TheRPGSite

So, playing 5th ed D&D, one of the features we have is that many fights get to a point where there is a lot of having a PC drop and then revived later in the round. Compared to earlier editions, there are a few things that help this:

1) No negative hit points, so even 1hp of healing brings you back from dying.
2) The Healing Word spell, that gives 1d4+stat bonus at range as a bonus action - along with a few similar options.
3) Getting up from prone takes only half your movement, with no attacks of opportunity.

In our fights, that means there is a phase where some characters keep dropping and then getting back up.

On the positive side, I hate it when players are taken out of the fight early and then have to sit around on their thumbs for a while through the remaining fight. Most versions of D&D are good at preventing this - the cleric is a vital innovation - and 5th edition does this very well. However, even with magic, I find the popping in and out of death to be hard on suspension-of-disbelief.  

I'd like to brainstorm on ways to keep the effect that all the PCs tend to stay up until they are close to TPK - but being easier on suspension-of-disbelief.

Maybe redefine 0 hp as 'unable to effectively fight, maneuver, or otherwise act' instead of the more traditional 'dying'?

I have use a death save system. So getting knocked to zero just mean's you're incapacitated - fatigued, stunned, whatever. If you roll really bad on your save then yeah, maybe you're severely wounded or dead.

But I found PCs popping in and out of consciousness several times in a battle in D&D dumb years ago. I don't care if it's trad or 'just part of the game,' it's goofy and it's one of the first things I house-ruled.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;823520Maybe redefine 0 hp as 'unable to effectively fight, maneuver, or otherwise act' instead of the more traditional 'dying'?

I'm fine with that in terms of believability.

However, in terms of game-play, that means there is less urgency to revive. i.e. I'm mostly OK, but my buddy has just been taken down. Do I use my action and/or spell slot to revive him, or to take down more of the enemy? If he's just incapacitated and there's no rush, then it might make more sense to take down the enemy quickly and help him later. If he's dying fast, though, then I'm definitely going to revive him.


One thought that occurs to me - what if instead of direct healing like Cure Wounds, the common spells were charms against death that negated the fatal blow?  Then instead of dropping and healing back up, the target was about to have a deadly wound but the charm took effect and the blow just missed. There could still be penalties from the distraction of the charm, say, equivalent to if one was downed and revived.

Quote from: Haffrung;823522But I found PCs popping in and out of consciousness several times in a battle in D&D dumb years ago. I don't care if it's trad or 'just part of the game,' it's goofy and it's one of the first things I house-ruled.

I never noticed it in other versions of D&D but it certainly seems a feature of 5e. In the last big battle we fought there was one guy who was up/down/up several times... and never did get a chance to attack. We laughed about it at the time but sheesh... quite lame in retrospect.

QuoteOne thought that occurs to me - what if instead of direct healing like Cure Wounds, the common spells were charms against death that negated the fatal blow?  Then instead of dropping and healing back up, the target was about to have a deadly wound but the charm took effect and the blow just missed. There could still be penalties from the distraction of the charm, say, equivalent to if one was downed and revived.

I'm not sure you mean 'charms' the way I'm taking it but Earthdawn had a lot of different 'Blood Charms' and there was one like you mention. My memory is hazy but IIRC it hooked into your flesh and was 'on' until you received a killing blow... at which point it absorbed the damage... or something... then it dropped off and the wearer just kept on fighting. It was a one-shot use and there were some classes that were proscribed from wearing any sort of charm at all.

That's why I use Unconscious at 0 HP and Dead at -1 HP for my OD&D games.

Keeps the game moving and keeps people on their toes tactically when they are are at 50% HP, and everyone starts thinking about retreat at 25% HP.

But I use Morale rules so my NPCs don't always fight to the death. This cuts down the grind. I use Morale in my 4e games to keep fights shorter too, thus less of the Up & Down you see with Healing actions & Death Saves.

Damn, i was hoping for a kick-ass magic item description.

Quote from: Haffrung;823522I have use a death save system. So getting knocked to zero just mean's you're incapacitated - fatigued, stunned, whatever. If you roll really bad on your save then yeah, maybe you're severely wounded or dead.

Quote from: jhkim;823527However, in terms of game-play, that means there is less urgency to revive. i.e. I'm mostly OK, but my buddy has just been taken down. Do I use my action and/or spell slot to revive him, or to take down more of the enemy? If he's just incapacitated and there's no rush, then it might make more sense to take down the enemy quickly and help him later. If he's dying fast, though, then I'm definitely going to revive him.

So what Haffrung said, only death saves start on the 2nd round after incapacitation. E.g., round 0, get hit and fall to 0. Round 1, PC is at 0, not death save. Round 2, PC is at 0, start making death saves. That way there is a one round window when a PC can be healed without worrying about a save.

Unconscious is essentially Swoon from old Final Fantasy games. Be it stable or death saves, it is still remedied by rousing them from faint. There's two requests I am hearing: 1) make unconscious more frightening and urgent, 2) delay the game from getting to this crisis point so quickly.

As for 1) If you really want to up the lethality let it be known that everyone - monsters included - knows about death saves. Then a few minions camping over fallen comrades to finish them off would really put the tension back in. It takes only two melee hits at 5' away to stack those 3 death saves and kill a character.

As for 2) Part of 5e's conceit is hitting more often and letting HP bloat sort it out. Now you either want to bloat HP so as to drag out the combat, OR increase the miss ratio and lower the attack to-hit. The former will eventually drag the game. The latter moves closer towards TSR D&D where whiffing was more common.

The easiest way to accomplish whiffing without bloat is to adjust the Attribute Derived Modifier Progression Rate. So instead of +1/-1 each two points over/under 10, switch that to +1/-1 each three points over/under 10. (Instead of 12 (+1), 14 (+2), ... make it 13 (+1), 16 (+2), ...) This then lowers the Attribute dependency, increases Proficiency Bonus value, and creates more whiffing to lengthen that combat frame before whack-a-mole occurs.

Quote from: Opaopajr;823620Unconscious is essentially Swoon from old Final Fantasy games. Be it stable or death saves, it is still remedied by rousing them from faint. There's two requests I am hearing: 1) make unconscious more frightening and urgent, 2) delay the game from getting to this crisis point so quickly.

No, I think I miscommunicated. In terms of game play dynamic, I am very with 5th ed - but I have problems with the believability of the popping to dying and back so often.

I'm happy to hear other thoughts on the topic, but my two requirements are:

1) More believable than current 5th ed.
2) Keeps the current dynamic where PCs keep each other in the fight, and it is rare for a player to be sitting out for a long time because his PC is unconscious or dead.

My current thought it to keep magic roughly the same, but instead of a PC dropping fatally wounded and then being brought back by another PC casting a cure spell - we have the alternate of the PC almost being fatally wounded, and the wound is prevented by another PC casting a death charm spell (perhaps cast as a reaction). Taking a death charm might cause someone to lose a move or some other penalty. That's just an idea, though - I'm not particularly advocating it at this point.

