House Rule: call high or low on death saves

[Cikomyr2]

You call high, it's normal death save

You call low, you don't wanna roll a 20 to 12

11s and 10s are wild

You wanna guess your death, punk? 😅

[Chronos]

Ordinarily, this won't matter. But there are a few things that can boost death saves: A paladin's aura gives her Cha as a bonus on all saves, a high-level monk is proficient in all saves, and Bless gives 1d4 to all saves. "All saves" includes death saves.

[Cikomyr2]

Ordinarily, this won't matter. But there are a few things that can boost death saves: A paladin's aura gives her Cha as a bonus on all saves, a high-level monk is proficient in all saves, and Bless gives 1d4 to all saves. "All saves" includes death saves.

Are you sure of that? I have seen it read both ways

[MoiMagnus]

Are you sure of that? I have seen it read both ways

p197 of the PHB

Death Saving Throws
[...]
You are in the hands of fate now, aided only by spells and features that improve your chances of succeeding on a saving throw.

This confirms that it works.

[Cikomyr2]

Hotdamn. You are right.

I was hearing last night about the use of a flip coin to determine death saves, and the player *having* to call it just made the whole process that more juicy in my mind.

[Zhorn]

I was hearing last night about the use of a flip coin to determine death saves, and the player *having* to call it just made the whole process that more juicy in my mind.
On the surface, it's easy to see death saves as a simple 50/50 slit that could be replaced with a coin or any other dice splitting results down the middle. But as mentioned above there's features and bonuses that don't transfer across without needing additional modifications.
Additionally, going to a coin cuts out natural 1's and 20's, or using alternate die sizes skews the odds of those occurrences.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I mean, if you have something like Bless' +1d4, it's easy enough to translate it to -1d4 if you're trying to roll low. <shrug> I dunno what the option to call high or low really adds, though.

The niftiest death save houserule I ever came across was that you don't roll any saves until someone checks on you or attempts a healing spell or something--at which point you make all of the deferred saves one at a time. Not knowing how much time the character has left adds a lot of tension to the game.

[Zhorn]

The niftiest death save houserule I ever came across was that you don't roll any saves until someone checks on you or attempts a healing spell or something--at which point you make all of the deferred saves one at a time. Not knowing how much time the character has left adds a lot of tension to the game.
Much in favour of those 'tensions of the unknown' setups.
In our Foundry games, we make our death saves as private rolls to the DM, so for the rest of the party they don't know how close to dead/stable the downed PC is.

I've heard of other tables having the DM roll behind the screen, but I've never been fond of the idea of DMs rolling on behalf of a PC.
(in part it's a matter of principle, but in others some DMs have trained me to have trust issues :smallannoyed:)

Smallest hiccup with the roll when checked is it messes with the 'nat20 = wake up on 1 hp' rule, as getting that turn come back into play during combat can be very potent.

[Chronos]

Theoretically, death saves should add tension. But in practice, in my group at least, I've never seen them be relevant: We always have at least one character capable of casting Healing Word, and usually two or three with some sort of healing capabilities, such that any time a character has gone down, they've always been popped back up within three rounds, and usually the same round.

[MoiMagnus]

I dunno what the option to call high or low really adds, though.

Mathematically, nothing.
However, a lot of peoples are much more satisfied when playing heads or tail when they got to chose which one is winning rather than having it be assigned to them.
("I could have succeeded by making the other choice"/"Glad I made the good choice" gives you a feeling of control over your fate, compared to "I've failed and nothing could have prevented this in any way"/"I was saved by the die")

[Lunali]

On the surface, it's easy to see death saves as a simple 50/50 slit that could be replaced with a coin or any other dice splitting results down the middle. But as mentioned above there's features and bonuses that don't transfer across without needing additional modifications.
Additionally, going to a coin cuts out natural 1's and 20's, or using alternate die sizes skews the odds of those occurrences.

Even without any modifiers, it's a 55/45 split, switching to the coin is more likely to end up with dead characters.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Mathematically, nothing.
However, a lot of peoples are much more satisfied when playing heads or tail when they got to chose which one is winning rather than having it be assigned to them.
That's true. I can see how the choice could be satisfying.

