Negative hit points, I liked them.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

In one game I'm in when a character with 5 HP takes 10 damage they go to 0 and start making death saves. My Bard then casts healing word on her turn and pops them back up 100% of the time.

Last night I DM'd for some experienced players. When one with 5 HP took 10 damage he did the math outloud and wrote down negative 5. We have a Cleric and a Palladin so he was healed w/o an issue.

I used .5 seconds of deep thought on the issue and I liked the negative Hit Points! It removes what feels like an exploit from the game I am a Bard in.

[Cybren]

If you don't reset death saves until a rest then you address a lot of the rubber-banding issue

[X3r4ph]

If you don't reset death saves until a rest then you address a lot of the rubber-banding issue

What we do is give out a level of exhaustion when you have been below 0 hit points.

I have recently increased the downside of going below 0 hit points with a lingering injury table. When you might lose a foot the players start paying attention.

[Illven]

In one game I'm in when a character with 5 HP takes 10 damage they go to 0 and start making death saves. My Bard then casts healing word on her turn and pops them back up 100% of the time.

Pretty sure taking 10 points of damage when you have 5 hp kills you instantly.

[Slipperychicken]

Pretty sure taking 10 points of damage when you have 5 hp kills you instantly.

That is true if the character's maximum hp was 5.

[Personification]

I haven't played much, but I have read the PHB a lot, and I assumed that you tracked the negatives for the insta-kill. (e.g. I have a max ten, I take twelve, get ten of healing I'm at max, but I have max ten, take twelve, take eight without healing, I am dead, no saves.)

[The Shadowdove]

Never had problems with the new death save thing.

I've tpk'd four or five parties without trying to.

I've seen parties come back from ridiculous situations.

No one has complained about it being unfair, new or OG players.

[UrielAwakened]

I haven't played much, but I have read the PHB a lot, and I assumed that you tracked the negatives for the insta-kill. (e.g. I have a max ten, I take twelve, get ten of healing I'm at max, but I have max ten, take twelve, take eight without healing, I am dead, no saves.)


You don't track the negatives so to speak. It has to be one instance of damage all at once.

If your max is 30, and you're at -5, 10 more damage doesn't kill you. It would need to be 15.

[Avonar]

One thing to remember, a hit on an unconcious character counts as a critical hit, and a critical hit is worth 2 failed death saves. If there is someone down and an enemy still alive, they might not get to make their 3 saves if the others don't act quickly.

[Tanarii]

I've tpk'd four or five parties without trying to.
I've TPK'd a lot more than that, and every single time it's because they got in well over their head. Facing things Deadly x2 or more challenging for a single fight (and usually 6+ monsters), or over-extending 50% or more on the adventuring day. Most were in Tier 1 as well. For some reason players seem to get cocky around level 4.

There's basically no chance of TPKing a party that's having adventuring days within the standard guidelines, unless they royally screw up. You might kill a PC, even perma-kill one if Tier 1 or Raise Dead isn't readily available in Tier 2. But they're not going to TPK.

Edit: IMO that's a good thing. As I pointed out in another thread, if you have a 1% chance of TPKing a party per encounter, then there is a 25% chance of a TPK by level 5, a 45% of a TPK by level 10, and a 70% chance they'll TPK in a career that goes to level 20. That's way too high for most groups.

[Rysto]

One thing to remember, a hit on an unconcious character counts as a critical hit, and a critical hit is worth 2 failed death saves. If there is someone down and an enemy still alive, they might not get to make their 3 saves if the others don't act quickly.

A melee hit, yes. That is a rule nuance I missed until it came up in a live session. That can make things become really twitchy, really fast.

[Laserlight]

What we do is give out a level of exhaustion when you have been below 0 hit points.

We do the same. We have a player who was foolhardy for his first couple of months of play. He managed to get three levels of exhaustion in one session, and that pretty much cured him of "let's run out ahead of the party and into the middle of enemies".

[AttilatheYeon]

You don't track the negatives so to speak. It has to be one instance of damage all at once.

If your max is 30, and you're at -5, 10 more damage doesn't kill you. It would need to be 15.

So 2 math mistakes, there isn't any negative hitpoints in DnD and using your example, it would have to be 30 damage to kill the target. Other than that, this is correct.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Thanks for the feedback, positive and negative. I am in a group which place each way so I'm curious to watch the long term effects and report back.

[Chugger]

If you have a party geared for the current system and you change it on them, then you need to let them reset. If you go from having there be few consequences for dropping to zero to potentially heavy consequences, then they need to retool to get the compensating healing power to have a chance to avoid that consequence. Otherwise you're going to have to seriously change (lower) the CR lvls of what they fight. And that could get boring (we live in a post WoW world, ahem).

Healing in 5e is very, very weak.

