I feel like a system wherein healing spells are more effective on non-unconscious targets might make sense. Or even a mechanic where receiving healing while unconscious is _only_ able to restore you to 1hp -- maybe that's too harsh but something like that would incentivize the party to stay topped off
Great ideas, might have to revamp healing spells to make it reasonable to heal more often. Maybe healing spells do max hp out of combat, I've seen some tables use that rule
Honestly going unconscious should have always applied a level of exhaustion, representing a severe wound your character received in the process of going down. Especially with the new Exhaustion Rules in One D&D
the thing i like that helps a bit is when you hit 0 hp and get fixed up with magic i give a point of Exhaustion it only really matters in the big fights and it makes things feel scarier and encourages better healing practices
In a TTRPG I am currently building I made a somewhat similar system to Death Saves with a few alterations that I enjoy running. Firsty: going on to 0 HP and below is not a binary 'I was perfectly fine before and now I am dead' situation as it is in 5e. 0 HP _is_ the point from which onwards your character might not survive this encounter, or will survive it but will remain wounded. With negative half of your max HP being the point where your character truly was squashed to a pulp beyond repair. In terms of actually recovering from death saves it isn't that easy either. Simple healing spells and potions might help the hero endure more hits, but they are already at death's door regardless. Instead, they will need to be medically tended to and stabilized using a succesfull roll to be able to endure the situation. And just rolling high a bunch of times won't allow a character to withstand death for that long for two main reasons: 1) instead of a different tracking system for succesfull and saved death saves, every failed save slowly eats away at your stamina (which is another resource in this game). Meaning if you drop to 0 Hitpoints for a second time in a fight, you will be more weary and will struggle enduring another fatal injury. 2) Each time a character drops to 0 hit-points, they recieve a permanent injury that will forever haunt them on their journey: whether it is losing an arm, being emotionally scarred by the event, etc. This means that even if you withstand death, it's not without consequence, and your character will be forever scarred by that event. To add insult to injury, every one of these scars increases the DC of a medicine check required to stabilize your character, meaning the healer's job will be harder every time a player character is downed. Another gripe I have with 5e's death system that you didn't mention in the video is how during this long period of time, where you roll death saves and the stakes are supposedly at their highest, your character sits there doing nothing. In the system I am writing I wanted dying characters to have as much glory as they can in their last moments. This means that a dying character will have less actions at their disposal, but they will have specific bonuses applied to anything they try to do. Meaning they're bound to go out with a bang if they don't survive this. Lastly, and this is more of a thing about the system in general, I made healing spells more scarce. This doesn't change the effectivity of death mechanics as much, because at some point healing spells are bound to become attainable for a party powerful enough in settings such as the ones that this system encourages, but healing someone out of a nasty situation feels all the more earned when healing spells are generally pricier then damaging spells, and when clerics and magical items or potions are the only sources of instant health regeneration besides resting and letting time heal all wounds.
I'm pretty new to DnD and nothing you said sounds unreasonable. I especially dislike the fact that it's better for a healer to let someone "almost" die, it just doesn't make any sense.
5th edition is a lot of fun, but it's very gamified in a way that favors leveraging the mechanics over what is realistic or believable. Ben from Questing Beast has a great video explaining the different ways that TTRPGs approach combat: ua-cam.com/video/qnKc64ADYf8/v-deo.html This is part of what's driven me to look into the OSR a lot recently
You're right, this does happen with some players or some tables. That being said I've played for many years and I have been in campaigns where we had no healers. We just had to rely on healing potions. It was different. Generally speaking, healing spells are incredibly weak in DND 5e. They aren't like a video game where you can keep people above 80% HP all the time. It's unfortunate, but it is the truth.
Well, it is a "game"; it's not trying to be a simulation. It may not be realistic, but it is fun, and it tries to keep the action moving along without getting too bogged down by calculating injury penalties every round. A round of combat is slow enough already...!
my 5E house rule on death saves: Failed death saves stay with your character until after a long rest. So, even if you pop back up, you're still on the verge of death and need to be very careful.
I've actually been working on doing a FF7 inspired setting and having to do a lot of setting specific house rules in order to make it feel more like Final Fantasy and one of those rules is that healing magic like Cure Wounds doesn't work on unconscious people. You need to use the Revive spell or a Phoenix Down first which will wake them up and restore a small amount of hit points. THEN you can cast Cure Wounds on them.
What if we had to stabilize a creature before we can heal them? What if we get a penalty for low health, like -1 for rolls under 50%, down to -5 under 10% What if you had to make CON Saves, while you only had 1HP / less than 10%/5% to stay contious? These methods fore the players to use underutilized tools and encourage healing more HP than the absolute minimum
I do think that 5e the DM should be making death saves in secret so that party members aren’t thinking ‘ah Frodo is fine he passed his last two death saves’. One of my DMs also has a home brew rule of giving a level of exhaustion if you go down and pop back up again.
one thing ive seen done was giving exhausting if you are downed and brought back up. that way nothing much changed but gives a reson to actualy gives an actual reson to not get downed.
