House rule for Going below 0 hp and get up again with a good berry or a healing

[Hjorimir]

My houserule is 1 level of exhaustion for being dropped to 0 hit points (maximum 1 level per encounter). I have the maximum in there to avoid the death/exhaustion spiral where a character is knocked to 0, healed, but laying there at the feet of the monster and just pounded to 0 hit points again.

 

[OB1]

For the campaign I'm running now, I use two home-brew rules
*Failed Death Saves only go away with a long rest
*When you drop to 0 or fewer hit points, you immediately make a death-save who's DC is 10 or 1/2 the damage of the attack, whichever is higher

This does a pretty good job of keeping players from going full whack-a-mole

For the grittier campaign I'm working on that will come up next, it will use the following (which has been agreed upon by the players to meet the feel we are all going for)

*Failed Death Save = Gain 1 Level of Exhaustion
*When you drop to 0 or fewer hit points, you immediately make a death-save who's DC is 10 or 1/2 the damage of the attack, whichever is higher
*When you drop to 0 or fewer hit points, you remain conscious, your speed is reduced by 1/2, and if you succeed on your death save at the start of your turn, you can take the dodge, dash, disengage or use item action.
*You cannot benefit from a short or long rest when you have a level of exhaustion at the start of the rest
*You can spend 2 Hit Die to clear a level of exhaustion during a short rest (DC 20 Heal check to reduce cost to 1, on a failure you spend 2 Hit Die and do no lose a level of exhaustion)
*You clear 1 level of exhaustion during a long rest
*You can spend an additional 2 Hit Die per level of exhaustion to clear more exhaustion during a long rest (DC 20 Heal check to reduce cost to 1/2, on a failure you spend the full Hit Die and your exhaustion level stays the same)
*You only recover your hit points during a long rest if you have all of your hit die at the beginning of the long rest

 

[tolcreator]

Very interested in this! I have two goals to fulfill:
1) Reduce the "Wack-a-mole" aspect where a character is up, then down, then up, then down... i.e. have more of a consequence for going to 0 hp
2) Also reduce the sudden death that may occur once a character is reduced to 0 hp. If I feel inclined to fudge it if a character gets an unlucky fail followed by crit fail on their death saves and finds their character suddenly dead, then I probably want to change that rule.

Here's what I'm thinking at the moment:
1) On going to 0 hp, gain 1 level of exhaustion
2) On failing 3 death saves, instead of dying, gain 1 level of exhaustion

My main problem here is that it may introduce delays: The players might decide to leave the dungeon for a long rest any time anyone has taken a level of exhaustion. This certainly makes exhaustion a far more prevalent thing.

I've put in two new ways to remove exhaustion:
1) You can remove 1 level of exhaustion with a short rest. To recharge this ability, you must take a long rest and forgo using that long rest to remove 1 level of exhaustion
2) You can cast Cure Wounds on someone already on full HP to remove 1 level of exhaustion. This must be cast in a spell slot equal to the number of levels of exhaustion on the character.

So this allows most characters to soak up going to 0 once with little consequences i.e. a short rest, but if someone gets to 2 or 3 levels of exhaustion, they really need to think about leaving the dungeon and resting up.

 

[5ekyu]

Very interested in this! I have two goals to fulfill:
1) Reduce the "Wack-a-mole" aspect where a character is up, then down, then up, then down... i.e. have more of a consequence for going to 0 hp
2) Also reduce the sudden death that may occur once a character is reduced to 0 hp. If I feel inclined to fudge it if a character gets an unlucky fail followed by crit fail on their death saves and finds their character suddenly dead, then I probably want to change that rule.

Here's what I'm thinking at the moment:
1) On going to 0 hp, gain 1 level of exhaustion
2) On failing 3 death saves, instead of dying, gain 1 level of exhaustion

My main problem here is that it may introduce delays: The players might decide to leave the dungeon for a long rest any time anyone has taken a level of exhaustion. This certainly makes exhaustion a far more prevalent thing.

I've put in two new ways to remove exhaustion:
1) You can remove 1 level of exhaustion with a short rest. To recharge this ability, you must take a long rest and forgo using that long rest to remove 1 level of exhaustion
2) You can cast Cure Wounds on someone already on full HP to remove 1 level of exhaustion. This must be cast in a spell slot equal to the number of levels of exhaustion on the character.

So this allows most characters to soak up going to 0 once with little consequences i.e. a short rest, but if someone gets to 2 or 3 levels of exhaustion, they really need to think about leaving the dungeon and resting up.