Its not a revolving door of death. Its the yo-yo of swooning.

Keep in mind that at 0 HP in 5e the downed character is incredibly vulnerable and actual death can come from about anything.

As I pointed out in another thread here. At 0 HP a single hit from anything counts as an automatic critical. Which is 2 automatic failed death saves if they hit. And they  have advantage to hit. Pray to whatever gods you hold dear that whatever it is doesnt have multiattack. Like oh... Bullywugs. Yes. The lowly froggers can instakill you when you are down. A pair of kobolds armed with sporks can instakill you.

Stabalizing someone just leaves them at 0 HP and unconcious. And you can fail that check. Getting them up to at least 1 HP means you have to waste an action somewhere to do so. And if you cannot get at the downed character then things may go badly if an attacker keeps at it.

One thing the players discussed with me was possibly adding simple rule that on the round after regaining conciousness the character is at disadvantage. This sounds good and maps well to a passed out character getting groggily back into the fray.

Quote from: jhkim;8236381) More believable than current 5th ed.
2) Keeps the current dynamic where PCs keep each other in the fight, and it is rare for a player to be sitting out for a long time because his PC is unconscious or dead.

It seems like the problem is the popping up, getting knocked down, and then popping back up again. Rather than having 0 HPs be dying could you redefine 0 HPs as unconscious or incapacitated from pain and shock? That way the heal that gets them to pop back up is more like someone splashing water on the guy who got knocked out in a bar fight in a 1930-1960 Western or like administering a combination of a pain killer and a stimulant to counter the shock. This would be in contrast to the spell dragging someone from the brink of death and then they are 100% good until they get knocked down to 0 HP again, when it is rinse and repeat.

Runequest 1-3 has a similar problem, though because of the hit locations and the lower hit points the, "I get knocked down, but I get up again" actually represented what was happening in universe for the characters and there was a functional difference between full hits and 25% hits that made it more risky to run right back into combat with less than full hits.

Quote from: Omega;823645As I pointed out in another thread here. At 0 HP a single hit from anything counts as an automatic critical. Which is 2 automatic failed death saves if they hit.

Quote from: Omega;823645And you can fail that check. Getting them up to at least 1 HP means you have to waste an action somewhere to do so. And if you cannot get at the downed character then things may go badly if an attacker keeps at it.

I agree with the general point that it is very easy to die after dropping to 0 HP. However, where is the rule that any hit is an automatic critical? That isn't how we've been playing, and I can't see that mentioned in my Player's Handbook. Also, there are some ways to get them to 1 HP without a full action, notably the Healing Word spell which only uses a bonus action and has range. It's been extremely important for our play.

Quote from: Bren;823646It seems like the problem is the popping up, getting knocked down, and then popping back up again. Rather than having 0 HPs be dying could you redefine 0 HPs as unconscious or incapacitated from pain and shock?

As I mentioned in a prior post, compared to current 5e, this reduces the urgency of healing people. If someone drops and they're just in pain, then it often may seem a better choice to attack the enemy rather than heal them. That makes sense realistically - but in terms of game play, it leaves the player sitting on his hands which I feel is less fun.

Already did this before, don't mind if I do this again. :)

Unconscious
• An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can't move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings.
• The creature drops whatever it's holding and falls prone.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the
attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.
(D&D 5e Basic .pdf, August 2014. p. 107.)

Death Saving Throws
[...]
Rolling 1 or 20. When you make a death saving throw and roll a 1 on the d20, it counts as two failures. If you roll a 20 on the d20, you regain 1 hit point.
Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death.
(D&D 5e Basic .pdf, August 2014. p. 76.)

A simple dual wield daggers at 5' will off a PC. As would a Magic Missile all focused on one target. Or just a bunch of attacks, too.

By the way, your charm idea? I would abuse the ever loving shit out of it. You're dropping healing from an Action, or as the amazing Healing Word, from a Bonus Action, onto a Reaction. Yes, please! Clerics are barely relying on their Reactions as it is, usually not bothering with OAs, and no access to the wizard spells Counterspell or Shield.

Undo button the moment a PC might go down? I'd take that everyday and twice on Sunday. My strong recommendation: don't.

Look, anything works if all the players are seeing eye to eye. The rules don't even need to be there if you are all on the same page and are playing all friendly-like. But if you want something a bit more robust, surviving contact with other people, keep a very sharp eye on action economy and tinker lightly on exceptional bits (i.e. spells). Banning is wholly preferable of those things beforehand.

They are already exceptions to the rules, better to adjust the core or delete rules exceptions (spells, class features, feats, etc.) first, not the other way around. This is very friendly advice from a strong CCG background. You'll save yourself a lot of heartache.

I see regarding unconsciousness - I hadn't realized about the final bullet point on the Unconscious condition.

Quote from: Opaopajr;823668By the way, your charm idea? I would abuse the ever loving shit out of it. You're dropping healing from an Action, or as the amazing Healing Word, from a Bonus Action, onto a Reaction. Yes, please! Clerics are barely relying on their Reactions as it is, usually not bothering with OAs, and no access to the wizard spells Counterspell or Shield.

Undo button the moment a PC might go down? I'd take that everyday and twice on Sunday. My strong recommendation: don't.

Look, you're nitpicking at a vague idea I haven't even written up. Depending on what the costs and penalties are for death charms, it could easily be tougher than the current situation instead. For example, a death charm could require that the next action after the reaction be used up to recover.

Quote from: Opaopajr;823668They are already exceptions to the rules, better to adjust the core or delete rules exceptions (spells, class features, feats, etc.) first, not the other way around. This is very friendly advice from a strong CCG background. You'll save yourself a lot of heartache.

I think this is a philosophical difference. I have strongly disliked most CCG influence on RPG design, because I feel that it leads to rules that are based on abstract game balance without any regard to the reality that is being portrayed.

Quote from: jhkim;823679Look, you're nitpicking at a vague idea I haven't even written up. Depending on what the costs and penalties are for death charms, it could easily be tougher than the current situation instead. For example, a death charm could require that the next action after the reaction be used up to recover.

And now you're looking at added table bookkeeping... Really, it's just getting into the weeds now, your design brainstorming. You will be more successful getting what you want by adjusting the core game conceits. You can waste time with minor dials and switches or you can adjust the major gates & levers.

The game is doing exactly as intended. To change that you have to change the foundation, not the structures that rest on it. Piecemeal change will get piecemeal results.

Quote from: jhkim;823679I think this is a philosophical difference. I have strongly disliked most CCG influence on RPG design, because I feel that it leads to rules that are based on abstract game balance without any regard to the reality that is being portrayed.

Fair enough. But one of the biggest CCG influence on RPG design is exception based design — which is exactly what you are doing. I'm telling you, from a CCG perspective, how to avoid CCG half-solutions. Don't want to follow CCGs, good, look at the core assumptions and work from there first. Adjusting the base structure avoids future CCG patchwork thinking. My RPG perspective prefers to keep CCG mechanics mostly away and in check, and the best way for my RPG design to recognize them is through my CCG perspective.

