I hate death saves. Propose your solution.

[FrogReaver]

So I take it your issue with the current system is that it doesn’t create enough tension when a character goes down?

That's a concise way of stating it.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm really not trying to sound like a broke record here. I don't find 5e death saves fun. I want death to be more instant and more likely (maybe not more likely at low levels). 5e Death saves prolong a player death and make it very unlikely the die without a complete party wipe. I'm fairly certain I've said all this before so I doubt it helps but I don't know what more I can really define for you on this.

No, that helps. Quote a lot, in fact. You may have said all this “before,” but you did not say it in the opening post of this thread, and I am not aware of the entirety of your posting history.

Specific questions are better.

That was the exact same question!

I don't know of any implementation I particularly care for but I'm not willing to rule such a thing out entirely. I don't know all implementations etc.

See, that’s a helpful answer. That tells me that I shouldn’t bother suggesting solutions that involve such states unless they satisfy your other design goals extremely well. That will help focus my design.

Which is why I responded previously with whatever is more fun because I wasn't rulling it out completely

If you aren’t willing to rule it out completely, just tell me THAT. Telling me “It’s fine if it’s fun” is meaningless because I can’t read your mind and I don’t know what’s fun to you. Telling me “I don’t generally like such mechanics, but I’m not totally closed to the possibility” is useful information.

even though my comments about death spirals should have given you a fairly informed guess that I generally disliked them as most mechanics like that end up having a high death spiral effect.

Well, they didn’t.

Anyway, thank you for your input. I’ll take it into account and throw some ideas out there.

 

[FrogReaver]

tldr: In addition to OP's original suggestion - PC @ 1st level max hp rolls with disadvantage.

Apparently mechanics that make the pc's worse at a certain point are fairly popular. I tend to lump them together in death spiral mechanics but it's a fairly small hp range such things happen in so as long as that range is pretty small it's not a big concern but maybe not something I would want added without a really good reason for adding it.

I am trying to figure out how to be helpful, but I am struggling after reading through the thread.

Let's see if I have the OP's original favorite solution right - jack up first level hit points and when you hit 0 the PC is dead.

Then I think the OP adjusted his/her original position some, but I admit I am not sure.

So, I think the OP is looking for a solution that makes the PCs a little hardier in hps, but out of action = dead.

The extra HP is to make it about as likely that you die at level 1 without death saves as you would with death saves. I may have the extra hp a little high but it was an easy formula to start from and can be iterated down a bit if needed. After level 1 that bit of extra hp doesn't impact your survival significantly whereas the lack of death saves does impact it greatly. So the goal in my design was to keep 1st level characters in about the same place in terms of death but make it relatively easier for higher level characters to die.

IMC, this would lead to the PCs running away from tight or closely fought combats - is that a/the design goal?

I could be completely wrong - so forgive my confusion.

I would think close fights even in standard 5e rules would tend to be handled with care. Maybe the rule change pushes what is thought of as a close combat to be something slightly different than in regular 5e but I really don't forsee too much difference.

Perhaps using the OPs original formula for 1st level hps you go a step further and when a PC reaches Level HP Max plus Constitution modifier they start rolling with disadvantage. That would certainly supply a red flag for PCs.

Is the red flag about fun or realism? Why are you proposing they get a red flag right before they die?

 

[Charlaquin]

That's a concise way of stating it.

Gotcha. I can work with that.

 

[FrogReaver]

Cool, I'm actually getting an idea I kinda like:

Keep instant death at negative max hps.

Track & heal from negative hps, so reduced whack-a-mole incintives.

When dropped to 0, you're unconscious 1d4 hrs, wake up with 1hp.

When dropped below 0 you die, unless you have HD left, then you can roll 1 or more HD, if the result is greater than your current negative hps, you wake up in 1d4 hrs (or sooner if healed) with hps equal to the number you exceeded the negatives by.
If not, you die.

Advantages: removes the perverse incentive to whack-a-mole, enables the left-for-dead trope, gives tough classes and higher level characters better chances to survive, makes managing HD a more important consideration.

I like this solution as well. Actually I thought about it harder and I'm not sure. I'll have to get back to you on it.

 

[FrogReaver]

Gotcha. I can work with that.

Looking forward to seeing your proposal

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Ok, so, how about adapting my fast and loose HP narrative that I use in a more mechanical way.

Narratively, when describing damage, I say that the player receives an injury (“the orc slashes your leg, take 4 Damage”), rather than attritional damage (“the orc slams his shoulder into you, momentarily winding you, take 4 Damage”, or “the orc’s sword and yours lock for a moment and it is a huge effort to stop it reaching your throat, take 4 Damage”), when the following conditions are met:

- The character is at or below their starting HP total, or
- The Damage dealt is equal to or more than the character’s starting HP total

Example: Sam the Human Fighter with CON 16 at L1 has starting HP of 13.
Any damage taken by Sam at L1 is a narratively-described wound of some sort, because, well, L1.
At L3, Sam now has 31 HP. Only when he takes 13+ Damage in one hit, or when he is reduced down to 13 HP (and any further damage received past that point) during the fight, do I describe that attack as wounding him.

For you, you could adapt this mechanically to reflect greater levels of peril by:
- Rolling on the injury table in the DMG every time the wounds are triggered.
- Starting your PCs off with your double-HP idea but keying the above off normal starting HP (so they’re not too squishy at L1)
- Keying the above off your double-HP level if you want to make battles more dangerous
- Keeping 0 HP as dead, dead

It might allow for more control on the player’s behalf to understand that, oooh crap even though it’s only a Kobold with a butter knife, having waded through all of his family and their pet ogre, I’m now just 1 HP away from risking serious injury: where’s that healing potion?

But also gives you a nice tension to add to the battlefield. Allowing those glorious deaths - the bards will sing the Lay of Sam for years, how he fought on despite losing an eye and a hand to the swarms of kobolds that surrounded him, his blade never stopped swinging even as he fell”.

Just an idea. It’s not a spiral, but it does provide a klaxon.

 

[Coroc]

Character death is still an Option. The Thing is if you got mature Players no one will complain about it, but there is something else:

How do i introduce a new character properly into a campaign ad hoc? (Since my Group has not that often time we would not want 1 Player sit around if there is no possibility for resurrection)

This is depending on several things:

RP issues
What are you surroundings? A City - perfect, somewhere in the underdark - not so good, a different plane of existence - maybe the worst

Level differences
In my opinion in 5e there are not so many Problems with Level differences within a Group like in former Editions. Up to Level 4 or 5 imho you can easily let a replacement char start at 1. After that it should be 2-3 Levels below the Groups lowest Level without much Problems. Still, for many Players it is not that much fun to start out at high Level, they want to develop their character through the Levels, even if that is a fast process due to high Level Encounters of the Group giving XP fast.

So a possible and likely resurrection is probably the best Option to avoid the issues above - or to make it unlikely a char dies at all aka death saves.

 

[dave2008]

We use BHP (bloodied hit points). You have hit points as normal and then BHP based on your size. When you HP hit 0 you start removing BHP. When BHP reach 0 - your dead.

HP = luck, exhaustion, minor injuries (things that can heal in 1 day), amount figured per PHB
BHP = serious bodily injury, amount figured by size (d8 for medium) + con mod

 

[Draegn]

I have adopted the idea of negative HP. Each character has 10 + their starting HP negative points that they can "operate" under to seek aid, healing, play dead, escape, or attempt an action that does not involve the use of a weapon. If they have specific training or are enraged they can continue to use weapons until their negative HP is used up.