Improving Death Saving Throws (D&D Mechanics Workshop Ep. 1)
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- Опубліковано 18 кві 2022
- Hey guys! This is the first video in a series on D&D mechanics and how they can be improved with small adjustments or changes. This is a quick little video about death saving throws and how you can use them to increase the tension in combat! Hope you enjoy!
As we are playing on VTTs only, we are used to making Death Saves directly to the DM, without anyone else seeing them and there is the common, unspoken understanding that, if your character is down, you are not allowed to participate in ingame decisions.
So a player with a downed character typically goes silent in game turns until someone interacts with the downed character to inform the respective player if his character is still alive or not (but not by how much).
This adds tension to the group while the player in control of the downed character still is fully in charge of his personal situation and condition.
I would like to say that the man wearing the sunglasses looks extremely attractive.
love this! it adds so much tension to the game. great skit too :)
This is how i like to handle them, too. I also do so for certain insight rolls or perception rolls, to keep the tension up when telling them the answer would neuter the situation.
While it changes things a lot, Pathfinder uses a different system entirely which is a sidegrade to the three saves or three successes.
When a character is brought below 0 hp they fall unconcious and start counting negative HP. They can reach a maximum number of negative HP equal to their Constitution score. So a character with 12 Con will die at -13HP.
Every round on their turn they make a Constitution saving through with a DC of 10+ the negative hp they currently have.
This means that a character at only -2 hp only has to make a single DC12 save and they stabalize On a failed save they lose 1hp every round as they bleed out, or enemies can continue to hit them while down to make the future saves harder.
This gives an advantage to constitution heavy characters as they can be on the floor for longer and have a higher chance of self stabalizing, and makes weaker characters dropping a more serious problem for the healers.
Healing brings them back to 1hp but stabilizing (themselves or with the cantrip) they stop bleeding but remain at the negative HP in case they resume bleeding out from new damage.
Cool mechanic. Tho i kinda already dislike how necessary of a stat con is.
I allow any heal spell cast on the unconscious guy to act as one save only
In that case I think it's preferable to just track negative hp and let healing bring people back up if their new hp is above zero. That way you can actually cast a 60hp heal on an unconscious character and not just get a "1 success, but still unconscious" in response.
I personally feel death saves are too swingy. My preferred rule set is that it takes 4 success or failures to die (makes it less sudden while keeping natural 1s punishing) while upping the dc to something higher than 10, say 15. It also makes combat less horrible when your healers are finicky about showing up to sessions.
That skit was actually so good it made me laugh out loud
I've actually completely negated death saves. If a player goes down, they get their Con modifier to add to their initial roll. If they fail, they're dead. If they pass, they're unconscious and at zero HP until they are healed or had a medical kit applied. I also apply negative HP where if they drop to half the total below zero, they're dead, no saves at all.
but also nat 20s become less hype and also you now have the ability to fudge rolls
why does this only have four comments?
I mean if you don't attack downed players after a round that's on you, not the mechanics of death saves.
This video reminds me of the Norm McDonald joke about reviving someone from a coma...
ua-cam.com/video/HdJrpFSz28I/v-deo.html