D&D 5E Death and dying houserule

[Antonlowe]

I thought I would post my hose rules for death and dying.
Problem: Combat in DnD can feel like ‘wak-a-mole’. A character is dying and then instantly better and can continue as if nothing happened.
Solution: Apply some penalty to a character who is reduced to 0 hit points.
Brief Overview: Anytime a character fails a death saving throw, they gain one level of exhaustion. This replaces the ‘three strikes and your out’ death saving throw rule.
[h=1]Death and Dying[/h]When an attack would reduce a character to less than 0 hit points, that character is dying.
whenever you start your turn with 0 hit points, you must make a Special saving throw, called a death saving throw, to determine whether you creep closer to death or hang onto life. Unlike other saving throws, this one isn’t tied to any ability score. You are in the hands of fate now, aided only by Spells and features that improve your chances of succeeding on a saving throw.
Roll a d20: If the roll is 10 or higher, you succeed. Otherwise, you fail. If you fail, you gain one level of exhaustion. If you reach six levels of exhaustion, you die. If you succeed three times, you stabilize.
Rolling 1 or 20: When you make a death saving throw and roll a 1 on the d20, you gain two levels of exhaustion. If you roll a 20 on the d20, you regain 1 hit point.
Damage at 0 Hit Points: If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death.
Exhaustion
1 Disadvantage on physical ability checks.
2 Speed Halved
3 Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws
4 Hit point maximum reduced to half.
5 speed reduced to 0.
6 dead.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

If your goal is to have the party rest more often (either because that's the only way they can remedy levels of exhaustion, or because dealing with levels of exhaustion spends resources they could have used some other way and now need to replenish sooner), I think your house-rule will achieve that goal.

If your goal is to have character deaths be more frequent, I think the house-rule might achieve that goal, but there are more direct and efficient ways to achieve that goal.

 

[mflayermonk]

How about just increasing the casting time of all healing spells to 1 minute or 10 minutes?

 

[Antonlowe]

How about just increasing the casting time of all healing spells to 1 minute or 10 minutes?

The goal is not to make healing take longer. The goal is to add some 'realism'. The problem is that a character who just received an injury which took them to the brink of death, can be up and running again without any consequences.

Magic can be used to explain how they got better so fast.....but having it happen every combat, or multiple times per combat strains credulity for me.

 

[FrogReaver]

Watch more tv. You see these kinds of things all the time there

Realism and reality are boring. I want the cool stuff that happens on tv to happen in my dnd.

Ultimately I think you misinterpret what laying on the ground unconscious is supposed to mean.

Laying there making death saves is not modeling you bleeding out. It's instead modeling the chance that what happened to you was deadly. Nothing more nothing less.

So yes if you want to give exhaustion go for it. But that desire is founded on how you are treating death saves and would actually be detrimental to running them in the way I would prefer. The way where your hero almost always pops back into the story with limited ill effects after being "near death".

The goal is not to make healing take longer. The goal is to add some 'realism'. The problem is that a character who just received an injury which took them to the brink of death, can be up and running again without any consequences.

Magic can be used to explain how they got better so fast.....but having it happen every combat, or multiple times per combat strains credulity for me.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm leery of any attempt to make one mechanic reflect a different mechanic. Exhaustion works the way it does because that's what exhaustion is, and this is how those effects are translated into the language of the system. Why would dying from sword cuts and dragon breath also coincidentally have the same symptoms as not getting enough food or sleep? Why would a goblin stabbing you make you more tired?

I mean, it's not the worst house rule on these boards. I could almost buy it if you had approached from the direction that almost dying should be a physically exhausting experience. As it stands, it feels more like you were unsatisfied with the existing rules for dying, and just tried to shoe-horn it into the exhaustion rules because you thought it was a better fit.

Also, if you did use this rule, then it becomes tempting to just let the target die instead of stabilizing them with three or four levels of exhaustion. Death can be fixed with a level 3 spell and 300gp, while exhaustion requires a level 5 spell and 100gp per level to fix.

 

[Jester David]

It will change bouncing back from the brink of death. Since you won't pop back completely ready to fight.
And being knocked down a couple times in a single fight will be nasty. Or even dropped a couple times during the adventuring day, as the exhaustion will stick around. 2-3 death saves will take a couple days to sleep off and aren't easily removed by low level spells. One bad fight will hurt for the rest of the adventuring day.

The catch with the rule is, you actually dying slower (in that you need to fail six death saving throws, doubling the number of rounds before death) and significantly harder (since you have more rounds to stabilise). Except until you hit 3 levels of exhaustion, when making those death saves becomes harder.

I might merge the rules. Keep the three death saving throws before death but also have failing a death saving throw granting a level of exhaustion. So you die at the same rate and bleed out as quickly, but have the added penalty that builds up over multiple deaths.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Problem: Combat in DnD can feel like ‘wak-a-mole’. A character is dying and then instantly better and can continue as if nothing happened.

Honestly, this has not been my experience of combat in 5e. Previous editions, yes. But not 5e.

 

[Antonlowe]

It will change bouncing back from the brink of death. Since you won't pop back completely ready to fight.
And being knocked down a couple times in a single fight will be nasty. Or even dropped a couple times during the adventuring day, as the exhaustion will stick around. 2-3 death saves will take a couple days to sleep off and aren't easily removed by low level spells. One bad fight will hurt for the rest of the adventuring day.

The catch with the rule is, you actually dying slower (in that you need to fail six death saving throws, doubling the number of rounds before death) and significantly harder (since you have more rounds to stabilise). Except until you hit 3 levels of exhaustion, when making those death saves becomes harder.

I might merge the rules. Keep the three death saving throws before death but also have failing a death saving throw granting a level of exhaustion. So you die at the same rate and bleed out as quickly, but have the added penalty that builds up over multiple deaths.

Thanks for the reply Jester. Combining the rules might work for some games, but I am worried about the game being too lethal. Dying in three saving throws and coming back with penalties seems a bit harsh for me personally.

 

[Jester David]

Thanks for the reply Jester. Combining the rules might work for some games, but I am worried about the game being too lethal. Dying in three saving throws and coming back with penalties seems a bit harsh for me personally.

An alternative might be removing exhaustion from failing death saving throws, and just having being knocked to 0 granting a level of exhaustion. So it doesn't add up as quickly.
Which also has the added benefit of meaning there's still exhaustion even if the character is instantly brought back. In the current rules, if someone can stabilise or heal before you can fail, you don't gain any exhaustion.