Level Up (A5E) Dropping to Zero Hit Points

I have always been a little unsatisfied with the rules for death and dying in 5e so I revised it for my campaign. That campaign is coming to its climatic conclusion and I plan to use the Level Up Ruleset for the next campaign.

This may be premature because I am still wrapping my mind around some of the new Level Up rules, but I wanted to share my first attempt at modifying that rule and some of my other house rules to work with Level Up SRD.

For Dropping to 0 Hit Points my intention is to make characters feel more heroic and give them opportunities to avoid going unconscious (which I always feel is boring for a player). I attempted to balance this out by modifying how healing effects a creature at 0 hit points, merging the rules for fatigue/strife, and by also making it a little harder to bring a dead character back to life.

I am very amicable to critique, and enjoy theory craft and discussion. I am fully expecting to have missed some unintended consequences brought on by revising this document for Level Up. Looking forward to any feedback.

I'm going to summarize the key differences I've noted in your document vs core LU.

• A person does not normally go unconscious when they hit 0 (though they can choose to go unconscious). Instead they gain the severely injured condition.
• You must spend 5 points of healing to "undo" a death saving throw, before you gain any healing.
• Last Stand ability: Take 2 death failures but can crit on every attack.
• Death saves are more like 5e instead of LU, you take death saves with no option to take fatigue/strife instead.
• You no longer take a fatigue when you fall unconscious (unclear).
• Falling has special rules
• Uses optional Healing Rule for bonus action, but full action = max healing.
• Healing Spell Rule: +10 minutes = max healing.
• More oppurtunity attacks: Stand from prone/object interaction/rolling a 1 on an attack roll.
• Character can only be ressued by "real res spells" = prof bonus
• Spellcaster can ignore res spell components but takes damage/fatigue
• Has 1 minute rally that is a "minor short rest".

My thoughts:

• The severely injured variant is fine. I think its reasonable penalizing but fun for players that just do not like not getting to act. The half movement also ensures that while it can be used for retreats, its not too good at it.
• I like the "spend 5 healing to undo a death failure", its a nice way to give that a bit more sting, but in an easy to use way. I will say your paragraph describing it needs work, the example is clear but the actual mechanic is not, I had to reread it several times to understand what you wanted here.
• Last Stand is one of those cool abilities that can be abused by a smart party. A fighter with no death failures who has his buddy right after him in initiative can milk some big crits and then get healed up. But its also fine and cinematic, so I think its fine for the style you are going for. The other option is just to use fatigue here, have them instantly go to 6 fatigue (aka 1 from doomed) or something like that.
• I think the falling rules are fine though another table may be a bit much for various groups. You could just say falling damage of 20+3x character level triggers the massive death rule, which gives it plenty of sting.
• The max healing point rule is one I use myself, and I love it. The spell version of this seems reasonable enough.
• The res restriction to prof bonus I think is a reasonable way to limit res spells for a slightly gritter game. I do not like the "ignore res spell component" rule, its too easy for a caster to res someone in downtime and just shake off the fatigue.
• The rally rule seems reasonable, though its definately a power boost to short rest classes. Your fighters, monks (adepts), and especially warlocks will get a clear power boost compared to other classes, so just be warned about that.
• I'm personally not a fan of the extra oppurtunity attacks. One of the things I have most enjoyed about 5e, is that my players are much more carefree again, they are willing to move around and try things out, where as in 3e they were mostly immobile and seemed always afraid of trying things due to OAs. That said, your OA on an attack roll of 1 is interesting. I think for people using the "critical fumble variant" in LU, that's a neat way to go, it can shake up combat, but it doesn't penalize people as much for trying something unique, your going to make attacks, so it just means every so often you take an extra hit you weren't expecting.

Our early drafts had Injuries as part of the rules, but they didn't make it through to the final as they were one thing too many to track in combat.

Stalker0 said:

I'm going to summarize the key differences I've noted in your document vs core LU.

• A person does not normally go unconscious when they hit 0 (though they can choose to go unconscious). Instead they gain the severely injured condition. *and a level of Fatigue”
• You must spend 5 points of healing to "undo" a death saving throw, before you gain any healing.
• Last Stand ability: Take 2 death failures but can crit on every attack. *may be overturned, discussed more below
• Death saves are more like 5e instead of LU, you take death saves with no option to take fatigue/strife instead.
• You no longer take a fatigue when you fall unconscious (unclear).
• Falling has special rules
• Uses optional Healing Rule for bonus action, but full action = max healing.
• Healing Spell Rule: +10 minutes = max healing.
• More oppurtunity attacks: Stand from prone/object interaction/rolling a 1 on an attack roll.
• Character can only be ressued by "real res spells" = prof bonus
• Spellcaster can ignore res spell components but takes damage/fatigue
• Has 1 minute rally that is a "minor short rest".

