Part of an ongoing series of 5e (2014) Rules notes.  See the end of the post for notes on 5.5e (2024) rules.

The point (very generally speaking) of D&D is to make the opponent worry about death. But it’s important for players to know about the rules, too, especially as they’ve changed since editions gone by.

Death (and Unconsciousness)

It’s important to understand a bit how down-and-out damage works in 5e. There’s no such thing as “going negative” here. When you drop to 0 HP (the bottom, you can’t go lower), you fall Unconscious (PHB 292): you’re Incapacitated, can’t move, can’t speak, are unaware, drop anything being carried, fail all Strength and Dexterity Saves … and Attacks against you have Advantage, and any hit is considered a Crit if attacked from 5 feet away.

But that’s the least worry you have. Because one of two things happen:

1. If the damage was so massive that the extra damage (theoretically beyond 0) equals or exceeds your HP maximum, you are dead, dead, dead.

2. 

   If not, then you are “just” bleeding out, and need to start making Death Saves each turn (PHB 197). If you start a turn at 0 HP and are not yet stabilized, roll 1d20.

   • On 10+, you succeed. Three total success, you become stable and will live.
   • On 1-9, you fail (a nat 1 counts as two fails). Three total fails, you are dead, dead, dead.
   • On a nat 20, you immediately gain back 1 HP and can regain consciousness.

If someone intervenes with a DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check, it will stabilize you, ending the Death Save checks.

Note that if someone inflicts further damage on you while unconscious, it counts as a Death Save failure; a crit (which is the auto-result of a hit from within 5′) counts as two fails. This also restarts the Death Save process. And if you take damage at 0 that is equal or greater than your normal number of HP, you die.

A stable creature stays at 0, Unconscious. It will heal 1 hp (and regain consciousness) in 1d4 hours (this does not count as a Short Rest). Healing spells are, of course, welcome to accelerate this process.

Note that this technically happens to the bad guys as well; the presumption, though, is hitting 0 kills a bad guy (they either fail their Death Saves, or you go around slitting throats after the battle). Best not to dwell on it.  Powerful / significant enemies might get a Death Save process.

Taking Advantage on Death Saves

It seems clear that you can use Inspiration to gain Advantage on a Death Save (as it is, in fact, a saving throw, just not one associated with any Ability).

Indeed, as people can gift each other with their Inspiration, other folk could feed their Inspiration to a dying party member (“Don’t you die on me, man! Don’t you die on me!”)

As far as that goes, anything that helps on saving throws helps on a Death Save. So a Bless spell would work, too.

Knocking someone unconscious

Whether you want to avoid being a murder-hobo, or want to interrogate a prisoner who won’t surrender, you can intentionally knock someone out instead of death on opponents. (Vice-versa, too.)

You simply declare, on any melee (martial or spell) attack that would have killed someone, that you are instead knocking them Unconscious (PHP 292) at the moment when the DM would say they’re dead. You don’t have to proclaim “subduing” damage in advance or anything; beating someone into unconsciousness is very much the same as beating them to death: it’s all in what you do after they fall down.

A foe rendered Unconscious this way is considered stable. They will wake up (regaining 1 hp) in 1d4 hours. You can leave them behind, bind them and leave them behind, or change your mind and gack them. If you want to interrogate them, then you either need to wait, or use some healing magic on them.

Raising the Dead

There are a variety of spells that can bring back dead folk. There’s a good article here on it. In summary:

The Time Limit is how long after death the spell can be used. Note that Gentle Repose (Cleric or Paladin, 3rd lvl spell) can extend the time limit for a raise spell by 10 days if cast within the time limit for that raise spell.

As implied under Spellcasting Services (PHB 159), these revivifying spells are not the sort of thing that you find being cranked out at your local temple, and even in a Big City they’re not a commodity service. Stolen souls, headless bodies, lack of bodies, death by fire, being turned undead, can all block some of these spells. Missing body parts can be an issue. Finding a 500gp diamond might not be easy, either. And many of these spells have consequences — limits on what they can restore (see article), being Necromantic in nature (ew), or the services that will be requested in return. (And clerical spells, esp. high level ones, have to be cast to a purpose sanctioned by the deity involved.)

