Character Death Variant

[hawkeyefan]

Implications for greater PC hit points mean the PCs will be more resistant to spells like sleep, color spray, power word kill, etc. Those spells target a certain # of HP or a creature with X or less HP.

Excellent point, thank you, Quickleaf. That's the kind of impact I was asking about, and I hadn't thought of this. It's still a rough sketch of an idea.

Definitely a factor to be considered.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Thanks. I play in a death at 0 game with increased level 1 hp. It's very fun. Honestly, it's the most fun 5e campaign I've played in. I wouldn't worry about crits causing death at 0. I think it's came up once in my game and it wasn't even at level 1 when it happened. Basically, being able to die haphazardly to things such as crits or a couple of unlucky attacks from an enemy or whatever really adds to the tone of the game, in a good way IMO. All battles, no matter how easy they seem now have a risk. Players will be less apt to murder hobo. They will take other options around combat when presented with them. Encounters don't have to be as hard as even with the easier ones there is always a chance for a character death. TPK's then become less likely, etc. Personally I think taking away the chance for critical hit deaths detracts from this amazing mood and experience that death at 0 helps create.

That's good to hear. That's generally the vibe we're looking for.

However, if you are really worried, don't try to fix the hp more. Instead change how crits work. Maybe crits don't do extra damage, maybe they cause a status effect. Maybe taking a crit while at max hp can at most only drop a player unconscious as opposed to killing them.

I'm not sold on the idea of giving a player the option to keep fighting or to drop unconscious but I'm not totally against the idea. I'd be curious to see how it plays out. My initial impression is that player decisions that are not in character should be kept at a minimum and that trying to manage the risk associated with PC death solely from a player perspective puts me as a player in an awkward position. There's no glory in continuing to fight. There's no cowardice in falling unconscious. If the goal is to take PC death off the DM's hands I guess this rule does that by instead putting it on the players hands in the form of an arbitrary out of character decision. Personally, I think in-character decisions and dice should be the biggest deciders of a characters ultimate fate in combat. Maybe it will have a different feel in actual play though. Only testing it out can tell I suppose.

The idea of letting the player decide gives them some ability to mitigate the risk of their character dying. At least that's the idea...it's hard to know, untested. Thinking of the players I game with, I can think of one guy who would never take the "drop unconscious" option. At least not initially. The others I imagine would play it tactically....."does it look like the party has this in hand? Okay, then I'll drop." That kind of thing. It is admittedly a bit gamey, but we're not averse to acknowledging that we're playing a game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Such as system can work, but may I suggest you offer the "dying" option after ANY hit? The reason for this is that being damaged to just above your Base HP is a death sentence for most characters.

I played in a different RPG (Legend of the Five Rings), where characters took damage that slowly reduced their effectiveness, until they were dropped, possibly unconscious or dead. Players absolutely dreaded taking damage that put them into just above the "Down" condition. As samurai they were expected to continue to fight, but they knew that a single hit would most likely kill them. Being knocked Down or Out was okay, because while you might suffer a small amount of shame, you showed courage, which is honorable.

Extrapolating this to D&D, several mid-level creatures can deal 20+ damage in an average hit, and even most low level creatures can do it on a critical hit. At high level, almost every attack would be enough to kill a PC who's still above their Base HP. If players have the option to go down after any hit, they can choose to do so any time they expect the next attack to be the lethal one. Choosing too early, however, will make the rest of the combat harder for the rest of the party, so it will become a difficult decision.

That kind of situation....I have a Base HP of 16 and I'm at 20 HP therefore I'm in big trouble.....is kind of what we're going for, but it's also an area of concern. The idea is to do away with the "I'm fine till at 0 HP" thinking, but we didn't want to incorporate "death spiral" type mechanics, where their ability or potency weakens with damage.

But adding the option to drop unconscious after any hit helps mitigate a bit of the swingy risk at play, but still gives the players some level of control. It's a good idea.

 

[FrogReaver]

That kind of situation....I have a Base HP of 16 and I'm at 20 HP therefore I'm in big trouble.....is kind of what we're going for, but it's also an area of concern. The idea is to do away with the "I'm fine till at 0 HP" thinking, but we didn't want to incorporate "death spiral" type mechanics, where their ability or potency weakens with damage.

But adding the option to drop unconscious after any hit helps mitigate a bit of the swingy risk at play, but still gives the players some level of control. It's a good idea.

If you do go with the drop at player choice, then I agree with having it be after any hit.

 

[ccs]

I think you should run it by the players.

 

[Li Shenron]

I was thinking about how to possibly make 5E a bit more dangerous as it relates to PC death. I think I came up with a decent option. I’ve not yet tried it in play, but I wanted to run it by folks here for feedback, suggested changes, and unnecessarily harsh criticism!

We start by removing death saves. PCs will now die at 0 HP like in early editions. However, they’ll also get starting HP equal to their CON score. That’s their “Base HP”. In addition, they’ll accumulate HP by class and CON bonus per level as normal.

