(House rule) I'm still standing...

[TaranTheWanderer]

I've thought about this a bit and it's something I'd like to try too. It would be nice to find a smooth way of doing this.

What if, each round they stay up, they automatically fail a death save. Every time they are hit, they have to roll another death save(instead of auto-failing). They can fall unconscious at any time and continue making death saves.

By having them auto-fail, they are limited to 3 extra rounds to do something before they die or get knocked out. Getting hit is less of death sentence but staying up gives them a little bit of time for that extra hit or to cast a healing spell etc...

Concentrating on spells should be difficult at this point, I'd think, too. Getting knocked to 0 still makes you auto-lose concentration on any spell you have up.

I'd also have them take a level of exhaustion to do this.

The question is this: what if they choose to stay up, then decide to go unconscious or get healed to 10hps and then get hit to 0 again? Do they get to restart their death saves again or do death save failures stack? Can they choose to 'stay up' again?

If yes, I'd definitely make it cost a level of exhaustion each time they choose to stay up instead of going unconscious.

 

[FrogReaver]

I've thought about this a bit and it's something I'd like to try too. It would be nice to find a smooth way of doing this.

What if, each round they stay up, they automatically fail a death save. Every time they are hit, they have to roll another death save(instead of auto-failing). They can fall unconscious at any time and continue making death saves.

By having them auto-fail, they are limited to 3 extra rounds to do something before they die or get knocked out. Getting hit is less of death sentence but staying up gives them a little bit of time for that extra hit or to cast a healing spell etc...

Concentrating on spells should be difficult at this point, I'd think, too. Getting knocked to 0 still makes you auto-lose concentration on any spell you have up.

I'd also have them take a level of exhaustion to do this.

The question is this: what if they choose to stay up, then decide to go unconscious or get healed to 10hps and then get hit to 0 again? Do they get to restart their death saves again or do death save failures stack? Can they choose to 'stay up' again?

If yes, I'd definitely make it cost a level of exhaustion each time they choose to stay up instead of going unconscious.

IMO, I think you are getting a bit complicated and fiddly at this point. Maybe I should ask, what are you hoping to gain out of your rule change?

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah yeah yeah!

I have a completely untested idea I've thought about implementing in a 5e campaign.

It is thus:
When a character reaches 0 HP, they do not go prone and unconscious. Rather, they can keep on fighting! However they do still make a death save at the start of each round and if they do get hit while at 0 HP they get an automatic failed death save as per normal.

I feel like it might give players more options to down a healing potion or get-out-of-dodge, or doing something else to be actively involved in the game and perhaps make the game somewhat more heroic, but I think it'd also feel more risky because you may have to choose between running and hiding or going for that lucky shot to end it.

What effect do you think this rule would have?

I can speak from experience, as I have actually run with this house-rule before. One version where staying up was voluntary and required concentration, and one version where staying up was automatic, and you fell unconscious after your first failed death save.

With the former, one player tried concentrating to stay in the fight, once. Then, because he was still an active combatant, the monsters kept attacking him, he took two failed death saves from a successful hit, stopped concentrating and wend down later in the same round. No one ever concentrated to stay conscious again, and it played out exactly like it would have if the house rule didn’t exist.

With the latter, it was pretty interesting. Most of the time, players who dropped to zero would drink a healing potion, or one of the other party members would heal them. But, crucially, the party always retreated after someone went down to 0, even if they got healed up after, unless it was very clear that the party had almost won, in which case they’d finish the fight. But the player who had gone to 0 would always play much more cautiously for the rest of the encounter, even after regaining hit points. There was no “ok, Oliver can take two failures before we have to worry, and then Glory can get him back up with a healing word.” Once anyone dropped to zero, everyone went full emergency mode. “Oliver, do you have any potions on you? No? Glory, can you spare a spell slot to heal him? There are only a few bandits left, we can probably finish them off, but Oliver should probably hang back and use his Shortbow, and everyone should be ready to book it if he goes down to 0 again.” It was actually great, the only reason I didn’t keep using it was because it was kind of difficult for some of my players to wrap their heads around the idea of being at 0 HP but conscious. Well, one of my players in particular. He also got confused when I would narrate missed attacks as making contact but doing no damage, or hits as not making contact but still wearing the target down to avoid.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

IMO, I think you are getting a bit complicated and fiddly at this point. Maybe I should ask, what are you hoping to gain out of your rule change?

I don't like the unconcious/death/dying rules as they stand. I'd like to change them and make them a bit more exciting and less cartoonish.

I don't feel what I proposed was too complicated.
If you get hit to 0, you loose concentration on all spells. This rule already exists.
If you choose to go unconscious you get to do death saves. This is the same rule.

You may choose to take a level of exhaustion to stay conscious and fight for up to 3 rounds where you fail a death save every round.

That's pretty straight forward. But it leads to lots of what-ifs.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't like the unconcious/death/dying rules as they stand. I'd like to change them and make them a bit more exciting and less cartoonish.