Which isn’t to say it can’t happen, but don’t think of all this as the wild and wooly AD&D days when raising up dead PCs garnered as little consideration as murder-hoboing a complex (if wholly illogical) underground ecosystem.

So does any of this change under 5.5e?

The basic progression of 0 HP –> Death Saves and how all that works is mostly the same. 

There are minor changes in death-undoing spells.  Reincarnate incorporates the updated species options in the PHB. Resurrection no longer cures non-magical diseases.

Part of an ongoing series of 5e (2014) Rules notes.  See the end of the post for notes on 5.5e (2024) rules.

Like all things 5e, WotC set out to simplify the mechanics of how people were protected out on the battlefield by various objects.

5e set up basically four conditions:

1. no cover / uncovered (the default)
2. half cover
3. three-quarters cover
4. total cover.

The first and last usually get treated separately. It’s the partial covers in the middle that are of most interest here.

It’s difficult to talk about cover separated from a battle-map. Or, rather, if you are just running Theater of the Mind, cover is a matter of the GM asserting it (or agreeing to player assertions about it) by fiat. A lot of the below will depend on working on a square grid (extensible to a hex grid, if one likes; check out the DMG pages referenced below).

How about a drawing and a table?

The key here as to what cover a target has is counting the points on any one of their squares from any of the points in your square to see how many are blocked.

So here are the effects of cover on attacks, based on the rules here. This most often comes into play with Ranged attacks (including Spells), but

^{*A creature at least half as large as the target standing next to them.  But … see my House Rules below.}

Points Blocked: As in the diagram above, on a grid, choose a (most favorable) corner of the attacker’s space. Trace a line from that corner to each of the corners of a square (any one) the target occupies. Based on how many of those points are blocked, you can determine the level of cover.

So if any of the points are blocked, there is at least Half Cover. But also note that, even if the all the corners are blocked (e.g., the target is behind an arrow slit), if you can see any of the target, it’s in Three-Quarter cover.

Total Cover:  A target that cannot at all be seen / is completely concealed cannot be targeted by an attack or spell (though some spells can reach it in an Area of Effect — Fireballs, for example). Total Cover also starts to invoke rules for Hiding and the like.

Sizes of the characters involved can affect this (Small creatures behind larger creatures, etc.).

Multiple Covers provide the most difficult cover level. Arguably shooting an arrow past four people is more difficult than shooting an arrow past one person, but the KISS principle applies. As GM you can rule a cluster of Half Covers equal a Three-Quarters Cover, but the Rules As Written say that it’s still only Half Cover.

Combat and Cover at Corners

Consider the case in the picture — Fighter and Kenku squaring off (so to speak) at an architectural corner. Do the have cover from each other?

It might seem so, especially since the Move rules for grids indicate you can’t move through such a corner (PHB 192):

Corners. Diagonal movement can’t cross the corner of a wall, large tree, or other terrain feature that fills its space.

But for combat purposes, there’s no cover, because the kenku can take his top two corners (or the fighter his right two) and see (allowing for map/grid irregularities) along the wall all the other points of the opponent’s square.

It seems counter-intuitive, but there you are. Similar rulings can be made around doorways (the three squares on the other side of a 5-foot door have no cover from someone standing in the doorway on the other side, treating walls has having no thickness).

House Rule: Proximity to the Obstacle

Proximity to the Obstacle:  Rules as Written say that obstacle are obstacles. My House Rule is a little more nuanced:

The attacker can ignore Half or Three-Quarter Cover if the attacker is closer to the obstacle than the target.

It’s all a matter of perspective. If an ally is right in front of me, I can weave around in my 5-foot square to get a clear shot; if they are right in front of the target, they provide much better cover for that target.

Take three examples that I will, for no particular reason, label as William (W) and Moony (M) dealing with a Goblin (G).