[Cikomyr2]

Theoretically, death saves should add tension. But in practice, in my group at least, I've never seen them be relevant: We always have at least one character capable of casting Healing Word, and usually two or three with some sort of healing capabilities, such that any time a character has gone down, they've always been popped back up within three rounds, and usually the same round.

In our last game, we fought a giant at the peak of a mountain who purposely threw downed PCs down the slopes, in ravines, hard to find and reach

We killed that guy so hard

[quinron]

Much in favour of those 'tensions of the unknown' setups.
In our Foundry games, we make our death saves as private rolls to the DM, so for the rest of the party they don't know how close to dead/stable the downed PC is.

I've heard of other tables having the DM roll behind the screen, but I've never been fond of the idea of DMs rolling on behalf of a PC.
(in part it's a matter of principle, but in others some DMs have trained me to have trust issues :smallannoyed:)

Smallest hiccup with the roll when checked is it messes with the 'nat20 = wake up on 1 hp' rule, as getting that turn come back into play during combat can be very potent.

Personally, I use the tension rules as well as ignoring 1's and 20's. Given how dependent survivability is on healing and how limited healing is outside magic, the odds of staying up for more than 1 round after you get that natural 20 is slim, and I don't feel it balances out against jumping 2/3 of the way closer to death on a natural 1. Coupled with the tension rule, it's also going to tick the cleric off if they left the frontliners on their own to get you back on your feet and it turns out you rolled a 20 on your first death save, and though that's a very rare situation given how many death saves you'll end up rolling over a game, after it happens once, the cleric's going to be that much more hesitant to help a dying ally.


Theoretically, death saves should add tension. But in practice, in my group at least, I've never seen them be relevant: We always have at least one character capable of casting Healing Word, and usually two or three with some sort of healing capabilities, such that any time a character has gone down, they've always been popped back up within three rounds, and usually the same round.

The issue is, sooner or later that hmagic's going to run out. Healing word is a pretty weak spell, and if you're spending all day just running on that juice to stay on your feet, you'll eventually reach a fight where the cleric doesn't have a healing word left to get you back up. It's possible the DM isn't going to keep throwing you enough fights to run you out of that magic; I don't think they should necessarily be doing that every day, but if they don't do it at least once in a while, I don't think they're doing a good job of challenging your group (assuming challenge is something you're looking for in the game).

[da newt]

BTW a cloak / ring of protection or any other +X to saves also adds to death saves just like BLESS or Pali aura or inspiration, etc ... on top of the 1 = 2 fails (5%), 2-9 = 1 fail (40%), 10-19 = 1 success (50%), 20 = auto conscious w/ 1 hp (5%) that makes an unmodified death save far from a 50-50 ...

But once you account for all that, I think the player's choice of HI or LO is fun and adds the illusion of player agency.

[KorvinStarmast]

You wanna guess your death, punk? 😅 Let's not try to fix what isn't broken.


Theoretically, death saves should add tension. But in practice, in my group at least, I've never seen them be relevant: We always have at least one character capable of casting Healing Word, and usually two or three with some sort of healing capabilities, such that any time a character has gone down, they've always been popped back up within three rounds, and usually the same round. When the one PC who has healing word goes down first, tension is present. When the monsters sometimes whack you when you are down, tension is present. When two of four party members drop at the same time from a banshee's scream, tension is present.

We seem to have had different experiences. :smallcool:

[MoiMagnus]

When the one PC who has healing word goes down first, tension is present. When the monsters sometimes whack you when you are down, tension is present. When two of four party members drop at the same time from a banshee's scream, tension is present.

We seem to have had different experiences. :smallcool:

Though, those are not really granted by the death saving throws. For most intent and purposes, you could assume peoples always succeed at their saving throw (so the rule is just "three hits after falling unconscious = death ; critical hit count double") for the same resulting tension. [EDIT: I posted the post before finishing my paragraph, sorry] When your team is down, you already are at reduced power, so the fight is harder than before (and for PC to fall at 0, it means the fight was already hard), and have to deal with both preventing the enemies from finishing of your friends, healing them so they can get back to fighting, on top of the usual "avoiding to die".