I don't feel what I proposed was too complicated.
If you get hit to 0, you loose concentration on all spells. This rule already exists.
If you choose to go unconscious you get to do death saves. This is the same rule.

You may choose to take a level of exhaustion to stay conscious and fight for up to 3 rounds where you fail a death save every round.

That's pretty straight forward. But it leads to lots of what-ifs.

If you want to change death saves to make them more exciting and less cartoonish I don't see how you think this current iteration is going to accomplish that. Maybe you can elaborate on what's cartoonish in the original system and what this system does to eliminate that aspect? Maybe you can do the same for exciting?

I'm just not following how the above change helps on either front but it may just be that my definition of exciting and cartoonish is a bit different than yours.

 

[CubicsRube]

I can speak from experience, as I have actually run with this house-rule before. One version where staying up was voluntary and required concentration, and one version where staying up was automatic, and you fell unconscious after your first failed death save.

With the former, one player tried concentrating to stay in the fight, once. Then, because he was still an active combatant, the monsters kept attacking him, he took two failed death saves from a successful hit, stopped concentrating and wend down later in the same round. No one ever concentrated to stay conscious again, and it played out exactly like it would have if the house rule didn’t exist.

With the latter, it was pretty interesting. Most of the time, players who dropped to zero would drink a healing potion, or one of the other party members would heal them. But, crucially, the party always retreated after someone went down to 0, even if they got healed up after, unless it was very clear that the party had almost won, in which case they’d finish the fight. But the player who had gone to 0 would always play much more cautiously for the rest of the encounter, even after regaining hit points. There was no “ok, Oliver can take two failures before we have to worry, and then Glory can get him back up with a healing word.” Once anyone dropped to zero, everyone went full emergency mode. “Oliver, do you have any potions on you? No? Glory, can you spare a spell slot to heal him? There are only a few bandits left, we can probably finish them off, but Oliver should probably hang back and use his Shortbow, and everyone should be ready to book it if he goes down to 0 again.” It was actually great, the only reason I didn’t keep using it was because it was kind of difficult for some of my players to wrap their heads around the idea of being at 0 HP but conscious. Well, one of my players in particular. He also got confused when I would narrate missed attacks as making contact but doing no damage, or hits as not making contact but still wearing the target down to avoid.

Thanks! It's always valuable to hear from first hand experience.

I did not want to elaborate on my first post as I wanted to hear other's opinions. My thought behind the rule is firstly to allow a player still to participate in a fight in a meaningful way as well as provide some desperate choices. Does the PC disengage and try to hide behind their friends? Do they try to dodge while hopefully soneone heals them? Do the skull a healing potion and hope that'll tide them over for a round? Do they risk it and go for a quick kill?

It sounds like from your experience some of that occurred.

 

[CubicsRube]

Thanks for your replies all!

It's interesting that some feel it'd make death less tense and others feel the opposite.

Certainly it would depend on the behavious of the player, but no system can fully account for that.

For what it's worth I'm considering this in a campaign with gold for xp (instead of monster xp) and morale rules, so fleeing from combat and making enemies flee are also wise tactics.

I agree with the common houserule of death saves not resetting until a long rest with or without the rule here as an incentive against the pop up fall down problem, although in practice I've never seen it happen much.

I guess the key for me is about player choice. If i implemented it, I would probably give the player an option of dropping and not being a threat or continuing on and they can act but will still be targeted.

 

[CubicsRube]

Note that I believe I would have to rule that concentration spells would be dropped at hitting 0 as part of it I think.

 

[CubicsRube]

[MENTION=16248]overlord[/MENTION] - why gove monsters death saves? As per dmg this is an option.

Player to monster balance should rarely if ever be a consideration, because the monsters are mandated by me. At it's simplest if i want to add more challenge i just put more monsters in. 5e is largely built around this concept and it is imo one of the strengths of bounded accuracy.

Note for example that your standard MM orc does not benefit from relentless endurance, so player/monster disparity already exists in the system.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

If you want to change death saves to make them more exciting and less cartoonish I don't see how you think this current iteration is going to accomplish that. Maybe you can elaborate on what's cartoonish in the original system and what this system does to eliminate that aspect? Maybe you can do the same for exciting?

I'm just not following how the above change helps on either front but it may just be that my definition of exciting and cartoonish is a bit different than yours.

I don't know. That's why I posed it as a question. To get feedback and suggestions to make it better.

I guess what I mean about cartoonish is the whack-a-mole that some people talk about. Maybe I'd like to see that idea of some desperate last ditch effort to run away or succeed - like a boxer who's about to drop. I like exhaustion only because it has long-term consequences - unlike when Wyle E. Coyote has a piano fall on his head but is perfectly fine the next morning - and offers a cost to staying up as opposed to making fighting at 0 automatic. I like the idea the OP proposes but I feel there should be some kind of draw-back besides the risk of getting hit more.

If you have the choice to keep fighting or stay up, you are only going to drop unconscious if you're not concerned about losing the fight, dying and confident your team mates will get you back up. Staying conscious, I feel, should have a cost that accentuates the desperation or NEED to stay up and keep fighting or flee.