On the surface,  the problem of having a player with  nothing to do because their character died seems irreconcilable with the other extreme of the "revolving door of death". Not sure if that can be reconciled with minor tweaks or changes, but I like the earlier idea of shortened/deadlier combats and/or use of morale rules.

Other than that, I think you'd have to attack the problem from the perspective of giving the dead character's player something to do while their character is out. That gets into dirty hippy meta gaming areas, tho. Things like Shock's audience die that get added to help another person in their conflict.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;823727Other than that, I think you'd have to attack the problem from the perspective of giving the dead character's player something to do while their character is out. That gets into dirty hippy meta gaming areas, tho. Things like Shock's audience die that get added to help another person in their conflict.

I have them play the opponents.

Quote from: jhkim;8236381) More believable than current 5th ed.
2) Keeps the current dynamic where PCs keep each other in the fight, and it is rare for a player to be sitting out for a long time because his PC is unconscious or dead.

i'm not sure if what you want is possible. to me the problem you describe lies in the fact that "the current dynamic" isn't very "believable" at all. as soon as you increase believability, the dynamic you want to retain will be removed (or at least greatly reduced).

your idea about preventing the player going down in the first place is interesting, but if you go that route you'd also need to restrict getting a player back up once he is down. if you don't you just add another turn of the revolving door.

you also have to be careful about creating more problems than you solve. opaopajr does have a point.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;823727On the surface,  the problem of having a player with  nothing to do because their character died seems irreconcilable with the other extreme of the "revolving door of death". Not sure if that can be reconciled with minor tweaks or changes, but I like the earlier idea of shortened/deadlier combats and/or use of morale rules.

There is no way to completely keep all PCs in play - but there is no need for the solution to be 100%. Clerics and other healing magic improve the situation a lot compared to games with no healing. Healing magic gets deployed to the PC who goes out of the fight, keeping them in for longer. Once the healing magic is completely used up, then typically everyone is pretty hurt - and there is only a short time left before the fight is over one way or the other.

Just making the fights shorter can be good for many things, but it doesn't solve the ratio. If damage comes more quickly, then it is more likely that a player will be taken out in round 1 or 2. If a player is out for over half the fight for each fight, then that's still cumulatively a lot of time sitting out.


I don't know how exactly I'd balance them, but I think that death charms rather than healing seems like a decent solution for believability. Purely in terms of the fiction, the result is that instead of character dropping with fatal wounds and popping back up, the characters are disoriented after a death magic charm turns aside the fatal blow. I'd still be interested to hear other ideas.

In particular, believability problems I have with 5th ed are:

1) If you're very low on hit points or unconscious, it doesn't matter how much damage you take - a cat scratch is just bad as a dragon bite in every way.
2) In terms of healing magic, it doesn't matter how bad final damage was. If a PC was taken out by a 30 hit point damage fire blast, or a 1 hit point dart, the amount of healing to bring them around is the same.
3) Dying and first aid are ridiculously fast compared to real life. Every dying character either bleeds out dead in seconds - and requires only seconds of first aid - or they are stable and will come around on their own.
4) This isn't exactly believability, but the dropping and popping up seems out of genre.

Quote from: Opaopajr;823693I'm telling you, from a CCG perspective, how to avoid CCG half-solutions. Don't want to follow CCGs, good, look at the core assumptions and work from there first. Adjusting the base structure avoids future CCG patchwork thinking. My RPG perspective prefers to keep CCG mechanics mostly away and in check, and the best way for my RPG design to recognize them is through my CCG perspective.

Can you suggest more concretely what this would look like?

Quote from: jhkim;823795In particular, believability problems I have with 5th ed are:

1) If you're very low on hit points or unconscious, it doesn't matter how much damage you take - a cat scratch is just bad as a dragon bite in every way.
2) In terms of healing magic, it doesn't matter how bad final damage was. If a PC was taken out by a 30 hit point damage fire blast, or a 1 hit point dart, the amount of healing to bring them around is the same.
3) Dying and first aid are ridiculously fast compared to real life. Every dying character either bleeds out dead in seconds - and requires only seconds of first aid - or they are stable and will come around on their own.
4) This isn't exactly believability, but the dropping and popping up seems out of genre.

Doesn't Crypt & Things have hit points represent fatigue or something like that? I read somewhere that it or some other system had HP represent fatigue and then any damage after that went to the Constitution attribute.

Not sure how this would your issue with the cat scratch, however. If I've read correctly on some reviews, I think Sine Nomine's Scarlet Heroes does something funky with damage die where a damage die roll  below a certain number does 0 damage. Might be worth looking into.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;823796Doesn't Crypt & Things have hit points represent fatigue or something like that? I read somewhere that it or some other system had HP represent fatigue and then any damage after that went to the Constitution attribute.

5e's HP are pretty much fatigue points. This is exactly why downed characters can pop back up if you can get them back up to to at least 1 hp.

The thing is that once down you are absurdly vulnerable. A cat in 2 turns of determined effort can take down anyone who has dropped to 0 as long as the cat hits. The trick here is that the cat has to actually hit. Against an unarmoured baseline DEX target its 50/50 even with advantage.

That aside there are still examples where a lowly critter can take you out.

The big difference is that if the cat got you then it was likely someplace small and vital like a major artery. If a dragon got you then you were likely splattered all over the walls.

Quote from: Omega;823803The big difference is that if the cat got you then it was likely someplace small and vital like a major artery.

That's probably the easiest way to fix that. Besides, cats can be pretty vicious (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDPm_t1jFS0).

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;823811That's probably the easiest way to fix that. Besides, cats can be pretty vicious (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDPm_t1jFS0).

My cat developed epileptic seizures at random moments. Shed bite down on something in the process with incredible force. Which happened to be my finger, twice to the bone. ow.

One of my cousins got her wrist laid open accidentally while playing with a cat. That was... messy...

Quote from: jhkim;823638No, I think I miscommunicated. In terms of game play dynamic, I am very with 5th ed - but I have problems with the believability of the popping to dying and back so often.

I'm happy to hear other thoughts on the topic, but my two requirements are:

1) More believable than current 5th ed.
2) Keeps the current dynamic where PCs keep each other in the fight, and it is rare for a player to be sitting out for a long time because his PC is unconscious or dead.

My current thought it to keep magic roughly the same, but instead of a PC dropping fatally wounded and then being brought back by another PC casting a cure spell - we have the alternate of the PC almost being fatally wounded, and the wound is prevented by another PC casting a death charm spell (perhaps cast as a reaction). Taking a death charm might cause someone to lose a move or some other penalty. That's just an idea, though - I'm not particularly advocating it at this point.