1) W---------->MG
2) WM---------->G
3) W-----M----->G

The normal use case is #1, where Moony is up there whomping on the Goblin, and William is behind, shooting a bow at the Goblin. That’s pretty clear; the Goblin gets Half Cover from Moony against William’s bow shot.

Consider case #2, where Moony was right in front of William. The penalty shouldn’t count here; it’s easy in a 5-foot space for William to shoot past Moony at the Goblin, adjust to shoot over Moony’s shoulder or to one side or the other. Assuming Moony isn’t doing jumping jacks in front of William, and is of a comparable size, that makes sense.

Use case #3 — where Moony is midway between William and the Rat is a bit more dodgy (so to speak). The angle to shoot around Moony is more difficult, though not as difficult as when Moony is right in front of the Rat.

So, what’s the ruling here? 5e would treat all three circumstances as providing cover, but I don’t like that. So I’ll borrow from the 3.5e rules:

Attacker can ignore the cover if he’s closer to the obstacle than his target.

At least as applies to Half and Three-Quarter Cover. In case #1, cover rules apply; in case #2, they do not; in case #3, William would need to take a step forward to fire and ignore the cover.

Some Other Notes

• Note this is one of the few cases were 5e bakes in bonuses (vs using Advantage/Disadvantage). Assuming Advantage gives you about a +4 on a roll (it varies), that becomes too crude a measure for this.
• There is a Variant Rule (DMG 272) about the chances of hitting the cover if you miss your target. KISS, man. Also, we’ll assume that people are being particularly careful not hit their allies.
• Note that the Sharpshooter and Spell Sniper feats basically do away with Cover for their user. That’s pretty cool.

Update: OneD&D

In “Unearthed Arcana 2022 – Expert Classes,” the Hide action is allowed when behind Three-Quarters or Total Cover.  The Sharpshooter and Spell Sniper feats ignore Half and Three-Quarters Cover, as in 5e.

But what about 5.5e?

Things are pretty much the same in 5.5e (2024), with just a few things different.

5.5e doesn’t like pretty pictures of grids or counting points. Instead it provides a table and some very generic definitions (vs. examples).

Cover now works against Fireballs, rather than those flooding through any opening. There are also some changes in other spells (check your spell list!).

In 5e, Fireball reads:

A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. Each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a Dexterity saving throw. […] The fire spreads around corners. 

In 5.5e, the spell says:

A bright streak flashes from you to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into a fiery explosion. Each creature in a 20-foot-radius Sphere centered on that point makes a Dexterity saving throw.

Nothing there about it spreading around corners … or around Total Cover.

The Optional Rule about hitting the cover if you miss your target is no long there, in part because a lot of objects now have AC defined for them.

Part of an ongoing series of 5e (2014) Rules notes.  This also covers 5.5e (2024) rules.

One of the 5e design mission statements was to Keep It Simple, Stupid. This KISS principle was a response to the ultra-crunchy tactical game which was 4e. I like miniatures and tactics, so I liked 4e, but it did, by focusing on numbers and formulae so much, drain a lot of color from the game. As I started up my 5e campaign, I constantly found myself running head-smack into things that 4e did that 5e did not, by design, and having to figure out why.

So what is it?

Rather than having players maneuver a blizzard of plusses and minutes on attacks, 5e tries to reduce it down to a simple set of questions for any Attack, Save, or Action Check roll:

1. Does the attacker (die roller) have, at the moment, an Advantage over the defender?
2. Does the attacker have, at the moment, an Disadvantage, compared to the defender?

Then:

• If there’s no Advantage nor Disadvantage, it’s a Normal attack — roll 1d20.
• If there is both Advantage and Disadvantage, it’s a Normal attack — roll 1d20.
• If there is just Advantage — roll 2d20 and take the higher die roll.
• If there is just Disadvantage — roll 2d20 and take the lower die roll.