My thoughts:

• The severely injured variant is fine. I think its reasonable penalizing but fun for players that just do not like not getting to act. The half movement also ensures that while it can be used for retreats, its not too good at it. *thank you. The intention was to keep the player in the game but make it dangerous.
• I like the "spend 5 healing to undo a death failure", its a nice way to give that a bit more sting, but in an easy to use way. I will say your paragraph describing it needs work, the example is clear but the actual mechanic is not, I had to reread it several times to understand what you wanted here. *thank you, I will try to rework it to make it more clear
• Last Stand is one of those cool abilities that can be abused by a smart party. A fighter with no death failures who has his buddy right after him in initiative can milk some big crits and then get healed up. But its also fine and cinematic, so I think its fine for the style you are going for. The other option is just to use fatigue here, have them instantly go to 6 fatigue (aka 1 from doomed) or something like that. *agreed, maybe the last stand could give expertise on attacks and an exapand your crit range by 2? Maybe add 2 levels of fatigue and “you cannot regain hit points until the beginning of your next turn” to make it sting more. As far as taking advantage of it, the fighter in the example would still have to be stabilized and receive at least 10 points of healing. However, I do agree it could be taken advantage of and that the fatigue would help.
• The max healing point rule is one I use myself, and I love it. The spell version of this seems reasonable enough. *thank you, I wanted to provide so love to the players since I made other options some much more dangerous”
• The res restriction to prof bonus I think is a reasonable way to limit res spells for a slightly gritter game. I do not like the "ignore res spell component" rule, its too easy for a caster to res someone in downtime and just shake off the fatigue. *i honestly didn’t think about ignoring the oenalitoes by just attempting the spell when you had plenty of time to shrug off the negative effects. This was mainly for those in the moment type events. I will need to think of some other ways to make it hurt. Maybe limiting the no components rule to spells under a certain casting time. Or make people make the massive damage instant death save I also use a version of the Mercer res rules so the DC for the res check increases each time
• The rally rule seems reasonable, though its definately a power boost to short rest classes. Your fighters, monks (adepts), and especially warlocks will get a clear power boost compared to other classes, so just be warned about that. *agreeed and it was intentional. Too often (in my experience) short rests get ignored and it unbalances the classes that are dependent one them.”
• I'm personally not a fan of the extra oppurtunity attacks. One of the things I have most enjoyed about 5e, is that my players are much more carefree again, they are willing to move around and try things out, where as in 3e they were mostly immobile and seemed always afraid of trying things due to OAs. That said, your OA on an attack roll of 1 is interesting. I think for people using the "critical fumble variant" in LU, that's a neat way to go, it can shake up combat, but it doesn't penalize people as much for trying something unique, your going to make attacks, so it just means every so often you take an extra hit you weren't expecting. *that is understandable. I felt like the extra OA actually encouraged some players to try for some special attacks like disarms (always hated when I disarmed someone and then they just pick their weapon back up next turn) and also balanced some of the other bonuses like bonus action potions. These haven’t been playetested a lot however, and may need to be adjusted or eliminated.

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Thank you so much for the feedback and the summary! I attempt to respond to a few of the the items above (my comments are in bold).

Morrus said:

Our early drafts had Injuries as part of the rules, but they didn't make it through to the final as they were one thing too many to track in combat.

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I was worried about that but since this the Severely Injured condition is tied to Death Saves, I was hoping it wouldn’t add anything else to track with fatigue and strife representing lingering injuries.

Feralborn Trading said:

Thank you so much for the feedback and the summary! I attempt to respond to a few of the the items above (my comments are in bold).

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I think Last Stand's effect is fine, it just needs a more consistent penalty. Again, if the character instantly goes to 6 fatigue and immediately falls unconscious (not just severely injured) that is very biting, a player would certainly think twice before doing that, but it could insanely cool when they do.

One option for the "ignore res spell components" is have it count as 2 resurrections for the person's limit, so its definitely something you don't want to do often. I also had the idea of counting it against the spellcaster's limit, but that is unfair imo, it socially pressures the spellcaster to res even when they might not want to.