[KorvinStarmast]

Though, those are not really granted by the death saving throws. For most intent and purposes, you could assume peoples always succeed at their saving throw (so the rule is just "three hits after falling unconscious = death ; critical hit count double") for the same resulting tension.
No, the tension present in two of those is "one miss and you die" and the last one (banshee) is a case of Action Economy just got hosed as the other two PCs are covered up in busy. Making those death saves matters.

[Grod_The_Giant]

No, the tension present in two of those is "one miss and you die" and the last one (banshee) is a case of Action Economy just got hosed as the other two PCs are covered up in busy. Making those death saves matters.
Oh, absolutely--any time a character goes down there's tension. And the "wake up on a natural 20" rule actually saved a campaign I was running by preventing a complete TPK*. I was just bringing it up since we were starting to talk about death save rules more generally.




*The main baddie of the campaign was a revenant sorcerer, so he got to go face-to-face with the party whenever he wanted with no real consequences. In one particular encounter, he was surrounded and down to something like 2 hit points when his turn came up. With neither escape nor victory possible, he gave the party a big old middle finger and cast Fireball right at his feet. A few unlucky rolls later and the entire party was down and making death saves--if the Cleric hadn't rolled a natural 20 on his first turn, the game could have ended then and there.

[KorvinStarmast]

Oh, absolutely--any time a character goes down there's tension. And the "wake up on a natural 20" rule actually saved a campaign I was running by preventing a complete TPK*.
It saved our first party from one, back in 2015. (Korvin still died, however)

[DwarfFighter]

Whenever you start your turn with 0 hit points, you must make a special saving throw, called a death saving throw, to determine whether you creep closer to death or hang onto life. Unlike other saving throws, this one isn't tied to any ability score. You are in the hands of fate now, aided only by spells and features that improve your chances of succeeding on a saving throw.



p197 of the PHB

This confirms that it works.

Interesting.

Bless: This helps because it's a spell.

Paladin, Aura of Protection: This helps because it's a feature.

Halfling, Lucky: This does not help, because it's a racial trait.

Lucky: This does not help, because it's a feat.

Bane: - This does not hinder, since it's not an improvement to your chances of succeeding.

Monk, Diamond Soul: This makes you proficient in death saving throws, and you can spend a Ki point to re-roll when you fail.

How about Heroes' Feast? It's a spell that gives you advantage on a save, specifically Wisdom saves.

-DF

[Cikomyr2]

I would argue that Lucky applies, because it's a saving throw

[DwarfFighter]

Lucky is mentioned here precisely for that reason: It affects saving throws. However, it is not a "spell" or a "feature". The same text that brings it into consideration also excludes it.

[kazaryu]

Lucky is mentioned here precisely for that reason: It affects saving throws. However, it is not a "spell" or a "feature". The same text that brings it into consideration also excludes it.

tbf, the text doesn't say 'class feature' or you'd be right. it uses a generic term 'feature' which corresponds to no group of...well anything from a mechanics perspective. indicating that its a descriptive term, not a mechanical one. (the difference between the two is a huge cause of ambiguity in 5e). As such, 'feature' could easily include racial traits as they're a feature of your character.

of course this is getting into RAI territory, as the RaW is ambiguous.

i do find it funny that, you're right, monks (of sufficeint level) actually would be proficient with death saving throws. in fact, a high level monk that within a paladins aura of protection could very easily only be at risk of death if they roll 2 nat 1's in a row (or an enemy executes them). fun stuff.

also, for the thread as a whole, don't forget that a paladin's aura can't improve their own death saves, only an ally's.

and yeah, i mean if you're willing to do the extra 'math' of making sure death save modifiers are inverted when necessary this seems like an ok houserule. it ultimately would chance nothing about the mechanics.

[Lunali]

i do find it funny that, you're right, monks (of sufficeint level) actually would be proficient with death saving throws. in fact, a high level monk that within a paladins aura of protection could very easily only be at risk of death if they roll 2 nat 1's in a row (or an enemy executes them). fun stuff.

