D&D 5E Making Combat Mean Something [+]

[OB1]

Just had a thought about the spending Hit Die to recover HP on a long rest. Why not ALSO require spending HD to recover spell slots on a rest. You get back a number of slots equal to what you rolled on the die (ie a 2 would give you back 1 2nd or 2 1sts). Now a long journey away from a safe place to rest get's REALLY challenging. And then, instead of exhaustion for failed death saves, lose HD instead (maybe exhaustion if you don't have any remaining HD).

 

[TheSword]

Getting further into the nitty-gritty:

Does dropping to 0 HP cause a character to go prone? I'm guessing that characters still take a failed death save if they are hit while on 0 HP, but since they aren't incapacitated, they don't get automatically critted and get two failed death saves?

Yes. The wound they have taken is a major one and they can’t stand without the help of another character.

Currently when someone goes down, you are tracking two different things at the same time: Death saves and Exhaustion levels. Is it worth combining the two and just having failed death saves add a level of exhaustion? At exhaustion level 3 you'll be making death saves with disadvantage anyway I'm guessing?

I thought about that because of @Stormonu ’s suggestion. However I really want there to be a small chance of death on 0hp. The exhaustion happens after resolving the attack that being the PC down to 0. The purpose of the exhaustion is to represent a single terrible wound which is inhibiting the Pc. I’ve played around with lingering injuries before but they just become too complicated. I’d prefer to keep it simple and just track exhaustion long term and death saves short term.

Are you changing non-rest-based healing (spells and similar) to adjust for the increased deadliness of being dropped? Currently a healer burning all of their slots can't generally match the incoming damage of most encounters. With these rules, there will be a lot more incentive to just nova as hard as you can at the beginning of a fight to reduce the number of combatants and therefore incoming damage unless using those resources to heal during the fight is made more realistic. The reduces number of encounters per day will also encourage, and increase the ability to nova for those classes with repeated nova capability.

There is an increased chance of nova but I see no way around that without seriously getting into class balance and encounter frequency. If the PCs go nova then do be it. Though remember this is relatively low levels - capping at level 7 or 8. At that point spellcasters still don’t have spells to burn - particularly when there is a strong investigative/RP element that would also demand spells - with tight timeframes.

Healing I think will be still be useful because it should prevent folks getting to 0. But yes I expect most combat to be short and deadly for both sides.

Is there any distinction between short and long rests when it comes to spending HD to heal or similar? How many short rests is the party likely to get per day?

Probably quite a few short rests. Bandaging up and catching their breath. Short rests let you regain HP. Long rests restore half your HD. So you don’t replenish spent HD unless you long rest (kinda like normal rules, but without the full heal on a long rest).

How is Revivify going to interact with your new rules? Are you just going to have the front-liners dropping and sometimes there will just be no way to bring them back?

The same as currently. It can restore someone who died within the minute. we don’t often have clerics but if we do I’m happy to discuss the spell. The low level of the campaign means it won’t come into play until quite late on.

How do you generally handle Downtime? With the party regularly requiring up to a week to recover from a fight, will you be using the suggestions in Xanathars, or similar options?

There will be lots of down time. Absolutely using the Xanathar rules.

 

[DND_Reborn]

This topic comes up a lot. Here is our current version:

Thirdly, and this is the doozy, I want dropping to 0 hp to cause the Pc to gain 1d6 levels of exhaustion. Yes the PC has a 1/6 chance of dying instantly when dropped to 0 hp. When their head gets lopped off. The exhaustion represents their wound - which they are free to describe as they like. When their exhaustion is gone (through the normal means) their wound is gone.

I like this concept, and I might suggest a variant to my group Saturday. However, I would do something like 1d10-3 levels of exhaustion (7 levels for us = death, 6 is unconscious). So, there would only be a 1/10 chance of "instant death" and a 3/10 chance of no "serious injury".

Also, we do 3 hour short rests and 24 hour long rests, plus recovering exhaustion requires a number of long rests equal to the current level of exhaustion to remove that level. So, if you have 4 levels of exhaustion, it would take 4 long rests to remove it and drop down to 3 levels of exhaustion.

Finally, you gain "free" levels of exhaustion equal to your Constitution modifier. We call this your endurance.

What are peoples though, could it work cohesively.

