Level Up (A5E) Deadlier combat

[Tales and Chronicles]

Make all healing spells 10 minute cast times. Thus there can be no "in-combat" healing. Gameplay will change dramatically if you get knocked out of a fight at 0 HP with no way to get back up and re-enter.

I like that.

I would pad the starting HP of the PCs a little. I have good experience with Con score + Average Hit die roll at 1st level. I also only allow +Average per level after that (some time I also removed the +con from the mix, some time I dont, I still dont know which I prefer).

And maybe, just maybe, I'd let some 1 action healing spell, but they would only work on creature with more than 0 hp. No wack-a-mole healing.

I also always use the slow natural healing rules and the healing kit dependency: you need to have an healing kit to spend hit die while resting. On a long rest, you recover half your max HD and can spend them to regain hp. I have a houserule that requires a Con save against a DC to see if you even benefit from the long rest.

Something like:
On a journey in the wilderness: DC 10
Outside in extreme heat or cold, strong winds or rain: DC 13
In town with a sqalid lifestyle: DC13
In town, with a wreteched: DC15
In town, with a poor lifestyle: DC 10
- Sleeping while affected by poison/diseases gives disadvantage to the roll.

Then I use diseases:
Light: - 1d8 max hp per day.
Mild: - 1d8 max hp per day, Disadvantage on healing received
Severe: - 1d8 max hp per day, Cannot regain HP.

New afflictions (they are nasty, so only short term only):
Weaken: deal half damage with attack/spells, cant use spell slots.
Staggered: vulnerable to all damage (usually when an enemy become bloodied for the first time, work only on the next attack)

 

[ThatGuySteve]

Make all healing spells 10 minute cast times. Thus there can be no "in-combat" healing. Gameplay will change dramatically if you get knocked out of a fight at 0 HP with no way to get back up and re-enter.

This wouldn't fit with the goal of being backwards compatible with regular 5e content. There are a while host of spells, class abilities and feats that would all need to be rewritten.

The suggestions of lowering the 'instant death' threshold to equal your constitution score would make combat far, far deadlier. Maybe too big a step up for my liking.

I want something to ratchet up the tension gradually as you get battered by a series of fights, not something that kills you straight off by an unlucky critical. Something to promote better hit point management. You can be bold and brash at the start of the day but as the wound mount up you gradually need to become more cautious.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

This wouldn't fit with the goal of being backwards compatible with regular 5e content. There are a while host of spells, class abilities and feats that would all need to be rewritten.

The suggestions of lowering the 'instant death' threshold to equal your constitution score would make combat far, far deadlier. Maybe too big a step up for my liking.

I want something to ratchet up the tension gradually as you get battered by a series of fights, not something that kills you straight off by an unlucky critical. Something to promote better hit point management. You can be bold and brash at the start of the day but as the wound mount up you gradually need to become more cautious.

Maybe have healing spells require you to spend Hit dice to use. That way, you get to the point where you know if you go down, you won't be healed up immediately, no matter how much magic gets thrown at you.

 

[Raith5]

My solution would be to make monsters tougher.

I dont like the idea of cutting down the influence of healers - I know people do like playing that role/style. I dont necessarily like the idea of a wound system, seems too complicated unless it is a special monster that drains life. But I think the game could make tougher monsters which could make the game more challenging.

 

[ThatGuySteve]

Maybe have healing spells require you to spend Hit dice to use. That way, you get to the point where you know if you go down, you won't be healed up immediately, no matter how much magic gets thrown at you.

Like 4E healing required the use of the recipients healing surges. Low levels might be too tough with just one or two heals per day. Might need a couple of extra hit dice at 1st level, like add a species hit dice (d12 dwarf, d10 half-or and dragon born, d8 human and half-elf, d6 elf and halfling).

Would encourage upcasting Cure spells to get most bang for your buck, although that might be a bad thing, pushing healers into using best slots to heal rather than do something cool.

TBH I'd like to see Clerics and Druids have a pool of healing dice like Celestial Warlocks, but that's a different topic entirely.

 

[dave2008]

We use death at 0 bhp and it works for us.

 

[DND_Reborn]

We use death at 0 bhp and it works for us.

Remind me again how you get to bloodied HP?

 

[dave2008]

Remind me again how you get to bloodied HP?

The amount or when you loose it?

Attacks affect BHP after your HP is 0 or on a critical hit. We stopped using the critical hit option (too deadly for us) until I re-introduced "confirmed" critical hits.

The amount of BHP is: (STR mod + CON mod) x size, which is 1 for medium. Finally, when damage would affect your BHP, it is first reduced by your armor's DR (only time armor DR comes into play, otherwise it is just AC like RAW). Armor DR = AC - 10.

PS HP are figured normally.

 

[dave2008]

My solution would be to make monsters tougher.

I dont like the idea of cutting down the influence of healers - I know people do like playing that role/style. I dont necessarily like the idea of a wound system, seems too complicated unless it is a special monster that drains life. But I think the game could make tougher monsters which could make the game more challenging.

I don't know that they need to be "tougher," but hitting harder would be nice. Monster damage doesn't scale with PC level/HP and that is a shame. Lost of ways to fix this though.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

A healing spell could, simply, remove a failed death save. So, if you have no failed death save, it gives hit points, as normal but, if you have a failed death save, it doesn't revive you, it simply stabalizes you and removes a tick from your failed saves. Multiple failed saves would require multiple heals or multiple Medicine checks to revive someone as each check removes the failed save.

You can have that CPR scene you see in all the movies.

First, we play death saves cancel out. So, if you have a failure, and then a success, you are "even". If you have two successes, and roll a failure, you have only one success, and so on. If you think of them as a series of +1 and -1 instead of success and failure, you need to reach +3 to stabilize and at -3 you die.



We've been playing death saves only reset after a long rest since the beginning of 5E (nearly 2 years for us). So, if you have 1 failed death save when you are stabilized, you keep it if you go to 0 again. Makes combat more cautious.



We've been doing this for well over a year. It works fine and doesn't cause a 5MWD as people might think. We often have PCs running around with 1 or even 2 levels of exhaustion during a deep dungeon crawl, etc. It keeps PCs aware that "too much" can really be too much.

Finally, we've tried different "wound" systems and rules on critical hits, etc. and found for the most part they are too much of hassle to track and too fiddly. I am still working on an option were instead of a separate mechanic "wounds" exhaustion will take its place.

Decreasing HP is also a good way to easily make combat more deadly if you want to. You can award CON mod at level 1 only, for example.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention we have Death Saves as a DC 15 Constitution check. So, the DC is much higher, but it is affected by your CON mod. This way you can remove HP from CON but CON is still very important.

Also, Wisdom (Medicine) checks to stabilize are always required (not simply spending a use of a healer's kit). The DC equals 10 + 5 per failed death save (and -5 per successful death save). If you attempt to stabilize without a healer's kit, the check has disadvantage.

CON also grants buffer levels of exhaustion, so it is also very important that way. Here is a screen shot of part of our character sheets:
View attachment 124702
As you can see, the CON column of exhaustion is used for tracking the buffer or "no penalty" levels of exhaustion. So, if you have a CON +2 mod, you can suffer two levels of exhaustion before the next level will cause ability check disadvantage.

I like all your house-rules. Every time you post one I think, "Hey, that's great, we should do that for our games!"
Would you care to PM me your list if you have them available in an easily PM-able way?