D&D 5E A death save house rule proposal

[Charlaquin]

what if you do it like you said but every time they go from unconscious to stunned, they take a level of exhaustion. So, waffling on death’s door takes a toll, even if you’re healed. That, and waffling for too long kills you anyways. (I think the last level of exhaustion is still death?)

I’ve played around with exhaustion levels on failed death saves before, and I found it to be too death spiral-y for my tastes.

EDIT: Also, you can’t go from unconscious to stunned. Not without getting healed, anyway, and you’d have some amount of time as neither in the interim.

 

[Charlaquin]

This sounds a lot like dying in 3.5 except instead of losing a hp every round, Once they are stunned, they could just waffle between stunned and unconscious until they inevitably die. Your chances are 50% to go one way or another so you can just spend the whole combat going back and forth.

You can’t go back and forth between stunned and unconscious. Once you’re unconscious you stay that way until you have more than 0 HP.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

You can’t go back and forth between stunned and unconscious. Once you’re unconscious you stay that way until you have more than 0 HP.

Okay, I totally misunderstood that part.

 

[Horwath]

only solution to reduce what a mole is return of negative HPs.
you can make them all go away on a short rest for free, but in combat, all that extra damage needs to be healed before a character can be on it's feet again.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

only solution to reduce what a mole is return of negative HPs.

I use negative HP and it works out great. It actually makes it harder for PCs to die since damage while downed just moves your HP further negative instead of giving a failed death save.

Another solution to Whack a Mole healing is triggering lingering injuries when you hit 0 HP. I use those as well. You can hover at low HP if you want, but you're playing with fire and risking permanently nerfing your character's power if you get unlucky enough

 

[Yaarel]

One of the frustrations I have as a DM with saving throws is, I need to wait several rounds before I can describe how bad the wound was when entering 0 hit points.

I think in the future, the very moment the character reaches 0, I will require the player to immediately roll all of the death saves at once. Then I can understand the nature of the wound. And play it out narratively in the rounds to come.

For example, say the character was crushed by a large rock. Is the character paste? Many rounds later, if the character later recovers from the damage, well then, obviously, one wasnt paste.

 

[Yaarel]

Also, I think of 0 hit points as the loss of life ... or limb. A lingering wound might result from 0 hit points, whether a broken bone or something more injurious, instead of death.

Again, for this to make sense narratively, I need to know immediately what the injury entails, as soon as 0 hit points happens.

 

[Li Shenron]

When you first fall to 0 hit points, you automatically fall Prone. Whenever you take damage or start your turn while at 0 hit points, make a DC 10 saving throw (no modifier). On a failed save, you gain the Stunned condition until the end of your next turn. If you already have the Stunned condition, you instead gain the Unconscious condition. If you already have the Unconscious condition, you die.

This would completely replace death saving throws and the whole stable/unstable status.

I like the idea. I don't care if it doesn't address the healing automatically getting you out of this.

One thing that scares me though, is that (if I am reading it right) without something or someone to actually give you HP back, the only path forward is towards certain death. If the party is out of healing spells or potions, you need to keep making successful saves to stay at 0hp at least every other turn, as soon as you fail 2 consecutively you're doomed. Or is there another way out?

 

[Charlaquin]

I like the idea. I don't care if it doesn't address the healing automatically getting you out of this.

One thing that scares me though, is that (if I am reading it right) without something or someone to actually give you HP back, the only path forward is towards certain death. If the party is out of healing spells or potions, you need to keep making successful saves to stay at 0hp at least every other turn, as soon as you fail 2 consecutively you're doomed. Or is there another way out?

Ooh, that’s a very good point! There should be a way to recover that doesn’t require magical healing. I’ll give that some thought and get back to you.

 

[pukunui]

Another solution to Whack a Mole healing is triggering lingering injuries when you hit 0 HP. I use those as well. You can hover at low HP if you want, but you're playing with fire and risking permanently nerfing your character's power if you get unlucky enough

I tried using the Lingering Injuries rule in a few campaigns. On the one hand, I found it difficult to remember in play, while on the other hand, when I did remember, it was mostly a non-issue because magical healing gets rid of many of the injuries. And my groups have always relied on magical healing, not mundane healing. Even when I ran a campaign in a world that had no clerics or paladins in it!