Certainly. As long as everyone is up for it.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I thought about that because of @Stormonu ’s suggestion. However I really want there to be a small chance of death on 0hp. The exhaustion happens after resolving the attack that being the PC down to 0. The purpose of the exhaustion is to represent a single terrible wound which is inhibiting the Pc. I’ve played around with lingering injuries before but they just become too complicated. I’d prefer to keep it simple and just track exhaustion long term and death saves short term.

You'll still have your ability to tear up your players' character sheets in their faces if they take an unlucky crit. Getting 6 levels of exhaustion from the d6 when they first go down is still going to be fatal. It just seemed to be easier to say that failing a death save adds a level of exhaustion to whatever levels they received when brought to 0 rather than start counting failed death saves up to three separately. On average, it will be about the same number of failed death saves before they die, but it seems simpler.

Healing I think will be still be useful because it should prevent folks getting to 0. But yes I expect most combat to be short and deadly for both sides.

That is the issue: In combat healing can't really prevent folks getting to 0 very well. Healers will need to burn a lot of spells outside combat to keep people topped-up, but in combat they may be more likely to either try to nova disable the encounter, or just cantrip/swing weapon to save their spells for out of combat healing.

 

[CleverNickName]

You could just get rid of death saves altogether, and have characters die when they reach 0 hit points. It's absolutely brutal, but that's the way we played it for years and years.

 

[GuyBoy]

As a regular player in @TheSword ’s games, I love this idea. Makes combat a scary prospect. As it should be.

 

[Flamestrike]

- Firstly dropping to 0 hp doesn’t mean unconscious. It means a serious wound - a real medical emergency but not completely out. They still take death saves as normal but when on 0 hp characters can’t rise from prone but can take a single bonus action, a single action, or move (but not stand up). Taking any action or move forces them to make an additional death save.

Martials are forced to make attacks at disadvantage, and attacks against them are at advantage (and they're most likely the ones being targeted being the front liners), Rogues are denied sneak attack, while casters can cast all spells (other than those with attack rolls) no problem at all?

Id suggest 'while at 0 HP you cant cast spells and...

Secondly, I’ll be using the slow healing rules. Spending HD is the only way to regain wounds, which represent bandaging and rest. No spending 8 hours to wake fresh as a daisy.

Martials get more HP than casters, and tend to lose them quicker (being frontliners) so another rule that hurts them disproportionately.

Thirdly, and this is the doozy, I want dropping to 0 hp to cause the Pc to gain 1d6 levels of exhaustion. Yes the PC has a 1/6 chance of dying instantly when dropped to 0 hp. When their head gets lopped off. The exhaustion represents their wound - which they are free to describe as they like. When their exhaustion is gone (through the normal means) their wound is gone.

Another rule that heavily impact martials more than casters. Casters don't care about 5 levels of exhaustion; they can still cast spells just fine. 'Half movement and HP and Skill and attack rolls at disadvantage' don't really bother Wizards at all, whereas it's crippling for a martial PC.

In addition to punishing martials disproportionally over casters, it pushes your PCs into abusing the 5MWD and constantly seeking to long rest after every single encounter. No martial will want to continue after copping levels of exhaustion, and no PC will want to enter any combat with less than Max HP to avoid getting crippled.

The end result of that of course, is martials again get left behind in the dust as casters get repeated single encounter adventuring days.

I feel like there are some pretty serious ramifications to your proposed HR that you might be missing here.

 

[Lanefan]

So it will be no secret that I have long been looking for a way to make combat more meaningful - instead of the whack-a-mole - sacks of hit points that opponents turn into in 5e. I want their to be a real risk of dying and not just because the GM targeted a fallen PC. I want PCs to view combat as a risk and think about ways to improve their odds or avoid it all together.

I’d like to recreate the danger of combat with three simple rules which I hope in combination will make combat far more meaningful - and interesting to me as a DM.

- Firstly dropping to 0 hp doesn’t mean unconscious. It means a serious wound - a real medical emergency but not completely out. They still take death saves as normal but when on 0 hp characters can’t rise from prone but can take a single bonus action, a single action, or move (but not stand up). Taking any action or move forces them to make an additional death save.

I'd tweak this just a bit: they need to make the death save while taking the action; if failed the character doesn't finish the action (e.g. only moves part-way, or spills the potion on the ground, or drops the crossbow it was trying to shoot) and passes out. Unconscious still needs to be there somehow.