[Astofel]

If you have a party geared for the current system and you change it on them, then you need to let them reset. If you go from having there be few consequences for dropping to zero to potentially heavy consequences, then they need to retool to get the compensating healing power to have a chance to avoid that consequence. Otherwise you're going to have to seriously change (lower) the CR lvls of what they fight. And that could get boring (we live in a post WoW world, ahem).

Healing in 5e is very, very weak.

This is why when I wanted hitting 0 to mean more in my games I chose not to use the popular exhaustion homerule. Imagine that someone goes down, then gets healed a little and comes back with 1 level of exhaustion. Not too bad, but then they go down again, and are brought back with 2 levels of exhaustion. Now they're much less effective at fighting, and are thus far more likely to go down again before they can do significant damage, and you have a death spiral on your hands.

If that's the kind of game someone wants to run then more power to them but it's not for me. Instead, I opted to homerule that death saving throws only reset after a short rest, or upon succeeding three death saves (natural 20s still bring you to 1 hp, and now also count for two successes). To me, this makes it so that having someone at 0 is something that definitely has consequences, but doesn't punish players too heavily for hitting that point. Personally, I prefer the death save mechanic to negative hitpoints, as it makes character death at higher levels much more possible, which it should be since the threats at higher levels are that much more threatening.

[Anonymouswizard]

In one game I'm in when a character with 5 HP takes 10 damage they go to 0 and start making death saves. My Bard then casts healing word on her turn and pops them back up 100% of the time.

Last night I DM'd for some experienced players. When one with 5 HP took 10 damage he did the math outloud and wrote down negative 5. We have a Cleric and a Palladin so he was healed w/o an issue.

I used .5 seconds of deep thought on the issue and I liked the negative Hit Points! It removes what feels like an exploit from the game I am a Bard in.

I'm with you, because negative hp is less bookkeeping. My Basic Fifth project (taking fifth edition back to the BECM days!) went back to 'death at negative ten' because it's a case of having to track one value instead of getting to zero hp and immediately having to start rolling death saves.

Although I'm also adding in a rule that you only check if you're stable after combat is over, to have it all resolved at the same time (you get Advantage if somebody can make a successful Medicine check).

The downside is that as you reach higher levels death at negative ten or negative CON makes it more likely to go from standing to dead in one hit. I can see why it's not the standard anymore, but in games where damage per attack scales slowly it'll work fine.

EDIT: of course, you could always use both, death saving throws to make it less likely but tracking negative hp to reduce the probability of whack-a-mole. It's probably the best system but requires a tad more bookkeeping. Maybe combine it with a level of exhaustion for going down if you want to REALLY penalise dying.

[UrielAwakened]

One thing to remember, a hit on an unconcious character counts as a critical hit, and a critical hit is worth 2 failed death saves. If there is someone down and an enemy still alive, they might not get to make their 3 saves if the others don't act quickly.

Happened to me just last night actually.


So 2 math mistakes, there isn't any negative hitpoints in DnD and using your example, it would have to be 30 damage to kill the target. Other than that, this is correct.

Oof, I'm used to 4e and dying when you reach negative half of your max HP.

Yeah it would be 30 in my example.

[Tanarii]

I'm with you, because negative hp is less bookkeeping.
The entire point of removing negative hit points is that not being able to go below zero is less book keeping. So not sure how you arrived at this conclusion.

[KorvinStarmast]

This is why when I wanted hitting 0 to mean more in my games I chose not to use the popular exhaustion homerule. That home rule isn't popular with me since exhaustion is IMO bad mechanically in this edition. The death saves replacing the - HP strikes me as a good thing since each turn/round the player gets to do something meaningful (roll to make or fail a save) rather than just sit there and subtract another HP from their total.
Also, I like that on a 20 your player can "come to" with 1 HP and be able to get back into it, or to run like the dickens, on the next turn.
By the way, a few 20's rolled during what turned into a near TPK kept three of our party alive to escape (two of us died) on a night when the dice were cold. Those 3 lived to fight another day.

[Sigreid]

So, IMO the wack a mole has 2 counters built in. One is, of course the expenditure of resources to get your buddy back on his feet. The other is that you can get away with it once in a fight, but after than the enemy is going to make a point of stabbing the downed man once or twice. Once you see the guy get back up once, that's the logical thing to do.

[Meta]

A melee hit, yes. That is a rule nuance I missed until it came up in a live session. That can make things become really twitchy, really fast.

That's not correct either, actually. It's if the attacker is within 5 feet. That means things with reach still need to close the distance, and it opens up the free crits to ranged attackers if they're adjacent.

[Anonymouswizard]

The entire point of removing negative hit points is that not being able to go below zero is less book keeping. So not sure how you arrived at this conclusion.

It introduced more by giving me two more things to keep track of. Maybe one.