Roll 2d6 and halve it rounding up. Thats how many turns it takes before you die. If you get hit while down that takes another turn from you and further subtracts your health into the minus numbers, there is no limit on how low this can go. Only nat 20s can return you any health to stabilize you and even then you only get 20+ your highest mod back. Other than that you must rely on allies to heal you with medicine checks or spells. Potions and salves can be applied during the medicine check to apply extra healing. When up roll another 2d6 temporary hp as an adrenaline bonus, this lasts till it is removed from damage or you leave combat. Once that temp hp is gone take a level of exhaustion. ps the potions and consumable items in my campaigns are all super buffed in my campaigns.
Thanks for the Video bud. This is the first time I've seen your channel. I enjoyed the way you presented your information. I will be watching some of your other videos and looking out for future videos. 🎉 I agree with you that healing is often done when characters are unconscious more often than not. I think that is a flaw in the system because there isn't really any punishment in 5e for going unconscious or being on the brink of death. Generally speaking I wish healing spells worked a bit differently and were capable of keeping a party fairly healthy throughout combat encounters. I think if it were like that, there would be some adaptation to how combat is presented. In the games current state with balance, allowing players to have access to such powerful healing spells would more than likely negate any challenge in combat. I think it would be difficult to balance combat in this scenario. I also do not like how there are no written punishment towards the players for being dropped to 0hp and then healed. As an example in a recent combat encounter my Rogue was in, I fell unconscious 3 times in 5 rounds. At the end of the fight I was able to regain some HP but beyond missing a bunch of turns there was nothing that happened to my character. I wish something transferred over from that traumatic experience but alas there are no rules for that.
Hi Yevgeniy! Glad to have you with us! I agree that it's a flawed combat system. There are some ways that you can improve it with house rules, but some mechanics are too fundamental to monkey around with without destabilizing the whole game. Once I played a paladin who charged into a mob and go down 5 or 6 times in a fight and keep popping back up. After that my DM made a house rule that every time you come back to consciousness after the first you take one level of exhaustion. It's made our party a bit more careful, but it doesn't make us change the way we do combat too much. But there's not that many options of how to do combat in DnD once you've picked your class
I’d like to see some disadvantage imposed when a character gets close to 0hp. Maybe when they get down to 25% health they lose half of their movement speed ,or have disadvantage on attack rolls ,or half the damage they can do. It would encourage players to stay on their feet.
I think the problem may not be the death saves and the whack-a-mole pop up healing but as you mentioned in the video the fact that their is no benefit to pre-healing. I use the bloodiest condition for monsters (at 1/2 their max HP I describe the creature as bloodied so players know they are having an impact - or not) but perhaps it would be good to reduce damage from bloodied players, and monsters? Maybe keep the damage dice but only apply the modifiers on a crit so instead of doing 1d8+4 damage you would be doing 1d8. I'm not sure how that would work in practice it could spiral out of control and lead to tpks if the fight starts going badly or maybe it would encourage players to negotiate or run away to replan and that would be generally good for the game as it would leas to more drama and more preparation for encounters from the players rather than walking into everything to kick ass. I need to try it.
It's a difficult problem to solve. Something like limiting the players can create a death spiral that may not be any fun for your players, especially in the slog that 5e combat often is. In 4e I believe bloodied monsters gained access to special abilities that they didn't get with high hp. It might be cool to penalize your players when they get to low hp, but balance it with new cool "desperate" abilities
This mechanic in specific isnt that hard to fix by taking a little pick at pf2e. But you are right. That's why I like numenara better than d&d. In Numenara whenever you put effort into something, you spend the resource. So a very tough climb will leave you as tired as a fight. Mental match between 2 chess grandmasters is as tiresome as being assaulted mentally. It's also fun seeing the players learn that putting a lot of effort into everything is a very easy way to to screw yourself over when a fight appears
TBH I don't mind death saves as a CONCEPT. Sure, 5e's are flawed, but i disagree that as a whole, the Death Save mechanic cannot be done better. Take Cyberpunk or something, making a death save is a much bigger deal. There's low healing, you DO incur penalties as you get closer to death, and dropping to 0 HP and making your single death save DOES feel terrifying, because you're always at risk of dying immediately, and its only going to get harder if you're not stabilized., being at low HP does feel close to death, as you gain penalties, can barely heal outside of downtime, you' aren't just gonna roll a natural 20 and pop back up, instead, your next save just becomes trickier. There's no situation where its better to let them go down, and then heal them, because you can only stabilize them, at which point they still cannot help out in combat, being close to 0 HP feels close to death, because death saves are very unforgiving, and you won't be recovering health until the job's over, and being "seriously wounded" does impact every one of your skills.
I have a few friends who play Cyberpunk, but I've never looked into it. That definitely seems like a more visceral and drama inducing way to handle death saves. I'll have to check it out!
I've been playing Pathfinder which has death saves, but they work differently: There are four "dying" levels, you start at dying-1 The roll for each is 10 + the dying level you're at.(1st is 11, 2nd is 12...) Failing on a save moves you up a dying level. Succeeding on a save moves you down one. You die when you hit dying-4 When you hit dying-0 you're unconscious with zero HP, but with the "wounded" condition which gives you penalties. There is a "doomed" condition which reduces the number of dying levels you have available, and can last an in-game week or more. Critting, success or fail, (which in Pathfinder is 10 above or below the DC) on a roll counts as two levels. Just like in D&D, gaining any HP ends the dying condition.