Seems to me that a lot of these proposals will tend to lead to needing (or encouraging) more resting after a fight.

I recall seeing a lot of threads about issues with resting in 5e - wonder how many of those were "not enough rests being taken" that this kind of change could solve?

Lets perhaps come at it in a different way... preventing whack-a-mole by making getting knocked to zero less likely or flukey.

After all this is to stop the whsck-a-mole - not punish folks, right?

"When you are reduced to zero HP you can spend HD to stay up. Roll HD with con mod until you are back to 1hp or more. Once you are at 1hp, you cannot spend more but do keep the results of that roll."

This keeps the overall resources the same over a period between longvrests but let's you keep avoiding the aesthetically displeasing up-down.

 

[Al2O3]

Very interested in this! I have two goals to fulfill:
1) Reduce the "Wack-a-mole" aspect where a character is up, then down, then up, then down... i.e. have more of a consequence for going to 0 hp
2) Also reduce the sudden death that may occur once a character is reduced to 0 hp. If I feel inclined to fudge it if a character gets an unlucky fail followed by crit fail on their death saves and finds their character suddenly dead, then I probably want to change that rule.

Here's what I'm thinking at the moment:
1) On going to 0 hp, gain 1 level of exhaustion
2) On failing 3 death saves, instead of dying, gain 1 level of exhaustion

My main problem here is that it may introduce delays: The players might decide to leave the dungeon for a long rest any time anyone has taken a level of exhaustion. This certainly makes exhaustion a far more prevalent thing.

I've put in two new ways to remove exhaustion:
1) You can remove 1 level of exhaustion with a short rest. To recharge this ability, you must take a long rest and forgo using that long rest to remove 1 level of exhaustion
2) You can cast Cure Wounds on someone already on full HP to remove 1 level of exhaustion. This must be cast in a spell slot equal to the number of levels of exhaustion on the character.

So this allows most characters to soak up going to 0 once with little consequences i.e. a short rest, but if someone gets to 2 or 3 levels of exhaustion, they really need to think about leaving the dungeon and resting up.

Since my group had a similar situation I will make a guess about 1)

You use few but deadly encounters between long rests.

That was the problem for my group. The deadly encounters meant that there simply did not exist sufficient intensive healing to prevent characters going to 0 hp. Adding penalties would not have reduced this problem in any way.

What we did have for healing was enough spell slots to almost spam them, since there were so few encounters anyway. In the end we could not prevent 0 hp, but we could always heal after it happened (and it was easier than stabilising with checks). This led to whack-a-PC.

Maybe you have the same problem with the same cause.

Our solution was easier but more frequent combat. That way we slowly burn through hit dice and healing, so by the end of the adventuring day we are not able to do whack-a-PC. All the spell slots can provide is a chance to get back from 0 once and then either run or finish off the last remaining enemy, whichever is easier. After that last thing we're simply dry.

In short/TL;Dr:
whack-a-PC is a symptom. You can't fix it if you don't know why it happens.

 

[FrogReaver]

Since my group had a similar situation I will make a guess about 1)

You use few but deadly encounters between long rests.

That was the problem for my group. The deadly encounters meant that there simply did not exist sufficient intensive healing to prevent characters going to 0 hp. Adding penalties would not have reduced this problem in any way.

What we did have for healing was enough spell slots to almost spam them, since there were so few encounters anyway. In the end we could not prevent 0 hp, but we could always heal after it happened (and it was easier than stabilising with checks). This led to whack-a-PC.

Maybe you have the same problem with the same cause.

Our solution was easier but more frequent combat. That way we slowly burn through hit dice and healing, so by the end of the adventuring day we are not able to do whack-a-PC. All the spell slots can provide is a chance to get back from 0 once and then either run or finish off the last remaining enemy, whichever is easier. After that last thing we're simply dry.

In short/TL;Dr:
whack-a-PC is a symptom. You can't fix it if you don't know why it happens.

It seems to me that solving whack-a-pc by simply using combats that won’t cause a PC to reach 0 isn’t a very good solution to the problem.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I see. So it was temporarily more deadly only for the players to adapt making it only slightly more deadly. Very interesting

It's a change in dynamics, but these two rules were not adopted at the same time: The first time we used a variant of the "skull marks/countdown to doom" rule was in 4e. I don't remember what the details were, but it did get reintroduced fairly early into our 5e game. The whack-a-mole aspect was much more pronounced for us in 4e, I cannot say definitively whether that was more because of the rule differences between the editions or an evolution of the group's play style. In either edition, though, it made going down something to be avoided a bit more, without penalising PCs too much or add extra tracking of any real consequence.