I don't find the death charm idea even remotely believable. Either the caster has precognitive knowledge of which hits are going to be fatal, and casts it to prevent it, or the caster is editing history after the fact. Neither works like any fantasy I have read.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;823796If I've read correctly on some reviews, I think Sine Nomine's Scarlet Heroes does something funky with damage die where a damage die roll  below a certain number does 0 damage. Might be worth looking into.

Yep.  Scarlet Heroes damage system in a nutshell:

When you roll damage, you don't do HP equal to the roll.  If the rolled damage (including modifiers) is 1 or less, you do 0 damage.  If it's 2-5, you do 1 damage.  6-9 does 2 damage.  And 10 or more does 4 damage.  This damage is applied as normal to the HP of PCs, but is hit dice of damage to monsters and NPCs - a 10+ damage roll (4 damage = 4 HD lost) one-shots an ogre.  Excess damage carries over to other enemies of equal or worse AC, so that 10+ rolled damage hit could take out four orcs instead of the ogre.

But I don't think that's really applicable to the situation being talked about here.

Quote from: jhkim;823795In particular, believability problems I have with 5th ed are:

1) If you're very low on hit points or unconscious, it doesn't matter how much damage you take - a cat scratch is just bad as a dragon bite in every way.
2) In terms of healing magic, it doesn't matter how bad final damage was. If a PC was taken out by a 30 hit point damage fire blast, or a 1 hit point dart, the amount of healing to bring them around is the same.
3) Dying and first aid are ridiculously fast compared to real life. Every dying character either bleeds out dead in seconds - and requires only seconds of first aid - or they are stable and will come around on their own.
4) This isn't exactly believability, but the dropping and popping up seems out of genre.

1) No. Because being struck Unconscious from 5' melee (the only way to be scratched or bit) is at Advantage and a Critical Hit. You have a very real chance of Instant Death with a dragon. It is almost impossible to suffer Instant Death from a cat claw (you'd need a max HP of 2 and remain at 1st lvl).

i.e. Adult Red Dragon bite: 19 average, 28 max (2d10+8) pierce damage PLUS 7 average, 12 max (2d6) fire damage {total 26 average, 40 max damage}.
Critical is 30 average, 48 max (4d10+8) damage PLUS 14 average, 24 max (4d6) fire damage {total 44 average, 72 max damage}.
i.e. Young Green Dragon bite: 15 average, 24 max (2d10+4) pierce damage PLUS 7 average, 12 max (2d6) poison damage {total 22 average, 36 max damage}.
Critical is 26 average, 44 max (4d10+4) pierce damage PLUS 14 average, 24 max (4d6) poison damage {total 40 average, 68 max damage}.

2) That is a bookkeeping conceit of the game. They don't want to deal with negative HP, and I understand where they are coming from.

3 & 4) Yes, they -- bleeding out and patched back up -- are ridiculously fast. And it is another conceit of the game. It definitely creates the whack-a-mole effect you're lamenting. I have, too. It's rather jarring to my old school sensibilities.

However, dying and first aid has been abstracted into a rather useful abstraction called the Death Save and Stabilize time. Similar to the eyebrow raising nature of Short and Long Rest, it seems off upon first look. However, it is an abstract metric easily resized to your campaign -- which is a remarkable plus.

The DMG has already given example on how to rework Short Rest and Long Rest to alter the pace of one's own game. Similarly you can rework the time on Death Throw checks and being Stabilized. Instead of Death Throws every round, 6 seconds, you can do it every minute or 10 minutes. And instead of Stabilized recovering consciousness in 1d4 hours, you can convert that into Short Rests or Days.

Quote from: jhkim;823795Can you suggest more concretely what this would look like?

I did already, in post #9.

Quote[...]
As for 2) Part of 5e's conceit is hitting more often and letting HP bloat sort it out. Now you either want to bloat HP so as to drag out the combat, OR increase the miss ratio and lower the attack to-hit. The former will eventually drag the game. The latter moves closer towards TSR D&D where whiffing was more common.

The easiest way to accomplish whiffing without bloat is to adjust the Attribute Derived Modifier Progression Rate. So instead of +1/-1 each two points over/under 10, switch that to +1/-1 each three points over/under 10. (Instead of 12 (+1), 14 (+2), ... make it 13 (+1), 16 (+2), ...) This then lowers the Attribute dependency, increases Proficiency Bonus value, and creates more whiffing to lengthen that combat frame before whack-a-mole occurs.

By altering the Attribute Mod Progression you lower hit chance, increase missing, and lessen reliance on HP bloat. You also make Proficiency in weapons incredibly useful as that +2~+6 becomes far more powerful.

Or, if you are still set upon death charms (gawd this sounds like Exalted...), work it from using the core rule abstractions instead of inventing a new, small fix function to healing spells.

For example, want players to Death Spiral? Have people opt to take Exhaustion levels instead of Swooning, but have them recover from it slowly and naturally.

Another, want them to take more time? Give them HD amount of "Near Misses." Every near miss swipes one from their HD pool. Eventually going down will be more economical.

There's lots of ways to approach it from an RPG perspective before making micro-exceptional effects that tend to benefit small classes and stuff.

Quote from: Opaopajr;8239331) No. Because being struck Unconscious from 5' melee (the only way to be scratched or bit) is at Advantage and a Critical Hit. You have a very real chance of Instant Death with a dragon. It is almost impossible to suffer Instant Death from a cat claw (you'd need a max HP of 2 and remain at 1st lvl).

If you're going to nitpick... An adult red dragon bite has 10 foot reach, so 5 foot melee is not the only way to get bit. So a character could take a 26 damage red dragon bite from 10 feet and get 1 failed Death Save, and another character could take a 2 damage cat scratch from 5 feet away and get 2 failed Death Saves. Both of these characters would pop back up to the same hit point total with a single Healing Word spell.

Quote from: OpaopajrAs for 2) Part of 5e's conceit is hitting more often and letting HP bloat sort it out. Now you either want to bloat HP so as to drag out the combat, OR increase the miss ratio and lower the attack to-hit. The former will eventually drag the game. The latter moves closer towards TSR D&D where whiffing was more common.

The easiest way to accomplish whiffing without bloat is to adjust the Attribute Derived Modifier Progression Rate. So instead of +1/-1 each two points over/under 10, switch that to +1/-1 each three points over/under 10. (Instead of 12 (+1), 14 (+2), ... make it 13 (+1), 16 (+2), ...) This then lowers the Attribute dependency, increases Proficiency Bonus value, and creates more whiffing to lengthen that combat frame before whack-a-mole occurs.

Quote from: Opaopajr;823933By altering the Attribute Mod Progression you lower hit chance, increase missing, and lessen reliance on HP bloat. You also make Proficiency in weapons incredibly useful as that +2~+6 becomes far more powerful.

OK, I don't see how this accomplishes anything of what I want. It sounds like this is intended to increase the length of combat, when I'm happy with the length of combat. My issue is with the believability and feel of having characters pop up and down.

Quote from: apparition13;823834I don't find the death charm idea even remotely believable. Either the caster has precognitive knowledge of which hits are going to be fatal, and casts it to prevent it, or the caster is editing history after the fact. Neither works like any fantasy I have read.

