TLDR: what if you stayed conscious at 0hp, though with huge disadvantages? You’d still be dying and in need of immediate help, but wouldn’t that be more fun than just lying there bleeding out?
--
Death saves are just not cinematic or cool in any way. Adventurers are always falling unconscious and getting up again, and it looks dopey. It’s like some camp 1960’s Batman thing where people are always getting whanged on the head and keeling over.
It never feels very fair, either. Oops, you died because you rolled a 1. Sucks to be you. You have no choices! No options! You just get to roll a dice and hope for the best. I’ll grant you, quite often all eyes are on that d20 skittering across the table, but a death that way is just so anticlimactic, and in my experience there’s often confusion from some of the table over whether the character is even dead – oh, you were already on one fail? Shit, I didn’t even know!
It feels doubly unfair if your DM keeps hitting you when you’re down. But often, that’s what the enemy would do! Especially if they’re aware of Healing Word. It’s just, well, as a DM you sort of just fudge around the issue and try not to hit the downed idjit, because you don’t want to be a bastard. Then if you do kill ‘em that way, well it’s a pretty horrible feeling for all concerned, right?
You don’t even really get to say any last words, not rules as written anyway. Every adventurer dies unconscious and bleeding out, and every player just sits and watches them go, helplessly cursing their dice and their allies.
Remember that time when Boromir went down and the Orcs just laid the boot into his unconscious body until he died? No, me neither.
The other side of the coin is heals. I know some folk like being “the healer” and wish in-combat healing was both more viable and more necessary in 5e, buuuuuut… they’re objectively wrong, heh. No, but IMO longer battles are meh, heal-botting is meh, I like the general flow of combat as-is. I just think the deaths are boring and stupid and want to fix it with the least impact on the game as-is.
Plus, rebalancing all of healing and combat is hard. The idea here is make this completely compatible with the current rules.
So I’ve got a pretty simple change (ok, it doesn’t *look* simple, but really it’s not that complicated) that doesn’t change healing balance (much), or fight duration (much), and just makes things more fun (in my very humble).
What happens at 0 hitpoints:
You don’t go unconscious.
You are at disadvantage for all rolls other than death saves.
Any save you force will have advantage for the target.
You can’t cast spells above cantrips.
No concentration possible.
Speed is halved.
Every time you take damage on 0 hp you make another death save (not an auto-fail).
If a hit would do half your hp in damage, death save is at disadvantage.
Receiving a crit is an auto-fail, not 2.
It takes 4 (or 5?) fails to die instead of 3.
Death save failures reset on a short rest (or by battle? Or per day? Not sure).
Optional (not sure about these):
You cannot make more than one attack per attack action by any means.
You cannot voluntarily change shape.
Death save is per turn you take damage (not per round), meaning it’s once per attacker, not per attack.
(Really not sure): Disadvantage on rolls cannot be removed (i.e. you cannot gain advantage / cancel out the disadvantage).
(Really really not sure): at loss of last death save, you do go unconscious and will die in one round unless healed – there’s no roll. If you are healed from this state, no healing can bring you above 1 hp, and you have all the 0 hp penalties as above (minus the death saves), until a long rest.
Otherwise unchanged: you still make a save at the start of your turn as usual. You sit at 0 hp and heal from there as usual. Rolling a 1 loses 2 death saves, and rolling a 20 gives you a hitpoint. Full-hp-worth of damage from a single blow still insta-kills you.
The reason I like it is that it’s cinematic. The bloody, reeling, nearly finished warrior fights on, taking massive blows but somehow still (barely) standing. If they die, they die *fighting*.
It gives players *options*. They could choose to stay in the fight, or try to run, or heal themselves. They could use the rarely-seen Dodge action. They could try to bind their own wounds (at disadvantage). They could call for help or beg for mercy or say some famous last words. They could choose to stand and die for their friends.
A note about the extra failure and the rolled saves when hit (rather than auto-fails): that might make it seem like it reduces the chance of death, but from what I’ve seen of groups over the years I think it’d actually increase your chance, by the simple virtue of the enemies having a reason to keep hitting you. In fact, it might need to be 5 death saves…
And with regards to balance: it does make self-healing much more powerful, but then wouldn’t a Fighter’s Second Wind be absolutely epic in this system, instead of a bit meh? And noting you still make a death save at the start of your turn, and were more likely to get hit before it, it’s not like you don’t earn your chance to heal. Also important is the delayed reset of death saves (you’ve only got 4 or 5 for the whole battle or per short rest).
DM’s might need to be a bit more careful with the Healing Potion economy, but again, a self-heal is earned hard, and it’s not like a health pot is going to stop you dropping straight back to zero.
And finally, it fixes that old problem of folk going from perfectly fine at 1 hp, to unconscious and bleeding out at 0. There is effectively a wounded state. And I think that having someone standing on the line and getting stupidly lucky on their death saves for an insane amount of hits, or getting a heroic second wind from being punched in the face (rolling a 20 on the forced death save) – oh no, we just made him angry! – would just be amazingly memorable and epic, and most of all cinematic.
I treat Unconscious less as like they've blacked out flat on the ground, but more they're hurt, stunned, demoralized, and can't get up. They might not follow everything that's going on, but they're still conscious in the narrative sense, for the purposes of epic last words.
How is being crippled in the way you describe more fun than being unconscious, exactly?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
How is being crippled in the way you describe more fun than being unconscious, exactly?
It gives players *options*. They could choose to stay in the fight, or try to run, or heal themselves. They could use the rarely-seen Dodge action. They could try to bind their own wounds (at disadvantage). They could call for help or beg for mercy or say some famous last words. They could choose to stand and die for their friends.
