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Message: <blockquote data-quote="touc" data-source="post: 8141017" data-attributes="member: 19270">I've been using, since around 2018, a somewhat similar <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/4dk8ikwz76p23dq/Vitality%20rules%205E%20v1.2.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Vitality homebrew</a> (the actual damage your body can take, represented by your 1st level hit points, when you reach 0 HP, with HP reflecting the abstract of avoiding real damage) instead of death saves. Death saves led to absurd scenarios and we hated whack-a-mole.Under Vitality, at 0hp all further damage is taken from your Vitality if you get hit and you take at least 1 Vitality damage just by hitting 0. Players have the narrative here: you opt to become Staggered and keep acting, albeit severely hampered, or go Unconscious. You can't keep getting so close to death without risk, so every time you go Staggered, you get a Death Point. Get 3 and you're dead. You don't get Death Points if unconscious, and they go away with long rests.We went with 1st level hit points because it really doesn't matter if you're 20th level or 1st level, a sword to the gut can outright kill you, and if a giant's club or dragon's claw actually hits, you'll be dead. However, on the trek to level 20, players become a lot better at avoiding death (hence the extra hit points). In the brainstorming, exhaustion mechanics came up, but they are brutally lethal and as [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] stated, quickly lead to a death spiral. Exhaustion is a crippling mechanic that largely punishes the front-line fighter types. Given there's no way, absent a high level cleric, to remove exhaustion, parties will cease exploring dungeons and be forced to hunker down for days. Casters are not crippled by it in the way fighters are.</blockquote>

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