If the monk in question still has ki, they'd need to fail 4 in a row as the same ability that gives the proficiency also lets them reroll failed saves.

[Cikomyr2]

If the monk in question still has ki, they'd need to fail 4 in a row as the same ability that gives the proficiency also lets them reroll failed saves.

Can you spend Ki if you are unconscious?

[DwarfFighter]

tbf, the text doesn't say 'class feature' or you'd be right. it uses a generic term 'feature' which corresponds to no group of...well anything from a mechanics perspective. indicating that its a descriptive term, not a mechanical one.

In this context, spells and features are mentioned specifically, there is no suggestion of anything "feature-like".

Furthermore, "feature" is as inclusive as is "saves" in this context: "Class feature" is a feature in the same way "death save" is a save. The lack of specificity of the sort of feature doesn't mean you get to include non-feature stuff.

Curious to hear about what people think of the Heroes' Feast vs. death saves. Do you have advantage on death saves because the spell improves "a save" (as per the death saves rule), or no?

[Cikomyr2]

Why would the Heros Feast give bonus to death saves? It's explicitly mentions Wisdom Saves, Death Saves aren't wisdom, QED

[DwarfFighter]

Why would the Heros Feast give bonus to death saves? It's explicitly mentions Wisdom Saves, Death Saves aren't wisdom, QED

Because the rules blurb that allows you to apply any modification at all to your death saves says this:


You are in the hands of fate now, aided only by spells and features that improve your chances of succeeding on a saving throw.

Is a Wisdom save "a saving throw"? Yes, it is. But is the intent that the rules should be interpreted so broadly? Hard to tell from the terse text.

Also, it is a bit unreasonable to expect that spells and features should have specific rules for how they affect death saves - saving throws as defined by the core rules is tied to ability scores and proficiency in their definition, death saves is an entirely separate mechanic that is built up of entirely distinct rules, but opt in on rules that modify saves by defining itself as a save.

-DF

[Grod_The_Giant]

It saved our first party from one, back in 2015. (Korvin still died, however)
Wait, but if you died back in 2015...that means that... you just...

...

https://media1.tenor.com/images/1f42aa0619bbeccc308f6018abc16b58/tenor.gif?itemid=4572932

[MoiMagnus]

You are in the hands of fate now, aided only by spells and features that improve your chances of succeeding on a saving throw.

Is a Wisdom save "a saving throw"? Yes, it is.

I don't see why "aided only by spells and features that improve your chances of succeeding on a saving throw." would mean that every such spells/features will grant you a bonus. I don't read it as enabling you to do something you could not do before.

"aided only by X" doesn't mean that everything that qualify as "X" can always aide you. It means that there are reasonable situations in which some things that qualify as "X" can help you.

I see two possible reading of this sentence:
(1) It is an explicit restriction, saying that effects that are not "spells" or "features" cannot apply in this situation.
(2) It reminds the reader that "death saving throw" are a kind "saving throw" (so there is 7 kinds of saving throws: one per ability score, plus death saving throws), so as per the usual rules, effects that increase all your saving throws also increase your death saving throws.

And I think (2) is more likely to be the intended meaning.

[DwarfFighter]

I don't see why "aided only by spells and features that improve your chances of succeeding on a saving throw." would mean that every such spells/features will grant you a bonus. I don't read it as enabling you to do something you could not do before.

"aided only by X" doesn't mean that everything that qualify as "X" can always aide you. It means that there are reasonable situations in which some things that qualify as "X" can help you.

I see two possible reading of this sentence:
(1) It is an explicit restriction, saying that effects that are not "spells" or "features" cannot apply in this situation.
(2) It reminds the reader that "death saving throw" are a kind "saving throw" (so there is 7 kinds of saving throws: one per ability score, plus death saving throws), so as per the usual rules, effects that increase all your saving throws also increase your death saving throws.

And I think (2) is more likely to be the intended meaning.

I think there is significant meaning to the use of the word "only" here that implies that this is a rule, not a reminder.

"You can only park behind the building." vs "You can park behind the building."

-DF

[MoiMagnus]

I think there is significant meaning to the use of the word "only" here that implies that this is a rule, not a reminder.

