I hate death saves. Propose your solution.
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I REALLY like this idea. It makes that epic end-boss battle mean that much more. I'm seriously considering using that. But maybe not for my next campaign, which will be Rappan Athuk. That would just be mean. Or...
Hmm, so in my Rappan Atthuk campaign, the characters gain XP from gold removed and earned (e.g. coins and items with values = that much XP whether you store it or sell it, otherwise you have to arrange a sale and you get XP equal to the GP value) and also some milestone XP.
The weeks recovery to gain back your death save slot will cost X amount, so it has an impact on the XP you earn, at least at lower levels. It further incents players to chose foes wisely and look for less lethal ways of bagging loot. It will also encourage them to be smart about how far they delve and how long they stay in the mega dungeon at a time. Even if they get lucky with wandering monster encounter rolls, they are further incented to leave the dangerous dungeon to rest. Makes the stakes feel higher and creates more respect for the dungeon.
Oh sorry haha.
I just mean that the stuff I like about 5e is kinda specific. There are other versions of D&D that I think do a better job of cleanly incorporating risk evaluation and "punishment" for dropping to 0 hp. Rather than going hard in the direction of tying to make 5e a tougher on the players I would probably just play a game that is a little less resistant to the grit. To each his own for sure, but having a bunch of people rolling with disadvantage and stuff sounds kinda tedious for my table.
A little nod to "hey you could die easier" is fine, but I'm not too interesting in trying to make the game more punitive with 5e's core mechanics. There might be a way to hack 5e to incorporate those kinds of ideas that I haven't really though of. I'm just kinda lazy and have lots of games I wanna try for those types of games.
This sounds rad. I wanna do gold for XP with my next 5e campaign. I hadn't even thought about how those ideas would connect though. That adds a nice little opportunity cost. Especially at low levels like you mentioned. You could even (maybe not in your game but just theoretically) use a carousing system. So while wounded players are in bed and healing other players are spending their Gold to gain XP and just getting into mischief haha. So both mechanically and from an RP perspective it's like "hey don't take wounds"
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OK I thunk up a couple more options for "instant death" that are less harsh than "die at 0". It seems to me that the salient effect is that you want heroes to die on their feet instead of bleeding out, but you want one-shot protection because getting one-shotted is sucktastic and unfun.
1.
So that one provides one-shot protection but only once per short or long rest. Falling prone and dropping your stuff is just a flavor element to hammer home that you are really hurting right now. I like it when heroes and boss villains get a little extra oomph over mooks.
It's not perfect one-shot protection because many enemies can make multiple attacks. A variant would be, you get knocked out for 1 round and THEN bounce back.
2.
The "doubling" here is meant to scale with level automatically: you're more likely to face monsters capable of dishing serious damage, putting you at larger negative values, so the doubling should exceed your negative hit points at about the same rate as it did when you were low-level and facing monsters that were only capable of dishing low damage.
It's also supposed to be scary. So you take a hit and now you're at -3, no big deal, continue to fight on. But next round you're at -6, and you take another hit putting you at a total of -22, and holy crap, you'll probably die the round after that because you only have 34 hit points so NEED HEALZ!
This doesn't provide direct one-shot protection but it does make one-shotting pretty unlikely because of the math involved. It also has a dramatic effect on healing mechanics, because healing at negative is not only no better than healing at positive, it's potentially worse because if you don't apply enough healing to get the character up to 0 then they are not stabilized!
I worry that the math on this option is broken and would make PCs unkillable, or lead to situations where you "bleed out on your feet" which is not quite as heroic as getting stabbed to death.
1.
Bounce-Back: If you drop to 0 hit points, and you haven't dropped to 0 hit points since your last short or long rest, you can bounce back. You fall prone and drop what you are holding, but regain hit points equal to your level + your Con mod (minimum 1 point). If you've already dropped to 0 hit points once since your last short or long rest, you can't bounce back a second time, and you die. Particularly important NPCs might use this rule also (when they bounce back, they regain hit points equal to their number of hit dice + their Con mod).
So that one provides one-shot protection but only once per short or long rest. Falling prone and dropping your stuff is just a flavor element to hammer home that you are really hurting right now. I like it when heroes and boss villains get a little extra oomph over mooks.
