Last Stand

The Last Stand!

This idea is for the purpose of making potential character death more exciting. Although I thoroughly agree with death saves, it has become apparent that some groups have gotten used to going down in combat, and a sort of disconnect occurs with the player and the game. Thus, I thought up a way to make death more thrilling and cinematic, so that anyone who does go down can still potentially act and change the flow of battle.

Mechanics:

When a Player Character drops to 0 hit points, they can still choose to roll their death saves on their turn. However, at any point during their action, they can instead choose to enter Last Stand. The rule is as follows: A Player Character that chooses to enter Last Stand becomes conscious and can now take their turn normally. A Last Stand Character now can use their full turn to take an action, move and bonus action. However, at the end of their turn, they fail a death saving throwm Additionally, if the player takes damage from a melee attack, they lose two death saves, and will lose one death save for any other attack. Once a character enters Last Stand, they cannot drop this ability and cannot be magically healed. At the end of their third turn of Last Stand, or when the combat ends, the player must roll a successfully DC 20 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, the character dies. On a success, the character falls unconscious but is not dead.

In addition to the Character gaining the use of their normal turn, their actions are empowered, granting additional abilities to otherwise normal actions. This simulates a sort of push beyond the limit for the player in order to successfully save their companions and overcome a significant challenge. The abilities are as follows:

• Critical Strike: When a character takes the attack action, the first attack that hits scores a critical.
• Flight Beyond Death: When the character moves, their movement speed is doubled. This includes all kinds of movement (i.e flight)
• Devastating Arcana: When a character casts a spell that includes a saving throw, the target has disadvantage on the save. When a character casts a spell with a spell attack, that attack scores a critical hit.