D&D 5E Favorite Alternatives to 5e Death Savings throws

[FrogReaver]

It seems to me that 5e death saving throws greatly reduce the risk and fear of dying. Now some games have a place for that kind of thing and its all well and good but I'm not interested in why you might want to keep the default 5e system the same way. I'm looking for fun and interesting ways it can be changed

I few ideas I've thought about:

1. Eliminate death saves altogether in exchange for a little more hp.
2. Change death saves such that you roll them when you reach 0 hp and that determines if you are dead or unconscious. Modify how the DC for them is calculated a little.
3. Each roll of a death save has a chance of killing you or stabilizing you but you roll them each round at death until you either stabilize or die. (You can also force the save to be made right at reaching 0 hp as well.

Any other ideas?

 

[Shiroiken]

Something I saw and liked was that you don't actually roll any checks until someone checks on you. Without the meta-game of knowing exactly how bad someone is, it makes healing/stabilizing far more important.

As far as mechanics go, the biggest change I'd recommend is to lower the instant kill threshold to equal either half max HP or (my preference) con score. I'd also suggest changing the Healer's Kit to being a requirement for the Wisdom/Medicine check (disadvantage without it), rather than being an auto-stabilization item.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

In my opinion, Death Saves in their current form do not exist to increase/decrease the odds of player death. Whether it is a single roll, or the current system, the overall odds without intervention by healers is pretty much 50-50.
The Death Saves primarily exist to give the other players in a party some time to heal the victim. Obviously, with sufficient healers in your team, you will usually be brought back to life, which hugely increases the odds.

I think that you should address what is your main problem with the Death Saves: Is it the fact that other players get a chance to heal you in the first place? Is it the overall odds of coming back to health (in which I include the healing by others), or just the roleplay aspect of it?

Personally, I like the odds we get now. If you have sufficient healers in your party, the odds of living seem more like 99-1. It is the TPK (Total Player Kill) that you gotta watch out for... but the death of individual players is hardly an issue.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Easiest way to make 5e dangerous is to make it 1 death save at zero hp instead of 3. It discourages whack-a-mole too; players will want to do their healing before they drop to zero because it is so dangerous.

Ideally I would also add a chance of rolling on an Injuries & Setbacks table at zero for those adventurers that survive.

 

[OB1]

So I do a few things with Death Saves that make the consequences of hitting 0 HP a bit more consequential.

1. Failed Death saves stay with you until you remove them. They can be removed the same way levels of exhaustion can be removed.
2. Each failed Death Save also increases your exhaustion level by one.
3. When you are dropped to 0 HP, you immediately make a Death Save. DC is 10 or the number of HP below 0 the attack brought you, whichever is higher.

To be clear, a long rest or greater restoration will remove either one level of exhaustion or one failed death save, not one of each.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

One option I’ve only dabbled with is allowing the PC to sacrifice an item to avoid the hit – their shield gets shattered, or their sword riven. Maybe their armor is torn to pieces, but they emerge unscathed by the killing blow. A PC might not want to sacrifice their beloved magic sword, so I think putting it in their hands lets them make the call.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It seems to me that 5e death saving throws greatly reduce the risk and fear of dying.

Nod. Fine for games where the PCs are meant to be protagonists/heroes and not die for 'no reason.' Less fine for gritty-un-realism fantasy-Vietnam/grumpy-author type lethality.

1. Eliminate death saves altogether in exchange for a little more hp.

Sure. Say an extra HD at 1st level or CON-score to hps. Combine it with heal-from-negatives and death at -CON instead of -max hps. Higher lethality at most levels, but a bit less randomly lethal at 1st.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Something I saw and liked was that you don't actually roll any checks until someone checks on you. Without the meta-game of knowing exactly how bad someone is, it makes healing/stabilizing far more important.

This is my favorite way of changing death saving throws. it adds suspense, and is really easy which is great because I am lazy.