D&D 5E Dying and Bloodied: review my house rule

[TakeoBR]

Your Bloodied condition is a hard NO! from me. It's very easy for a fighter type to lose a lot of HP very quickly, often even before they've had a chance to act, yet dealing a lot of damage when they do. You're effectively reducing the fighter's HP. As I read it, this change makes it unfun to play a front line fighter.

This is part of the problem I'm trying to adress. If the optimal answer to an enemy attack is always dealing damage, playing a fighter gets very repetitive very quickly. But I'll keep in mind that the tank type characters may need a buff.

 

[TakeoBR]

Not sure where to start. First, I wouldn't play in a game with these rules. Some roles in the party are expected to put themselves in harm's way to protect the other members of the party. A foe crit, a missed save or a miscalculation on how much damage new foes put out can put them in a place where they are blooded and YOU PREVENT TEAMWORK - i.e. the healer can no longer heal them because they are less than 1/3 of their HPs. And since they are still on the front line (and the next attack has advantage), there's a good chance from there they end up at 0.

Now, once at zero you will most likely die. Healing doesn't work to stabilize because you are still bloodied and it won't heal you, successes will never stabilize you. You can't even drink a healing potion to any effect. The only hope is a source making Medicine rolls. If not, you are dead since you will fail your 3 death saves before 360 turn long short rest restores any HPs.

You ask for suggestions - my suggestions start with don't put in a major nerf to the front line role that put themselves in danger to protect the rest of the party. You can't take this out on the players who are willing to play tank. My second thing is D&D is a team game, and preventing teamwork by stopping the healers from healing is a non-starter.

I'll start by clarifying that your impression of the rules is a little off from what I intended. Considering a lot of answers included this misconception I assume the problem is in my wording, which I'll probably edit in my original post once I get a good idea of how to make it clear.
So, neither of the conditions I created are supposed to prevent healing from character abilities or spells. They only add a condition for hit dice and long rest healing, meaning healing potions, spells, or other "in combat" healing would still occur as normal.
How would you phrase this in order to avoid confusion? And what is your feedback considering the real intention of the rule?

 

[TakeoBR]

I think the attack penalties and such on bloodied are unnecessary, the major major effect is the inability to heal except by short rest....which is already a tremendous penalty and will definately have players trying to get in combat healed before this effect.

Overall I think this will lead to deadlier fights in general, which nothing wrong with that if its what you are going for. The death saves mean that a character is still pretty durable, but the inability to heal will definately make fights seem deadlier to players, as they have no way to recover other than winning the fight.

I'll improve on the wording of the Bloodied condition, cause it's supposed to restrict healing from hit dice and long rests only, all other forms remaining the same. Honestly, that was an afterthought, as I imagined it could be a good narrative element to represent how from that point on your character was actually wounded, distinguishing those last HPs from the more abstract definition of general HP. I might just delete that part if there's no easy and simple way of phrasing it.

 

[aco175]

My biggest thought reading it was; Who the hell can figure out 1/3 HP on the fly. Then I figures the PCs would only need to do this 1/level, but the DM would need to all the time.

You fighter problem could be solved with them being bloodied at 1/4 HP and others at 1/3 or 1/2. Maybe they get to do more at 0 HP as well.

 

[Shiroiken]

A lot of players tend to forget about strategic tactics during combat, but some of that is on the DM. If combat has terrain and other features enemies use to their advantage, such as cover, the players are encouraged to do the same. Dodge is an underappreciated action, and I managed to take down a fairly powerful demon at mid-level by having a high AC, terrain benefits, Spirit Guardians, and using Dodge. It really couldn't hit me, nor get past me, while my allies and my spell slowly whittled it down.

As for your house rules, I think you'll radically change the way your players approach the game. Ranged combat will be far more common, and your players are going to look for every possible way to win the fight before initiative is rolled (the way it was back during AD&D). If you have a tank, they'll likely have either a high AC, high Constitution, or likely both, since their offense won't matter much.

 

[TakeoBR]

For what it's worth coming from a stranger on the internet, I like what you got. That'll definitely get your players motivated to be on the defensive and to maybe think a little more strategic. I can see a bloodied character, if they aren't careful, slowly being sucked into a death spiral that is difficult to get out of. I like the use of exhaustion levels while dying as well. Being brought low should have a lingering effect. My only concern is that it may make the players overly cautious and too afraid to engage the enemy, which might make things boring. Maybe not though. I will also echo that not being able to heal without rest once bloodied is too much.

I've been using 5E Hardcore Mode rules for dying and it's made being at 1 HP a lot more nerve wracking for the players. The rules go something like this:

• When a character is knocked to 0 HP the character is unconscious and bleeding out. If no aid is given in 3 rounds, the character bleeds out and dies. A character is no longer dying if they receive 1 HP of healing through magic or medical aid (I use healers kits as a one time use item that allows a character to expend a hit die to regain HP)
• A character dies if they take 10+ points of damage past 0. So if Johnny fighter is sitting at 1 HP and takes 11 or more points of damage in a round, he's killed. No saves. Straight up worm food. I had a ghoul slap the lower jaw off of the cleric. It was great fun for all.

