I hate death saves. Propose your solution.

[Charlaquin]

Do you still want there to be a pre-death injured or unconscious state?

 

[Jester David]

Option 1) You die when you reach 0. Don't reach zero. Problem solved. Yeah, it sucks when a lucky crit drops a PC but no amount of changing hit points is going to change that.

Option 2) When you drop to 0, you roll a save. If you succeed, you remain at 1 hit point. If it fails, you die.

Option 3) You have a pool of other health. Vigor. Vitality. Wound Points. Whatever. When you are reduced to 0 hp, you fall unconscious and your other pool goes down by 1. It heals much slower. When that reaches 0, the next time you're dropped to 0 you die.

Option 4) When you reach 0 hp and have no hit dice remaining, you die.

Option 5) Lower the massive damage threshold. So instead of dying if you take extra damage equal to your maximum, you die if you take extra damage equal to, say, your Constitution score + Proficiency. Or Con + level.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not aware of this 'left for dead" trop

Attacker's choice sounds good.

Half the action heroes out there, especially in their backstories get beaten/stabbed/shot/burned/defenestrated/disintegrated/whatever, to the point the bad guys leave, happily convinced he's dead.
And he wakes up later, and there's a story.

 

[FrogReaver]

The idea is that entering into Vitality Points signals to players that it is time to switch from offense to defense and survival mode. Currently, there is no difference between having full HP or 1 HP, a player functions exactly the same. But then, for some reason, the difference between 1 and 0 and you suddenly cannot act at all. This creates a weakened state to represent injury and being physically overwhelmed.

I think you are after "realism" and I am not. I find it a feature not a bug that you can fight as well at max hp as at 1 hp. It's more fun to me that I can choose to make my last stand or retreat instead of the only reasonable choice to be retreat. But I am also against death saves because they are not fun. They are anti-climatic. They serve their function well, helping PC's stay alive and having players not worry as much about death (often making braver characters which is good for story) but they are one of the most fun sucking mechanics out of all of 5e.

 

[FrogReaver]

Do you still want there to be a pre-death injured or unconscious state?

Is it going to be more fun to have such a state?

 

[FrogReaver]

Half the action heroes out there, especially in their backstories get beaten/stabbed/shot/burned/defenestrated/disintegrated/whatever, to the point the bad guys leave, happily convinced he's dead.
And he wakes up later, and there's a story.

Well if you want that I think you can't look at all the time death saves because making that happen everytime you drop to 0 isn't really creating that kind of story either. You know what would be freaking awesome. Giving a player a very small chance to not die after reaching 0 hp. Like a flat d20 roll of 19-20 or maybe just 20 and you instead drop unconscious and will regain consciousness in 1d4 hours could be cool.

Good idea.

 

[neogod22]

Die at -10. Starting at -1, you lose 1hp per round until you die, or someone stabilise you. You can adjust the die @# as you see fit.

 

[Charlaquin]

Is it going to be more fun to have such a state?

I can't tell you what you'll find fun. Evidently you don't find the current death and dying rules fun, so I'm trying to sort out what part of them you dislike, to better offer an alternative. So far all I've got to work with is that you want death to occur at 0 HP. Anything else?

 

[FrogReaver]

I can't tell you what you'll find fun. Evidently you don't find the current death and dying rules fun, so I'm trying to sort out what part of them you dislike, to better offer an alternative. So far all I've got to work with is that you want death to occur at 0 HP. Anything else?

Pretty much just looking for the most fun way to make that happen.

 

[neogod22]

Well if you don't like my -10 You die, then just make death at 0. The players will figure out the rest if they know they die at 0, they will aft accordingly.

Pretty much just looking for the most fun way to make that happen.