Level Up (A5E) Deadlier combat

[tetrasodium]

They act mostly as a safety net (especially at lower levels).

It is an accepted fact that due to the unpredictability of the dice, players can have unlucky streaks, and monsters can have lucky streaks. A crit from a monster at the wrong moment, could instantly drop you down to 0 hp when you thought you were fine.

While deadlier combat is the goal of this thread, I don't think we want the deaths to be completely arbitrary and out of the blue.

That's. The. Problem.

When you said that t"death saves do have a legitimate purpose." I kinda expected you to do more than list all the ways they make combat less deadly and shield combat from the possability of being at risk of death.

 

[Imaculata]

That's. The. Problem.

When you said that t"death saves do have a legitimate purpose." I kinda expected you to do more than list all the ways they make combat less deadly and shield combat from the possability of being at risk of death.

I think there is a distinction here in what sort of deaths they are intended to protect against. Much like 3e's negative hitpoints and bleeding out rules, they serve as a means for the player to recover after a bad luck streak. I don't think that is a bad concept. In fact, I think it is very important. A lot of 5e's combat is balanced around this rule.

Where it fails, is in the ease by which hp can be restored. If this problem didn't exist, death saves would be fine as is.

What also doesn't help, is that 5E has removed most of the save or die effects from monsters. For example, the Medusa's petrifying gaze is a lot more forgiving than its 3e counter part. And the demilich merely drops a player to 0 hp, instead of instantly trapping their soul and reducing their body to dust.

Surely we can keep 'a safety net' in the form of death saves, while also making combat more deadly? We could limit ranged healing for example. Or we could limit the healing of incapacitated players. We could apply penalties to having been incapacitated, that linger even after stabilizing. We could re-add the deadly abilities that notorious D&D monsters used to have (although it might be confusing to have multiple versions of a monster). There are all manner of things we could do, that don't remove any of the core rules.

How about a condition called At Death's Door?

At Death's Door
Any player that recovers from 0 hp, can no longer make death saves for the rest of the day.

Or a more extreme version:

At Death's Door V2
Any player that recovers from 0 hp, can no longer make death saves for the rest of the day, and can receive only half healing, and makes all their attacks and saves at disadvantage.

 

[CubicsRube]

I think my big issue with 0 hp = unconscious and death saves is that most characters die slowly in a pool of their own blood. I would prefer the option to go out in a Blaze of Glory. Our home brew solution is that you can choose to stay up on 0hp but each round you do so you take a level of exhaustion and that you have to make concentration checks when you take damage or pass out (in addition to usual death saves). We’ve only been doing it a few months so I don’t know how balanced it is but it led to one memorable death and one memorable narrowly avoided TPK which Is what I’m looking for - more drama! But I would love Level Up to feature a robustly play-tested version of this.

I've thought about implementing such a rule myself. With the caveat that if they choose to stay up and get hit, it's still a death save failure.

Curious to see how your rule pans out in the long run.

 

[Asisreo]

I think there is a distinction here in what sort of deaths they are intended to protect against. Much like 3e's negative hitpoints and bleeding out rules, they serve as a means for the player to recover after a bad luck streak. I don't think that is a bad concept. In fact, I think it is very important. A lot of 5e's combat is balanced around this rule.

Where it fails, is in the ease by which hp can be restored. If this problem didn't exist, death saves would be fine as is.

What also doesn't help, is that 5E has removed most of the save or die effects from monsters. For example, the Medusa's petrifying gaze is a lot more forgiving than its 3e counter part. And the demilich merely drops a player to 0 hp, instead of instantly trapping their soul and reducing their body to dust.

Surely we can keep 'a safety net' in the form of death saves, while also making combat more deadly? We could limit ranged healing for example. Or we could limit the healing of incapacitated players. We could apply penalties to having been incapacitated, that linger even after stabilizing. We could re-add the deadly abilities that notorious D&D monsters used to have (although it might be confusing to have multiple versions of a monster). There are all manner of things we could do, that don't remove any of the core rules.

How about a condition called At Death's Door?

At Death's Door
Any player that recovers from 0 hp, can no longer make death saves for the rest of the day.