Interesting! I've played Pathfinder 1e which had fort saves to stabilize and if you failed you lost 1hp, and if you hit your negative Con score you died. Interesting to see how they've found a sort of middle ground between pf1 and 5e for pf2
On the flipside, I don't like how lingering injuries were done in the farland books, so many excessive tables that are either too easy or too rare to trigger them. The 3rd edition's negative health is a neat alternative but way too biased towards those that excel at damage, encouraging minmaxing. I still use death saves, but if they drop and get revived in combat I'll give them a level in exhaustion, something to crank up the tension without being bipolar about life & death with those few ratcheting levels of punishment.
Exhaustion for going unconscious or lingering death saves seem to be the most common solutions for this problem. Personally, I've just switched to playing games with a lot fewer (or no) hp. I prefer the stakes and flow of combat much more in those types of rulesets
@@tabletopsandbox I meant the 5th edition exhaustion where it actually impacted gameplay, instead of 6th edition's -1 debuff on all rolls. Though I've only played one system that didn't use hp, but it was frankly dull since it had no combat rules at all; I'd rather homebrew a fix for dnd than jump systems, since my group can't agree on an alternative anyway. One idea I liked but realized it'd be too tedious to implement, was to inflict disadvantage on physical checks when the character is below half health and likewise on mental checks when below a quarter health.
Honestly, I find the hit point attrition more annoying than the death saves. And to house rule that or hack the game in that regard would also a lot of work, far more than changing the death saves. But I agree with your solution here, it is better to change to a system that gets the feeling done that one wants to have. Sadly, since I am interested in drama not violence, I find most systems rather bad. Too rarely any game designers seem to be capable to think of anything else to put at stake than just the life of the character. You mention superheroes, and how D&D characters can feel like that, I completely disagree, since people working in that fiel, no matter if it is comics or films these days, they usually know that there are so much more things to create drama with than just with injuries.
I have an idea for a house rule to encourage healing. once a character drops to 5 Hp they have to roll with a specific disadvantage if their first roll at 5 hp is above 15 they have to roll again to a disadvantage of minimum 15 (if their first roll is 17 and the second is 12 go with the 17, but if their first roll is 17 and the second is 15 go with the 15) this then goes down as they lose more hp (5hp=min.15 disadv., 4hp=min.14disadv., 3hp=min.13disadv., etc.) edit: Just thought of rolls with advantage, I suppose that can be penalized to with a max advantage (at 5 HP max advantage 19, 4HP max advantage 18, 3 HP max advantage 17, 2=16, 1=15.)
@@tabletopsandbox somewhat, I think it more shows that I don't have my monsters hold back. I was intending on trying out a system where you don't die immediately, instead getting negative hp and you stay up, when the creature who 'killed you' comes back up in initiative and you still have less than 1 hp then you die. The intent was to give characters a more Boromir style death but i forgot to explain that before the game and didn't want to spring it on them.
I have never run 5e. I prefer other games like Year Zero Engine games or OSR. I am getting ready to try Dragonbane though, which has a similar mechanic to 5e death saves. I agree it creates an unrealistic down-up-down-up gamey feel. My "simple" solution would be to warn my players at the beginning of a fight that an enemy is "Blood-thirsty". Blood-thirsty monsters will target downed characters, players beware.
I've heard good things about Year Zero, but I haven't heard of Dragonbane, I'll add it to the list. Also a very reasonable solution to set expectations for your players without modifying the existing mechanics
Two easy fixes that'll make a huge difference.. 1. Roll their death saves for them behind the screen so they have a real sense of terror and unknowing and other players can't metagame when to get to them to heal them. (maybe take pictures to confirm each roll so you can't be accused of killing them for 'no reason' like immature drama queens might do) 2. Each time they hit zero hp, they take 1 or 2 exhaustion points (depending on how tough you want the campaign to be) that way they constantly think about the pro's and con's of their actions because exhaustion is a very slippery slope straight to permanent death as well if they're not careful.
Great suggestions! I've heard of a middle ground for your first option where the unconscious player rolls in front of the GM, but no one else gets to see it, which avoids questioning the GM and metagaming from the other players who might heal
If you don't think GM's shouldn't arbitrarily decide when death occurs, why letting dice arbitrarily decide when death occurs is any better? Dying because you fell from the rooftop of a building, because a goblin hit an unforeseen natural 20 or because you choked while eating an apple is just as arbitrary and not dramatic at all. Drama will only occur when it's predictable and consequential. Not just predictable OR consequential. All in all great video. P.S. there's been over 20 years of issues behind how D&D 3.0 forward has treated roleplay as an optional house rule and letting the boardgame aspect take over, not just the death save (which used to be present in AD&D back when roleplaying and theater of the mind was the highlight of the game).
A valid point, if you roll every time to rules of 5e lead you to roll (i.e. to achieve basically anything requires a roll) but I would argue the way to keep the rolls from being arbitrary is to only roll when the outcome will be/could be dramatic. I'm working on a video involving "when to roll" that will cover this a little more in depth
I don’t like Death saves, at all, in any game… if you die, you die. There should be no save. Don’t want to die? Retreat. The early PF2 was the worse, but D&D is rapidly catching up.
FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT, I am so tired of people immediately jumping to change rules of the existing system when they don't like it. If you don't like some core mechanic of the system, look for a system which has the mechanics to support your style of play instead of spending a lot of time changing the system to fit your likings
It's always worth it to look around to see if someone already had the same idea and made it into a thought out and play-tested game. Almost always better than hacking the system you're familiar with to pieces
@@tabletopsandbox I agree there are a lot of good RPGs out there, and if you're looking to run a specific type of game finding a system that supports it is the best way to do it. Trying to make D&D 5e play like something it's not is a foolish thing to do. However, there is nothing sacrosanct about the rules of D&D 5e, or any game for that matter. I think DMs and players shouldn't be afraid to change what they don't like. It should be done with some thought and should be agreed on by all beforehand, but it's good to tinker. The point of games is to be having fun.
True, I don't think anyone should hold the rules of any system too sacred. If you enjoy lovingly carving the circle peg to fit into the square hole, have at it. Exploring other systems is to prevent you from frustratedly attempting to jam the circle peg into the square hole without success
Oh yes the 5e death saves are very stupid :) Its pretty well Wile E Coyote .. he gets blown up, run over by a truck, tossed off a 1000 ft cliff .. and in the next scene hes good as new :) Why bother rolling at all?
Don't get me wrong, I love homebrewing for 5e and lots of other games, but when you're changing such a fundamental mechanic I feel like that crosses the line from homebrewing into game design. Which I am also a huge proponent of, I just think you'd be shooting yourself in the foot not to look for another game that does what you want before spending all that time and effort rebalancing a game designed around certain mechanics
Thanks for responding, I do see your perspective and do know how it can be to have players come to a "5e" game just to find out a core mechanic has been changed and they are caught off guard. I ran one shots for over a year and messed with some mechanics here and there, but only when I had a reoccurring group that knew I wasn't just trying to nerf their class or abilities. The major change in my current game to death saves is that they don't reset unless they get a "town rest"
@@Jax306 Yeah it's definitely wise to have a group you know and trust before making any major changes. The idea of death saves not resetting is definitely interesting! I always thought it strange and abstracting that they just disappeared when you were healed
1. It would be VERY simple to simply tell your players we are not using Death Saves. Hit 0 HP, without some racial or special protection, and your character dies. This is simply running DnD as an old school game. EVERY edition worked this way. As long as you TELL the players, this shouldnt be an issue. 2. I disagree with the healing bit. Unless you have a specific ability that triggers on hitting 0 HP, its IDIOTIC to wait until someone goes down to heal them or yourself. If you do, there is a good chance that when a person goes down, could be difficult for the healer or other members to take an action that would help them. Additionally, its NOT bad DMing to run the NPCs as intelligent creatures, and there are definitely some who would finish a downed character immediately to maintain an advantage. Thats not being mean, thats playing the game. 3. As my own opinion, I don't like Death Saving Throws and I do think death is a bit uncommon past the later levels until you get to high level games. BUT 5e is the most watered down, and weakest version of the game so I reject the notion that they are "superheroes". AND at higher levels and lower levels, death is a very real possibility. At lower levels its actually possible to one shot a person straight to death without any Saves. (Looking at you Wizards, Sorc, and the like). At higher levels you can get hit with Power Word Kill. No Save. Just Death. 4. You also assume parties have healers or access to healing....something that my party actually didnt have for quite a bit. The problem why people say the game is too easy IS in part with the mechanics such as Death Saves. Fair enough. But its a LARGER part in not setting your encounters correctly to the level of danger you want to run, playing the NPCs intelligently, and not making the players pay the full cost of their choices. I play in a game where my character (as OP and broken as he may be due to all the Homebrew he specifically has) is VERY overconfident and has an ability that triggers when he hits 1 or 0 HP. So he ALWAYS tries to ride that fence, and it ALMOST got him legitimately killed at the lower levels and drives him to make insane choices. And I EXPECT to be punished for it....my character is likely to push that limit a little too much one of these days, and it will be glorious. I think that people need to buck up, put on their big boy pants, and decide on the game they want to run and/or play. If you want to run a more deadly game, simply take Death Saves out. It just makes the game on Hardcore mode (as much as 5e can be considered hardcore that is). Not that difficult to fix.
I feel like a system wherein healing spells are more effective on non-unconscious targets might make sense. Or even a mechanic where receiving healing while unconscious is _only_ able to restore you to 1hp -- maybe that's too harsh but something like that would incentivize the party to stay topped off
Great ideas, might have to revamp healing spells to make it reasonable to heal more often. Maybe healing spells do max hp out of combat, I've seen some tables use that rule
What a fun and entertaining yet informative video… wait… only 70 likes?! Oh no my man have my like and a new subscriber right away!
Thanks for the support and welcome to the channel!
Honestly going unconscious should have always applied a level of exhaustion, representing a severe wound your character received in the process of going down.
Especially with the new Exhaustion Rules in One D&D
This is how I run my games.
Going unconscious should definitely have some kind of consequence
Yeah, dropping to 0 incurs a level of exhaustion in our 5e games
the thing i like that helps a bit is when you hit 0 hp and get fixed up with magic i give a point of Exhaustion it only really matters in the big fights and it makes things feel scarier and encourages better healing practices
An elegant solution, I have a DM use this for a game I play in. It discourages running into combat without thought for your character's safety
I will never forget one of my party members being disintegrated by the BBEG 😭 I'm still traumatized lmao
A brutal instadeath to be sure
In a TTRPG I am currently building I made a somewhat similar system to Death Saves with a few alterations that I enjoy running.
