D&D 5E KO and Death Saves

[S'mon]

I guess if a player demanded to make saves I'd allow it... if they fail 3, of course they still die.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Y'know if you just want to become unstable, you can also just do a pact with the other PCs like "If someone knocks me unconscious, hit me with an unarmed strike!"
That's within the rules.

 

[delericho]

Not something I'd considered.

My answer would be "no" - you don't make death saves when stable.

 

[Galendril]

So, what if you implemented this house rule to allow death saves when KO'd and you get KO'd and then followed up by an actual death save scenario in the same fight? Additionally, if you already failed on 2 of your death saves on regaining consciousness, you'd be stuck on your 3rd save in the battle for your character's life. Seems pretty dumb to me.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I allowed players to make saves when they were KO'd by non-lethal means last weekend. Success meant they were only dazed for a few moments while failure meant they were out like a light.

 

[iserith]

IF an NPC tries to knock out a PC (or vice versa) and reduces her to 0 hps she is unconscious and stable. Would you allow her to make Stabilization rolls anyway in hopes she can roll a 20 and gain an HP and wake up?

No. You're unconscious for 1d4 hours or until healed.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Maybe the npc's were not that accurate with their calibration of the "tap" to the head. Literature/movies are full of hero's waking up at a time inconvenient to the bad guy. The randomness give you a chance to avoid being trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Note that you make explicit the point that it is literature and movies wherein this happens. In other words, their stories dictated that the hero woke up prematurely to advance the literature or movie's plot-- that's why they are literature or movies. So to go along with this train of thought... if I had my NPCs knock the PCs out (rather than kill them), perhaps I might allow one or more of them to "come to" while being dragged or carried to wherever the NPCs wanted to take them, so that the PCs could make use of the time in some form or fashion. But again, that's due to the story of the adventure dictating that perhaps I want the PCs to know where they were being brought to-- and not just because it happens randomly.

If PCs are being knocked out it's for a story reason. And I'm not going to make the story more complicated, illogical, or wasteful of time on a useless tangent just because "rolling". There's plenty of rolling already in the game, we don't need to add it in here too.

 

[scholz]

I find it interesting that several people talk about PCs being knocked out "for story reasons", presumably they were being lethally attacked for "story reasons" too. I'm not sure why that would make a difference.
What if the scenario was a "bar fight - wrestling and fisticuffs." No one is trying to kill anyone, but being able to get up during the fight might make sense.

 

[Noctem]

No. You're unconscious for 1d4 hours or until healed.

+1.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Sure, I'd just run it like death saves. 3 successes before 3 failures. If you fail your "consciousness" throws then you're simply knocked out for at least 1 hour (a short rest, at which point you would regain 1 hp). If you succeed 3 times or get a nat 20, you regain consciousness at 1 hp.

Why is 3 fails still "unconscouns"? I would have thought that if you're allowing dice rolls, then there should be consequences for both success and failure.

3 successes, the character wakes up with 1 HP.
3 failures, the NPC hit them harder than they intended and the damage was fatal.