Quote from: Opaopajr;824319So you are happy with the percentage of playtime v. time-out as it relates to combat length. But you don't like the conceit of popping back up. And somehow you want to front-load healing preemptively instead of reactively.

You're over-thinking this. Just fiat declare that healing only Stabilize PCs downed to 0 HP. Then all healing must be used ahead of time, regardless of Lay on Hands, heal spells, or Healer feat. It merely returns the game state to OD&D and AD&D without the negative HP variant. Tah-dah, done.

Let's say a PC has 5 hit points, and takes a 10 damage hit - then he falls unconscious. Under your variation, if Cure Wounds for 6 hit points is applied to him, he is stabilized but is still unconscious. Is that correct?

Let me ask this as a question.

If one were to use this rule, what do you think the effect would be on how easily PCs become unconscious? It seems to me that this will mean that it is more likely for a PC or PCs to be unconscious during combat, because it is difficult to predict where healing will be needed.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;824284I have to look that up. What I had in mind was Boromir's death scene in the LOTR movie. Took a lot to take him down.

That is having tons of HP in the first place because obviously he was not down and was instead still swinging away well in. That IS the whole point of having alot of HP so if you want you can say its that sort of crazy perforating that some people can live through before expiring. Or actually survive.

As for the cat killing a high level character. See my commentary on why that gets less and less likely to happen. By around level 5 the PCs should be well into AC 15 or, with good looting or saving up, better. The example cat has to actually find that critical spot even with advantage.

As for the OPs problem and contradiction.

First off most combat in 5e is absurdly short. Last session the party of 3 went head on with a adult dragon and the whole thing lasted about 6 rounds.  5 seems the average. But I've seen fights end as quick as 3 depending on the encounter. Dont know if that was intentional or just a quirk of the group. This means that downed characters do not have all that long to wait untill help arrives or the fight ends and help arrives. Assuming they dont stabalize or recover on their own in the meantime.

Removing the chance of death with charms or whatever also removes the risk of combat and makes the game exponentially revolving door of non-death.

Also, at least with my group, even when a PC is down, they are still participating by rooting for the others, worrying about if they will live or not, or plotting what to do when they get back on their feet. And it is usually only about 2-4 min before its their go again and they are participating by rolling to see if they stabalize. Which is EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME SPENT WAITING FOR THEIR TURN TO COMBAT! Are these jitterbugs going not-quietly insane waiting for their regular battle turn no matter how long that might be? No? Then one might assume they can handle waiting for their death save roll too.

Quote from: Opaopajr;824319You're over-thinking this. Just fiat declare that healing only Stabilize PCs downed to 0 HP. Then all healing must be used ahead of time, regardless of Lay on Hands, heal spells, or Healer feat. It merely returns the game state to OD&D and AD&D without the negative HP variant. Tah-dah, done.

This is what we have considered too. That you need to blow a small healing spell, cantrip, or potion to stabalize the character. THEN and only then does actual healing of HP work. This along with the after wake up groggyness disadvantage nudges things to what feels more "realistic" without adding any extra bookkeeping.

I think the general problem here, which won't get fixed by any of the re-balancing variants people are mentioning, is that D&D is just too easy in its current and recent forms. It might seem like a good idea to make PC's more robust so they can survive and advance. But games you can't loose are boring. I greatly prefer a dynamic where you are at significantly greater risk of dying, but it is easier to create and advance characters. Easy come, easy go.

Quote from: Omega;824327As for the cat killing a high level character. See my commentary on why that gets less and less likely to happen. By around level 5 the PCs should be well into AC 15 or, with good looting or saving up, better. The example cat has to actually find that critical spot even with advantage.

I actually hadn't thought of that as I was assuming low level characters in the OP's situation. Wasn't thinking of Boromir in a character level way either. I'd still find it a bit "unrealistic" for a low level character to die of a figurative cat scratch when they're on the verge of 0 hp, though. I understand it's a quirk of games with  HP in general. I guess it'd be easier to come up with a more satisfying description of the blow than implementing rules tweaks.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;824334I actually hadn't thought of that as I was assuming low level characters in the OP's situation. Wasn't thinking of Boromir in a character level way either. I'd still find it a bit "unrealistic" for a low level character to die of a figurative cat scratch when they're on the verge of 0 hp, though. I understand it's a quirk of games with  HP in general. I guess it'd be easier to come up with a more satisfying description of the blow than implementing rules tweaks.