Firsty: going on to 0 HP and below is not a binary 'I was perfectly fine before and now I am dead' situation as it is in 5e. 0 HP _is_ the point from which onwards your character might not survive this encounter, or will survive it but will remain wounded. With negative half of your max HP being the point where your character truly was squashed to a pulp beyond repair.
In terms of actually recovering from death saves it isn't that easy either. Simple healing spells and potions might help the hero endure more hits, but they are already at death's door regardless. Instead, they will need to be medically tended to and stabilized using a succesfull roll to be able to endure the situation. And just rolling high a bunch of times won't allow a character to withstand death for that long for two main reasons:
1) instead of a different tracking system for succesfull and saved death saves, every failed save slowly eats away at your stamina (which is another resource in this game). Meaning if you drop to 0 Hitpoints for a second time in a fight, you will be more weary and will struggle enduring another fatal injury.
2) Each time a character drops to 0 hit-points, they recieve a permanent injury that will forever haunt them on their journey: whether it is losing an arm, being emotionally scarred by the event, etc. This means that even if you withstand death, it's not without consequence, and your character will be forever scarred by that event. To add insult to injury, every one of these scars increases the DC of a medicine check required to stabilize your character, meaning the healer's job will be harder every time a player character is downed.
Another gripe I have with 5e's death system that you didn't mention in the video is how during this long period of time, where you roll death saves and the stakes are supposedly at their highest, your character sits there doing nothing. In the system I am writing I wanted dying characters to have as much glory as they can in their last moments. This means that a dying character will have less actions at their disposal, but they will have specific bonuses applied to anything they try to do. Meaning they're bound to go out with a bang if they don't survive this.
Lastly, and this is more of a thing about the system in general, I made healing spells more scarce. This doesn't change the effectivity of death mechanics as much, because at some point healing spells are bound to become attainable for a party powerful enough in settings such as the ones that this system encourages, but healing someone out of a nasty situation feels all the more earned when healing spells are generally pricier then damaging spells, and when clerics and magical items or potions are the only sources of instant health regeneration besides resting and letting time heal all wounds.
I'm pretty new to DnD and nothing you said sounds unreasonable. I especially dislike the fact that it's better for a healer to let someone "almost" die, it just doesn't make any sense.
5th edition is a lot of fun, but it's very gamified in a way that favors leveraging the mechanics over what is realistic or believable. Ben from Questing Beast has a great video explaining the different ways that TTRPGs approach combat: ua-cam.com/video/qnKc64ADYf8/v-deo.html This is part of what's driven me to look into the OSR a lot recently
You're right, this does happen with some players or some tables. That being said I've played for many years and I have been in campaigns where we had no healers. We just had to rely on healing potions. It was different. Generally speaking, healing spells are incredibly weak in DND 5e. They aren't like a video game where you can keep people above 80% HP all the time. It's unfortunate, but it is the truth.
Well, it is a "game"; it's not trying to be a simulation. It may not be realistic, but it is fun, and it tries to keep the action moving along without getting too bogged down by calculating injury penalties every round. A round of combat is slow enough already...!
my 5E house rule on death saves: Failed death saves stay with your character until after a long rest. So, even if you pop back up, you're still on the verge of death and need to be very careful.
A couple people have told me they use this, it's a pretty good way to up that tension and sense of self preservation
I've actually been working on doing a FF7 inspired setting and having to do a lot of setting specific house rules in order to make it feel more like Final Fantasy and one of those rules is that healing magic like Cure Wounds doesn't work on unconscious people. You need to use the Revive spell or a Phoenix Down first which will wake them up and restore a small amount of hit points. THEN you can cast Cure Wounds on them.
That's certainly an incentive to do healing earlier both for the sake of preserving resources and action economy
Ayyy nice alliteration at 1:22
Appreciate the accolade amigo!
What if we had to stabilize a creature before we can heal them?
What if we get a penalty for low health, like -1 for rolls under 50%, down to -5 under 10%
What if you had to make CON Saves, while you only had 1HP / less than 10%/5% to stay contious?
These methods fore the players to use underutilized tools and encourage healing more HP than the absolute minimum
I also hate death throws
Hope this video helps if you run your own game!
I do think that 5e the DM should be making death saves in secret so that party members aren’t thinking ‘ah Frodo is fine he passed his last two death saves’. One of my DMs also has a home brew rule of giving a level of exhaustion if you go down and pop back up again.
one thing ive seen done was giving exhausting if you are downed and brought back up. that way nothing much changed but gives a reson to actualy gives an actual reson to not get downed.
I have a DM who uses this rule, but he makes it so the first time you go down per long rest doesn't immediately exhaust you, but the second time will
Roll 2d6 and halve it rounding up. Thats how many turns it takes before you die. If you get hit while down that takes another turn from you and further subtracts your health into the minus numbers, there is no limit on how low this can go. Only nat 20s can return you any health to stabilize you and even then you only get 20+ your highest mod back. Other than that you must rely on allies to heal you with medicine checks or spells. Potions and salves can be applied during the medicine check to apply extra healing.
