Why have Death Saving Throws...

[PatrickmanX]

if every enemy jumps on a prone player harder than middle class mom on black friday?

[Werton]

Because those are the rules of DnD

[Poop King]

What do death saving throws even do or mean now that instakills have been removed from 5e?

[Dervish]

Damn, if only you could speak a "healing word" to the down'd player so they could get back up...

[Dervish]

Originally posted by Poop King:

What do death saving throws even do or mean now that instakills have been removed from 5e?

I had a character get "insta killed" in 5e in my last campaign - got crit'd on a necrotic death drain thing that took me down to 0 HP which killed me dead with no death saves...

Death saves would have at least given me a few chances to "not die" by giving someone in my party a change to heal me, or I could've got lucky and stabilized myself

no "F8 to redo" either

There are a number of spells that can "insta kill" you in 5e (I mean Power Word: KILL comes to mind...) so I don't know where you go tthe "instakills have been removed" thing from

[lordgizka]

I've only seen Balthazar's ghouls do it, while other party members are available to hit.

[Meowella]

Originally posted by Poop King:

What do death saving throws even do or mean now that instakills have been removed from 5e?

Death saves give you a chance to die.
Start of each turn you make one, roll a d20:
Natural 1 = 2 failures
2-9 = 1 failure
10-19 = 1 success
20 = You're up with 1hp and free to act fully.

3 failures = you're dead, 3 successes = roll 1d4 you're unconscious for that many hours.

One thing which is a bit silly about this system is that if you're down and attacked, you suffer 2 fails.. which means you need a 2nd attack to be able to kill someone in a turn. Makes little sense that a Fighter, because of 2 attacks, could kill someone faster than a Rogue when the foe is unconscious just because the Fighter is 5th level.

Instant Death, which is a PHB rule that's always active, reads if you take damage which reduces you to 0hp and then has an amount of damage remaining equal to your total hp, you die instantly. Aka if you have 12hp max and are reduced to -12... you're instantly killed.

[PlasteredDragon]

It's a core D&D mechanic.

[Poop King]

Originally posted by Meowella:

Originally posted by Poop King:

What do death saving throws even do or mean now that instakills have been removed from 5e?

Death saves give you a chance to die.
Start of each turn you make one, roll a d20:
Natural 1 = 2 failures
2-9 = 1 failure
10-19 = 1 success
20 = You're up with 1hp and free to act fully.

3 failures = you're dead, 3 successes = roll 1d4 you're unconscious for that many hours.

One thing which is a bit silly about this system is that if you're down and attacked, you suffer 2 fails.. which means you need a 2nd attack to be able to kill someone in a turn. Makes little sense that a Fighter, because of 2 attacks, could kill someone faster than a Rogue when the foe is unconscious just because the Fighter is 5th level.

Instant Death, which is a PHB rule that's always active, reads if you take damage which reduces you to 0hp and then has an amount of damage remaining equal to your total hp, you die instantly. Aka if you have 12hp max and are reduced to -12... you're instantly killed.

None of that is instakill. All new 5e garbage.

[Menagerie]

Originally posted by Poop King:

Originally posted by Meowella:

Death saves give you a chance to die.
Start of each turn you make one, roll a d20:
Natural 1 = 2 failures
2-9 = 1 failure
10-19 = 1 success
20 = You're up with 1hp and free to act fully.

3 failures = you're dead, 3 successes = roll 1d4 you're unconscious for that many hours.

One thing which is a bit silly about this system is that if you're down and attacked, you suffer 2 fails.. which means you need a 2nd attack to be able to kill someone in a turn. Makes little sense that a Fighter, because of 2 attacks, could kill someone faster than a Rogue when the foe is unconscious just because the Fighter is 5th level.

Instant Death, which is a PHB rule that's always active, reads if you take damage which reduces you to 0hp and then has an amount of damage remaining equal to your total hp, you die instantly. Aka if you have 12hp max and are reduced to -12... you're instantly killed.

None of that is instakill. All new 5e garbage.

5e released in 2014, my brother in christ. 9 years isn't new.

[rabidhanar]

I get that OP is complaining about the enemies ending him rightly, but hey look on the bright side. All it cost you is a rivivify scroll and they wasted their action.