Before I had to keep track of if I'd make my stabilisation check and what my hp total was. Now I have to check what my hp is, and track my death saves (both failed and saved, previously I only had to track if I'd stabilised). Tracking a total into the negatives is barely bookkeeping compared to tracking two extra totals (even if only to three).

It's like spell points are less book keeping than spell slots. Yes, I'm tracking a value that's probably in the low hundreds by the end game, but it's one total and not nine (the disadvantage is that you'll be removing different values depending on the spell, compared to reducing your free slots by one). Now with spell slots I feel like the extra bookkeeping can make it easier in the long run, but it's still nine totals instead of one.

Now death saves do have a major advantage, they make death harder. It used to be that past a certain level any hit would probably kill a downed character, now even a two death save attack gives a chance for them to get back up. Even generous retroclones tend to have killed you by -3 hp, the best you'll get is -CON, it's easier to save a downed character with death saves.

(Alternatively you could use a system like GURPS, roll not to drop at 0hp, roll not to die at -x hp, roll every turn not to die at -y hp, die automatically at -z hp, at a low enough level the corpse is atomised.)


The death saves replacing the - HP strikes me as a good thing since each turn/round the player gets to do something meaningful (roll to make or fail a save) rather than just sit there and subtract another HP from their total.
Also, I like that on a 20 your player can "come to" with 1 HP and be able to get back into it, or to run like the dickens, on the next turn.
By the way, a few 20's rolled during what turned into a near TPK kept three of our party alive to escape (two of us died) on a night when the dice were cold. Those 3 lived to fight another day.

A side note, rolling for stabilisation was a thing back in 5e. It was make your roll, if you fail drop a hp, if you succeed you stop having to make the roll. It ends out about the same, you stop rolling for it when you get enough (three successful death saves or one successful stabilisation check).

[PeteNutButter]

What we do is give out a level of exhaustion when you have been below 0 hit points.

I have recently increased the downside of going below 0 hit points with a lingering injury table. When you might lose a foot the players start paying attention.


We do the same. We have a player who was foolhardy for his first couple of months of play. He managed to get three levels of exhaustion in one session, and that pretty much cured him of "let's run out ahead of the party and into the middle of enemies".

I also apply this rule. It works wonders. The exhaustion scaling is a fantastic way for players to feel the gradual effects of getting beaten down, and since it is a built in effect of the game there are other features that work with it and cure it (greater restoration). Combat is so much more tense with players afraid to go below 0, making real healing that much more valuable. I hate the "I'll just wait until he goes down and throw a level 1 healing word on him." It ruins immersion.

Also note it really penalizes berserker barbs, but I've changed them as well.

[Pope Scarface]

Waiting for them to go down to use healing word shouldn't break immersion because it is a terrible idea and will get your friends killed unless the DM deliberately plays nice. Getting dropped in the first hit of a multi-attack sucks. If they have 3 attacks and the first one drops you, you are dead unless they just don't finish their multi-attack for some reason.

[PeteNutButter]

Waiting for them to go down to use healing word shouldn't break immersion because it is a terrible idea and will get your friends killed unless the DM deliberately plays nice. Getting dropped in the first hit of a multi-attack sucks. If they have 3 attacks and the first one drops you, you are dead unless they just don't finish their multi-attack for some reason.

I'd say the majority of DMs would probably go after other foes with other attacks.

[Tanarii]

I'd say the majority of DMs would probably go after other foes with other attacks.
For multiattack I typically roll all attack dice at the same time if they're going to be on the same target. It's one of the easiest ways to drop a PC without even realizing that's what you're going to do.

When it gets a little touch and go is rolling multiple opponents at the same time instead of one at a time. I usually try not to do that, just because otherwise I'll start mixing and matching enemy actions. ie move this guy, attack with that guy, move this other guy, attack with both guys ... oops I already attacked with the first guy! Plus if the players don't get to mix up their turns as they see fit for perfect coordination, the enemies shouldn't really get to either.

[Sigreid]

I'd say the majority of DMs would probably go after other foes with other attacks.

After the very first time an opponent sees you get back up they should continue on their multi attack and ensure they finish the job when they drop you. Rule number 2 is not just for zombies in 5th edition.

[Tanarii]

After the very first time an opponent sees you get back up they should continue on their multi attack and ensure they finish the job when they drop you. Rule number 2 is not just for zombies in 5th edition.
Not like the enemies shouldn't (generally) be able to tell that they haven't killed the PC, and instead they're just down, unconscious, and bleeding out.

I sometimes have enemies at just a few hit points get knocked on their ass, to reflect they're almost dead, and because it doesn't matter if they're that close to death they're dead on the next PCs turn anyway. But to avoid confusion, I say "he's badly hurt and knocked on his ass" or the like. If they're at 0 hp I always say "they're bleeding out" or "you killed them", depending on which it is.

Hit points aren't meat, but the difference between Dead, 0 HP, and 1+ HP should always be instantly noticible in-game.