D&D 5E Bloodied Condition in 5e:

[jayoungr]

I think it does instantly add some grit

It does, but I don't think a death spiral is the place to start. I'd monkey with long and short rests before I even considered a death spiral.

Part of the rule was "spending hit dice cannot take you above the bloodied threshold."

Oh yes, good point. That would curb the absurdity.

 

[Nebulous]

I just looked at a kickstarter preview that included new conditions. One of the conditions was the bloodied condition. Very 4e and I like the idea. I already have the conditions in my games, but the mechanics are different and they are very tied into my other house rules. However, the kickstarter made me think of a more generic option (even though the KS went the opposite direction). So, what do think of this:

Bloodied

• When your current hit points drop below half your hit point total you are bloodied.
• When you are bloodied you cannot regain hit points by spending your Hit Dice.

I don't think this is the best use of the Bloodied keyword. I would go back to 4e where certain abilities are triggered at bloodied. This was especially fun for monsters when Reactions trigger and they get tougher in the middle of a fight.

 

[Garthanos]

5E still has the latter, but the term "bloodied" is omitted. There are many monsters with abilities that say "X happens if the target or self has half or fewer hit points".

"many".... how many is many. There are many hundreds of cases in 4e including basic ones everyone has like the intimidation skill which works better against bloodied enemies and several races with abilities that can be kicked off when bloodied or which only work against bloodied enemies.

 

[jayoungr]

"many".... how many is many.

Not as many as 4E. Probably not enough to satisfy a real 4E lover. But the concept is definitely in 5E, even if they don't use the term. To be honest, I don't know why they didn't just keep the term, as it's handy shorthand.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don’t use the term bloodied, but I describe enemies as visibly injured when they’re at half HP or lower, and I also roll for morale when an intelligent creature drops to half HP.

 

[Nebulous]

Not as many as 4E. Probably not enough to satisfy a real 4E lover. But the concept is definitely in 5E.

It's not "many" at all. The concept is there, but I don't know if it was there much at the beginning of 5e. I seem to recall seeing it more often in later monster books.

 

[dave2008]

How about "when you are bloodied, you can only spend hit dice if someone tends your wounds while resting. While tending someone's wounds, you are not considered to be resting."

Makes it tougher to heal up, or potentially requires you to take longer doing it - you may need to effectively take two short rests in succession, alternating between healing duties.

That is basically how the conditioned is designed in the Kickstarter I linked too. I was interested in the opposite application. Clearly most here don't like things to get more dangerous

 

[Nebulous]

I don’t use the term bloodied, but I describe enemies as visibly injured when they’re at half HP or lower, and I also roll for morale when an intelligent creature drops to half HP.

I don't roll for morale, but I do have creatures logically retreat if the odds are stacked against them. That said, I DO wish the monster stat blocks had a simple morale # to indicate their propensity to fight to the death or not. (Coward - Fearless)

 

[jayoungr]

Clearly most here don't like things to get more dangerous

Death spirals are a particular subtype of "dangerous" that is unfun for many people.

 

[dave2008]

The issue is that short rests do a lot more than recover hit points in 5e. Warlocks, Monks, and Fighters in particular heavily rely on short rests being a regular part of a balanced adventuring day. That kind of makes them sound like a breakfast cereal, but it's still true.

I don't think it's going to encourage a gritty style. As written, you're just encouraging long rests in favor of short rests. You're telling the PCs to stop adventuring when they're at half hit points because non-magical recovery isn't possible. It's not going to make the game gritty. It's just going to make the PCs extremely conservative. You won't have more PCs dropping to 0 hit points, you'll have PCs stopping to long rest after dropping below half hit points. If you want to make it grittier, then I would change the timing of long and short rests entirely.

The issue is that we play different than most groups and I keep forgetting that. I wasn't thinking about the broader community when I was thinking about how it would affect the game. In that context the Kickstarter version is superior. It would work for my group because of our playing style we don't have rest issues.