BookTenTiger
He / Him
Right now in my game I have two house rules to combat this:
1) Wound Points. You have a number of Wound Points equal to your starting HP at 1st Level. Every time you receive a Critical Hit, drop to 0 hp, or take damage while at 0 hp, or end a turn at 0 hp, you receive a Wound Point. If you have 0 Wound Points, you are dead. Half your total Wound Points are recharged during a Week of Downtime.
This has created a sort of countdown timer during adventures. The characters feel pretty confident at the beginning of adventures when they have all their Wound Points. But when those start to tick down, they get more cautious about combat!
2) Staggered. When you are at 0 hp, you are Staggered. You can only take an Action, Movement, or Bonus Action. You cannot concentrate on spells.
I'm thinking of replacing Staggered with Death Saving Throws. It could just be something like:
Death Saving Throw: when you start your turn at 0 Hit Points, make a Death Saving Throw. On a failure, lose 1 Wound Point.
1) Wound Points. You have a number of Wound Points equal to your starting HP at 1st Level. Every time you receive a Critical Hit, drop to 0 hp, or take damage while at 0 hp, or end a turn at 0 hp, you receive a Wound Point. If you have 0 Wound Points, you are dead. Half your total Wound Points are recharged during a Week of Downtime.
This has created a sort of countdown timer during adventures. The characters feel pretty confident at the beginning of adventures when they have all their Wound Points. But when those start to tick down, they get more cautious about combat!
2) Staggered. When you are at 0 hp, you are Staggered. You can only take an Action, Movement, or Bonus Action. You cannot concentrate on spells.
I'm thinking of replacing Staggered with Death Saving Throws. It could just be something like:
Death Saving Throw: when you start your turn at 0 Hit Points, make a Death Saving Throw. On a failure, lose 1 Wound Point.