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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5053304" data-attributes="member: 51942">Personally, if someone is bleedinging out and unconscious, I think it's ok that death is quite likely unless helped.On the topic of the PC-sudden-death-syndrome...The system as in the original post avoids both problems.  The chance of dying in any one of the total of 5 saves is generally low unless you're very far negative, but nevertheless the chance of succeeding on all 5 isn't that good.  In short; if you use the house rule as posted in the starting post, PC's will usually face trivial saving throws (fail only on 1) vs. easy threats - but even those saves are risky in fives, so they are strongly encouraged to help their allies quickly. You avoid sudden death syndrome by having a large hp buffer, but you avoid making PC's practically unkillable by both limiting the buffers size and by making even -1 hp a risky proposition.In general, there have been a lot of alternative suggestions, some with good ideas.  However, some alternatives are too complex.  To each his own, but I think it's absolutely essential that a house rule be as simple as possible.  You can remember 5 death saves and a fort save DC, but it's entirely different matter if you mix Con-checks, Con modifiers, Con totals, staggered, etc. stuff.  Really, you're best off getting rid of staggered; it's totally pointless and doesn't add anything to the game as is since it's so extremely unlikely to matter.Simplicity really matters, especially for house rules.  I generally aim to make house rules in my games simpler and shorter that the PHB rules they replace.So, to anyone still reading this thread, I strongly suggest taking a look at the original posted house rule, which can be summarized in one paragraph:A creature with negative hit points is dying.  The moment it drops to negative hit points and again each round later, the creature must make a Fortitude  save with a DC of 1/2 of its negative hit points.  On success, it loses 2 hp, but  on failure it dies.  The creature stabilizes automatically on the fifth save after it last received other damage; so a dropped creature must save immediately and then 4 more times if it isn't healed or hurt in the meantime. No staggering, no new types of roll, no requirement to combine multiple stats - just a fort save.  Stabilizing effects such as healing work normally.If you want to change this, I recommend you make it even simpler, for instance by removing the 2 damage on a successful save and adding a 6th save instead, say.</blockquote>

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