Except that removing the chance a cat might off you is itself unrealistic. A normal rat can kill a human being if it finds the right spot. And we ARE talking here about D&D critters which are not normal terran animals in any way shape or form.

Even better. The fact the cat killed a character can become an adventure hook all by itself. Was the cat a familliar? Whos then? Was it a curse? Supernatural? Godly? Was it really a cat at all? It sure seemed to know exactly where to strike? (This all assumes the cat actually hit in two rounds to do the deed of course.)

And so the "Cat Got His Tongue" mystery begins.:cool:

Quote from: jhkim;824326Let's say a PC has 5 hit points, and takes a 10 damage hit - then he falls unconscious. Under your variation, if Cure Wounds for 6 hit points is applied to him, he is stabilized but is still unconscious. Is that correct?

Yes.

QuoteLet me ask this as a question.

If one were to use this rule, what do you think the effect would be on how easily PCs become unconscious? It seems to me that this will mean that it is more likely for a PC or PCs to be unconscious during combat, because it is difficult to predict where healing will be needed.

It means you would need to use the healing spell when he's at 5 hp to get the full effect. In other words, use heals to keep people with low hp in the fight, not to get people taken out of the fight back in.

The tactical healing game changes from "getting people back up once they go down" to "preventing them from going down in the first place".

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;824300Which brings me to something I meant to say, if you're kind of feeling the death charm solution, don't let us discourage you or anything. Whatever your table finds believable is what counts.

Thanks. I'm a player in the current 5E campaign, and I think we're going to play with the 5E rules as written for a while yet. I'm just brainstorming for what I might do in the future if I take a turn at DMing (as we do).

Quote from: Larsdangly;824330I think the general problem here, which won't get fixed by any of the re-balancing variants people are mentioning, is that D&D is just too easy in its current and recent forms. It might seem like a good idea to make PC's more robust so they can survive and advance. But games you can't loose are boring. I greatly prefer a dynamic where you are at significantly greater risk of dying, but it is easier to create and advance characters. Easy come, easy go.

I have no problem with character death, and actually our 5E campaign has about as high a fatality rate as we've had in a while. We've lost four PCs so far in our campaign, and I think two in the introductory adventure - which is losing a PC about every four sessions. It seems to me that D&D in any form is as difficult as you make it. Different rules will challenge different skills - but making it hard is just a matter of the GM throwing in more difficult challenges and the players taking them on.

I personally haven't found this a problem, PC death is still ever-dangerous in all the 5th Ed games I've played/run, but if I found this a problem, I'd probably institute something like Star Wars Saga edition's "death spiral" Condition Track. That way, each time they got up, it gets easier to put them down (and the postage gets cancelled, eventually).

Quote from: Omnifray;823969The thing is with a "Death Charm" spell (if you assume that it is something cast beforehand by the spellcaster) that it ceases to be a method of rescuing someone after things have gone wrong, and becomes a method of preventing things from going wrong in the first place. Functionally it's very different to healing - it's no longer a final safeguard rescue mechanism of last resort, but instead it's a form of damage limitation. Prevention is better than cure, they say, and a "Death Charm" is prevention rather than cure. If you have a "Death Charm" spell up, my guess is, psychologically, you're going to take more risks than someone who is going to depend on post hoc healing. So therefore the "Death Charm" fails to do what healing is really there for in metagame terms, which is to haul the PC's ass out of the fire when the player has misjudged the risks or been unlucky or outmanoeuvred.

Perhaps I've misunderstood JHKim's concept here.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

For my current campaign, inner character psychology isn't much of a factor in how we play out our fights. First and foremost, we're fighting to make sure that we don't all die. We will absolutely prefer not to have characters go down at all, but when we're pushed and in danger of losing (as we often have been), we'll conserve healing to give out to dying characters.

I don't intend for a death charm to be any safer or more effective than healing tactically. So if it is still risky, then I think PCs will try their best to avoid it.

Still, in our fights, the enemy fights hard and fights smart - and they're tough. Even if we make good decisions, there's often a good chance that someone will go down. I don't think of healing magic or any other magic as a guard against mistakes - at least not moreso than armor or other resources. We have resources, and we try to use them as effectively as possible.

Quote from: apparition13;824342Yes.

It means you would need to use the healing spell when he's at 5 hp to get the full effect. In other words, use heals to keep people with low hp in the fight, not to get people taken out of the fight back in.

The tactical healing game changes from "getting people back up once they go down" to "preventing them from going down in the first place".

