hands, and removes the weirdness of a stronger insta-death possibility at higher levels due to increased raw damage numbers when they should be paradoxically harder to kill due to experience.

In fact, this version does make it a bit easier later, regardless of healing magic available - Inspiration, Halfling Luck, and a few other abilities can boost the saves.

IMO this is the best version of handling the '0hp / unconscious / dead' mechanic in D&D.

 

[CapnZapp]

Negative hit points are awkward and weird, which is why they were eliminated in later redesigns.

The idea of death saves is good; it puts the actual roll of death in a player's hands, and removes the weirdness of a stronger insta-death possibility at higher levels due to increased raw damage numbers when they should be paradoxically harder to kill due to experience.

In fact, this version does make it a bit easier later, regardless of healing magic available - Inspiration, Halfling Luck, and a few other abilities can boost the saves.

IMO this is the best version of handling the '0hp / unconscious / dead' mechanic in D&D.

If you want to be persuasive, you need to address the whack-a-mole effect of this edition.

Just ignoring the preceding discussion might be easy, but it also comes across as dismissive.

Just a heads up ☺

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app