I've seen many cases in fantasy fiction of undoing the effect of something that just happened as well as precognition and more significant time travel. Also, it doesn't require precognition to for someone to have a good idea if an approaching blow is fatal.

That sounds like a good idea, actually. The spell could be cast like a defense - i.e. the spell can be applied as a reaction after the attack roll or save, but before damage is rolled, and then kicks in later when the character is brought down to 0 hit points.

I think it's much better that it be rare for PCs to go down, and bad but not fatal if they do go down. IMC hp can go negative, so the seriously wounded can't easily be got back in the fight. But they only die at minus max hp, not the minus CON of PF which makes death very frequent. One advantage of this is that players fear the prospect of going down, so encounters can be less threatening - I'm also using slow healing which has a similar benefit. Fights shouldn't all have to be knife-edge affairs - and if I want that sort of encounter centric play 4e does it much better.

Quote from: jhkim;823679I have strongly disliked most CCG influence on RPG design, because I feel that it leads to rules that are based on abstract game balance without any regard to the reality that is being portrayed.

Might want to rethink that whole "WotC D&D" thing then.  CCG-derived design philosophy is what they do.

I see your point though, how you can minimize it, but sometimes the best way to minimize is to choose a different game that doesn't have it at all.

The 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.

Here's an alternative:- Heroic Determination. After being struck with that final blow which takes you to 0 hitpoints, as a PC (or important NPC of great calibre) you suffer a condition, Losing Consciousness, which means that you will fall unconscious... but perhaps not immediately... and you lose your bonus actions and reactions, and can only move at half rate, while affected by this condition. You can make a saving throw of some sort each round to remain conscious and acting:- probably just like a Death Save. Only when you fail the saving throw do you fall unconscious (dying). If you fall unconscious (dying), but you are revived, it will take you one full round to come round. But if you are healed even 1 h.p. when you are merely Losing Consciousness, i.e. before you fail your saving throw and fall unconscious, then you are immediately back to tip-top condition.

For a long time it's seemed unsatisfactory to me to have instant healing of any sort in lower-powered games; that sort of power seems fitting for demi-gods in my book, not vaguely heroic mortals. And I really don't like how in D&D games you can be down 20 h.p. one minute, then back on full h.p. the next, when you only had say 21 h.p. to start with. But this notion of being dazed and snapping out of it, on reflection, seems possibly OK.

Quote from: jhkim;823945If you're going to nitpick... An adult red dragon bite has 10 foot reach, so 5 foot melee is not the only way to get bit. So a character could take a 26 damage red dragon bite from 10 feet and get 1 failed Death Save, and another character could take a 2 damage cat scratch from 5 feet away and get 2 failed Death Saves. Both of these characters would pop back up to the same hit point total with a single Healing Word spell.

Yeah, and to further nitpick, both have a very real chance of Instant Death. That's why I did the math for both of them for you. An average of 22~26 damage is plenty to wipe out most first tier characters (lvls 1-4).

Each wound while Unconscious is a Death Save, yes. But HP Max does matter, so being at 0 HP and attacked is a real risk when around heavy attack opponents. I've seen Instant Death matter, so you're disregard of it is bizarre to me. We can keep dancing this game, but the numbers are very much not with you here.

Quote from: jhkim;823945OK, I don't see how this accomplishes anything of what I want. It sounds like this is intended to increase the length of combat, when I'm happy with the length of combat. My issue is with the believability and feel of having characters pop up and down.

OK, mostly what I get is you trying to fight a feeling. And to avoid spinning into an REO Speedwagon song, I am trying to clarify your complaint. So you're:

Fine with combat length... check.
Fine with HP amount and successful attack rate... check.
Not fine with Death Save speed... check.
Not fine with Lay on Hands, Healer feat, and Heal spells bouncing people back into combat... check.
Prefers downed PCs to remain down and Stabilize to mean something... check.

Sorely miss negative HP because... heal spell tax feels closer to genre?
Cannot/Will not stop whack-a-mole effect by restricting classes, feats, or altering core rules... because?
Wants to solve this by pre-emptive healing... to lengthen combat (contradictory) and circumvent Death Saves?

Now, healing before came in various forms before. Sounds like you prefer negative HP, but it also existed where 0 HP equalled death and healing had to be beforehand. 5e currently works with bouncing one back into combat.

Which aesthetic are you looking for? Do you really want this more involved (and contradictory) solution? Is adjusting the core really harder than adding mechanics?

Quote from: Opaopajr;824153...I am trying to clarify your complaint. So you're:

One of the key things jhkim wants is to minimize the time that during which the player of an incapacitated/0 HP/unconscious character has have nothing to do during play. I'm not seeing that you adequately captured that bit.

Quote from: Bren;824173One of the key things jhkim wants is to minimize the time that during which the player of an incapacitated/0 HP/unconscious character has have nothing to do during play. I'm not seeing that you adequately captured that bit.

That is the whole, you know, point of being dead or unconscious?

Which kinda contradicts the OPs spiel against the PCs getting back up and into action so fast in 5e.

Quote from: Omega;824237

Quote from: Bren;824173One of the key things jhkim wants is to minimize the time that during which the player of an incapacitated/0 HP/unconscious character has have nothing to do during play. I'm not seeing that you adequately captured that bit.

That is the whole, you know, point of being dead or unconscious?

Which kinda contradicts the OPs spiel against the PCs getting back up and into action so fast in 5e.

Omega got it said already for me, as that facet leaves me only further confused. That facet being:

"Minimize the time a player has nothing to do during play while their PC is unconscious."

That's an expected consequence of risk-involved play, a PCs may go unconscious. What is expected during this consequence, a pleasing mini-game? A chance to quickly get back into the action? A chance to avoid falling out of the action?

5e has included the ”return to action" failsafe to re-introducing downed PCs back into the action without having the party healer/s guesstimate, or allies meta-game, their party's health knowledge. If you go down, you can get up again with the right healing. This is one of the ways to do exactly what is asked.

The other option is to avoid falling out of the action. And that is explicitly not wanted because the combat length is considered adequate. Thus increasing missed attacks, bloating HP, or even more healing spells is not wanted. And yet health charms, as proposed, does the same thing and goes against the request of 'not lengthening combat time'.

Thus what am I left to conclude, Bren? What is the non-contradictory request here? To shorten Stabilization time from 1d4 hours to something else? Provide a mini-game to the players of downed PCs?

How can this complaint, which other GMs might encounter, be adequately articulated into something productive and solvable by other GMs' creative houserules? To even attempt this you need to articulate the problem, and the desired result, to then analyze. Obviously I am missing the core complaint and desired solution, so I ask for clarity.

We're all deeply passionate GMs here so this is more than academic hobby musing.