When up roll another 2d6 temporary hp as an adrenaline bonus, this lasts till it is removed from damage or you leave combat. Once that temp hp is gone take a level of exhaustion.
ps the potions and consumable items in my campaigns are all super buffed in my campaigns.
Thanks for the Video bud. This is the first time I've seen your channel. I enjoyed the way you presented your information. I will be watching some of your other videos and looking out for future videos. 🎉
I agree with you that healing is often done when characters are unconscious more often than not. I think that is a flaw in the system because there isn't really any punishment in 5e for going unconscious or being on the brink of death.
Generally speaking I wish healing spells worked a bit differently and were capable of keeping a party fairly healthy throughout combat encounters. I think if it were like that, there would be some adaptation to how combat is presented. In the games current state with balance, allowing players to have access to such powerful healing spells would more than likely negate any challenge in combat. I think it would be difficult to balance combat in this scenario.
I also do not like how there are no written punishment towards the players for being dropped to 0hp and then healed. As an example in a recent combat encounter my Rogue was in, I fell unconscious 3 times in 5 rounds. At the end of the fight I was able to regain some HP but beyond missing a bunch of turns there was nothing that happened to my character. I wish something transferred over from that traumatic experience but alas there are no rules for that.
Hi Yevgeniy! Glad to have you with us! I agree that it's a flawed combat system. There are some ways that you can improve it with house rules, but some mechanics are too fundamental to monkey around with without destabilizing the whole game.
Once I played a paladin who charged into a mob and go down 5 or 6 times in a fight and keep popping back up. After that my DM made a house rule that every time you come back to consciousness after the first you take one level of exhaustion. It's made our party a bit more careful, but it doesn't make us change the way we do combat too much. But there's not that many options of how to do combat in DnD once you've picked your class
I didn't know Ryan George played D&D.
I’d like to see some disadvantage imposed when a character gets close to 0hp. Maybe when they get down to 25% health they lose half of their movement speed ,or have disadvantage on attack rolls ,or half the damage they can do. It would encourage players to stay on their feet.
I think the problem may not be the death saves and the whack-a-mole pop up healing but as you mentioned in the video the fact that their is no benefit to pre-healing.
I use the bloodiest condition for monsters (at 1/2 their max HP I describe the creature as bloodied so players know they are having an impact - or not) but perhaps it would be good to reduce damage from bloodied players, and monsters? Maybe keep the damage dice but only apply the modifiers on a crit so instead of doing 1d8+4 damage you would be doing 1d8. I'm not sure how that would work in practice it could spiral out of control and lead to tpks if the fight starts going badly or maybe it would encourage players to negotiate or run away to replan and that would be generally good for the game as it would leas to more drama and more preparation for encounters from the players rather than walking into everything to kick ass. I need to try it.
It's a difficult problem to solve. Something like limiting the players can create a death spiral that may not be any fun for your players, especially in the slog that 5e combat often is. In 4e I believe bloodied monsters gained access to special abilities that they didn't get with high hp. It might be cool to penalize your players when they get to low hp, but balance it with new cool "desperate" abilities
This mechanic in specific isnt that hard to fix by taking a little pick at pf2e. But you are right. That's why I like numenara better than d&d. In Numenara whenever you put effort into something, you spend the resource. So a very tough climb will leave you as tired as a fight. Mental match between 2 chess grandmasters is as tiresome as being assaulted mentally. It's also fun seeing the players learn that putting a lot of effort into everything is a very easy way to to screw yourself over when a fight appears
TBH I don't mind death saves as a CONCEPT. Sure, 5e's are flawed, but i disagree that as a whole, the Death Save mechanic cannot be done better.
Take Cyberpunk or something, making a death save is a much bigger deal. There's low healing, you DO incur penalties as you get closer to death, and dropping to 0 HP and making your single death save DOES feel terrifying, because you're always at risk of dying immediately, and its only going to get harder if you're not stabilized., being at low HP does feel close to death, as you gain penalties, can barely heal outside of downtime, you' aren't just gonna roll a natural 20 and pop back up, instead, your next save just becomes trickier.
There's no situation where its better to let them go down, and then heal them, because you can only stabilize them, at which point they still cannot help out in combat, being close to 0 HP feels close to death, because death saves are very unforgiving, and you won't be recovering health until the job's over, and being "seriously wounded" does impact every one of your skills.
I have a few friends who play Cyberpunk, but I've never looked into it. That definitely seems like a more visceral and drama inducing way to handle death saves. I'll have to check it out!
I've been playing Pathfinder which has death saves, but they work differently:
There are four "dying" levels, you start at dying-1
The roll for each is 10 + the dying level you're at.(1st is 11, 2nd is 12...)
Failing on a save moves you up a dying level. Succeeding on a save moves you down one.
You die when you hit dying-4
When you hit dying-0 you're unconscious with zero HP, but with the "wounded" condition which gives you penalties.
There is a "doomed" condition which reduces the number of dying levels you have available, and can last an in-game week or more.
Critting, success or fail, (which in Pathfinder is 10 above or below the DC) on a roll counts as two levels.
Just like in D&D, gaining any HP ends the dying condition.
Interesting! I've played Pathfinder 1e which had fort saves to stabilize and if you failed you lost 1hp, and if you hit your negative Con score you died. Interesting to see how they've found a sort of middle ground between pf1 and 5e for pf2
On the flipside, I don't like how lingering injuries were done in the farland books, so many excessive tables that are either too easy or too rare to trigger them.