So the PCs will have more HP to start. The Base HP are the last they willlose. Anytime the PC takes damage that leaves them within their Base HP amount, they are considered “at death’s door”. This means the player has the option to have the PC fall unconscious or to press on.

This gives players a little more control on if they want to press their luck, or be cautious and go down. It also serves as a clear daner zone....when they’re near their Base HP, they know they’re going to be at risk.

I like that it puts the decision to go down or not in the players’ hands. I like that it removes the safety net of HP loss stopping once a PC is at 0 HP. I think this idea or something similar would help inject some lethality into the game and do so in a way that was very clear to players.

I hope that‘s clear. What do you guys think? Are there implications from other rules that I’ve missed? Does this sound horrible to you as a player? As a DM?

It's an interesting idea and I think it should work. It sounds similar to using normal HP, track negative HP (die at -Con) but allow to stay conscious if wanted.

It would be interesting to see which players would typically choose to keep fighting, and which ones would choose to lose consciousness as a (risky) tactic to hope the enemies will direct their attacks to someone else.

 

[CubicsRube]

Another idea if you want to keep the threat out there but not make pc death too common.

Get rid of death saves. Gone. Dust.

No extra hp. They gotta be cautious until they get some levels.

Each time a player goes to 0 hp, they roll a d20. On a 1 they die instantly. On 2-10 theyre down and dying. They'll make the same roll each round they're not treated. On a 10+ they can keep going, but stay at 0hp.

Everytime they take damage when at 0hp they make that roll.

The actual chance of dying is fairly low, but the psychological threat is there. It's the "what if i roll a 1?" factor.

 

[5ekyu]

It's an interesting idea and I think it should work. It sounds similar to using normal HP, track negative HP (die at -Con) but allow to stay conscious if wanted.

It would be interesting to see which players would typically choose to keep fighting, and which ones would choose to lose consciousness as a (risky) tactic to hope the enemies will direct their attacks to someone else.

My thought us if you think enemies will spare you if unconscious, surrender. Stay conscious but drop your weapon and maybe kneel down - giving up prone but not auto-crits - or maybe plea surrender while dodging. You can show "not a threat" without unconscious which removes your options altogether.

But as presented, with melee auto-crits, you are pretty much hanging them a one-attack kill which is worse than default.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

That kind of situation....I have a Base HP of 16 and I'm at 20 HP therefore I'm in big trouble.....is kind of what we're going for, but it's also an area of concern. The idea is to do away with the "I'm fine till at 0 HP" thinking, but we didn't want to incorporate "death spiral" type mechanics, where their ability or potency weakens with damage.

But adding the option to drop unconscious after any hit helps mitigate a bit of the swingy risk at play, but still gives the players some level of control. It's a good idea.

So, what both you and [MENTION=6775477]Shiroiken[/MENTION] are talking about is the Concession rule in FATE. It works well, and this is how it works:

You can concede at any time, even after the DM says you are going to be attacked but BEFORE the dice gets rolled. The player who concedes gets to narrate their concession.

Examples:
-You get hit by an Ogre and have 20 hit points left. On your turn you attack the ogre and say,
"I'm only barely able to stand, in a final ditch effort, I attack the ogre but the exertion causes me to fall unconscious."

- You get hit by an Ogre, the fight continues and, on the Ogres next turn, the DM says, "The Ogre attacks you!"
"Don't bother rolling! I concede the fight. 'The ogres club comes down and I barely have time to shield myself as the club grazes my head, knocking me unconscious as I go sprawling under a bush.'."

Obviously, you can concede before the fight starts...that just called surrendering. Or surrender any time...there's probably no need to formalize the rules around surrendering like they do in FATE, but you could.

It is admittedly a bit gamey, but we're not averse to acknowledging that we're playing a game.

Personally, I think in-character decisions and dice should be the biggest deciders of a characters ultimate fate in combat.

In any case, conceding is done on the Meta level, so if you're ok with that, it should work.

The opposite rule is already written in to 5e, where a TAKE OUT (Fate mechanic) allows the victor to dictate how they take out their opponent: In 5e when you drop someone to 0 with a melee attack, you can choose to make them unconscious instead of dead. You should keep this rule.

 

[dave2008]

We do something similar and it works well for us.

We got rid of death saves (though I do like the idea) and use death at 0. To compensate we added a little 4e and gave everything bloodied hit points (BHP). When your bloodied HP go to 0, you die. Typical damage comes off your HP first and when your HP = 0, you lose damage from your BHP. However, when you take BHP damage it is mitigated by your armor's DR (DR = AC-10). Also, the extra damage from a crit comes off your BHP (-DR of course).

This definitely makes the game more deadly and has gotten rid of the Murder Hobo effect for us.

EDIT: BHP = (size x Str mod) + Con mod, so for most PCs that is: (1 x Str Mod) + Con mod; not half HP like 4e.