New "Dying" Rules

[Hyde]

We've seen the words "rocket-tag" and "race to 0" and "whack-a-mole" thrown around a bit. I don't really mind that the current pop-tart style of fighting exists, but I don't think I'm a fan of it being easily the most viable option. It is, unfortunately, the logical conclusion from weak healing and not having a reason to avoid 0 hp (no negative hp, no negative consequences).

Adding a reason to avoid 0 hp doesn't rebalance the game to make healing effective, and increasing the potency of healing starts to demand a dedicated healer, something I'd generally like to avoid.

So here are some rules that fix none of that, and instead make being at 0 hp more interesting:

Dying-
If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill you, you fall prone and are Dying. You remain prone for as long as you are dying.

At the start of each of your turns while you are Dying, make a death saving throw. Roll a d20, if the roll is 10 or higher, you succeed. Otherwise, you fail. A roll of 1 counts as two failures. On a roll of 20, you regain 1 hit point.

On your third succes, you stop Dying and become Stable.
On your second failure, you fall Unconcious.
On your third failure, you Die.

On your turn, if you take an action or bonus action, you must make additional death saving throws after the action resolves.

If you become Stable or restore hit points, you are no longer Dying and your successes and failures reset.

Stable-
On your turn, if you take an action, a bonus action, or move more than half your speed, you must succeed on a DC 10 constitution save or resume Dying. The DC increases by 5 with each success, and resets if you regain hit points.

The only thing this really "solves" is weird quirks of turn order making it difficult or unreasonable to help your allies. Now they can help themselves, or they can crawl off the field, or even kill themselves faster trying to be heroes or whatever.

[Tanarii]

The only weird thing I see, taking actions while dying may mean you stabilize faster? :smallconfused:


the current pop-tart style of fighting
This cracked me up 😂

[Theodoxus]

I was thinking the same thing... more chances to roll 20s... (or 1's) kinda exacerbates the pop-tart mentality... and what exactly is wrong with needing a healer anyway? It's my favorite role in WoW, and it's not like healbots do nothing but...

[ad_hoc]

I'm a fan of keeping the failures until long rest.

[Afrodactyl]

The way I play it is that the moment you hit zero you make a death saving throw, then you make more saving throws at he start of your subsequent turns. Failures persist until you've taken a rest of any length.

Makes going down immediately life threatening and not a minor inconvenience until the cleric uses healing word.

[Eric Diaz]

Just make them roll with disadvantage if they take an action/bonus action/etc.

Natural 1-5 = exhaustion.

[Hyde]

The only weird thing I see, taking actions while dying may mean you stabilize faster? :smallconfused: 😂

Yeah. I'd be a little hesitant to stick disadvantage on them, but that might be the fix.


and what exactly is wrong with needing a healer anyway? It's my favorite role in WoW, and it's not like healbots do nothing but...

What's fun for you might not be fun for everyone, "who's stuck being the healer?" exists for a reason. However, I do think that if you want to be a healer, it should be a viable choice, and Life Cleric gets most of the way there.


I'm a fan of keeping the failures until long rest.
Thought about this, but ultimately decided that would end in a lot lot lot more death from all the additional dice being rolled. Might not be a bad thing, but not desirable at this time.

[Talamare]

I'm a fan of keeping the failures until long rest.

Agreed + a DST the moment you fall

Really encourages healing before the fall, especially if they have fallen once or twice already.

[Meta]

Still undedcided on my rules for my upcoming game, but my favorite at the moment is tracking negative hit points (very easy on roll 20) and having healing start from there instead of 0 unless they've been stabilized, as that brings the character back to 0.

I also plan on adding proficiency bonus to all healing done with an action to help make those spells a bit more attractive.

[Hyde]

Still undedcided on my rules for my upcoming game, but my favorite at the moment is tracking negative hit points (very easy on roll 20) and having healing start from there instead of 0 unless they've been stabilized, as that brings the character back to 0.

I also plan on adding proficiency bonus to all healing done with an action to help make those spells a bit more attractive.

Yeah, that's really the issue with it, healing usually doesn't keep up with damage dealt, so stuff like negative HPs mean a lot of dead PCs. Lemme know how that goes, though

[2D8HP]

....It is, unfortunately, the logical conclusion from weak healing.....
"Weak healing"?

:confused:

Compared to what?

The opportunities for and rates of healing in 5e are greater than they were in AD&D.