Note that (KISS) these are not additive. There is no “Super-Advantage,” and no “Well, you have one Advantage and two Disadvantages, so that comes out to Disadvantage.” There is either just Advantage, or just Disadvantage; otherwise it’s a Normal 1d20 roll.

So what impact does this have?

There are some fancy graphs out there, but Advantage is roughly a +4 on a d20, statistically. Or, as put another way, “Advantage is an enormous benefit that lands 13 or higher 50% of the time, is almost twice as likely to crit, and has 1/20th times as likely to botch.” So 5e doesn’t hand out the status lightly.

Or, put in pictures (please feel free to ignore if math makes you twitchy):

Having Advantage (blue) boosts your numbers up a lot, esp. in the middle range (trying to hit at least an 8-16); having Disadvantage (green) drags your numbers way down.

When do you have Advantage or Disadvantage?

There are a lot of conditions that create Advantage or Disadvantage (since there are very few conditions any more, except cover, that throw numbers, not Ad/Disad). A good survey can be found here:

A few common ones for combat:

• Using the Dodge action during combat has any attack roll against you made at a disadvantage until the start of your next turn (if you can see the attacker). DEX saving throws while Dodging are made with advantage. (Note to GMs: bad guys should Dodge a lot more than they do.)
• Using the Help action during combat can give an ally advantage in one of their own ability checks before the start of your next turn (see “working together”). Alternatively, it can provide advantage on the first of an ally’s attack rolls against a monster.
• Attacking an enemy while hidden (if they don’t detect you approaching) or otherwise unseen grants you advantage on attack rolls. Conversely, attacking an enemy you can’t see has you making the roll with disadvantage.
• Ranged attacks whose target is within a weapon’s long range (but not within normal range) have a disadvantage on the attack roll.
• Ranged attacks (including rolled spell attacks) in close combat (within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see you and isn’t incapacitated) have a disadvantage on the attack roll. (Spells that require a Saving Throw don’t have this problem because they have no attack roll.)
• Attacks made while prone are at a disadvantage.  Attacks at 5′ made on someone who is prone are at an advantage, but attacks beyond that are at a disadvantage.
• You can spend a your point of Inspiration to make an attack, save, or action check at advantage.

Advantage also shows up as a balancer. Kobolds, for example, have a Mob Tactics ability; if a kobold is next to an ally in combat, they each get Advantage on their attack roll. Thugs and Wolves have analogous abilities. That makes them more of a threat than you might think.

How do I roll Ad/Disad?

Normal physical tabletop, just roll two D20s and pick the higher (or lower) one as need be.

The Roll20 VTT standard 5e character sheet provides multiple ways to roll advantage, set through the Settings (gear icon) on the sheet toggle (CORE|BIO|SPELL|cog):

• Advantage Toggle — You’ll see a ADVANTAGE | NORMAL | DISADVANTAGE toggle at the top of the character sheet which you can adjust for each roll. [This is what I do, because I like to be sure I have all my settings right and am not throwing more dice than needed.]
• Advantage Query — For each Attack/Save/Action Check roll, you’ll get as pop up window asking if you have Advantage or Disadvantage. [I find this annoying, myself — though in higher level campaigns it becomes more convenient, given the number of spells, buffs, and situations that impose ADV/DISAD]
• Always Roll Advantage — This will roll 2d20 on everything, then you can apply the roll (higher number for Advantage, lower number for Disadvantage, left-hand number for Normal). [This is a very common way people do this, and for the DM the monsters are all done this way.]
• Never Throw Advantage — Always just roll 1d20; if you need to roll a second die, do it again.

So how does this change in 5.5e?

The Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic is the same in 5.5e (2024).  This is the most persuasive (though not dispositive) argument that 5.5e is fundamentally the same as 5e.

Most of the changes here are about when ADV/DISAD are used (e.g., when Surprise occurs in a 5.5e game, the Surprised folk roll their Init at Disadvantage).

I’ve been DMing D&D going back to the AD&D v1 era, and recently (not so recently, now) wrapped a 2½ year 5e campaign. One of the things I ended up doing for that was writing a lot of “rules summaries” explaining or exploring (or in some cases “house ruling“) on concepts or specifics that need a bit more explanation than what shows up in all those expensive D&D books.