The KO rule was more of a gradual evolution/softening of going down, mainly to make it less annoying narratively, that eventually got codified maybe a year and a half ago or thereabouts. This is just something we strayed towards over time because it seemed to work for us, with less thought behind it. How much more it made the players avoid going down was a pleasant, if unintended, side-effect. The same effect can probably be achieved by making all enemies ruthless jerkwads who always make sure to finish their enemies off, but I just don't want them to be.

In any case, together these two rules made the players treat going down more as a real concern to be avoided and less as a standard procedure game mechanic.

Seems to me that a lot of these proposals will tend to lead to needing (or encouraging) more resting after a fight.

I just let the healing potions flow freely (but expensively, giving them something to spend their money on) and allow short rests whenever it seems appropriate. Nothing outside of a long rest or some very expensive potions will untick those skull marks.

 

[5ekyu]

It's a change in dynamics, but these two rules were not adopted at the same time: The first time we used a variant of the "skull marks/countdown to doom" rule was in 4e. I don't remember what the details were, but it did get reintroduced fairly early into our 5e game. The whack-a-mole aspect was much more pronounced for us in 4e, I cannot say definitively whether that was more because of the rule differences between the editions or an evolution of the group's play style. In either edition, though, it made going down something to be avoided a bit more, without penalising PCs too much or add extra tracking of any real consequence.

The KO rule was more of a gradual evolution/softening of going down, mainly to make it less annoying narratively, that eventually got codified maybe a year and a half ago or thereabouts. This is just something we strayed towards over time because it seemed to work for us, with less thought behind it. How much more it made the players avoid going down was a pleasant, if unintended, side-effect. The same effect can probably be achieved by making all enemies ruthless jerkwads who always make sure to finish their enemies off, but I just don't want them to be.

In any case, together these two rules made the players treat going down more as a real concern to be avoided and less as a standard procedure game mechanic.




I just let the healing potions flow freely (but expensively, giving them something to spend their money on) and allow short rests whenever it seems appropriate. Nothing outside of a long rest or some very expensive potions will untick those skull marks.

If more resting is a goal - seems like a thing.

Part of me still comrmes back to the whack-a-mole "problem" being the mole.

If they dont go down, then no pop up.

So as i said earlier let the 0hp eat at your HD resources, not drop you.

Another option - remove the unconscious. At zero HP you go into death mode... Every hit or harm gives u a fail. Three fails and you are dead. No saves involved.

So, running out of HP equates to "now hits matter" bright red screen border flashy danger!!

Unconscious would be the "i choose to ko" when the kill comes down.

Healing hp from zero would reset the tally to zero but its not seen as an up down, just restoring your hp safety.

 

[Monayuris]

I've been considering just bringing back negative hit points.

It really isn't that difficult to track the negative hit point value after being dropped to zero.

When dropped to negative hit points, players continue to make death saves. Healing can be provided as normal, but the character must receive enough healing to bring it back to 1 hit point in order to get back on its feet.

Medicine checks will still stabilize characters as normal, but they will be stabilized at their negative hit point value.

I'm not sure if I want attacks on negative hit point characters to continue to reduce hit points (with death = to negative max hit points) or continue to use the existing death save rules.

I'm leaning towards existing death save rules, which I think will be easier on low level characters and more dangerous to high level characters.

Stabilized characters (via medicine check or 3 successful saves), while at negative hit points, still need the 1d4 hours to wake up, at which point they will be Walking Wounded until they are healed / recovered to positive hit points. Walking Wounded characters will have a level of Exhaustion and any attack on them is treated as if the character is Incapacitated (meaning they are at risk of being killed via death saves failures).

I may also consider some kind of minor / major permanent wound based on percentage of negative hit points compared to maximum hit points.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Wait. How about you let them take a penalty INSTEAD of dropping unconscious. So when they would drop to 0 they can instead choose to take a level of exhaustion (or whatever penalty you want to implement) and are at 1 hp. That way it’s not a punishment but a decision made by the player. I fact, you could add the suggestion that [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] made and let them spend HD to heal. That way there’s a cost/benefit.

Maybe doing so (instead of exhaustion or on top of getting exhaustion) is also considered an automatic failure of a death save. So, if you do drop a second time and choose not to take another level of exhaustion, you have already one failed death save. It also means you can only do this 3 times before you actually die.

Edit: and actually, I kind of like the idea of having failed death saves being cumulative. That would make an encounter way more gritty. Players would more likely consider fleeing if they’ve gone down once and failed two death saves.