A house rule to help stop rubber banding is use the exhaustion. Each time you fail a death save you get 1 level of Exhaustion even if you normally are immune. to help balance it a little you do not die from 3 failed death saves, instead at level 6 Exhaustin. This gives you a few more saves before death but you do not erase the failed save if you get 3 good ones.
As a reminder of the effect
Exhaustion Levels. This condition is cumulative. Each time you receive it, you gain 1 Exhaustion level. You die if your Exhaustion level is 6.
D20 Tests Affected. When you make a D20 Test, the roll is reduced by 2 times your Exhaustion level.
Speed Reduced. Your Speed is reduced by a number of feet equal to 5 times your Exhaustion level.
Oh, I really like it! I'll definitely try this at my table. I also used the exhaustion mechanic, but it was: If you come back from 0HP, make a con-save, if you fail, 1 LoE, and the DC increases each time. Also, I use the rule, that death saves do not refresh every time you drop to 0 HP, but only on a short or long rest. Now, the PCs are encouraged to heal their allies up, rather than letting them rubber band. To balance this out, you can give the PCs a number of Death Save slots equal PB, so it becomes harder to die the higher their level. But your rule sounds worth trying, thanks for sharing!
If you get healed, does the level of exhaustion get reduced?
I think if you go down, exhaustion is actually reasonable. Something that I dislike about 5e in general is that as a healer, I am somewhat encouraged to just let people go down and just pop them back up with a healing word. It's dumb to me, but mechanically makes sense. Dropping exhaustion out there gives going down a bit of teeth, a bit of consequence and I think I like that. I think it also makes things slightly more lethal as it would be pretty easy to rack up those exhaustion levels. I think I might actually point my DM to this post to take a look at.
EDIT: I actually think I'd consider taking it farther and giving a point of exhaustion every time someone drops. I feel like that SHOULD take something out of someone. maybe, I'd let people drop a point of exhaustion on a short rest to encourage more lunch breaks.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Yes, I think this exhaustion should be treated slightly different than "normal" exhaustion. So, after a rest, exhaustion is reduced, either 1 after a short and all after a long, or all after a short, or maybe also when magically fully healed. The details should be discussed and adjusted to your group's desired level of lethality. Otherwise it could be too tough. On the other hand, this exhaustion should also affect Spell Save DCs, because otherwise it would farther increase the caster-martial divide. A martial with 2 levels of exhaustion is debilitated in attacking, while a caster can still cast saving throw spells.
In the one campaign I used this it never got past level 1 but that was because each player found ways to make sure they had access to Healing word except the fight. Mind you it did make them shift there tactcs. The Bard/Soc with a enspelled staff of healing he made for himself and other did a lot of healing as a bonuses action. At one point he even had 2 on him that he used as he attunemed to both.
You should not punish yo-yo healing when WotC makes it the most mathematically efficient way to heal.
Even post-2024, high-tier creatures can out-damage a healers healing 4-to-1 per action.
Instead of punishing this, I suggest a more viable answer is to buff healing at your table. That way, yo-yo healing is no longer the most mechanically efficient way to survive an encounter.
You should not punish yo-yo healing when WotC makes it the most mathematically efficient way to heal.
Even post-2024, high-tier creatures can out-damage a healers healing 4-to-1 per action.
Instead of punishing this, I suggest a more viable answer is to buff healing at your table. That way, yo-yo healing is no longer the most mechanically efficient way to survive an encounter.
You can do both. I think 3.x had a different way to discourage letting someone go down. As I recall, standing up provoked an attack of opportunity. Add that back would make dropping and getting back up risky for melee combatants. It wouldn't really affect ranged combats though.
In 3.x the major thing that stop this was negative health. At 0 hp you where staggered (not down) and if you took any action your took 1 damage but you where still standing at this point. at -X hp you where down bleeding to death at 1 hp a turn and died if you negative hit your max (binding or healing would stop bleed to death.). Each day with treatment you healed your level in HP (not full like in 5.x) and did not wake up till you have 1 or more HP. This made it so healing spell did not get you back up if the hit was bad.
In 5.x unless it is a kill shot every hit is the same when you have 1 hp as it bring you down to 0 not negative.
In 3.x the major thing that stop this was negative health. At 0 hp you where staggered (not down) and if you took any action your took 1 damage but you where still standing at this point. at -X hp you where down bleeding to death at 1 hp a turn and died if you negative hit your max (binding or healing would stop bleed to death.). Each day with treatment you healed your level in HP (not full like in 5.x) and did not wake up till you have 1 or more HP. This made it so healing spell did not get you back up if the hit was bad.
In 5.x unless it is a kill shot every hit is the same when you have 1 hp as it bring you down to 0 not negative.
It only went down to -9 without dying. An optional rule allowed you to go die when you equal or exceeded your constitution score, so it wasn't actually much different than 5e. Let's see
You could do the same thing in 5e where you can go down to -x. Maybe -5 minus your constitution modifier.