The 3rd edition's negative health is a neat alternative but way too biased towards those that excel at damage, encouraging minmaxing.
I still use death saves, but if they drop and get revived in combat I'll give them a level in exhaustion, something to crank up the tension without being bipolar about life & death with those few ratcheting levels of punishment.
Exhaustion for going unconscious or lingering death saves seem to be the most common solutions for this problem. Personally, I've just switched to playing games with a lot fewer (or no) hp. I prefer the stakes and flow of combat much more in those types of rulesets
@@tabletopsandbox I meant the 5th edition exhaustion where it actually impacted gameplay, instead of 6th edition's -1 debuff on all rolls. Though I've only played one system that didn't use hp, but it was frankly dull since it had no combat rules at all; I'd rather homebrew a fix for dnd than jump systems, since my group can't agree on an alternative anyway. One idea I liked but realized it'd be too tedious to implement, was to inflict disadvantage on physical checks when the character is below half health and likewise on mental checks when below a quarter health.
we fixed that in our group by not playing ANY clerics / healing 😅
I imagine that would certainly incentivize a more cautious playstyle
Remove death saves, half your max hp below 0 is instant death, done this throughout my campaigns and everyone is happy :)
That's a cool idea, thanks for sharing!
Do you mean *over* half your max HP under 0 is instant death? i.e. if your max HP is 40, and you take a hit that drops you to -22, you die instantly?
@@RianeBane Jup you might think it's rough but it makes sense tbh.
Honestly, I find the hit point attrition more annoying than the death saves. And to house rule that or hack the game in that regard would also a lot of work, far more than changing the death saves. But I agree with your solution here, it is better to change to a system that gets the feeling done that one wants to have. Sadly, since I am interested in drama not violence, I find most systems rather bad. Too rarely any game designers seem to be capable to think of anything else to put at stake than just the life of the character. You mention superheroes, and how D&D characters can feel like that, I completely disagree, since people working in that fiel, no matter if it is comics or films these days, they usually know that there are so much more things to create drama with than just with injuries.
I have an idea for a house rule to encourage healing. once a character drops to 5 Hp they have to roll with a specific disadvantage if their first roll at 5 hp is above 15 they have to roll again to a disadvantage of minimum 15 (if their first roll is 17 and the second is 12 go with the 17, but if their first roll is 17 and the second is 15 go with the 15) this then goes down as they lose more hp (5hp=min.15 disadv., 4hp=min.14disadv., 3hp=min.13disadv., etc.)
edit: Just thought of rolls with advantage, I suppose that can be penalized to with a max advantage (at 5 HP max advantage 19, 4HP max advantage 18, 3 HP max advantage 17, 2=16, 1=15.)
Very involved, you might have a future in game design!
a dozen times by 10th level? my part is on session 2 and they total 8 downs
Different playstyles for different players, but this example only supports my point yes?
@@tabletopsandbox somewhat, I think it more shows that I don't have my monsters hold back. I was intending on trying out a system where you don't die immediately, instead getting negative hp and you stay up, when the creature who 'killed you' comes back up in initiative and you still have less than 1 hp then you die. The intent was to give characters a more Boromir style death but i forgot to explain that before the game and didn't want to spring it on them.
You don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Is it just me or does this guy look like the love child of Ryan George and the UA-camr Quentin who used to do video essays?
I have never run 5e. I prefer other games like Year Zero Engine games or OSR. I am getting ready to try Dragonbane though, which has a similar mechanic to 5e death saves. I agree it creates an unrealistic down-up-down-up gamey feel. My "simple" solution would be to warn my players at the beginning of a fight that an enemy is "Blood-thirsty". Blood-thirsty monsters will target downed characters, players beware.
I've heard good things about Year Zero, but I haven't heard of Dragonbane, I'll add it to the list. Also a very reasonable solution to set expectations for your players without modifying the existing mechanics
@@tabletopsandbox Dragonbane is one of Free League Publishing's newest games. It's like halfway between 5e and Year Zero Engine.
Two easy fixes that'll make a huge difference..
1. Roll their death saves for them behind the screen so they have a real sense of terror and unknowing and other players can't metagame when to get to them to heal them. (maybe take pictures to confirm each roll so you can't be accused of killing them for 'no reason' like immature drama queens might do)
2. Each time they hit zero hp, they take 1 or 2 exhaustion points (depending on how tough you want the campaign to be) that way they constantly think about the pro's and con's of their actions because exhaustion is a very slippery slope straight to permanent death as well if they're not careful.
Great suggestions! I've heard of a middle ground for your first option where the unconscious player rolls in front of the GM, but no one else gets to see it, which avoids questioning the GM and metagaming from the other players who might heal
If you don't think GM's shouldn't arbitrarily decide when death occurs, why letting dice arbitrarily decide when death occurs is any better? Dying because you fell from the rooftop of a building, because a goblin hit an unforeseen natural 20 or because you choked while eating an apple is just as arbitrary and not dramatic at all.
Drama will only occur when it's predictable and consequential. Not just predictable OR consequential.
All in all great video.
