D&D 5E Death Saves & Pop-Up Healing

[overgeeked]

It's a perennial problem with 5E. There's no lasting consequences of nearly dying. There's a lot of interesting house rules to solve the problem. This might just be one more to add to the pile, but I think it works well and solves a few problems without drastically changing much. There are changes to RAW, yes, but they're minor, I think. And the changes happen to solve a lot of related issues, I think.

So here goes...

Hit Points. When you reach 0 hit points, you continue fighting as normal, but you must make a death saving throw. Any damage you suffer while at 0 hit points automatically triggers a death saving throw.

Death Saving Throws. Roll a d20. If the roll is 10 or higher, you succeed. Otherwise, you fail. When you fail a death saving throw, you drop to 0 hit points and die.

This keeps characters on their feet and fighting longer (players get to keep playing the game), but risks outright death on a failed death save. No more pop-up healing as healing someone for one hit point because a pointless thing to do rather than the single most optimal thing to do.

If you wanted to make things even more deadly, you could introduce massive damage (more than 1/2 max hp) triggering a death save...or critical hits triggering a death save (hence the wording of the death save).

 

[Stalker0]

So the key as far as I can tell, is that there is no longer a death save every round when your at 0.

It’s a Simple “at 0 you make a save” and “each time you take damage at 0 make a save”

I like it. In terms of various death rules it’s on the deadlier side, but it’s easy to use, will feel very dramatic, and definitely fixes the yo-yo.

a solid rule to “add to the pile”

 

[Li Shenron]

I think your house rule is OK, but it does not achieve what you think it does.

First of all, it does nothing at all to what you claim is your first problem "There's no lasting consequences of nearly dying". There still isn't any, with your house rule.

Second, "healing someone for one hit point" is not pointless, it is still a VERY BIG deal, because while fighting at 0hp you have 45% chance of death each time someone hits you even for a single point of damage. And because you're still up and fighting, you might actually be a target for significantly more attacks than if you were unconscious (depending on how the DM runs the monsters).

 

[overgeeked]

I think your house rule is OK, but it does not achieve what you think it does.

First of all, it does nothing at all to what you claim is your first problem "There's no lasting consequences of nearly dying". There still isn't any, with your house rule.

There isn't meant to be. That's not part of this house rule. Just a general problem in the same neighborhood.

Second, "healing someone for one hit point" is not pointless, it is still a VERY BIG deal, because while fighting at 0hp you have 45% chance of death each time someone hits you even for a single point of damage. And because you're still up and fighting, you might actually be a target for significantly more attacks than if you were unconscious (depending on how the DM runs the monsters).

Not really, no. If someone is at 0 hp they have a 45% chance to die when hit. If someone is at 1 hp there's a 100% chance that if they get hit they will take at least 1 damage...which will force a death save and give them the same 45% chance to die. They're effectively identical. So that minimalistic healing goes away as it goes from the most optimal choice to a literally pointless waste of time. Consequently, any healing that doesn't give a target a significant boost in hp is also effectively wasted. But the more healing done, the less likely a target is to be brought down to 0 hp again.

 

[Malmuria]

What about making death saves cumulative, cleared only when you gained a level? I would prefer the character that dropped to 0 fell unconscious until the end of the fight, rather than continuing to fight, but I guess that gives the player nothing to do for the rest of the combat.

 

[CleverNickName]

I saw an interesting house-rule, but I can't for the life of me remember where I saw it. But it was something like this....

Exhaustion: every time you drop to 0 hit points, you also gain a point of exhaustion. You still make death saves as normal, and you still die when you fail three of them (or stabilize when you succeed three of them), but that point of exhaustion remains. And they add up quickly.

 

[Malmuria]

I saw an interesting house-rule, but I can't for the life of me remember where I saw it. But it was something like this....

Exhaustion: every time you drop to 0 hit points, you also gain a point of exhaustion. You still make death saves as normal, and you still die when you fail three of them (or stabilize when you succeed three of them), but that point of exhaustion remains. And they add up quickly.

Ive seen that…one potential problem is that the character enters a death spiral because exhaustion makes them bad at everything, and the party will be highly incentivized to rest

 

[CleverNickName]

Ive seen that…one potential problem is that the character enters a death spiral because exhaustion makes them bad at everything, and the party will be highly incentivized to rest

That's a feature, not a bug. If nothing else it adds a bit of realism: being beaten nearly to death should be a lingering, painful experience, and it should definitely make you want to spend a day or two in bed recovering (at the very least).

My problem with the "five minute workday" isn't that the party needs to take too many rests. It's their reasoning for wanting to take them.
Poor reasoning: "I want to cast MOAR SPELLZ!!"
Sound reasoning: "I nearly died back there! I saw a tunnel of light and everything!"

 

[overgeeked]

What about making death saves cumulative, cleared only when you gained a level? I would prefer the character that dropped to 0 fell unconscious until the end of the fight, rather than continuing to fight, but I guess that gives the player nothing to do for the rest of the combat.

Right. That's exactly why I'm not a fan of it.

I saw an interesting house-rule, but I can't for the life of me remember where I saw it. But it was something like this....

Exhaustion: every time you drop to 0 hit points, you also gain a point of exhaustion. You still make death saves as normal, and you still die when you fail three of them (or stabilize when you succeed three of them), but that point of exhaustion remains. And they add up quickly.

If it were tweaked to say you only feel the effects of the exhaustion after the battle's over, then I could see the benefit. To me, the point isn't to guarantee the character dies in the combat (which this would, basically), rather to keep the player playing the game while mitigating pop-up healing. This wouldn't really do that, it would only "force" the PCs to rest a long time after a particularly deadly fight. Which is good in-and-of itself.

 

[Charlaquin]

Ive seen that…one potential problem is that the character enters a death spiral because exhaustion makes them bad at everything, and the party will be highly incentivized to rest

I don’t think one level of exhaustion when you drop to 0 would create too much of a death spiral. A bit of one, yes, but that’s the aim of such a house rule.