The supplement also has a rule for becoming injured that reminds me of what you've done with being bloodied. The condition gets triggered if you take 10+ damage from a single source and are still standing. Much like what you have done, its the start of a death spiral that can escalate quickly if not dealt with right away.

PS: To anyone looking for a more deadlier game I highly recommend 5E Hardcore Mode.

I may look into this hardcore mode for inspiration, thank you for the recommendation. My goal was that the ability to stay conscious while at 0 HP would create enough of a safety net so that the consequence for the 'death spiral' I created would not actually be character death, but rather a tactical retreat from the players.

 

[TakeoBR]

My biggest thought reading it was; Who the hell can figure out 1/3 HP on the fly. Then I figures the PCs would only need to do this 1/level, but the DM would need to all the time.

You fighter problem could be solved with them being bloodied at 1/4 HP and others at 1/3 or 1/2. Maybe they get to do more at 0 HP as well.

I don't think dividing stuff in thirds is much of a problem. As you noted, players only have to do it once per level, and while the DM has a lot more calculations to perform, they also have the freedom to round out monster HP as needed, which I find to be a common practice already. And I don't intend this house rule to be widely adopted anyway. As long as it creates the desired effect the added complexity is something I'm personally willing to trade.

 

[TakeoBR]

A lot of players tend to forget about strategic tactics during combat, but some of that is on the DM. If combat has terrain and other features enemies use to their advantage, such as cover, the players are encouraged to do the same. Dodge is an underappreciated action, and I managed to take down a fairly powerful demon at mid-level by having a high AC, terrain benefits, Spirit Guardians, and using Dodge. It really couldn't hit me, nor get past me, while my allies and my spell slowly whittled it down.

As for your house rules, I think you'll radically change the way your players approach the game. Ranged combat will be far more common, and your players are going to look for every possible way to win the fight before initiative is rolled (the way it was back during AD&D). If you have a tank, they'll likely have either a high AC, high Constitution, or likely both, since their offense won't matter much.

I agree with you that good DMs will incentivize strategic decisions through careful adventure design, but after years of running this game I felt like the system was working against me, so I'm trying to solve that.
I don't quite understand what do mean by trying to win the fight before initiative is rolled, maybe because I barely played AD&D. If you mean finding ways to avoid fights or preparing themselves for a fight with equipment, traps, diversions, barricades, ambushes and the like, then that's a win for me.
One thing you said that worries me is that I don't want is to make the ranged playstyle too dominant, as I feel it already is quite advantageous. I'll be mindfull of that when playtesting, thank you.

 

[Boarbot 78]

To me it honestly depends on what type of adventure you want to play. The dying status seems very harsh, like it may as well be doomed! However the fact that you can still make attacks, and therefore run away (I presume) seems kind of weird to me. You are in a situation where you are on the brink of death every six seconds, yet you still have the strength to make an attack? I like your thinking and see how you are trying to improve combat but I also feel like this is downright abusive to healing classes and marshal classes.

healers loose one of their best tactics, saving the weak, and altogether remove the tactic of retreating when weak to be healed.

Marshal classes are also heavily harmed by this, as you are effectively making the effects of taking damage more severe for everyone, however it is a fighters job to take those hits instead of, say, a wizard in the party.

I like the idea but it kinda seems like it would be best to just run spellcasters with this rule in place.

 

[Shiroiken]

I agree with you that good DMs will incentivize strategic decisions through careful adventure design, but after years of running this game I felt like the system was working against me, so I'm trying to solve that.
I don't quite understand what do mean by trying to win the fight before initiative is rolled, maybe because I barely played AD&D. If you mean finding ways to avoid fights or preparing themselves for a fight with equipment, traps, diversions, barricades, ambushes and the like, then that's a win for me.
One thing you said that worries me is that I don't want is to make the ranged playstyle too dominant, as I feel it already is quite advantageous. I'll be mindfull of that when playtesting, thank you.

Back in AD&D (and presumably OD&D, but I didn't play that), players normally tried to evade or otherwise defeat enemies before starting combat. Stealth and deceptive tricks were common, as was outright fleeing/avoiding. If an enemy had to be faced, players tried various magic items and other methods to use the surroundings to win. Entrapping the enemy was common, or causing a cave-in, avalanche, or other deadly event. Illusions to trick enemies into hazardous area, such as off a cliff or into acid/lava/etc. would be good too. None of these things necessarily required an initiative roll, although some did.

This type of play is often referred to as "combat as war," since it was about winning by any means, instead of through character abilities. Some DMs have an issue with this, so I wanted to bring it up. If you consider it a win, then this type of house rule would push things in that direction.