If you check my comment, I will show you my current Dying condition that I have been able to test on the field.
It’s 80 % the one from XP to level 3, with a few things changed and actually used in a DND game :)
Enjoy
I take a system inspired by the video game Wildermyth, where the player gets to decide what happens at 0 HP.
Option 1: You fall unconscious. Your fate is out of your hands.
Option 2: You die, but… You might go out in a blaze of glory, or inspire an ally, but you’re dead for good. At least it’s a good death, which is better than some get.
Option 3: You live, but… You might lose an eye, or a magic item gets destroyed, but you manage to escape. You’re still out of the fight, but you live to see another.
Dice roll? No, you get to choose which one you’d prefer. Nothing random about it.
but without the mathrocks how can the deities of random chance smite my players? and what goes clickly clack?
NO MATH ROCKS!??
If it takes a half hour for a single round of combat then I will assert that you actually are doing D&D wrong. Players should know the rules for anything their character can do and be paying attention so they’re ready when their turn comes up. Combat and magic rules take up maybe a dozen pages in the PHB, spend an hour and read over them a few times to make those weekly games you invest two to six hours into go much smoother.
The DM should know all the rules. Like most homebrew I see, this is an overly complex “solution” that functions nothing like anything else in the game and wouldn’t be necessary if everyone involved actually learned the real rules. 5e already has an exhaustion mechanic and it works nothing like what is described. Making up new and convoluted rules to be used by people that take six minutes to move and make an attack or cast a spell is not going to accomplish anything but making your combat turns forty minutes long instead of thirty. I play in a game that includes seven PCs including two “lightly experienced” players and one complete noob. Combat rounds take maybe ten minutes, tops, because people pay attention and the DM actually learned all the real rules.
Dying: at the end of your turn make a flat check against DC 10. If you succeed remove one from your Dying Condition. If you succeed by 10 (eg. you roll a natural 20) remove two from your Dying Condition. If you fail to succeed add one to your Dying Condition, if you fail by 10 (eg roll a natural 1) you add two to your Dying Condition. You are no longer incapped when you are at Dying 0, add one to your Wounded condition. If you have reached Dying 4 you are dead and can only be resurrected through magic. When next time you get the Dying Condition, you dont start at Dying 1, instead you start at Dying 1 plus your Wounded Condition Value.
I’m a big fan of the use of a dying condition, or at least being reduced to 0 hitpoints being referred to as dying, just because it’s so clunky to accurately refer to it at the moment.
The thing I can see in yours that is perhaps an oversight (perhaps planned) is that anything that is designed to modify all saving throws such as the monks proficiency in all saves or the paladin’s aura of protection would make succeeding by 10 or more easier in a way that’s not currently covered by requiring a natural 20. (Both of these abilities currently apply to death saving throws but do not make natural 20s easier of course). Also bless, and any bonus to all saves from magic items work on death saving throws too. This also impacts the ability to fail by more than 10, making it effectively impossible without a different homebrew feature creating a penalty to the roll.
Seperatly you call it a check, which means it wouldn’t be impacted by these saving throw alterations but would be impacted by anything which alters all ability checks such as the bard’s Jack of all Trades, or more concerningly, the combination of the rogue’s reliable talent and any way to gain proficiency in it, which is basically an automatic success.
There are a few currently niche cases where characters gain a bonus to all saving throws or specifically death saving throws which is intentionally factored into the power of the feature, and makes them exciting and useful, that are either hugely buffed (depending on how you rule their use) or totally discarded in replacement to other features that weren’t balanced around this ability.
Something I do love in this is the ability to introduce the wounded condition outside of being unconscious. Imagine how scary something like a nightwalker would be if it’s aura didn’t do necrotic damage but instead just forced a con save Vs getting a point to your wounded condition.
