Death Saves & Unconscious State

[FirebrickRed]

Summary

Handle player death saving throws when reduced to 0 HP. Track successes/failures, handle natural 20s (regain consciousness) and natural 1s (two failures), and manage the unconscious state including damage while down.

Phase: MVP Combat System
Systems: Combat System, Character State, Scoreboard

Prerequisites

• Damage & Healing System #100 - Damage & Healing System (triggers unconscious at 0 HP)
• Combat Session Foundation & Initiative System #97 - Combat Session Foundation (turn management)

Goals

• Automatic unconscious state when player reaches 0 HP
• Death saving throw tracking (3 successes = stable, 3 failures = death)
• Auto-prompt for death saves on unconscious player's turn
• Natural 20/1 special handling
• Damage while unconscious causes failures
• Healing while unconscious restores consciousness
• Scoreboard display of death save progress
• Prone status when unconscious

Unconscious Trigger

// When player reaches 0 HP (from #100)
if (player.getCurrentHealth() <= 0) {
    player.setCurrentHealth(0);
    
    // Set unconscious state
    combatant.setUnconscious(true);
    combatant.setDeathSaveSuccesses(0);
    combatant.setDeathSaveFailures(0);
    
    // Make player prone (Minecraft effects)
    applyProneEffect(player);
    
    broadcast(player.getName() + " falls unconscious!");
    broadcast("Death saving throws begin on their turn.");
}

Death Saving Throws

Auto-Prompt on Turn

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
It's Alice's turn!
Alice is UNCONSCIOUS and must make a death saving throw.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Type /combat deathsave or click [Roll Death Save]

Commands

# Roll death save (auto-roll)
/combat deathsave
> Alice makes a death saving throw...
> Roll: 14 → SUCCESS (DC 10)
> Death Saves: ●●○ successes | ○○○ failures

# Player provides their roll
/combat deathsave --roll 8
> Alice makes a death saving throw...
> Roll: 8 → FAILURE (DC 10)
> Death Saves: ●○○ successes | ●○○ failures

Natural 20 - Regain Consciousness

/combat deathsave
> Alice makes a death saving throw...
> Roll: ★ NATURAL 20 ★
> Alice regains 1 HP and consciousness!
> Alice is no longer prone but remains on the ground.
> HP: 0 → 1

Natural 1 - Two Failures

/combat deathsave
> Alice makes a death saving throw...
> Roll: ✗ NATURAL 1 ✗
> CRITICAL FAILURE - counts as TWO failures!
> Death Saves: ●○○ successes | ●●● failures
> Alice has died!

Death Save Results

Three Successes - Stabilized

> Alice makes a death saving throw...
> Roll: 15 → SUCCESS
> Death Saves: ●●● successes | ●○○ failures
> Alice is STABILIZED!
> (Unconscious but no longer dying - no more death saves needed)

Three Failures - Death

> Alice makes a death saving throw...
> Roll: 7 → FAILURE
> Death Saves: ●●○ successes | ●●● failures
> Alice has DIED!
> [Remove from combat or mark as dead based on campaign rules]

Damage While Unconscious

// Taking damage while at 0 HP
if (combatant.isUnconscious() && damage > 0) {
    combatant.addDeathSaveFailure(1);
    broadcast(player.getName() + " takes damage while unconscious!");
    broadcast("Automatic death save FAILURE!");
    
    // Critical hit = 2 failures
    if (wasCriticalHit) {
        combatant.addDeathSaveFailure(1);  // +1 more
        broadcast("Critical hit - TWO automatic failures!");
    }
    
    checkForDeath(combatant);
}

Healing While Unconscious

/combat heal Alice 5
> Alice is healed for 5 HP while unconscious!
> Alice regains consciousness!
> HP: 0 → 5
> Death saves reset.
> Alice is no longer prone.

if (combatant.isUnconscious() && healing > 0) {
    player.heal(healing);
    combatant.setUnconscious(false);
    combatant.resetDeathSaves();
    removeProneEffect(player);
    broadcast(player.getName() + " regains consciousness!");
}

Prone Effect (Minecraft)

private void applyProneEffect(Player player) {
    // Option 1: Slowness effect to simulate prone
    player.addPotionEffect(new PotionEffect(
        PotionEffectType.SLOWNESS, 
        Integer.MAX_VALUE,  // Until removed
        255,  // Can't move
        false, false
    ));
    
    // Option 2: Just track state (DM enforces)
    // Prone rules: disadvantage on attacks, advantage for melee attackers
}

private void removeProneEffect(Player player) {
    player.removePotionEffect(PotionEffectType.SLOWNESS);
}

Scoreboard Display

━━━ INITIATIVE ━━━
  19 Alice 💀 ●●○/●○○   ← Unconscious, 2 success / 1 fail
  15 Bob
→ 12 Goblin Chief
  8  Kobold Scout
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Legend:
💀 = Unconscious
●●● = 3 successes (stabilized)
●●●/●●● = Successes/Failures

Alternative compact format:

  19 Alice [DOWN 2/1]    ← 2 successes, 1 failure

State Machine

         ┌──────────────┐
         │   CONSCIOUS  │
         │   (HP > 0)   │
         └──────┬───────┘
                │ Damage reduces HP to 0
                ▼
         ┌──────────────┐
    ┌────│  UNCONSCIOUS │────┐
    │    │  (Death Saves)│    │
    │    └──────┬───────┘    │
    │           │            │
 Healed    3 Successes    3 Failures
    │           │            │
    │           ▼            │
    │    ┌──────────────┐    │
    │    │  STABILIZED  │    │
    │    │ (No saves)   │    │
    │    └──────────────┘    │
    │                        │
    ▼                        ▼
┌──────────────┐      ┌──────────────┐
│  CONSCIOUS   │      │    DEAD      │
│  (HP > 0)    │      │              │
└──────────────┘      └──────────────┘

Data Structure

public class DeathSaveState {
    private int successes = 0;  // 0-3
    private int failures = 0;   // 0-3
    private boolean isStabilized = false;
    private boolean isDead = false;
    
    public void addSuccess() {
        successes++;
        if (successes >= 3) {
            isStabilized = true;
        }
    }
    
    public void addFailure(int count) {
        failures += count;
        if (failures >= 3) {
            isDead = true;
        }
    }
    
    public void reset() {
        successes = 0;
        failures = 0;
        isStabilized = false;
        isDead = false;
    }
}

Skip Turn When Unconscious

// Unconscious players can only make death saves on their turn
if (combatant.isUnconscious() && !combatant.isStabilized()) {
    promptDeathSave(combatant);
    // No other actions available
} else if (combatant.isStabilized()) {
    broadcast(player.getName() + " is stabilized and skips their turn.");
    advanceToNextTurn();
}

Future Enhancements (Not MVP)

• Spare the Dying cantrip auto-stabilization
• Medicine check to stabilize (DC 10)
• Instant death at negative max HP (config option)
• Revivify and resurrection spell integration
• Death notification to party

Related Issues

• Combat Session Foundation & Initiative System #97 - Combat Foundation (turn management)
• Turn Management & Action Economy #98 - Turn Management (turn handling for unconscious)
• Damage & Healing System #100 - Damage System (triggers unconscious)
• Condition Tracking & Display #103 - Condition Tracking (prone condition)
• Combat Configuration System #104 - Combat Configuration (death rules config)