- Secondly, I’ll be using the slow healing rules. Spending HD is the only way to regain wounds, which represent bandaging and rest. No spending 8 hours to wake fresh as a daisy.

- Thirdly, and this is the doozy, I want dropping to 0 hp to cause the Pc to gain 1d6 levels of exhaustion. Yes the PC has a 1/6 chance of dying instantly when dropped to 0 hp. When their head gets lopped off. The exhaustion represents their wound - which they are free to describe as they like. When their exhaustion is gone (through the normal means) their wound is gone.

@Stormonu has a good idea above: a character at 0 h.p. can't be cured for x-amount of time; my tweak here would be that a cure of any kind would stabilize the character at zero and thus save its life (i.e. no more death saves) but cures can do nothing more* until that x-amount of time has passed.

* - except Heal, which trumps everything and can wipe out this "incurable" status.

This campaign won’t be the typical dungeon crawl hack and slash. Combats will be rarer - one to three per day. With most adventures to have 1-3 combats potentially. It will also mostly be operating at a low-ish level 3-7. What are peoples though, could it work cohesively.

I use a vaguely similar system and IMO it works best if the party now and then have to make harsh choices: either to carry on with one or more members stuck at single-digit h.p. values or to stop and rest for a day or two, allowing the enemy time to Do Bad Things but also allowing the hurt character(s) to recover. But it's very hard to force these situations, you just have to allow them to arise naturally sometimes and accept that they just won't arise at other times.

 

[Lanefan]

Martials are forced to make attacks at disadvantage, and attacks against them are at advantage (and they're most likely the ones being targeted being the front liners), Rogues are denied sneak attack, while casters can cast all spells (other than those with attack rolls) no problem at all?

Id suggest 'while at 0 HP you cant cast spells and...

Or, you can try but you need to make your death save while in mid-spell, and if you fail it your spell goes wild - really wanna risk a wild magic surge when you're already hovering at death's door?

Martials get more HP than casters, and tend to lose them quicker (being frontliners) so another rule that hurts them disproportionately.

That's on the DM to some extent. Ideally everyone faces about the same relative amount of danger over the long run, so if the martials are getting pounded this time maybe the next encounter should be something that targets the backliners?

Martials IME lose more h.p. in part because they have more to lose: soaking up damage is part of their job. If the party start with two martials each at 50 h.p. and two casters each at 20, each of the martials losing 40 isn't a problem but each of the casters losing 21 sure is.

Another rule that heavily impact martials more than casters. Casters don't care about 5 levels of exhaustion; they can still cast spells just fine. 'Half movement and HP and Skill and attack rolls at disadvantage' don't really bother Wizards at all, whereas it's crippling for a martial PC.

Yeah, this one's bad. Maybe even something simple like "each level of exhaustion reduces your available spell slots by two" would help.

In addition to punishing martials disproportionally over casters, it pushes your PCs into abusing the 5MWD and constantly seeking to long rest after every single encounter.

This I don't mind; as it's what the characters would naturally want to do, I can't blame them for wanting to do it.

No martial will want to continue after copping levels of exhaustion, and no PC will want to enter any combat with less than Max HP to avoid getting crippled.

So they rest a lot; meanwhile the raiders burn more villages...

 

[Andvari]

These are the currently proposed death and dying rules for the homebrew system I'm working on.

Death and Dying​

Monsters reduced to 0 hit points typically die immediately. When a player character is reduced to 0 hit points, the character becomes unconscious and is dying.
Dying: Upon being reduced to 0 hit points, and at the end of each subsequent round, a dying character must make a Vitality roll against 15 or die. On a natural 1, the character always dies. On a natural 20, the character is restored to 1 hit point.
Stabilized: A dying character restored above 0 hit points is stabilized and no longer dying. A stabilized character remains unconscious for 1d6 times 10 minutes.
Aid: An ally not in melee and next to a dying character can spend an action tending to the dying character’s wounds, automatically restoring them to 1 hit point.

It's less lethal than it might seem at first glance. DC 15 in this system is closer to DC 10 in D&D, and there's a luck system that lets you re-roll a limited amount of ability checks each level. There's no "Medicine" skill (no skill system as such) and no roll required to stabilize a dying character. Lethality can be increased or decreased by adjusting the DC, and lingering injuries could easily be added if desired by the group.

Interestingly, adding "disadvantage" on rolls would also affect casters as casting a spell requires an ability check in this system.