P.S. there's been over 20 years of issues behind how D&D 3.0 forward has treated roleplay as an optional house rule and letting the boardgame aspect take over, not just the death save (which used to be present in AD&D back when roleplaying and theater of the mind was the highlight of the game).
A valid point, if you roll every time to rules of 5e lead you to roll (i.e. to achieve basically anything requires a roll) but I would argue the way to keep the rolls from being arbitrary is to only roll when the outcome will be/could be dramatic. I'm working on a video involving "when to roll" that will cover this a little more in depth
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Petition to add a slug emoji
I like no death saves and zero hp equals death.
I feel like the advice section is pretty bad. Like, disempowering? :)
Make 3 death saves recharge on a long rest and 1 death save recharge on a short.
I don’t like Death saves, at all, in any game… if you die, you die. There should be no save. Don’t want to die? Retreat.
The early PF2 was the worse, but D&D is rapidly catching up.
FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT, I am so tired of people immediately jumping to change rules of the existing system when they don't like it. If you don't like some core mechanic of the system, look for a system which has the mechanics to support your style of play instead of spending a lot of time changing the system to fit your likings
It's always worth it to look around to see if someone already had the same idea and made it into a thought out and play-tested game. Almost always better than hacking the system you're familiar with to pieces
@@tabletopsandbox I agree there are a lot of good RPGs out there, and if you're looking to run a specific type of game finding a system that supports it is the best way to do it. Trying to make D&D 5e play like something it's not is a foolish thing to do.
However, there is nothing sacrosanct about the rules of D&D 5e, or any game for that matter. I think DMs and players shouldn't be afraid to change what they don't like. It should be done with some thought and should be agreed on by all beforehand, but it's good to tinker. The point of games is to be having fun.
True, I don't think anyone should hold the rules of any system too sacred. If you enjoy lovingly carving the circle peg to fit into the square hole, have at it. Exploring other systems is to prevent you from frustratedly attempting to jam the circle peg into the square hole without success
Oh yes the 5e death saves are very stupid :) Its pretty well Wile E Coyote .. he gets blown up, run over by a truck, tossed off a 1000 ft cliff .. and in the next scene hes good as new :) Why bother rolling at all?
Excellent question. If it won't have any notable or dramatic effect, should you even roll? Keep an eye out for a video on this coming soon 👀
Just play Rolemaster. Problem fixed.
Sorry man, disagree. I love homebrewing stuff for 5e.
Don't get me wrong, I love homebrewing for 5e and lots of other games, but when you're changing such a fundamental mechanic I feel like that crosses the line from homebrewing into game design. Which I am also a huge proponent of, I just think you'd be shooting yourself in the foot not to look for another game that does what you want before spending all that time and effort rebalancing a game designed around certain mechanics
Thanks for responding, I do see your perspective and do know how it can be to have players come to a "5e" game just to find out a core mechanic has been changed and they are caught off guard. I ran one shots for over a year and messed with some mechanics here and there, but only when I had a reoccurring group that knew I wasn't just trying to nerf their class or abilities.
The major change in my current game to death saves is that they don't reset unless they get a "town rest"
@@Jax306 Yeah it's definitely wise to have a group you know and trust before making any major changes. The idea of death saves not resetting is definitely interesting! I always thought it strange and abstracting that they just disappeared when you were healed
1. It would be VERY simple to simply tell your players we are not using Death Saves. Hit 0 HP, without some racial or special protection, and your character dies. This is simply running DnD as an old school game. EVERY edition worked this way. As long as you TELL the players, this shouldnt be an issue. 2. I disagree with the healing bit. Unless you have a specific ability that triggers on hitting 0 HP, its IDIOTIC to wait until someone goes down to heal them or yourself. If you do, there is a good chance that when a person goes down, could be difficult for the healer or other members to take an action that would help them. Additionally, its NOT bad DMing to run the NPCs as intelligent creatures, and there are definitely some who would finish a downed character immediately to maintain an advantage. Thats not being mean, thats playing the game. 3. As my own opinion, I don't like Death Saving Throws and I do think death is a bit uncommon past the later levels until you get to high level games. BUT 5e is the most watered down, and weakest version of the game so I reject the notion that they are "superheroes". AND at higher levels and lower levels, death is a very real possibility. At lower levels its actually possible to one shot a person straight to death without any Saves. (Looking at you Wizards, Sorc, and the like). At higher levels you can get hit with Power Word Kill. No Save. Just Death. 4. You also assume parties have healers or access to healing....something that my party actually didnt have for quite a bit.
The problem why people say the game is too easy IS in part with the mechanics such as Death Saves. Fair enough. But its a LARGER part in not setting your encounters correctly to the level of danger you want to run, playing the NPCs intelligently, and not making the players pay the full cost of their choices.
I play in a game where my character (as OP and broken as he may be due to all the Homebrew he specifically has) is VERY overconfident and has an ability that triggers when he hits 1 or 0 HP. So he ALWAYS tries to ride that fence, and it ALMOST got him legitimately killed at the lower levels and drives him to make insane choices. And I EXPECT to be punished for it....my character is likely to push that limit a little too much one of these days, and it will be glorious.
I think that people need to buck up, put on their big boy pants, and decide on the game they want to run and/or play. If you want to run a more deadly game, simply take Death Saves out. It just makes the game on Hardcore mode (as much as 5e can be considered hardcore that is). Not that difficult to fix.