D&D 5E 0 HPs and Healing During a Fight

[Jaracove]

Starter Box

If you are dropped to 0 hit points during a fight, and you are healed a few hit points, can you rejoin the fight when your initiative turn comes around? The rules aren’t clear but I assume you can

 

[KarinsDad]

Yes. You get to go whenever it is your turn and you are not unconscious or prevented by some other rule.

 

[Agamon]

Right. It doesn't directly say it, but it does say your only unconscious while at 0 hp, which means your conscious with any amount of hp, regardless of how you got there.

 

[Jaracove]

Ok thanks all

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Yes. You get to go whenever it is your turn and you are not unconscious or prevented by some other rule.

You become unconscious when you hit 0, but there's no rule that you automatically become conscious when you hit 1. After all, it is extremely common for people to be unconscious while they have positive hit points.

Granted that it also doesn't explicitly say that you remain unconscious when you gain hit points, but either way is within the realm of reasonable interpretation.

 

[MerricB]

Right. It doesn't directly say it, but it does say your only unconscious while at 0 hp, which means your conscious with any amount of hp, regardless of how you got there.

It does actually directly say it in the rules.

"If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill you, you fall unconscious (see the appendix.) This unconsciousness ends if you regain any hit points." - Basic Set Rules, page 76, Chapter 9: Combat; and page 13 of the Starter Set Rules

Cheers!

 

[KarinsDad]

Merric beat me to it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Oh, well then. House rule, I guess. Thanks for the quote.

 

[Umbran]

After all, it is extremely common for people to be unconscious while they have positive hit points.

Um, real people don't have "hit points". As a doctor if you don't believe me.

That real people stay unconscious when they are in a state that, if you transferred them to a game, you think they'd have positive hit points, well, I'd hesitate to try to apply real-world medicine too strictly, if I were you.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That real people stay unconscious when they are in a state that, if you transferred them to a game, you think they'd have positive hit points, well, I'd hesitate to try to apply real-world medicine too strictly, if I were you.

I just meant that characters still sleep every night, even if they aren't beaten unconscious before starting the long rest. Most nights, characters can be unconscious without being at 0 hit points, and they don't necessarily wake up immediately when they "should".

By requiring someone to spend an action to wake a sleeping creature, it solves a lot of the abuse around (the lack of) negative hit points and healing from zero.