Or a more extreme version:

At Death's Door V2
Any player that recovers from 0 hp, can no longer make death saves for the rest of the day, and can receive only half healing, and makes all their attacks and saves at disadvantage.

I believe healing word shouldn't have been in the game as-is. And if it must be a 1st-level spell (should be 2nd or 3rd with a bit better healing) and it must be a bonus action (weirdly), then it should have a range of touch like Cure Wounds.

 

[CubicsRube]

I'm in a campaign where the GM is using maximum monster damage. That makes monsters much deadlier and we are frequently risking TPKs and were Tier 4 now.

One rule I've always wanted to try was the "secret death saves" rule - you don't roll for death saves at first, simply count the number of rounds until you are healed or stabilised. You then roll your death saves in a row, and hopefully you didn't fail all your death saves before you were healed. I like the idea of it creating an uncertainty or panic in the group, and that you don't know how someone is until you check on them.

 

[Asisreo]

I'm in a campaign where the GM is using maximum monster damage. That makes monsters much deadlier and we are frequently risking TPKs and were Tier 4 now.

One rule I've always wanted to try was the "secret death saves" rule - you don't roll for death saves at first, simply count the number of rounds until you are healed or stabilised. You then roll your death saves in a row, and hopefully you didn't fail all your death saves before you were healed. I like the idea of it creating an uncertainty or panic in the group, and that you don't know how someone is until you check on them.

Another way to do such a thing is by having the DM roll your death saves behind the screen. It takes a bit of trust in the DM to do well, but doesn't everything?

 

[CubicsRube]

Another way to do such a thing is by having the DM roll your death saves behind the screen. It takes a bit of trust in the DM to do well, but doesn't everything?

True.

But I also like the idea of no one knowing in advance. Make everyone sweat a bit

 

[Giauz]

That sounds needlessly complicated, and I don't understand one word of it. What is n? What is nd%? What are Cuts Points? Plus you need to reroll all this for every fight?

I don't think we should be redesigning the core rules. HP is fine the way it is, and easy to understand. What we're looking for is not more math, or ways to make hitpoints more difficult to understand. What we need is (I think) a way to make the game more deadly within the core rules. Not a radical redesign of the rules that we already have.

OK, could your first sentence be less helpful? 'n' is infront of d(ice) so it must be a variable for number of dice, low level algebra stuff. There are these 10 sided dice called d% with numerals labeled 10-00 that are also combined with 10 sided dice called d10 with numerals labeled 1-0. Cuts Points are a custom point system thoroughly explained in the prior post. No, one only need roll a few 10 -sided d%s and d10s for initiative and DC, essentially determined at the same time. I took extra care at the end to explain that the rules need not change much as well as how the system would make combat more deadly but not unfair. Please, I'm new here, and I wanted to share an idea I've been kicking around, so I just wanted honest feedback. I can appreciate that the idea is a little too complex. Help me simplify.

 

[CleverNickName]

I agree with the original post; I think that combat is too easy and the risk of death too low. To fix those two issues, I would be in favor of any of the following:

• Remove ranged healing spells.
• Remove bonus action healing.
• Healing spells while at 0 hp don't heal hit points; they give you a successful death save. (Just as taking more damage would give you a failed death save)
• Reduce the overall number of hit points for the players.
• Give other consequences to failing death saves, like exhaustion. (Failed 2 death saves before you stabilized? You wake with 2 points of Exhaustion.)

 

[DND_Reborn]

• Reduce the overall number of hit points for the players.
• Give other consequences to failing death saves, like exhaustion. (Failed 2 death saves before you stabilized? You wake with 2 points of Exhaustion.)

We are implementing reducing HP in our next game and already have gaining a level of exhaustion at 0 HP. The exhaustion alone is a big help, from my experience anyway. But, each new level will ONLY be HD. Also, we round half HD down, not up.

EDIT: HP in our next campaign will be CON + half HD + maximum ability modifier. This does mean level 1 pcs will have a bunch more HP.

Ex. Fighter with CON 14 (DEX 16) would have 12 HP in the game now, in our new one he will have 22 (14 + 5 + 3 for DEX).
He would then gain 5 HP or roll d10 per level after 1st.