Death Saves

Lore

In Chardenfell, mortals are fragile creatures. Hit Points (HP) do not represent how put together a PC's physical body is. A PC at 1 HP is not bleeding out, missing limbs, nor do they necessarily have other grievous wounds. Instead, they are merely out of stamina, out of position, and out of luck. They might have a few surface wounds to show for it. A PC's HP is what they are using to prevent their physical body from being seriously wounded. Once they run out of HP, they are vulnerable to being killed. A PC's death saving throw failures instead represent their true "health", and all PCs get 3 failures before they die. Each failure should be accompanied by some physical description of how the PC has been hurt. Maybe a broken nose for instance.

Rule Changes

While a PC is at 0 HP, they do NOT make death saving throws at the start of their turn, nor do they fall unconscious. Instead, they gain the "Death's Door" condition. In narrative, this may be referred to as "they are at Death's Door". This condition is removed when the PC is restored back to positive HP. See details below.

Death's Door

A PC is only "at Death's Door" while they have 0 HP. Then the following rules apply:

Taking Damage

If you take any damage while you have 0 Hit Points, you suffer a Death Saving Throw failure. If the damage equals or exceeds your Hit Point maximum, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds twice your Hit Point maximum, you suffer three failures, and die immediately. Any character with 3 or more Death Saving Throw failures dies.

Gaining Scars

Whenever a PC takes a death saving throw failure, the PC also suffers a cosmetic injury as determined by the GM. This injury should generally not impose additional numeric penalties, but instead serves as a narrative reminder that the PC's are mortal and death is never out of the question. The GM can let the player the nature of their PC's injury if desired.

Semi-permanent Failures

Death saving throw failures are not removed when a character is stabilized or regains HP. They can only be removed by a trained magical healer attending to you over the course of a long rest, or a trained mundane healer over the course of an extended period of downtime dependent on the nature of your injuries.

Especially powerful healing magic can heal the injuries representing failed death saves instantly, however. The level of magic required to heal a death saving throw failure instantly is on the order of a supreme healing potion (1000 GP, healing 60 HP)

Generally, death saving throw failures last until the underlying injuries are healed. Some injuries may leave permanent scars, however, such as a severed finger.