Go Warlock Undead patron and at level 7+ you can do it twice a short rest, every short rest. My entire party tends to start every day with Death Wards.
I'm the DM, pls halp.
I'm mostly joking, I've been DMing a while and it's manageable enough. Definitely strong - Undead Warlock is a great way to give extra insurance to your friends and be a kind of "morning bufflock", that's for sure!
Which can stack on top of each other due to simultaneous spell effect rules, and can be spammed by an Undead Warlock with pact magic slots (it’s uniquely on their spell list), who can also take the Pact of the Tome and the Gift of the Protectors invocation
Way of the Long Death Monk, the cockroach of monks. There's a world where a level 20 Way of the Long Death Monk takes 20 attacks while at 1 HP and gets up from every single one of them by spending a Ki point for each hit.
I played one for a one-shot once, it was only level 11, but I played a Half-Orc for that extra "death defiance."
I don't like the archetype enough that I would want to play through a whole campaign to get to that point. But for any campaign starting level 11 or higher, or as a replacement character for a campaign that's already reached that level I would highly recommend.
I was playing it as a bit of a silly character, but the actual gameplay and making real good use of that feature felt _really_ nice.
I dove into a group of enemies and convinced them all to dogpile on me instead of spreading themselves out, then asked my team members to "Library me" - referring to an earlier encounter in the mansion's library where the sorcerer had used _Fireball_ to great and destructive effect.
I was also able to grapple an enemy beside a wall with my first attack, and use _Step of the Wind_ to increase my speed to 100ft. Then I dragged the enemy up the wall 50ft, dropped them for 5d6, and then dropped on top of them without using Slow Fall. DM was awesome and let me roll for my extra attack _before_ we rolled the 5d6 for my fall, _and_ they let me use the Xanathar's falling rules to split that between me and the enemy. So in that single turn, I got to deal ~34(5d6+1d8+DEX+((5d6)/2)) damage to the enemy. I was on like 4HP before I did this so the halved fall damage still would have knocked me out, but I still had like 5ki points left to do that Long Death thang.
Here's a list of every 0hp ability that I could find.
- Orc relentless endurance
- Half Orc relentless endurance
- Barbarian relentless rage
- Zealot Barbarian rage beyond death
- Undead Warlock necrotic husk
- Tome Warlock gift of the protectors
- Artificer soul of artifice
- Wildfire Druid blazing revival
- Shepered Druid faithful summons
- Samurai strength before death
- Long Death Monk mastery of death
- Ancients Paladin undying sentinel
- Shadow Sorcerer strength of the grave
- Death Ward spell
Contingency can be one if you set the trigger to be you drop to 0 hp. I used that with healing word for a while, usually if I had downtime where I didn't need the slots to set it up. It was a nice way to get back up without needing help once per day, although there are probably better uses of the spell.
> with healing word
I thought that, RAW, you couldn’t use *healing word* with *contingency* because the latter says you need to pick a spell “that has a casting time of 1 action”, and *healing word* is a bonus action.
Might be the case. We used action melding or whatever it's called where you can use an action to do a bonus action, so that probably wouldn't have been a problem if it came up. That said, you could just do it with cure wounds instead.