If you are dropped below 0, potentially take a fraction of the excess damage to push you negative (creating added risk for allowing allies to be low).*
On a failed death saving throw, take 1 damage.
On a success, heal by 1 up to 0.
At 0, you don't roll.
If you are at a negative number, that is subtracted from any healing.
* You can also do this with the current D&D system by saying something like when the damage that drops you exceeds your current HP, divide the excess by your current HP and round down to get the number of immediately failed saves. But that can end characters pretty quickly.
A house rule to help stop rubber banding is use the exhaustion. Each time you fail a death save you get 1 level of Exhaustion even if you normally are immune. to help balance it a little you do not die from 3 failed death saves, instead at level 6 Exhaustin. This gives you a few more saves before death but you do not erase the failed save if you get 3 good ones.
As a reminder of the effect
Exhaustion Levels. This condition is cumulative. Each time you receive it, you gain 1 Exhaustion level. You die if your Exhaustion level is 6.
D20 Tests Affected. When you make a D20 Test, the roll is reduced by 2 times your Exhaustion level.
Speed Reduced. Your Speed is reduced by a number of feet equal to 5 times your Exhaustion level.
I spell Goodly.
Oh, I really like it! I'll definitely try this at my table. I also used the exhaustion mechanic, but it was: If you come back from 0HP, make a con-save, if you fail, 1 LoE, and the DC increases each time. Also, I use the rule, that death saves do not refresh every time you drop to 0 HP, but only on a short or long rest. Now, the PCs are encouraged to heal their allies up, rather than letting them rubber band. To balance this out, you can give the PCs a number of Death Save slots equal PB, so it becomes harder to die the higher their level.
But your rule sounds worth trying, thanks for sharing!
If you get healed, does the level of exhaustion get reduced?
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
I think if you go down, exhaustion is actually reasonable. Something that I dislike about 5e in general is that as a healer, I am somewhat encouraged to just let people go down and just pop them back up with a healing word. It's dumb to me, but mechanically makes sense. Dropping exhaustion out there gives going down a bit of teeth, a bit of consequence and I think I like that. I think it also makes things slightly more lethal as it would be pretty easy to rack up those exhaustion levels. I think I might actually point my DM to this post to take a look at.
EDIT: I actually think I'd consider taking it farther and giving a point of exhaustion every time someone drops. I feel like that SHOULD take something out of someone. maybe, I'd let people drop a point of exhaustion on a short rest to encourage more lunch breaks.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Yes, I think this exhaustion should be treated slightly different than "normal" exhaustion. So, after a rest, exhaustion is reduced, either 1 after a short and all after a long, or all after a short, or maybe also when magically fully healed. The details should be discussed and adjusted to your group's desired level of lethality. Otherwise it could be too tough. On the other hand, this exhaustion should also affect Spell Save DCs, because otherwise it would farther increase the caster-martial divide. A martial with 2 levels of exhaustion is debilitated in attacking, while a caster can still cast saving throw spells.
In the one campaign I used this it never got past level 1 but that was because each player found ways to make sure they had access to Healing word except the fight. Mind you it did make them shift there tactcs. The Bard/Soc with a enspelled staff of healing he made for himself and other did a lot of healing as a bonuses action. At one point he even had 2 on him that he used as he attunemed to both.
I spell Goodly.
I have never though about that and may add it as a house rule even when this house rule is not used.
I spell Goodly.
You should not punish yo-yo healing when WotC makes it the most mathematically efficient way to heal.
Even post-2024, high-tier creatures can out-damage a healers healing 4-to-1 per action.
Instead of punishing this, I suggest a more viable answer is to buff healing at your table. That way, yo-yo healing is no longer the most mechanically efficient way to survive an encounter.
You can do both. I think 3.x had a different way to discourage letting someone go down. As I recall, standing up provoked an attack of opportunity. Add that back would make dropping and getting back up risky for melee combatants. It wouldn't really affect ranged combats though.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
In 3.x the major thing that stop this was negative health. At 0 hp you where staggered (not down) and if you took any action your took 1 damage but you where still standing at this point. at -X hp you where down bleeding to death at 1 hp a turn and died if you negative hit your max (binding or healing would stop bleed to death.). Each day with treatment you healed your level in HP (not full like in 5.x) and did not wake up till you have 1 or more HP. This made it so healing spell did not get you back up if the hit was bad.
In 5.x unless it is a kill shot every hit is the same when you have 1 hp as it bring you down to 0 not negative.
I spell Goodly.
It only went down to -9 without dying. An optional rule allowed you to go die when you equal or exceeded your constitution score, so it wasn't actually much different than 5e. Let's see
* You can also do this with the current D&D system by saying something like when the damage that drops you exceeds your current HP, divide the excess by your current HP and round down to get the number of immediately failed saves. But that can end characters pretty quickly.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.