It's not perfect one-shot protection because many enemies can make multiple attacks. A variant would be, you get knocked out for 1 round and THEN bounce back.
2.
Negative Hit-Points: Your hit points can go negative, down to negative your maximum value, before you die. For example, if your maximum hit point is 42, then you can drop to -42 and still be alive, but at -43 or lower, you die.
While your hit points are negative, you remain conscious. But at the start of each turn, your number of negative hit points doubles. For example, if you start your turn with -7 hit points, then you immediately drop to -14 hit points. This isn't considered "damage;" it can't be resisted, and doesn't trigger effects based on taking damage (for example, you don't need to make a concentration check to maintain concentration on a spell).
If you receive enough healing to reach 0 hit points or higher, you stop losing hit points. (TODO: Something about Medicine checks healing you, but not to higher than 0.)
While your hit points are negative, you remain conscious. But at the start of each turn, your number of negative hit points doubles. For example, if you start your turn with -7 hit points, then you immediately drop to -14 hit points. This isn't considered "damage;" it can't be resisted, and doesn't trigger effects based on taking damage (for example, you don't need to make a concentration check to maintain concentration on a spell).
If you receive enough healing to reach 0 hit points or higher, you stop losing hit points. (TODO: Something about Medicine checks healing you, but not to higher than 0.)
The "doubling" here is meant to scale with level automatically: you're more likely to face monsters capable of dishing serious damage, putting you at larger negative values, so the doubling should exceed your negative hit points at about the same rate as it did when you were low-level and facing monsters that were only capable of dishing low damage.
It's also supposed to be scary. So you take a hit and now you're at -3, no big deal, continue to fight on. But next round you're at -6, and you take another hit putting you at a total of -22, and holy crap, you'll probably die the round after that because you only have 34 hit points so NEED HEALZ!
This doesn't provide direct one-shot protection but it does make one-shotting pretty unlikely because of the math involved. It also has a dramatic effect on healing mechanics, because healing at negative is not only no better than healing at positive, it's potentially worse because if you don't apply enough healing to get the character up to 0 then they are not stabilized!
I worry that the math on this option is broken and would make PCs unkillable, or lead to situations where you "bleed out on your feet" which is not quite as heroic as getting stabbed to death.
Dispater
Explorer
I like the core idea though. Drop to 0 hp- 1 wound. Once at 3 wounds - dead. Id just incorporate some penalties like with exhaustion (maybe a double level of exhaustion) per wound. The group I play with is fine with penalties and rolling with disadvantage, after all its a game and plenty of other times u r penalized in D&D. Death rarely happens so when it does its ok it has some risk element to it
Another idea for one-shot protection:
This combines well with "death at 0 HP" because it prevents PCs from getting suddenly ganked before they have had a chance to act, which is no fun.
Of course if you get stunned/paralyzed/petrified on round 1, you might still die before getting a chance to act, but that's pretty rare (plus it's kind of the point of those abilities).
One-Shot Protection: PCs and important NPCs can't drop to less than 1 hit point before the start of their second turn of combat.
This combines well with "death at 0 HP" because it prevents PCs from getting suddenly ganked before they have had a chance to act, which is no fun.
Of course if you get stunned/paralyzed/petrified on round 1, you might still die before getting a chance to act, but that's pretty rare (plus it's kind of the point of those abilities).
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
At what level does dying in one hit becom very rare?
Tony Vargas
Legend
It's only remotely 'common' at 1st (two hits are a lot more likely, one drops you very low, the next insta-ganks you), and the occurrence drops off rapidly, IMX. Might still happen at 2nd, should be pretty rare thereafter, though, there can be some big boat-loads of damage at high level, PCs with reasonable CON watch their hps balloon rapidly as they level.
OB1
Jedi Master
Not sure the bounce back is necessary, but I love this concept of negative hit points. Perhaps though, add death saves to the equation?
You make a Death Save at the end of your turn, doubling your negative total on a failure. If you are prone and did not move or take action in your turn, you make this check at advantage.
If you take damage while at negative HP, you reduce your Hp the damage amount or double your negative total, whichever is higher (lesser?).
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