Latest drop of the players handbook UA details the "Death Saving Throws", spelling out that you regain 1HP on third death save but you are unconscious and start a short rest.
You stay unconscious until you gain HP (from this short rest) or until another creature uses and action to administer first aid .... This rule Removes "Stabilizing a Creature" in the PHB
My question: If there is no 'stabilizing a creature' any longer, and the only mention of first aid is AFTER a successful death save. Can you help a person suceed in their death save outside of outright healing them via magic or a feature? Do you just watch, hoping they save?
Latest drop of the players handbook UA details the "Death Saving Throws", spelling out that you regain 1HP on third death save but you are unconscious and start a short rest.
You stay unconscious until you gain HP (from this short rest) or until another creature uses and action to administer first aid .... This rule Removes "Stabilizing a Creature" in the PHB
My question: If there is no 'stabilizing a creature' any longer, and the only mention of first aid is AFTER a successful death save. Can you help a person suceed in their death save outside of outright healing them via magic or a feature? Do you just watch, hoping they save?
RAW, no. You can't administer first aid to a creature unless they have already succeeded on three death saving throws. Which is very dumb.
The only place in the PHB where "first aid" is mentioned is in the Stabilizing a Creature section of the PHB. I think this is just an oversight when they defined the new Dying rules.
This problem was also present in the Druid and Paladins UA which replaced "Falling Unconscious," "Death Saving Throws," and "Stabilizing a Creature" with the Dying Condition.
Not to mention this latest iteration of the Dying rules kinda defies the syntax of the rules glossary where instead of replacing the entire section named "Death Saving Throws" it's only meant to replace this one sentence "On your third success, you become stable (see below)" and the "Stabilizing a Creature" section. Which seems sloppily written to me (albeit I haven't been keeping general track of how well written the rules glossary terms are, this one just stuck out to me).
If we replaced the 2014 PHB's entire "Death Saving Throws" section (what the playtest UAs tell us to do) with what appears in the glossary we'd lose:
the definition of a death saving throw
the DC of a death saving throw (10)
what happens after failing three death saving throws
what happens on rolling a 1
what happens on rolling a 20 - (rules that the Champion Fighter modifies by the by)
There's also the consideration that by removing the "stabilizing a creature" but not updating Healer's Kits, or Spare the Dying. That item and that cantrip become completely useless.
Spare the Dying doubly so cause the 2014 definition relies on stabilizing a creature at 0 hp being a thing. While the version redefined in Druid and Paladin UA relies on the "Dying Condition" being a thing which it no longer is.
All that said and done I think what we're supposed to do in playtesting this is to keep things as close to 2014 as possible with the new changes in mind:
A successful first aid wisdom(medicine) check restores a dying (not dead) creature at 0 hp to 1 hp.
Healer's Kits do the same expending 1 use.
Spare the Dying does the same without any resource cost.
But please, absolutely include some words about how poorly written this UA's "Death Saving Throws" feature is in the upcoming survey.
Sorry to necro this but just finished an adventure using playtest Dying/Unconscious rules and thought this seemed a suitable place to share the results. TL;DR we made it so you don't automatically go Unconscious when you drop to 0HP, and gave the characters a level of Exhaustion and the Dazed condition while Dying. It came out as the clear favourite change amongst the other playtest changes and will be a recurring houserule in all of our future games.
I've always been disappointed with the the 2014 Unconscious/Dying rules for a number of reasons:
No epic final stands. You don't get the memorable moments when a Dying character does something to protect the others, defeat the BBEG, or save the world, despite knowing they'll likely die as a result. Likewise, no epic deaths as they're almost always Unconscious.
Similar to the above, it's not interactive or fun for the players when all they can do is roll a die.
There's no enduring consequence from falling to 0HP. This encourages going all out in offence and relying on 'Whack-a-Mole' healing.
Unconscious and Dying being entwined leads to some confusion and prevents Unconscious from being used as a Condition.
Players knowing the Death Saving Throw results detracted from the tension and encouraged metagaming that often led to player decisions made in opposition to what their characters would have decided.
With the separation of Unconscious & Dying, change to Exhaustion, and addition of the Dazed condition, I was inspired to Tweak Dying to the following for one of our playtest campaigns:
Dying. When you fall to 0 Hit Points you are Dying and gain a level of Exhaustion. When you are Dying you have the Dazed condition, can't Concentrate, and must make a Constitution saving throw to avoid falling Unconscious every time you take damage, including the damage that dropped you to 0HP. The DC for this save is 15 or the damage taken, whichever is higher. [Death Saving Throw rules as Playtest 6 except the DM rolls in secret if the character is Unconscious, and rolls are made at the end of a player's turn].
Results/feedback:
Players loved still being able to act. Some used the opportunity to heal/stabilize themselves, some went out in a blaze of glory. Even if they fell Unconscious they said they felt they'd had a chance and it was down to bad rolls or their poor CON save. The barbarian especially loved the opportunity to keep fighting, taking foes with them, until they finally dropped dead.
