D&D 5E Dropping to 0 HP - House Rule Variant

[OB1]

Goal: Provide a disincentive to players to allow themselves to drop to 0 HP that doesn't result in a death spiral or 5MWD. Encourage players to avoid unnecessary combat and retreat from combats going poorly to regroup and attempt another direction to achieve their goal. Increase the drama and tension of decision making in a difficult combat that the players don't want to retreat from.

Proposed House Rule:

• When you drop to 0 HP, you fall unconscious and begin making death saving throws as normal.
• Whenever you regain HP from 0 the following happens:
  • 0 Failed Death Saving Throws - You regain HP, but don't regain consciousness for 1 minute
  • 1 Failed Death Saving Throw - You regain HP, but don't regain consciousness for 10 minutes
  • 2 Failed Death Saving Throws - You regain HP, but don't regain consciousness for 1 hour (this time period does not count as a short rest)
• If you are reduced to 0 HP during this period of unconsciousness, your death saves are reset and your period of unconsciousness restarts once you gain HP, lasting for a period of time based on your highest failed death save count since being conscious (so no healing someone to 1 hp with 2 death saves, then knocking them down to 0 and healing them again to get the 1 min time period)
• The period of unconsciousness ends early if you are healed to full hit points or if a spell such as Greater Restoration is cast on you.
• This period of unconsciousness also occurs when being brought back from the dead.

Thoughts?

Revised Version from thread notes (5/21)

• When you drop to 0 HP, you fall unconscious and begin making death saving throws as normal.
• Whenever you regain HP from 0, you regain consciousness, but are Slowed (per the spell) for 1 hour.
• The period of Slow ends early if you are healed to full hit points or if a spell such as Greater Restoration is cast on you.
• This period of Slow also occurs when you are brought back from the dead.

 

[Stalker0]

I think the length of unconsciousness is a bit fiddly and honestly in the vast vast majority of games, the 1 minute is going to be plenty. Effectively you are saying unless a player is brought back to full, they are completely out of the fight, whether that's 1 minute or 10 minute the incentive you are giving the players is about the same.

So I would just simplify it to:

• When you drop to 0 HP, you fall unconscious and begin making death saving throws as normal.
• If you are brought above 0 hp, you stop making death saves but remain unconscious for 1 minute, unless you are healed to full or given Greater Restoration.

This is simple and easy to remember, but still pretty brutal. Now if you wanted to still offer a little more drama and a chance for a dramatic comeback, then we add in some sauce from the 20 on a death save rule:

• If you are brought above 0 hp, you remain unconscious for 1 minute, unless you are healed to full or given Greater Restoration. Continue to roll death saves. A failure has no penalty, but if you roll a 20 you return to consciousness.

 

[dave2008]

I don't have any issue with the general premise, but what if you went it about it a little differently:

Drop to 0 = your speed is reduced in half, you can't cast spells, and all attacks, saving throws, and checks are made at disadvantage, and you must make death saving throws (maybe these are not at disadvantage).

1st Failed Death saving throw = unconscious 1 minutes
2nd Failed Death Saving throw = unconscious 10 minutes
3rd Failed Death saving throw = death

 

[Lanefan]

Goal: Provide a disincentive to players to allow themselves to drop to 0 HP that doesn't result in a death spiral or 5MWD. Encourage players to avoid unnecessary combat and retreat from combats going poorly to regroup and attempt another direction to achieve their goal. Increase the drama and tension of decision making in a difficult combat that the players don't want to retreat from.

Proposed House Rule:

• When you drop to 0 HP, you fall unconscious and begin making death saving throws as normal.
• Whenever you regain HP from 0 the following happens:
  • 0 Failed Death Saving Throws - You regain HP, but don't regain consciousness for 1 minute
  • 1 Failed Death Saving Throw - You regain HP, but don't regain consciousness for 10 minutes
  • 2 Failed Death Saving Throws - You regain HP, but don't regain consciousness for 1 hour (this time period does not count as a short rest)
• If you are reduced to 0 HP during this period of unconsciousness, your death saves are reset and your period of unconsciousness restarts once you gain HP, lasting for a period of time based on your highest failed death save count since being conscious (so no healing someone to 1 hp with 2 death saves, then knocking them down to 0 and healing them again to get the 1 min time period)
• The period of unconsciousness ends early if you are healed to full hit points or if a spell such as Greater Restoration is cast on you.
• This period of unconsciousness also occurs when being brought back from the dead.

Thoughts?