That's why I said at first that the issues seem somewhat irreconcilable. On the one hand, anything you do to combat still runs the same risk of having someone sitting out twiddling their thumbs. So you can either mess with the combat length, or with the characters' mortality. Beyond that, you're going to be doing some stuff outside of character to keep players busy, and some of that could be funky territory.

Regarding the tangent on "cat scratches", a crazy thought occurred to me:

What if the final blow needed to take down a PC required a minimum threshold of damage? This would make the PCs pretty badass, and weaker enemies would need to gang up on a PC to finally put her/him down like a rabid dog.

Quote from: Opaopajr;824244Thus what am I left to conclude, Bren? What is the non-contradictory request here?

It's not clear to me that jhkim's request is non-contradictory. But he clearly said he wants to minimize down time. I suspect (but don't care enough about the issue to prove) that his request is contradictory.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;824262What if the final blow needed to take down a PC required a minimum threshold of damage? This would make the PCs pretty badass, and weaker enemies would need to gang up on a PC to finally put her/him down like a rabid dog.

That reminds me of the Taken in Glen Cooks Black Company books.

Quote from: One Horse Town;824283That reminds me of the Taken in Glen Cooks Black Company books.

I 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.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;824262That's why I said at first that the issues seem somewhat irreconcilable. On the one hand, anything you do to combat still runs the same risk of having someone sitting out twiddling their thumbs. So you can either mess with the combat length, or with the characters' mortality. Beyond that, you're going to be doing some stuff outside of character to keep players busy, and some of that could be funky territory.

Let me try summarizing again.

1) The important metric is the percentage of time when you have some players sitting around with nothing to do, and other players continuing to be active in the fight. If in a typical fight, you have at least one player out for 50% or more of the fight, then I consider that too high. Note that increasing or decreasing the overall length of combat doesn't change this percentage.

2) I am happy with this percentage in D&D 5th. However, I am not happy with the believability of the dying and healing rules.

3) The problem is that most changes to make the healing rules more believable - like tracking negative hit points, making characters difficult to heal - also have the effect of increasing the percentage of time that characters are out.

4) While I don't have another idea that I really like other than death saves, I'll toss out a few options even though I don't like them, but they technically fit the criteria:

4a) The characters are cursed such that if any single character is taken out, all characters are taken out. This is similar to the approach of the D&D boardgames like Wrath of Ashardalon, where the whole side loses if any PC is taken out.

4b) There is a ritual spell that ties the characters' life-forces together, such that characters who are dying are still able to act at some penalty, but drain the remaining hit points of the other characters.

4c) There are morale rules such that when a person drops on one side of the fight, the other side gets some sort of benefit due to the boost in morale. So once one PC goes down, the enemy surges and the fight will be over more quickly.

Again, I'm not saying that 4a to 4c are great ideas in general, but they are other options that fit my criteria.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;824262Regarding the tangent on "cat scratches", a crazy thought occurred to me:

What if the final blow needed to take down a PC required a minimum threshold of damage? This would make the PCs pretty badass, and weaker enemies would need to gang up on a PC to finally put her/him down like a rabid dog.

That's interesting. To toss out a suggestion: damage less than half of (hit dice + armor bonus, round down) is ignored. For example, a first level fighter has full chainmail (armor bonus +6) and 1 hit die. He can ignore damage less than 3 hit points. So if an attack does 1 or 2 hit points, he ignores it, but if it does 3 hit points or more, it works normally.

To be more consistent, maybe this could even apply generally instead of only to the final blow. It would be weird if a character could be shredded down to 1hp by a horde of rats, but not taken down or killed. Maybe a well-armored and/or high level character doesn't have to worry about low-level bits of damage.

Quote from: jhkim;824294Let me try summarizing again.

1) The important metric is the percentage of time when you have some players sitting around with nothing to do, and other players continuing to be active in the fight. If in a typical fight, you have at least one player out for 50% or more of the fight, then I consider that too high. Note that increasing or decreasing the overall length of combat doesn't change this percentage.

2) I am happy with this percentage in D&D 5th. However, I am not happy with the believability of the dying and healing rules.

3) The problem is that most changes to make the healing rules more believable - like tracking negative hit points, making characters difficult to heal - also have the effect of increasing the percentage of time that characters are out.

Yup. I thought I was working within those assumptions, but maybe I left some blind spot somewhere. I think that #3 is what I'm getting at. The way I see it, what's causing a believability problem is the post-death stuff, so I think that leaves you with two general options, which have been mentioned:

1) Avoid the post death believability issue by making death (or unconsciousness) harder
2) Shorten the post-death player waiting time

If you think about it, #1 just postpones the post-death/unconsciousness issue, in the end. However, that may be a good enough option if it makes the issue a rarity and nobody in your play group has a problem with PC death being a relatively rare thing. Anything about preventing death or unconsciousness goes here.  

#2 only leaves you the choice of reviving characters (or taking them out of unconsciousness), or making combat much shorter. I guess you could come up with rules for the former, so that a character may be revived/healed but at a ratio less than what you have now. For me this would be too half assed, so if I had an issue with players sitting out during the rest of the combat, I'd just find a way to speed combat either generally, or maybe only once a PC has dropped.

Quote4c) There are morale rules such that when a person drops on one side of the fight, the other side gets some sort of benefit due to the boost in morale. So once one PC goes down, the enemy surges and the fight will be over more quickly.

I like this. To make it less of a rout for players, maybe for every dead PC, remaining enemies and PCs get a +1 bonus to hit or bonus damage, so that with every PC death the combat is likely to get deadlier.

QuoteThat's interesting. To toss out a suggestion: damage less than half of (hit dice + armor bonus, round down) is ignored. For example, a first level fighter has full chainmail (armor bonus +6) and 1 hit die. He can ignore damage less than 3 hit points. So if an attack does 1 or 2 hit points, he ignores it, but if it does 3 hit points or more, it works normally.

To be more consistent, maybe this could even apply generally instead of only to the final blow. It would be weird if a character could be shredded down to 1hp by a horde of rats, but not taken down or killed. Maybe a well-armored and/or high level character doesn't have to worry about low-level bits of damage.

I like that too, though it would make the PCs much tougher than if it was just harder to give the coup the grace blow at the end. I like the final blow thing because it's kinda dramatic and fits with some of the hollywood type badass death scenes like Boromir, Tony Montana, and even some kung-fu flicks.

Which 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.

Quote from: One Horse Town;824283That reminds me of the Taken in Glen Cooks Black Company books.

That Limper. Couldn't get along with him. Couldn't frickin kill 'em. :)

One of my few gaming regrets is that I didn't by the D20 Black Company rules that I saw in a game store 9 years ago.

Quote from: jhkim;8242944) While I don't have another idea that I really like other than death saves, I'll toss out a few options even though I don't like them, but they technically fit the criteria:

4a) and 4b) are much worse than the punching clown PC problem that it is trying to solve. To the point that I'd probably refuse to play anything other than a one shot game that used either of these. While I don't find death charms an improvement on the punching clown problem from a what feels reasonable, death charms are infinitely cooler as a concept than either 4a) or 4b).

