While driving around for work, I had a thought regarding how Death and Dying works in 5th Edition, and I thought I would share. Any thoughts?
How Do Mortal Wounds Work?
The Mortal Wounds rule is a death saving throw variant that uses Constitution as the basis for determining chances for surviving death in combat.
An adventurer can take a number of Mortal Wounds equal to their Constitution Score before dying.
Mortal Wounds persist with an adventurer and heal slowly, creating risk.
Getting Cut A Little Too Deep
When an adventurer drops to 0 hit points they automatically take 1 mortal wound (no save), and that wound is considered "open".
Taking critical damage has a chance to inflict a mortal wound. If an adventurer is the subject of a critical hit they must roll a Death Saving Throw (typically unmodified d20). On a roll of 10 or more, the save is a success and they avoid taking a mortal wound; on a save of less than 10, they have an open wound, and must be treated.
Taking damage at 0 hit points inflicts a new mortal wound, and causes existing wounds to bleed again. If the attack is a critical hit, the adventurer takes 2 wounds.
Optional. Each mortal wound also inflicts a scar. Scars are purely aesthetic, but if an adventurer has enough scarring, the DM may choose to have it affect their Charisma ability checks.
How To Deal With Your Mortal Wound
While mortal wounds are open the character is dying. If the character is not stabilized within 1 minute (10 rounds) of having an open wound they are dead; otherwise there is no serious threat immediate danger for having a closed wound.
A character at 0 hit points is incapacitated, and cannot therefore stabilize themselves; if an adventurer is not incapacitated, paralyzed, or otherwise helpless, they can attempt to stabilize themselves.
Medicine (Wisdom) DC 15 Skill Check, or any Healing will close the wound and stop the bleeding, but it will not remove any mortal wounds the character has sustained over time.
Mortal wounds heal over-time similar to exhaustion. Each long rest will recover 1 mortal wound; Lesser Restoration will also recover 1 mortal wound per cast. A ten-day rest (downtime activity) will recover all mortal wounds a character has; also Greater Restoration will recover all Mortal Wounds an adventurer has.
Sounds realistic, you could combine this with the optional combat rules in the DMG for Injuries and such.. For those who want to heavily play out the RP and mechanical aspects of post combat consequences.
I also included a link. Consider it an improved version of your post.
Actually, I accidentally skiped the first comment. I see other people commenting the same thing as the first few posts all the time, but I think this is the first time I've done it.
It seems like it might slow things down, not in combat, but for the story, since characters will have even more reason to long rest. Crits are unpredictable, and after a few unlucky rolls, a character can suddenly be really close to death. Especially a high hit point character who can maybe soak up a few crits, not drop to zero hit points, get healed, take a few more crits, and be dead, dead without ever actually hitting zero hit points. I realize there’s a save in there, but streaks of bad rolls happen.
I think the scars can be cool, but would be really hesitant to include in game consequences to an ability score. You could rob a player of their build or nerf a class ability. In particular a paladin who’s up in melee and could end up with lots of scars. Personally, I don’t like things that add extra bookkeeping. Also personally, I really don’t like extra randomness, since it always hurts players. The enemies are almost never going to last for more than one fight. But for the players, who will keep going, things start to add up and catch up to them.
All that said, if you’re going for a more simulationist/realism side, it seems like an interesting idea. And I do like the idea the high-con characters are more durable.
It seems like it might slow things down, not in combat, but for the story, since characters will have even more reason to long rest. Crits are unpredictable, and after a few unlucky rolls, a character can suddenly be really close to death. Especially a high hit point character who can maybe soak up a few crits, not drop to zero hit points, get healed, take a few more crits, and be dead, dead without ever actually hitting zero hit points. I realize there’s a save in there, but streaks of bad rolls happen.
My original idea actually used the modifier rather than the full Constitution Score, I changed it because I saw this as a problem as well. I haven't had the chance to playtest it though, and I'm really wondering how well it works... What I'm trying to bring together is a rule that makes combat encounters more dangerous the longer they continue day-after-day by nerfing the Death Saving Throw mechanic so it doesn't feel like you can just drop to 0, and get healed repeatedly with no real risk to your character.
I (eventually) plan to playtest this, but has anyone else had the opportunity to use this in game, and able to share their experience with it?
While driving around for work, I had a thought regarding how Death and Dying works in 5th Edition, and I thought I would share. Any thoughts?
How Do Mortal Wounds Work?
Getting Cut A Little Too Deep
How To Deal With Your Mortal Wound
Sounds realistic, you could combine this with the optional combat rules in the DMG for Injuries and such.. For those who want to heavily play out the RP and mechanical aspects of post combat consequences.
Intriguing. How would mortal wounds interact with something like the Fanatic Barbarian's abilities and those of the base Half-Orc?
Those abilities specifically keep you from hitting zero hp or from falling unconscious so, easy answer, no mortal wound mechanics.
Interesting. You could probably incorperate it with lingering injuries from DMG.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/dungeon-masters-workshop#Injuries
Glad you noticed what I already posted. Good job.
I also included a link. Consider it an improved version of your post.
Actually, I accidentally skiped the first comment. I see other people commenting the same thing as the first few posts all the time, but I think this is the first time I've done it.
It seems like it might slow things down, not in combat, but for the story, since characters will have even more reason to long rest. Crits are unpredictable, and after a few unlucky rolls, a character can suddenly be really close to death. Especially a high hit point character who can maybe soak up a few crits, not drop to zero hit points, get healed, take a few more crits, and be dead, dead without ever actually hitting zero hit points. I realize there’s a save in there, but streaks of bad rolls happen.
I think the scars can be cool, but would be really hesitant to include in game consequences to an ability score. You could rob a player of their build or nerf a class ability. In particular a paladin who’s up in melee and could end up with lots of scars. Personally, I don’t like things that add extra bookkeeping. Also personally, I really don’t like extra randomness, since it always hurts players. The enemies are almost never going to last for more than one fight. But for the players, who will keep going, things start to add up and catch up to them.
All that said, if you’re going for a more simulationist/realism side, it seems like an interesting idea. And I do like the idea the high-con characters are more durable.
My original idea actually used the modifier rather than the full Constitution Score, I changed it because I saw this as a problem as well. I haven't had the chance to playtest it though, and I'm really wondering how well it works... What I'm trying to bring together is a rule that makes combat encounters more dangerous the longer they continue day-after-day by nerfing the Death Saving Throw mechanic so it doesn't feel like you can just drop to 0, and get healed repeatedly with no real risk to your character.
I (eventually) plan to playtest this, but has anyone else had the opportunity to use this in game, and able to share their experience with it?