From what I hear, being hard to die is already a big issue people take with 5e. This just seems to make it nearly impossible. I don't think the current system has to be drama-less. I like to think of it as being kneeled, heavily bloodied, and unable to move. Even if the rules don't necessarily support that, it's an easier change than what you did. I don't see why you gave so much more vitality beyond 0 hit points, as once you're there death should be just around the corner. With this system, death stops for some gas on his ride over.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
It gives players *options*. They could choose to stay in the fight, or try to run, or heal themselves. They could use the rarely-seen Dodge action. They could try to bind their own wounds (at disadvantage). They could call for help or beg for mercy or say some famous last words. They could choose to stand and die for their friends.
I'm pretty sure that's worse.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Death is dumb in 5e. Fight me!
--
TLDR: what if you stayed conscious at 0hp, though with huge disadvantages? You’d still be dying and in need of immediate help, but wouldn’t that be more fun than just lying there bleeding out?
--
Death saves are just not cinematic or cool in any way. Adventurers are always falling unconscious and getting up again, and it looks dopey. It’s like some camp 1960’s Batman thing where people are always getting whanged on the head and keeling over.
It never feels very fair, either. Oops, you died because you rolled a 1. Sucks to be you. You have no choices! No options! You just get to roll a dice and hope for the best. I’ll grant you, quite often all eyes are on that d20 skittering across the table, but a death that way is just so anticlimactic, and in my experience there’s often confusion from some of the table over whether the character is even dead – oh, you were already on one fail? Shit, I didn’t even know!
It feels doubly unfair if your DM keeps hitting you when you’re down. But often, that’s what the enemy would do! Especially if they’re aware of Healing Word. It’s just, well, as a DM you sort of just fudge around the issue and try not to hit the downed idjit, because you don’t want to be a bastard. Then if you do kill ‘em that way, well it’s a pretty horrible feeling for all concerned, right?
You don’t even really get to say any last words, not rules as written anyway. Every adventurer dies unconscious and bleeding out, and every player just sits and watches them go, helplessly cursing their dice and their allies.
Remember that time when Boromir went down and the Orcs just laid the boot into his unconscious body until he died? No, me neither.
The other side of the coin is heals. I know some folk like being “the healer” and wish in-combat healing was both more viable and more necessary in 5e, buuuuuut… they’re objectively wrong, heh. No, but IMO longer battles are meh, heal-botting is meh, I like the general flow of combat as-is. I just think the deaths are boring and stupid and want to fix it with the least impact on the game as-is.
Plus, rebalancing all of healing and combat is hard. The idea here is make this completely compatible with the current rules.
So I’ve got a pretty simple change (ok, it doesn’t *look* simple, but really it’s not that complicated) that doesn’t change healing balance (much), or fight duration (much), and just makes things more fun (in my very humble).
What happens at 0 hitpoints:
Optional (not sure about these):
Otherwise unchanged: you still make a save at the start of your turn as usual. You sit at 0 hp and heal from there as usual. Rolling a 1 loses 2 death saves, and rolling a 20 gives you a hitpoint. Full-hp-worth of damage from a single blow still insta-kills you.
The reason I like it is that it’s cinematic. The bloody, reeling, nearly finished warrior fights on, taking massive blows but somehow still (barely) standing. If they die, they die *fighting*.
It gives players *options*. They could choose to stay in the fight, or try to run, or heal themselves. They could use the rarely-seen Dodge action. They could try to bind their own wounds (at disadvantage). They could call for help or beg for mercy or say some famous last words. They could choose to stand and die for their friends.
A note about the extra failure and the rolled saves when hit (rather than auto-fails): that might make it seem like it reduces the chance of death, but from what I’ve seen of groups over the years I think it’d actually increase your chance, by the simple virtue of the enemies having a reason to keep hitting you. In fact, it might need to be 5 death saves…
And with regards to balance: it does make self-healing much more powerful, but then wouldn’t a Fighter’s Second Wind be absolutely epic in this system, instead of a bit meh? And noting you still make a death save at the start of your turn, and were more likely to get hit before it, it’s not like you don’t earn your chance to heal. Also important is the delayed reset of death saves (you’ve only got 4 or 5 for the whole battle or per short rest).
DM’s might need to be a bit more careful with the Healing Potion economy, but again, a self-heal is earned hard, and it’s not like a health pot is going to stop you dropping straight back to zero.
And finally, it fixes that old problem of folk going from perfectly fine at 1 hp, to unconscious and bleeding out at 0. There is effectively a wounded state. And I think that having someone standing on the line and getting stupidly lucky on their death saves for an insane amount of hits, or getting a heroic second wind from being punched in the face (rolling a 20 on the forced death save) – oh no, we just made him angry! – would just be amazingly memorable and epic, and most of all cinematic.
…without really upsetting the game’s balance.
What do you all think?
Aren't death saves already at disadvantage per your own ruling?
Err, quite right. Amended.
I treat Unconscious less as like they've blacked out flat on the ground, but more they're hurt, stunned, demoralized, and can't get up. They might not follow everything that's going on, but they're still conscious in the narrative sense, for the purposes of epic last words.
How is being crippled in the way you describe more fun than being unconscious, exactly?
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
It gives players *options*. They could choose to stay in the fight, or try to run, or heal themselves. They could use the rarely-seen Dodge action. They could try to bind their own wounds (at disadvantage). They could call for help or beg for mercy or say some famous last words. They could choose to stand and die for their friends.
From what I hear, being hard to die is already a big issue people take with 5e. This just seems to make it nearly impossible. I don't think the current system has to be drama-less. I like to think of it as being kneeled, heavily bloodied, and unable to move. Even if the rules don't necessarily support that, it's an easier change than what you did. I don't see why you gave so much more vitality beyond 0 hit points, as once you're there death should be just around the corner. With this system, death stops for some gas on his ride over.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
I'm pretty sure that's worse.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.