Last Stand - Revising Death Saves

[Saeviomagy]

I feel that 5e lacks the "you're bleeding to death, but can enact one last valiant action" which crops up in much of heroic fantasy fiction.

For a typical heroic game, I would probably say that prior to rolling your death save, you can choose to try to remain active, which will automatically inflict one failed death save. Then you roll your death save for the round, and if you succeed, you may act.

You could even allow for varying levels of failed death save. A bonus or free action makes you fail your save for the round. A normal action or moving makes you fail twice.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I'm not a big fan. I like the idea in the normal rules that when people are dropped to 0, they know they are on a clock to die and are helpless to stop it. It creates an inbetween spot between dead and alive. One where you can be thinking "Oh crap, I'm close to dead...but I might survive."

This rule creates a situation where you have a number more options to make sure you stay alive. You can spend your action doing a Medicine check on yourself and you can stop making death saves. So, unless the enemies hit you again, you know with 95% certainty that you'll survive. As other people have said above, anyone with a bonus action healing spell will barely notice they fell below 0 hitpoints and can use being near 0 hitpoints to be an advantage to absorb damage only to heal themselves again afterward. This removes most of the tension from falling below 0, since in 95% of all cases without monsters interfering, you know that you are going to survive.

Which brings me to the other problem: Monsters now have a moving, breathing target to attack, raising the chance that you'll die fairly dramatically. Enemies don't really have a reason to attack people who are down. Especially if you follow the advice in the DMG and avoid attacking down people on purpose. But if those people are up and are attacking or even if they are at risk of attacking in a future round, you want to put them down. What makes it weird is that the people who dropped to 0 hitpoints are still kind of difficult to kill if you can't do a lot of damage in one hit. If you have 6 hitpoints, that means you can take 26 points of damage at most before you die(one hit for 11 which doesn't kill you then 3 more hits of 5 points a piece that each make you fail one death save). It gets even worse once you have some hitpoints. Once your max hitpoints are 50, you only die to hits that do 25+ damage at once. So being at 0 is a damage shield of 3 attacks, no matter how damaging they are. While simultaneously being really easy to kill by 3 kobolds with daggers.

Tactically, it seems to mean that all battles either end up with people dead or everyone alive and well. In the system in the book, it is possible for half the party to be knocked unconscious, you can make all of your death saves and become stable and the party will have to wait around for 1d4 hours to wake up since they have no healing. I find it's nice to have a middle ground between alive and dead.

Given "Damage is King" in D&D, the best tactical route while playing with this rule appears to be to attack with everything you have every time you drop to 0 hitpoints. It seems like it would encourage everyone to go out in a blaze of glory every battle. It seems that you want people to go out in a blaze of glory, so the rule may suit you.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Interesting idea. Mechanically, it seems equivalent to adding some hit points and reinstating the 0 hp = dead-dead rule. Still, I can see how it would add some drama and tension. If I were to do it, I would add a rule that each round at 0 hp a PC must make a CON or WIS check (whichever is better) to stay conscious. (Or maybe CHA rather than WIS - whichever better represents willpower in 5e)

I also like that it creates some space between 1hp = fully functional and 0 hp = disabled, which is a long running object of my dissatisfaction with D&D. It's certainly not the only way folks have tried to do so, but it looks like one of the more interesting ways I've seen.

 

[Wolf118]

I like the idea of a little more gray in the area, rather than the up/down nature of DSTs and zero hit points. But, I don't want it to get complicated, either. So, borrowing from everyone's ideas, here's the houserule I'm introducing for my players:

A) When a PC drops to 0 hit points or below, they do not fall unconscious automatically. Instead, they are knocked prone but may still take their turn with the following restrictions:
1) They may only take the Dash, Hide, or Use an Object actions in addition to their movement
2) They may not take a bonus action
3) Their movement is halved (round down to nearest 5 foot increment)
4) If another PC is stabilizing them with a Medicine check, they are not allowed to move
B) Instant Death rule still applies
C) Death Saving Throws rules still apply, with the added penalty of falling unconscious on their second failed Death Saving Throw

 

[the Jester]

Are you extending the same benefits to monsters or major npcs?

Personally, whenever I start to engineer a house rule, my first thought is, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander. How does this work out if the npcs can do it, too?"

Not everyone believes in equal treatment for pcs and npcs, though.

EDIT: Yeah, the more I look, the more this seems to make dying meaningless. If you can heal yourself while at 0, and most pcs have some amount of healing (from spells to second wind to... whatever), this is basically "hey, let's remove most of the risk of the game!" I wouldn't like it as a player or a DM.

 

[77IM]

Prediction: Upon reaching zero HP, every PC's first action will be to quaff a potion of healing. Every. Single. Time.

 

[Wolf118]

We're playing at 11th level right now. Some of their opponents could squash their unconscious bodies easily with a single attack action. Plus, a PC who's unconscious is a player who's shut out of the action.

I prefer to keep the whole table involved as much as I can. As a player, I've been in the position where I'm unable to act.

My intent behind this change is that a PC is able to drink a healing potion, move out of danger's path, etc. They're hurt, but not down. I pull no punches in combat; I play intelligent monsters intelligently, use proper tactics, and use the PC's own moves against them.

To me, this makes combat a little more cinematic; the seriously-injured hero crawling along, still trying to make it to the control panel. Or hiding away from the enemy while they quickly patch themselves up. I did toy with the idea of negative HPs, but that kind of screws healing magic.

NPCs won't use these rules in most cases; again, I want a little more grittiness without sacrificing the speed of play 5e has. Maybe the BBEG if I need him to escape to fight another day.

And dying is still meaningful. As the DM, I don't need to cheat or fudge rolls to hit the players; I can always throw more monsters at the players. Or, "Rocks fall. Everybody dies." The question is, as you're dying, can you still do something. The hero in the story can, and that's how I view my players.

 

[Psikerlord#]

How about something simpler: when you drop to zero, make a "death save" - if you succeed, you can take an action your next turn before dropping unconscious. If you fail, normal fall unconscious immediately rule applies.

Alternatively you could make this part of a feat

I Actually think allowing PCs to fight on at zero hp is going to get a lot of PCs killed. Normally they would drop and be ignored by the monsters who are focusing on moving targets. But with this method, they keep fighting at zero - with a bad initiative arrangements, or a monster with multiattack, they could be properly killed very quickly - every hit on zero hp = fail death save....

 

[Saeviomagy]

I Actually think allowing PCs to fight on at zero hp is going to get a lot of PCs killed. Normally they would drop and be ignored by the monsters who are focusing on moving targets. But with this method, they keep fighting at zero - with a bad initiative arrangements, or a monster with multiattack, they could be properly killed very quickly - every hit on zero hp = fail death save....

That's why I made 'fighting on' a choice with a serious, immediate consequence. Most of the time you would be better off just remaining unconscious rather than trying to act. Even if you have a guaranteed hit point restorer up your sleeve, you are better off waiting for someone else to heal you, or for a lucky recovery.

I would probably also rule that until that 'fight on' choice is made, the character is unconscious but able to perceive their surroundings, removing them as a potential target immediately but letting them decide if they want to risk getting up.

So - most of the time characters will stay down. Most of the time monsters will be wasting an action to hit them again, but the potential for a heroic final action still exists.

 

[Sunseeker]

Yeah, death saves are a little dull, but I think they also give players some time to think about what they can do to save themselves.