I'm not following you.

[Theodoxus]

Weak compared to damage done.

A level one damaging spells does from 3d4+3 to 3d10, depending. A level one healing spell does at best, 1d8+9, coming from a 20 Wis life cleric...

Given the myriad ways you can mod the game, the fact that I've never seen a "you automatically heal to full after an encounter" kinda shocks me.

Allowing free healing? the horror! But think of all the cool little special monsters, or spells that could shut down healing, if you made it even cheaper.

Everyone knows to shut down a troll, you use acid or fire... but how do you shut down a raging barbarian healing up between battles? trickier question!

[Renbot]

Failures persist until you've taken a rest of any length.


I like this. And thus I will steal it!

( of course I'm not actually stealing it since you can still use it too. You're welcome)

[Tanarii]

A level one damaging spells does from 3d4+3 to 3d10, depending. A level one healing spell does at best, 1d8+9, coming from a 20 Wis life cleric...
If you're going to compare damage done from a spell of the same level to damage received, you have to take into account healing is automatic, and damage done requires an attack roll or saving throw. You're looking at around 50-60% damage/spell, vs 100% healed.

Or you can look at it from the opposite way, since tanks are generally hit at fairly low rates. How effective that 100% is depends on how much damage your ally will be taking. If you use w Cure Wounds to heal 8 puts of damage on a AC 18 S&B fighter who is facing enemies that do 5 4 damage with +3 to hit, you just healed 8 rounds worth of damage. Even if they are up against a beefier +6 to hit for 10 damage, you've healed almost 2 rounds worth of DPR.

[Potato_Priest]

Even if they are up against a beefier +6 to hit for 10 damage, you've healed almost 2 rounds worth of DPR.

Remarkable that a cleric can keep up with the damage dealing potential of a pair of draft horses attacking a fighter in full plate.

My apologies for the sarcasm. Healing in combat, while acceptable at first level like you pointed out, seems much less powerful from 5th level until you get the heal spell, unless we’re talking about an edge case like the raging bearbarian. During this time, enemies do more damage, AC matters less and less, and there aren’t any good single target combat heals, so if your foe is focusing fire like they should there’s not much you can do about people going down.

[Tanarii]

A first level spell keeping up with Chain & Shield vs a pair of Warhorses, CR 1/2 creatures? Yeah, that's weak all right. :smallconfused:

Cure Wounds doesn't upcast very well, relatively speaking, but no spell does. Not going to disagree that there's not some room for a properly scaling in-combat healing spell in between Cure Wounds and Mass Cure Wounds. Mass Healing Word doesn't fill that space, really.

Regardless, my main point was people always forget that Cure Wounds and other healing is 100% chance when they try to compare it to either damage done by their spells, or incoming damage taken by those they're healing. They're not evaluating it correctly.

[Potato_Priest]

A first level spell keeping up with Chain & Shield vs a pair of Warhorses, CR 1/2 creatures? Yeah, that's weak all right. :smallconfused

Draft horses deal the same damage (-trampling charge) but are CR 1/4

[Hyde]

It's an interesting point, Healing being 100% vs Damage being probably-not-100%. My experience thus far that healing allies has been largely a waste of time above 0hp, at most levels of play (except like, 9th level heal everyone to full forever spells, of course).

Still, it's a good point. These rules definitely aren't to "fix" anything, but if we're going to be playing at 0 hp because we're racing there, may as well make it more interesting.

[Anonymouswizard]

Given the myriad ways you can mod the game, the fact that I've never seen a "you automatically heal to full after an encounter" kinda shocks me.

Honestly, based on what the designers have said, I suspect that the game is balanced assuming ~7 combats and two short rests per long rest with no spell slots being used for out of combat healing (but somehow beginning every encounter at max hp). I am confused as to why there hasn't been some form of official statement that it's okay to let PCs heal to full on a Short Rest instead of using hit dice, if not a 'for a more heroic campaign heal to full at the end of an encounter'.

Now 5e is balanced very differently to old D&D. In old D&D your primary limitations wasn't a lack of abilities, it was the supplies you could carry with you, your hp total, and how many spell slots the casters had. Especially the clerics, healing was slow and so every spell would help, and you couldn't bank on getting potions.