Personally the way I’d handle this is to make dying a condition that is basically identical to the death saving throws mechanic currently in 5e, but have it reset when you gain hitpoints by any means, if then disconnect being unconscious from it entirely at a mechanical level and just say if you gain hitpoints when unconscious you may choose to instantly end the condition. This would mean everything that currently works in the game to offer a bonus to death saves remains, and in very rare cases, you may make death saving throws while not unconscious, either counting from there when you fall unconscious or dying while on your feet at 3 failures.
I’d also change taking damage while unconcious to just force you to make a threatened dying save, which is just like a normal death saving throw except you don’t mark a success if you get 10 or more, you may only fail. This means that you can wail on an unconscious PC without worrying about killing them without agency. I’d probably also make the spare medicine checks function as a protected dying save, where you can’t fail and can only gain a success on 10 or higher.
Edit: I didn’t know this was pathfinder, I just assumed it was your homebrew for 5e.
Seperatly you call it a check, which means it wouldn’t be impacted by these saving throw alterations but would be impacted by anything which alters all ability checks such as the bard’s Jack of all Trades, or more concerningly, the combination of the rogue’s reliable talent and any way to gain proficiency in it, which is basically an automatic success.
Its a Flat Check. You take a D20 without any bonuses or penalties and compare it against a target number (DC10). No traits, no abilities, no effects are accounted in that check.
Just so you know, the Dying i was listing is from Pathfinder 2nd Edition, not DnD 5e.
I realised you were talking about PF2e after reading other comments, I’m not too familiar with its rules so I didn’t recognise it.
Are flat checks not altered by features that alter all checks in PF2e? There is no ‘flat’ terminology in the RPGs I’m familiar with so I just presumed it would be altered as it would be in 5e.
This sounds way too complicated. It probably was the intention. Nice trolling. Doesnt help but heh.
It might seem a bit complicated if you’re only used to 5e, because core mechanics like conditions work rather differently in Pathfinder, but it’s honestly much more flexible than 5e’s system. Rather than having an abstract number of passes and fails, you have a single number that fluctuates up and down. Less things to keep track of.
You do have the wounded condition on top of that, but it helps counter the thing you see in 5e where people pop up and down repeatedly with no consequences for repeatedly being beaten unconscious.
Not trolling. Just listing how Dying works in Pathfinder 2e. And since it’s c/rpgmemes (and not just dndmemes) I thought, hey post it here.
I have recently encountered ICON and come to really like its dying mechanic. Each time a character is reduced to 0HP they become incapacitated, but stable, and gain a wound. Each wound reduces max hp by 25% and only goes away after an adventure (quest). A character can help an incapacitated character (rescuing) bringing them up and healing them to their new max HP, which after one wound would be 75% of max. Second time dropping to 0hp, a second would and new max hp of 50% of original.
It gives good longevity in individual encounters and forces caution in the longer run.
Since I’m enjoying the different rules shared here, here’s a (from memory) rendition of the Fate RPG rules on encountering lethal amounts of damage.
DM and player discuss and assign an appropriate and interesting condition that moves the game along. That condition may be “dying” or could be something more interesting.
Players and the GM can invoke the new player condition to gain benefits and make other rolls easier or harder. (The core FATE rule.)
Weirdly, this covers a lot of interesting cases really well:
- the GM can invoke “dying” to keep the dying character from monopolizing the remaining combat in un-fun ways, and make it (taking lethal amounts of damage) have an in-game cost.
- the GM can invoke the “dying” condition in other ways to nudge players to find a way to lend aid ( like granting a character “encumbered” while they carry the “dying” character around)
- the “dying” player may be able to invoke “dying” as an “I’m very motivated” bonus if they’re doing something very in-character that matters to their character
- “unconscious”, “prone”, “mostly paralyzed”, can be a useful on-and-off conditions to represent recovery rolls that go badly
For GMs running a game of FATE, I recommend watching the “The Princess Bride”, which milks the “dying” condition for interesting moments, in many delightful ways.