I's just make the unconscious-time cumulative, such that if someone who would have been unconscious for an hour gets brought to 1 h.p. after 15 minutes, then immediately gets knocked out again, they've still got that remaining 45 minutes outstanding before tacking on whatever amount of time the second knockout caused.

Another option, if the timekeeping is too fiddly, might be that being cured from 0 to 1 doesn't guarantee waking up; you need to make a one-size-fits-all roll (i.e. not level or class dependent; and how you set the difficulty is up to you based on whether you want awakening to be easy or hard) in order to wake up. Succeed and you're awake at 1 h.p. Fail and you're still down at 0, and next time someone tries to cure you the wake-up roll will be at a cumulative penalty (I suggest -2) for each previous attempt.

Higher-level cure spells might give a bonus on the wake-up roll.

 

[overgeeked]

Goal: Provide a disincentive to players to allow themselves to drop to 0 HP that doesn't result in a death spiral or 5MWD. Encourage players to avoid unnecessary combat and retreat from combats going poorly to regroup and attempt another direction to achieve their goal. Increase the drama and tension of decision making in a difficult combat that the players don't want to retreat from.

Proposed House Rule:

• When you drop to 0 HP, you fall unconscious and begin making death saving throws as normal.
• Whenever you regain HP from 0 the following happens:
  • 0 Failed Death Saving Throws - You regain HP, but don't regain consciousness for 1 minute
  • 1 Failed Death Saving Throw - You regain HP, but don't regain consciousness for 10 minutes
  • 2 Failed Death Saving Throws - You regain HP, but don't regain consciousness for 1 hour (this time period does not count as a short rest)
• If you are reduced to 0 HP during this period of unconsciousness, your death saves are reset and your period of unconsciousness restarts once you gain HP, lasting for a period of time based on your highest failed death save count since being conscious (so no healing someone to 1 hp with 2 death saves, then knocking them down to 0 and healing them again to get the 1 min time period)
• The period of unconsciousness ends early if you are healed to full hit points or if a spell such as Greater Restoration is cast on you.
• This period of unconsciousness also occurs when being brought back from the dead.

Thoughts?

It does seem a bit fiddly.

The one I've seen that I liked the most is each drop to zero and each failed death save gives a level of exhaustion. They're cured as normal. This will encourage players to not let their friends drop in the first place.

An unconscious character should be an easy target for a coup de grâce, so making a character unconscious for minutes during a fight will result in a lot of extra character deaths.

As for the 5MWD, the only thing you can do to prevent that is to include heavy time constraints on adventures (i.e. if we don't keep going we fail) or embrace it and make the one fight the party has in a given day something to remember (i.e. near deadly or deadly).

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Simple rule:
When you drop to 0 hp you're dead.
"Deadly" encounters are now actually deadly, so use with caution.

 

[el-remmen]

So I would just simplify it to:

• When you drop to 0 HP, you fall unconscious and begin making death saving throws as normal.
• If you are brought above 0 hp, you stop making death saves but remain unconscious for 1 minute, unless you are healed to full or given Greater Restoration.

I like this but I would make it 10 minutes. It is not too punitive, but can complicate the ends of combat encounters, the need to retreat, who watches over the unconscious while others look for loot, etc. .

 

[Dragongrief]

How easy do you make it to run from combat in your games? Unless there are rogues or magic involved, it tends to be very difficult to escape anything that wants to pursue.

If you'd like to have the unconsciousness be a result, but not necessarily remove the character from combat completely (which also makes it less likely that the group could disengage and escape), you could do a Constitution (or Wisdom) save.

Something like:
At the beginning of your turn, make a Constitution save (DC 10 + 5 per failed death save) to regain consciousness.

 

[Umbran]

I don't have any issue with the general premise, but what if you went it about it a little differently:

Drop to 0 = your speed is reduced in half, you can't cast spells, and all attacks, saving throws, and checks are made at disadvantage, and you must make death saving throws (maybe these are not at disadvantage).

They better not be, given that you don't get any bonuses on death saves. Making them at disadvantage would be rough.

1st Failed Death saving throw = unconscious 1 minutes
2nd Failed Death Saving throw = unconscious 10 minutes
3rd Failed Death saving throw = death

So, the PC prays to all that is holy that the make the first save, so they can drink a potion of healing or pop a Goodberry...

 

[dave2008]

They better not be, given that you don't get any bonuses on death saves. Making them at disadvantage would be rough.



So, the PC prays to all that is holy that the make the first save, so they can drink a potion of healing or pop a Goodberry...

I guess - we don't use death saves so I am not real familiar. 0 = death in our games.