On your third successful death save, you regain 1 Hit Point, but you are Unconscious and start a Short Rest. You remain Unconscious until you regain more Hit Points or until another creature uses an action to administer first aid to you, which requires a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check.
This playtest rule removes the notion of being stable on 0 Hit Points, and it removes the “Stabilizing a Creature” rule on page 197 of the Player’s Handbook.
So, if a party member is down, and making death saving throws but not yet made a third successful one, what happens if I apply first aid but have no potions or healing magic? Do they get 1 HP and wake up? Is first aid even possible before they survive death saving throws? RAW it sounds like I have no way to interrupt the luck of death saving throws, if stabilizing is no longer an option.
I did also wonder if applying first aid would rob them of the eventual benefits of the Short Rest but a) receiving first aid doesn’t interrupt a SR and b) even if it did, beginning a new short rest about 12s later probably won’t make a world of difference.
With the way it's written currently you can't administer first aid until the third successful death saving throw. The way it's currently written is also rather poorly written and doesn't jive with the Rules Glossary format.
It also makes both Healer's Kits and Spare the Dying completely useless as they both relied on either the act of "stabilizing a creature" or the "Dying" condition existing, but both of those things have been removed as of this UA.
Since there are no casters who can cast spare the dying in this playtest packet I think they forgot to update it for this new rule. Also completely forgot healer kits. I believe the intent is that the spare the dying from the Druid and Paladin play test is carried over. It just gives a character 1hp and that would mean they were conscious since it doesn’t say they are unconscious. Also if you have the new healer feat healer kits still works since it heals a hit die worth of damage. I would assume a normal use of a healers kit would give a creature 1 hp. If they want it to leave them unconscious it would say that as well, but as of now the normal healers kit use is not confirmed for playtest.
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I’m trying to understand how this works now…
On your third successful death save, you regain 1 Hit Point, but you are Unconscious and start a Short Rest. You remain Unconscious until you regain more Hit Points or until another creature uses an action to administer first aid to you, which requires a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check.
This playtest rule removes the notion of being stable on 0 Hit Points, and it removes the “Stabilizing a Creature” rule on page 197 of the Player’s Handbook.
So, if a party member is down, and making death saving throws but not yet made a third successful one, what happens if I apply first aid but have no potions or healing magic? Do they get 1 HP and wake up? Is first aid even possible before they survive death saving throws? RAW it sounds like I have no way to interrupt the luck of death saving throws, if stabilizing is no longer an option.
I did also wonder if applying first aid would rob them of the eventual benefits of the Short Rest but a) receiving first aid doesn’t interrupt a SR and b) even if it did, beginning a new short rest about 12s later probably won’t make a world of difference.
With the way it's written currently you can't administer first aid until the third successful death saving throw. The way it's currently written is also rather poorly written and doesn't jive with the Rules Glossary format.
It also makes both Healer's Kits and Spare the Dying completely useless as they both relied on either the act of "stabilizing a creature" or the "Dying" condition existing, but both of those things have been removed as of this UA.
I went into more detail over what's wrong with it here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/unearthed-arcana/170886-confused-on-the-new-dying-rules-latest-ua
So in short it pretty much doesn't work right now.
Since there are no casters who can cast spare the dying in this playtest packet I think they forgot to update it for this new rule. Also completely forgot healer kits. I believe the intent is that the spare the dying from the Druid and Paladin play test is carried over. It just gives a character 1hp and that would mean they were conscious since it doesn’t say they are unconscious. Also if you have the new healer feat healer kits still works since it heals a hit die worth of damage.
I would assume a normal use of a healers kit would give a creature 1 hp. If they want it to leave them unconscious it would say that as well, but as of now the normal healers kit use is not confirmed for playtest.