Quote4c) There are morale rules such that when a person drops on one side of the fight, the other side gets some sort of benefit due to the boost in morale. So once one PC goes down, the enemy surges and the fight will be over more quickly.

This seems like something the GM should already be considering as part of resolving morale.

QuoteTo be more consistent, maybe this could even apply generally instead of only to the final blow. It would be weird if a character could be shredded down to 1hp by a horde of rats, but not taken down or killed. Maybe a well-armored and/or high level character doesn't have to worry about low-level bits of damage.

I'd leave damage blocking armor to systems like Runequest/BRP which do it well rather than adding it to D&D which simulates armor quite differently.

Quote from: jhkim;824294Let me try summarizing again.

1) The important metric is the percentage of time when you have some players sitting around with nothing to do, and other players continuing to be active in the fight. If in a typical fight, you have at least one player out for 50% or more of the fight, then I consider that too high. Note that increasing or decreasing the overall length of combat doesn't change this percentage.

2) I am happy with this percentage in D&D 5th. However, I am not happy with the believability of the dying and healing rules.

3) The problem is that most changes to make the healing rules more believable - like tracking negative hit points, making characters difficult to heal - also have the effect of increasing the percentage of time that characters are out.

So 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.

Quote from: jhkim;8242944) While I don't have another idea that I really like other than death saves, I'll toss out a few options even though I don't like them, but they technically fit the criteria:

4a) The characters are cursed such that if any single character is taken out, all characters are taken out. This is similar to the approach of the D&D boardgames like Wrath of Ashardalon, where the whole side loses if any PC is taken out.

4b) There is a ritual spell that ties the characters' life-forces together, such that characters who are dying are still able to act at some penalty, but drain the remaining hit points of the other characters.

4c) There are morale rules such that when a person drops on one side of the fight, the other side gets some sort of benefit due to the boost in morale. So once one PC goes down, the enemy surges and the fight will be over more quickly.

Again, I'm not saying that 4a to 4c are great ideas in general, but they are other options that fit my criteria.

Well, they are not great ideas to be sure, especially since by then you should be playing another game instead of D&D.

a) Is essentially one-hit-wonder territory for the party. Everyone has to buy up CON, and the second the most fragile member goes down the whole team stops play & resets from there. That's like quite a few bad video games I know (or entertaining one-off challenge quests).

b) Is Tunnels and Trolls. Really, it doesn't fix anything. It paints on a veneer of a different system with more needless cruft in between.

c) Is morale, and that should be going on anyway for NPCs on the GM side of the screen. However locking PCs' party to morale rules is basically telling players how to play, and well, best not to go there.

Look, your solution is an easy one; I just mentioned it up above. Zero HP PCs are only Stabilized by healing of any sort. (Also remove the relevant bulleted function in the Healer feat, too.) Thus healing is best used preventively before reaching 0 HP.

There, that was an easy fix.

Quote from: jhkim;8242943) The problem is that most changes to make the healing rules more believable - like tracking negative hit points, making characters difficult to heal - also have the effect of increasing the percentage of time that characters are down.

The mistake is to force, require or expect fights where pcs are routinely taken down. IMC the PCs fear being taken down, they avoid fights where they are likely to go down. The result is plenty of excitement and no one out of action yet.

Encounter-building is a bad idea in general unless you are running a truly encounter-centric game like 4e D&d. Taking a naturalistic approach solves a lot of problems.

The current GoT RPG uses the concept of "taken out" called Defeated. You can avoid this by taking wounds. As soon as your HP are 0, you are Defeated and at the mercy of your enemy (they can kill you or capture you).

Consider some gotchas;

Classes have HD which map to HP which will represent staying power. If you come up with a way to both "equalize" the staying power in combat and prevent  unrealistic recovery mid-combat you will likely eliminate any advantage this may have granted.

Here's my suggestion:

• Use alternative Long Rest rule where you recover only 1/2 HD not HP.
• Classes with a d8 or less HD continue to have HD listed.
• Classes with HD higher than d8 are reduced to d8 HD.
• All characters start with CON in Resiliency Points (RP).
• Those with a d10 HD get 1 RP per level.  Those with a d12 get 2 RP per level.
• If your HD is not normally above a d8, your RP do not increase per level.
• Your HP represent your luck, skill and endurance.
• Your Resiliency Points represent your ability to stay up in combat. Once you start losing RP, you are effectively becoming more and more exhausted and injured.
• When you reach 0 HP you gain one level of Exhaustion. You don't fall unconscious at 0 HP, instead start reducing RP.
• When you reach 1/2 RP, you gain another level of Exhaustion.
• When you reach 0 RP you fall unconscious and gain another level of Exhaustion.
• Negative HP. Once all HP and RP are eliminated, you go into negatives. Just keep tracking it. While in negatives, you are dying until stabilized. Make death saving throws as normal.
• You CAN be stabilized at negative HP with a successful healing roll. If you are more than -CON, the healer has Disadvantage on the healing roll. ANY magical healing at negative HP gives a healer Advantage on the roll to stabilize.
• You regain consciousness once your RP are brought back to 1, you spend 1 HD to heal from a rest, you receive magical healing, or someone succeeds at a DC15 WIS (healing) check.
• Taking any damage in negatives immediately knocks the character unconscious and the character is dying once again.
• Stabilized conscious characters in negative HP have a move of 5', have Disadvantage on all checks, and can only remain active for half they normally could. Excessive activity will cause the character to fall unconscious and begin dying again.
• Healing restores RP/HP per normal.
• You first regain your RP, then your HP using HD or magical healing.
• If you are stable and at negative HP, you can recover and spend HD per normal if you are being attended by a healer. Unconscious characters require feeding of broth or sustenance of some kind or starve to death.
• Exhaustion recovers at the standard rate.

I think that would keep people up longer, however offering some consequences when you run out of HP. It has the effect of a longer-term injury system kind of built in for a gritty "I just slogged through a tough combat" feel.

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.

Quote from: Omega;824341Except 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: Opaopajr;824462Most 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.

I may have misinterpreted what OP said regarding this, but I don't think it's the cat itself that's the issue, but the game feeling of  dying or going unconscious from a literal scratch or something that only does 1 HP of damage.

I'm more convinced now that the simplest way to deal with that is to not describe low damage stuff that takes a character out as something on the level of a scratch, or to use another metaphor, a single paper cut. Anything that takes you out needs to be described as something truly lethal-- maybe a papercut to a major artery...still ridiculous, but less so.

Quote from: Omnifray;824587Only a TPK is a win for the monsters

No, only achieving the monsters' objectives is a win for the monsters.  Their objectives may or may not require a TPK.  They may even place an unconscious character at greater risk than one who is injured, but still fighting.  e.g., If the monsters' objective is to obtain a meal of fresh meat, they may knock out one character, then attempt to disengage and drag the body away for dinner while doing their best to avoid further combat.