Yup, that's it exactly. And since excess healing "spills off" it does not operate in the same way as "death charms," as Omnifray explained. Thus lvls 1-3 are more lethal, due to lower Max HP, and gladly hurried through keeping with the rapid XP progression.

(One example caveat: If the example 5 HP target hit who was with 10 damage has a Max HP 5, then Instant Death occurs. This makes 1st lvls versus axe-wielding barbarian hobgoblins frightening. This is the game working as intended.)

It is a solution that changes the least to the rules state while impacting the usage of healing and retaining your (jhkim's) desired aesthetic conceit about being downed in combat.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;824334I actually hadn't thought of that as I was assuming low level characters in the OP's situation. Wasn't thinking of Boromir in a character level way either. I'd still find it a bit "unrealistic" for a low level character to die of a figurative cat scratch when they're on the verge of 0 hp, though. I understand it's a quirk of games with  HP in general. I guess it'd be easier to come up with a more satisfying description of the blow than implementing rules tweaks.

Most cats don't frenzy on humans slipping into shock, in our real world experience. But if they did, an unconscious, prone human dying from shock shouldn't be too hard to tip over the edge. System Shock is a very fragile state; it's remarkable how easily living things can die from it.

Quote from: jhkim;824435I don't intend for a death charm to be any safer or more effective than healing tactically. So if it is still risky, then I think PCs will try their best to avoid it.

The problem I fear would be that instead of automatically stepping out of the fight and away from danger when the Death Charm kicks in, people are going to treat it as one more contingency of battle, continue fighting and then go down... but now without a means of someone else getting them back up.

Anyway I am thinking of instituting some "losing consciousness" rules in my own RPG. I like the idea of a caster being able to snap someone out of it in those circumstances, without actually healing them.

Quote from: Omnifray;824470The problem I fear would be that instead of automatically stepping out of the fight and away from danger when the Death Charm kicks in, people are going to treat it as one more contingency of battle, continue fighting and then go down... but now without a means of someone else getting them back up.

If that happens and if the players hate waiting for the fight to finish after they go down, then they will most likely either take a greater interest in proactive healing or develop a new habit of automatically stepping out of the fight and away from danger when their HP drop to a level lower than the amount of damage they could reasonably expect to receive in one round, rather than waiting until they go down.

Quote from: nDervish;824584If that happens and if the players hate waiting for the fight to finish after they go down, then they will most likely either take a greater interest in proactive healing or develop a new habit of automatically stepping out of the fight and away from danger when their HP drop to a level lower than the amount of damage they could reasonably expect to receive in one round, rather than waiting until they go down.

But realistically if you are on your feet, you are a target, whereas if you are unconscious, many monsters will rationally leave you alone because they have better things to do than kill an unconscious person (namely, render unconscious the people who are still on their feet and still a threat). Only a TPK is a win for the monsters; killing an unconscious PC is of no real value to the monsters unless it goes hand in hand with a TPK (or an escape), or there is a real likelihood (as the monsters see it) of the unconscious PC receiving massive healing (up to at least say 25% of original hitpoints so as to be a viable combatant again). In fact, the unconscious person is positively valuable to the enemy because he is a distraction to his allies who need to stabilise him.

By falling unconscious you gain a level of safety because rational monsters (as opposed to skeletons or zombies I suppose) will rarely attack you (unless it's TPK territory or they are too far away from everyone else to influence what's left of the fight, and/or planning to escape, and/or the monsters realise/believe that you are likely to get massively healed).

As for people becoming more proactive in healing, yes, they may do; but there will always be a calculation, a calibrated response, and that won't be driven by the same levels of caution as the certainty that an unconscious person is dying and needs to be stabilised. And it is not always easy to escape the arena of battle or to "step out of the fight". I remember the time when my wizard PC was trailing behind the rest of the party, some distance from any fighting and probably flying, only to be assassinated by a flying invisible ogre mage...

Basically, falling unconscious is a safety net. Removing that safety net may not always work out to the advantage of continuous play*. These points are, of course, not the only factors to be weighed in the balance, and also depend on GMing style and playing style, so may vary from group to group.

Also if the Death Charm is a one-shot thing in each fight and the monsters know it has gone off, the person whose Death Charm has just kicked in and saved them (as a one-off for the fight) will suddenly become target numero uno if the monsters realise they can actually now take him out of the fight.

* by "continuous play" I mean people not having to sit on their hands while their characters are unconscious or awaiting restoral to life, generate new PCs etc.