Healing in 5e is easier, not only can you spend hit dice on a short rest (I honestly preferred how Healing Surges worked, but they're easy to houserule in) but healing spells can be made into a semi-viable combat strategy. But hp isn't considered a limiting factor anymore, and higher level PCs should be buying healing potions by the cart, there's not really much else to spend your treasure on (seriously, would a set of rules for investing in property and ventures be too much for the PhB? It wouldn't have to be more than a page or two).

Core 5e healing is actually relatively weak though, but this is due to having less spells. Healing spells generally get better with higher level slots, while blasting spells do as well blasters will generally use a 3rd level fireball over a 3rd level magic missile. 5e's still more in the 'buff to avoid taking damage' model, it just presents options to make healers less of a trap option compared to earlier editions.

[LeonBH]

Burning hands deals 3d6 (~10.5) damage on a failed save, or ~5.25 on a success. If it hits two creatures, it's dealt ~21 if both failed, or ~10.5 if both passed.

The first level cure wounds heals for 1d8+3 (~7.5). It's already healing less than damage can output.

At level 5, a fighter can hit for 2d12+8. Assuming a 60% chance to hit, that is a 12.6 DPR. A cure wounds heals ~8.5

So healing doesn't really get on the level of damage, and it doesn't catch up.

With the exception of healing spirit, of course.

[PeteNutButter]

Adding a reason to avoid 0 hp doesn't rebalance the game to make healing effective...*snip*

Isn't that exactly what your proposed solution does? I presume you are referring to the popular +1 exhuastion level for each time a PC hits zero? Your proposed rule isn't much different, which isn't a bad thing. I use the exhaustion rule, and quite like it. Your rule is a bit more finicky, but comes with the upside of allowing for some heroic play. That's cool. I'd point out that having stable tied to a con save allows some characters auto success past a certain point. A paladin with resilient con for instance should have about +9 by level 6, meaning they are fully functional while Stable with zero risk of slipping back. I really don't think paladins need another inadvertent buff.

As for those complaining about healing being weaker than damage...
Healing should never keep up with damage. Combats would become a slog where either side can never defeat the other side until one side runs out of spells slots on healers. If only PCs can heal, then monsters have to be that much more durable to be able to slog through mountains of hp several times. It would extend the length of fights and dispel tension.

Healing is always and will always be only really effective on tanks (and not just barbarians, AC tanks as well). Otherwise it exists to restore allies from zero.

If you really don't like the "pop-tart" action, I'm working a spell I am going to give to the cleric in my game as a quest reward that people are free to steal. Hand of Protection
2nd-level evocation

Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take in response as you see a creature take damage
Range: 60 feet
Components: V
Duration: Instantaneous

You reach out and extend a protective blessing on a creature within range as they take damage. That creature regains 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier in hit points, right before they would take the damage.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the healing increases by 1d6 for each slot above 2nd.It should prevent allies from going down, which will see a lot of play as I do play with the exhaustion level rule. There was a similar spell in 3.5e, and it really did a good job of making the cleric feel powerful when he stopped someone from going down instead of just healing them afterwards. Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't make a spell like this already...

[Hyde]

Isn't that exactly what your proposed solution does? I presume you are referring to the popular +1 exhuastion level for each time a PC hits zero? etc and so forth

I've stated, explicitly, twice now that my rule is not a fix for the pop-tarts. The exhaustion rule (and others) punish players for dropping to 0. It doesn't encourage healing, so much as discourages falling unconscious (the distinction is important). The rule as presented doesn't punish players for dropping to 0, nor does it really (further) encourage doing so, because you can end up killing yourself faster (at Tanarii's suggestion, we've discussed it, and have elected to adopt the "at disadvantage" part).

Literally the only thing I've done is made being at 0 hit points more interesting, and opened up a space where characters at 0 can do more than just hope for a 20 or that the initiative order makes sense for someone to heal them.

So no, it doesn't rebalance the entire game to make healing more effective at all. It might make potions more effective, since that's a thing you could do to be not-dying, and my players almost never take potions (they're a bit odd).

[Chugger]

Hyde we get it.

Some of the others were discussing wide-reaching consequences of changes you proposed and related changes - and are pointing out there are potential consequences or "might not work like you expect" aspects - and sure, we're not psychic and have no idea the exact features of your table and so on - so of course we're not speaking to your exact situation. Do we ever? :smallbiggrin: We're speaking of broader or potential issues - or they are, rather. And they're right to bring up what they brought up. Now we have to process all this and work out what works for our subjective situations. Again, all standard procedure here.