We were using Roll20, so I’d been keeping those rules summaries in the Campaign Forum there for my players, but I think I’m going to start posting copies of them here on my blog, as a longer-term (and more searchable) resource.

A few caveats:

1. This is not exhaustive of all the rules, just ones that folk (including myself) seemed confused by.
2. I tend to try to go with Rules As Written (RAW) when given a choice. When I need something more clear than that, I lean heavily on the RPG Stackexchange, because those folk are rules lawyers in a very reasonable fashion.
3. That said, this is still just me saying things, though I try to document what I say. If you, or your DM, think differently on any of this, that’s up to you and your table.
4. There are cases where I go with house rules that I think make things easier, more sensible, more fun — without, I hope, gutting major gaming subsystems.
5. These posts were originally written for D&D 5e (2014).  I have since updated them, best I could, to include notes on how things have changed in 5.5e (2024).

On that note, some good sources for changes from 5e to 5.5e:

• Notable changes in 2024 D&D – Payton.Codes – highlights
• Quick Reference: D&D 2024 Rule Changes – Dice Dungeons – highlights
• DnD 5e to 2024 DnD Transition Guide and Change Log: Everything That’s Different in the New 2024 Player’s Handbook – extensive notes
• Comprehensive List of 2024 Rules Changes : r/onednd – more extensive notes
• Summary of D&D 2024 Rules Issues : r/KibblesTasty – extensive notes, focused on problems in the updated rules (and noting where they have been cleaned up in errata)
• Updates in the Players Handbook (2024) – D&D Beyond notes.
• DnD quietly axed a stack of optional rules from its DM’s Guide – a number of optional rules that have vanished in the new DMG.
• [OC] 5e 2014/2024 Conversion Guide – UPDATED! : r/DnD – some clever diagrams of how to convert 5e characters to 5.5e characters. 

Table of Contents

• House Rules!
• Action Economy!
• Advantage and Disadvantage! 
• Athletics and Acrobatics! 
• Actions, Attacks, MultiAttack, Extra Attack, and Attacks of Opportunity!
• Bonus Actions! 
• Bounded Accuracy! 
• Conditions!
• Cone Attacks! 
• Cover!
• Death  (and Unconsciousness)! 
• Element vs Element!
• Encumbrance and Carrying Capacity!
• Exhaustion!
• Falling! 
• Flanking, Facing, and Fumbling! 
• Grappling and Restraint! 
• Help!
• Initiative and Cunning Plans!
• Insight!
• Inspiration!
• Hiding and Cover and Surprise and Initiative (5.5e)
• Invisibility!
• Jumping!  
• Magic Items: Buying and Selling!
• Magic Items: Investigating and Using!
• Mounted Combat! 
• Moving Through a Hostile Creature’s Space!
• Perception and Investigation (and Passive Perception)!
• Ranged Attacks and Relative Height! 
• Ready!
• Rolls, High and Low! 
• Round Down!
• Size!
• Skills – Abilities, and Mixing and Matching!
• Skills – Group Checks!
• Skills – Retrying!
• Spell Scrolls!
• Spells – Exceeding Range / Line-of-Sight!
• Spells – Spell Components (and Conspicuous Consumption)!
• Spells – Spellcasting per Turn!
• Spells: Augury!
• Spells: Call Lightning!
• Spells: Create Bonfire!
• Spells: Fireball!
• Spells: Moonbeam!
• Spells: Spike Growth!
• Spells: Spirit Guardians!
• Spells: Stinking Cloud!
• Spells: Thorn Whip!
• Spells: Thunderwave! (and other cubical-AoE range-Self spells)
• Spells: Wrath of the Storm! (and what kind of attack triggers it)
• Surprise!
• Swimming! And Drowning! And Water Combat!
• Wands and Attacks!
• Weapon Juggling!
• Weapon Mastery!