D&D 5E New Death and Dying Rules

[Jeff Carlsen]

Unconscious at 0, no negative hit points, death saves, and dead if you take your maximum hit points in damage or fail three saves.

I mostly like the new death and dying rules. Anything that does away with negative hit points is worth trying. The only thing I would change is the amount of damage an unconscious person can take before death.

You're unconscious, so it makes no sense whatsoever that all the intangible elements of hit points would help keep you alive. Instead, it should be your con score. When you're unconscious, it shouldn't matter what level you are.

 

[Sadrik]

You're unconscious, so it makes no sense whatsoever that all the intangible elements of hit points would help keep you alive. Instead, it should be your con score. When you're unconscious, it shouldn't matter what level you are.

I can see making it CON + level. Adding in a small amount of scaling but mostly making it about meat. One other thing I can see too is Size. A gargantuan dragon has a lot of meat so should be able to go a lot lower than a pixie.

 

[Warbringer]

I like the massive damage rule, I like the 3 failed saves, nice for bleeding out, but don't like unconscious at 0 for everyone. Would rather some rule to let you fight on, maybe just disadvantage on the death saving roll....

 

[GX.Sigma]

No more negative hit points. Good. negative hit points. It makes the math tricky, and it makes you say "0 hit points or fewer" all the time.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>...and it makes you say "0 hit points or fewer" all the time.

Or you could say "less than 1 hit point"

 

[Morrus]

How is that different to 4E?

You still have to track negative hp. Otherwise how do you know when you're at negative X?

 

[GX.Sigma]

How is that different to 4E?

You still have to track negative hp. Otherwise how do you know when you're at negative X?

You don't. Whenever you take any damage while dying, that counts as 2 death save failures (out of 3). If you take enough damage past zero that it totals your max hp (in one instance of damage), you die.

 

[Klaus]

Unconscious at 0, no negative hit points, death saves, and dead if you take your maximum hit points in damage or fail three saves.

I mostly like the new death and dying rules. Anything that does away with negative hit points is worth trying. The only thing I would change is the amount of damage an unconscious person can take before death.

You're unconscious, so it makes no sense whatsoever that all the intangible elements of hit points would help keep you alive. Instead, it should be your con score. When you're unconscious, it shouldn't matter what level you are.

Note that taking damage while dying counts as a failed death save. If you're dying,a goblin can stab you three times and you're toast.

 

[Klaus]

You don't. Whenever you take any damage while dying, that counts as 2 death save failures (out of 3).

No, it counts as one failed death save. The only instance that counts as two is rolling a natural 1 on a death save.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I really like it. It's better than 4e in that you don't have to track negative hp and that you fail a death save if you take damage while down.