Exhaustion made them suitably scared of dropping to 0HP and drove positive tactical decision making to defend/heal injured party members. They said knowing they could do it once/day and recover by the end of a Long Rest made it feel about the right level of consequence.
Not knowing the status of Unconscious Dying characters really ramped up tension and drove the players to try and heal/stabilize them as quickly as possible.
The risk of being knocked Unconscious terrified them. It drove defensive tactics and team decisions which were really rewarding to watch play out.
Dazed wasn't perfect. Because they could only move or Disengage, but not both, players said they felt they didn't want to risk a tactical retreat and risk getting knocked Unconscious from an AoO (I think in future iterations I'll allow Dying characters to Disengage for free. Feels messy but best option I can see so far).
Overall, we really enjoyed this slight tweak. There's also possibilities for developing class and species features or traits that interact with elements of it as well. For example, Automatons might be immune to being knocked Unconscious (or gain Advantage) while Dying, Barbarians (or a subclass) might be able to 1/day not suffer Exhaustion from falling to 0HP, the Undead species might have a trait that lets them ignore the Dazed condition while Dying, etc.
Hopefully someone finds this useful to either playtest themselves or as inspiration to create their own tweaks to the 0HP rules.
Latest drop of the players handbook UA details the "Death Saving Throws", spelling out that you regain 1HP on third death save but you are unconscious and start a short rest.
You stay unconscious until you gain HP (from this short rest) or until another creature uses and action to administer first aid .... This rule Removes "Stabilizing a Creature" in the PHB
My question: If there is no 'stabilizing a creature' any longer, and the only mention of first aid is AFTER a successful death save. Can you help a person suceed in their death save outside of outright healing them via magic or a feature? Do you just watch, hoping they save?
RAW, no. You can't administer first aid to a creature unless they have already succeeded on three death saving throws. Which is very dumb.
The only place in the PHB where "first aid" is mentioned is in the Stabilizing a Creature section of the PHB. I think this is just an oversight when they defined the new Dying rules.
This problem was also present in the Druid and Paladins UA which replaced "Falling Unconscious," "Death Saving Throws," and "Stabilizing a Creature" with the Dying Condition.
Not to mention this latest iteration of the Dying rules kinda defies the syntax of the rules glossary where instead of replacing the entire section named "Death Saving Throws" it's only meant to replace this one sentence "On your third success, you become stable (see below)" and the "Stabilizing a Creature" section. Which seems sloppily written to me (albeit I haven't been keeping general track of how well written the rules glossary terms are, this one just stuck out to me).
If we replaced the 2014 PHB's entire "Death Saving Throws" section (what the playtest UAs tell us to do) with what appears in the glossary we'd lose:
There's also the consideration that by removing the "stabilizing a creature" but not updating Healer's Kits, or Spare the Dying. That item and that cantrip become completely useless.
Spare the Dying doubly so cause the 2014 definition relies on stabilizing a creature at 0 hp being a thing. While the version redefined in Druid and Paladin UA relies on the "Dying Condition" being a thing which it no longer is.
All that said and done I think what we're supposed to do in playtesting this is to keep things as close to 2014 as possible with the new changes in mind:
But please, absolutely include some words about how poorly written this UA's "Death Saving Throws" feature is in the upcoming survey.
Sorry to necro this but just finished an adventure using playtest Dying/Unconscious rules and thought this seemed a suitable place to share the results. TL;DR we made it so you don't automatically go Unconscious when you drop to 0HP, and gave the characters a level of Exhaustion and the Dazed condition while Dying. It came out as the clear favourite change amongst the other playtest changes and will be a recurring houserule in all of our future games.
I've always been disappointed with the the 2014 Unconscious/Dying rules for a number of reasons:
With the separation of Unconscious & Dying, change to Exhaustion, and addition of the Dazed condition, I was inspired to Tweak Dying to the following for one of our playtest campaigns:
Dying. When you fall to 0 Hit Points you are Dying and gain a level of Exhaustion. When you are Dying you have the Dazed condition, can't Concentrate, and must make a Constitution saving throw to avoid falling Unconscious every time you take damage, including the damage that dropped you to 0HP. The DC for this save is 15 or the damage taken, whichever is higher. [Death Saving Throw rules as Playtest 6 except the DM rolls in secret if the character is Unconscious, and rolls are made at the end of a player's turn].
Results/feedback:
Overall, we really enjoyed this slight tweak. There's also possibilities for developing class and species features or traits that interact with elements of it as well. For example, Automatons might be immune to being knocked Unconscious (or gain Advantage) while Dying, Barbarians (or a subclass) might be able to 1/day not suffer Exhaustion from falling to 0HP, the Undead species might have a trait that lets them ignore the Dazed condition while Dying, etc.
Hopefully someone finds this useful to either playtest themselves or as inspiration to create their own tweaks to the 0HP rules.