"You can only park behind the building." vs "You can park behind the building."

-DF

I disagree, the full sentence is "You are in the hands of fate now, aided only by spells and features that improve your chances of succeeding on a saving throw.", which is a very dramatic sentence. If you remove the "only", it significantly undermines the emotion that the sentence wants to convey.

"You are in the hands of fate now, aided only by your friends" VS "You are in the hands of fate now, aided by your friends". The first one feels like it's directly out of a book, while the second one feels clumsy.

[DwarfFighter]

That's a fair point. So you would argue that the entire sentence is merely thematic, worth nothing with regards to rules statements?

I can roll with that. In that case racial traits and feats that affect saving throws are back in consideration, as are effects that negatively affect saving throws, like Bane.

-DF

[Lupine]

Smallest hiccup with the roll when checked is it messes with the 'nat20 = wake up on 1 hp' rule, as getting that turn come back into play during combat can be very potent.

That’s ok. I dislike that rule anyway. At my table, I give the players the option, as a table, to either remove that rule, making a nat20 be just two successes, or change a nat 1 to cause death.

That said, checking all the saves upon healing would make having instead death or recovery be kinda silly.

[Chronos]

The monk-with-a-paladin-ally can get even weirder. Saving throws do not, in general, automatically fail on a roll of a natural 1 any more. So now suppose that we have that monk, or anyone else who, for some reason, has a total bonus of +9 or more to death saves. And suppose further that that monk rolls the d20, and gets a natural 1 (and either doesn't have the ki to reroll it, or the reroll is also a 1). What happens now? Well, with her bonuses, the monk hits the 10 DC, and so she succeeds. And also, since the save was a natural 1, she also gets two failures.

And of course, now that we've got that, it can get even weirder. Suppose that the monk has been down for a while before she rolled that natural 1. She has, in fact, already rolled two death saves, and unsurprisingly succeeded on both of them. But an enemy, in hopes of keeping her down, has also attacked her again, and given her one failure already. So now, she reaches three successes at the same time that she reaches three failures. And so she recovers and dies at the same time.

[Lunali]

Can you spend Ki if you are unconscious?

RAW, I can't think of anything that would stop you since it doesn't take any kind of action. In a more narrative sense, I would assume that your body would do its best to try to heal itself. I would typically treat both the ki expenditure for this feature and things like luck as things that are decided by the player rather than the character, allowing them to spend while unconscious.

[Zhorn]

RAW, I can't think of anything that would stop you since it doesn't take any kind of action. In a more narrative sense, I would assume that your body would do its best to try to heal itself. I would typically treat both the ki expenditure for this feature and things like luck as things that are decided by the player rather than the character, allowing them to spend while unconscious.

I think this is a very reasonable approach; if a feature does not consume an action (of any type) then the ability to make actions or not should not restrict their use. I'm sure there are feature that it would make sense to restrict on such conditions such as being unconscious, but features that represent a generally improved resilience seems completely fair to allow use under such conditions.

[kazaryu]

In this context, spells and features are mentioned specifically, there is no suggestion of anything "feature-like".

Furthermore, "feature" is as inclusive as is "saves" in this context: "Class feature" is a feature in the same way "death save" is a save. The lack of specificity of the sort of feature doesn't mean you get to include non-feature stuff.


bolding mine. yes, precisely. 'feature' is a more broad term. just like 'saves' is a broad term. there are several specific type of saves, just that there are several types of features.

of course there isn't a defined subgroup 'feature' in the game (contrarily 'saves' is a defined subgroup. and it contains specific saves like death saves, wisdom saves, etc.). meaning there is no RaW answer. only RaI. your interpretation is perfectly valid. i just think mine makes more sense given the context.

as for heroes feast. its definitely valid from a strict RaW interpretation. although i do think it starts to veer into rules-lawyer territory. IMO it probably isn't meant to work that way. but i'm fairly ambivalent to allowing it. i doubt it'd break much at the level that heroes feast comes into play. and if they' purchasing the spell rather than casting it themselves (i.e. too low level) then its cost is high enough that i'd probably just give it to 'em if they asked.