You seem to be making an appeal to realism as the reason that an unconscious PC would be safe while neglecting the detail that "kill everything!" as the only win condition is itself rather unrealistic.

Quote from: Omnifray;824587By 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).

I would argue that rational monsters are most likely to behave in exactly the same way as PCs, as players are generally pretty damn good at assessing the behaviors which will ensure their characters' continued survival.

So, what would your players do if an orc went down and they knew that there was an orc shaman on the field with healing abilities?  I don't know about your players, but mine would slit that orc's throat before it had a chance to get back up, even if that meant giving up an attack on one of the other orcs who's still up.  And then they would to their damnedest to take out the shaman and remove the orcs' in-combat healing capacity so that they wouldn't have to worry any more about unconscious orcs waking back up.

Quote from: nDervish;824844No, only achieving the monsters' objectives is a win for the monsters.  Their objectives may or may not require a TPK.  They may even place an unconscious character at greater risk than one who is injured, but still fighting.  e.g., If the monsters' objective is to obtain a meal of fresh meat, they may knock out one character, then attempt to disengage and drag the body away for dinner while doing their best to avoid further combat.

You seem to be making an appeal to realism as the reason that an unconscious PC would be safe while neglecting the detail that "kill everything!" as the only win condition is itself rather unrealistic.

What I meant is that in most situations of outright hostility, if the monsters do not kill the entire party, then the party will kill the monsters. If memory serves I did mention the possibility of escape, but frequently it's not realistic - especially in close confines. If the monsters wish to escape and can, then (especially after the fight starts to go wrong for them) why are they fighting at all? Sure, some might want a fresh meal, but that's a very particular category of monsters.

Quote from: nDervish;824844I would argue that rational monsters are most likely to behave in exactly the same way as PCs, as players are generally pretty damn good at assessing the behaviors which will ensure their characters' continued survival.

So, what would your players do if an orc went down and they knew that there was an orc shaman on the field with healing abilities?  I don't know about your players, but mine would slit that orc's throat before it had a chance to get back up, even if that meant giving up an attack on one of the other orcs who's still up.  And then they would to their damnedest to take out the shaman and remove the orcs' in-combat healing capacity so that they wouldn't have to worry any more about unconscious orcs waking back up.

But what if the PCs' healing capabilities are exceptional and the monsters are unaware of them? After all if monsters frequently had healing capabilities on a par with D&D PCs, some fights would go on for a very long time... And if monsters don't have those capabilities themselves, they may well not expect them in PCs.

Guys, that's setting. And most of it is further resolved by morale values.

As for monsters, I assume they are intimately aware of their own world. Especially so for a race like orcs who routinely make their living by raiding other sentient beings over generations. Those who survive likely have stories on how to succeed.

Yes, that means they're focus firing on your healer to kill them outright first (& arcane casters are immediately next). Unless there's some sort of 'rules of engagement' detente about medics, why should it be any different from PCs? And again we get back to setting...

ALWAYS PROTECT THE CLERIC, that seems to help allot!

I gotta admit, I've read the entire thread through and am not seeing the issue (popping up and down) as any more or less realistic than any fix....if you're unhappy with the up/down effect of dropping to zero HP in 5E I suggest that the fix which works best is to retain negative HP....let a spell heal from negative instead of zero, and let it stabilize when it does.

On the cat vs. dragon, I will point out that a 25 HP wizard who gets hit by a dragon probably drops in one round, and is dead in 1-2 more. He's gonna need to get hit by at least 13 cats in one round that all do max damage to drop, and if I got hit by 3 cats that clawed the hell out of me it might be a different sort of wound (13 tiny eviscerating claws vs one big claw) but it would still have the "death by a thousand paper cuts" effect. Meanwhile, his 6 HP wizard apprentice will be instantly killed by a 26 point claw from the dragon, but it will still take at least 3 cats two rounds (12 seconds) to kill him. From my perspective, that sort of hammers home the importance of thinking about D&D combat in realistic terms (or more accurately why not to do so).

But 5E is really clear that hit points are not a hard metric of actual injury....and no one's dead until they've failed three death saves.....so I think the narrative balance here is not to base the narrative off of the mechanical status until it's actually obvious. Example: a guy at zero HP making his death save is on the ground unconscious/unable to act. But he's one healing spell away from recovering. The real problem here isn't his physical status (that's fine)...it's the healing spell, which is actually the unbelievable part. Being fantasy and all that we suspend disbelief on that, but not on the idea that there's a zero HP condition where an adventurer is either dead or fine conditional to a helping hand from a magical spell? Am I missing something?

In any case, I generally don't think of the adventurers as "dragging along with their guts hanging out" until they've also spent all their hit dice, too.

Quote from: camazotz;824905I gotta admit, I've read the entire thread through and am not seeing the issue (popping up and down) as any more or less realistic than any fix....if you're unhappy with the up/down effect of dropping to zero HP in 5E I suggest that the fix which works best is to retain negative HP....let a spell heal from negative instead of zero, and let it stabilize when it does.

I appreciate this, and I agree that it works as far as improving believability.

However, it still misses my point about keeping PCs involved. Given lots of problems with this, I suppose this is a failure of communication on my part. I think I'll drop this thread and maybe rephrase the issue at some later time.

FWIW, this ninja fight from the 80's seems to have been choreographed using the 5E engine. You can see the ninja go down and pop right back up as if healed by a cleric.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pBMZkk1OCyw#t=389

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;825190FWIW, this ninja fight from the 80's seems to have been choreographed using the 5E engine. You can see the ninja go down and pop right back up as if healed by a cleric.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pBMZkk1OCyw#t=389

That is an example of having tons of HP.
Before that shootout he stops a sword slash... with his arm! This is the one with the undead body possessing revenant ninja. Reality checked out before the movie started.

Quote from: jhkim;825157I appreciate this, and I agree that it works as far as improving believability.

However, it still misses my point about keeping PCs involved. Given lots of problems with this, I suppose this is a failure of communication on my part. I think I'll drop this thread and maybe rephrase the issue at some later time.

I feel you would really have to stretch outside the "physical world of make-believe" to have a combat system that emulates combat AND allows "taken out" players to continue to participate.

I wonder - what is wrong with being taken out of the fight? Why wouldn't you just listen and experience the fight?

Trying to tweak the traditional D&D RPG experience to accommodate say a Euro-board game cooperative style would require you to redefine the basic premise. So instead of a group of "classic" adventurers you might be;

• A group of fantastical defenders summoned by a protector wizard. When one goes down, they just summon another.
• Members of a crew piloting a robot/mecha/fantasy construct. If a "Station" is rendered inoperable, you can move to another.
• Creatures infected with a parasite. You always keep various creatures around in a "hypnotized" state. When one body goes down you get into another.

Quote from: trechriron;825218So instead of a group of "classic" adventurers you might be;

• Clones.

   Trust the Computer.

The Computer is your friend.

I'd say that one way to handle this would be by a cushioning effect; have a range where you're out cold, and another where you're dying.