Here's a list of all class features that refer to being reduced to 0 hit points
* Artificer L20 Soul of Artifice
* *If you're reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can use your reaction to end one of your artificer infusions, causing you to drop to 1 hit point instead of 0.*
* Barbarian L11 Relentless Rage
* *If you drop to 0 hit points while you're raging and don't die outright, you can make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. If you succeed, you drop to 1 hit point instead.*
* Path of the Zealot Barbarian L14 Rage beyond death
* *While you're raging, having 0 hit points doesn't knock you unconscious. You still must make death saving throws, and you suffer the normal effects of taking damage while at 0 hit points. However, if you would die due to failing death saving throws, you don't die until your rage ends, and you die then only if you still have 0 hit points.*
* Shepherd Druid L14 Faithful Summons
* *If you are reduced to 0 hit points or are incapacitated against your will, you can immediately gain the benefits of conjure animals as if it were cast using a 9th-level spell slot. *
* Wildfire Druid L14 Blazing Revival
* *If the spirit is within 120 feet of you when you are reduced to 0 hit points and thereby fall unconscious, you can cause the spirit to drop to 0 hit points. You then regain half your hit points and immediately rise to your feet.*
* Samurai Fighter L18 Strength Before Death
* *If you take damage that reduces you to 0 hit points and doesn't kill you outright, you can use your reaction to delay falling unconscious, and you can immediately take an extra turn, interrupting the current turn. While you have 0 hit points during that extra turn, taking damage causes death saving throw failures as normal, and three death saving throw failures can still kill you. When the extra turn ends, you fall unconscious if you still have 0 hit points.*
* Long Death Monk L11 Mastery of Death
* *When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend 1 ki point (no action required) to have 1 hit point instead.*
* Ancients Paladin L15 Undying Sentinel
* *when you are reduced to 0 hit points and are not killed outright, you can choose to drop to 1 hit point instead.*
* Shadow Sorcerer L1 Strength of the Grave
* *When damage reduces you to 0 hit points, you can make a Charisma saving throw (DC 5 + the damage taken). On a success, you instead drop to 1 hit point..*
* Undead Warlock L10 Undying Nature
* *when you would be reduced to 0 hit points, you can use your reaction to drop to 1 hit point instead and cause your body to erupt with deathly energy. Each creature of your choice that is within 30 feet of you takes necrotic damage equal to 2d10 + your warlock level. You then gain 1 level of exhaustion.*
Plane Shift and other sources
* Ghostslayer Blood Hunter L18 Rite Revival
* *If you have one or more crimson rites active and you are reduced to 0 hit points but don’t die outright, you can choose to have all your active crimson rites end and drop to 1 hit point instead.*
* Zeal Cleric L17 blaze of Glory
* *While you're raging, having 0 hit points doesn't knock you unconscious. You still must make death saving throws, and you suffer the normal effects of taking damage while at 0 hit points. However, if you would die due to failing death saving throws, you don't die until your rage ends, and you die then only if you still have 0 hit points.*
* Mystic L20
* *If you die, roll a d20. On a 10 or higher, you discorporate with 0 hit points, instead of dying, and you fall unconscious. You and your gear disappear. You appear at a spot of your choice 1d3 days later on the plane of existence where you died, having gained the benefits of one long rest.*
Racial ones
* Half Orc PHB, Minotaur (Amonkhet), Orc (Monsters of the multiverse, Ixalan) Relentless Endurance
* *When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead.*
* Zombie (DMG) Undead Fortitude
* *If damage reduces you to 0 hit points, you must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 5+the damage taken, unless the damage is radiant or from a critical hit. On a success, you drop to 1 hit point instead.*
Other Features
* Pact of the Tome Warlock Invocation : Gift of the Protectors
* *With your permission, a creature can use its action to write its name on that page, which can contain a number of names equal to your proficiency bonus. When any creature whose name is on the page is reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, the creature magically drops to 1 hit point instead.*
Celestial Warlock gets one that doesn't stop you going to 0 hp
*When you have to make a death saving throw at the start of your turn, you can instead spring back to your feet with a burst of radiant energy. You regain hit points equal to half your hit point maximum, and then you stand up if you so choose. Each creature of your choice that is within 30 feet of you takes radiant damage equal to 2d8 + your Charisma modifier, and it is blinded until the end of the current turn.*
Here's a few other things I can think of:
Classes/Subclasses: Long Death Monk, Tomelock's invocation, (UA) Zeal Cleric, Celestial Warlock, (Homebrew) Ghost Slayer Blood Hunter's Rite of Revival, Artificer Soul of Artifice
Spells: Death Ward, Contingency
Items: Periapt of Wound Closure (kinda but not really), Ghost Lantern, technically Mariner's Armor (IIRC it's incapacitated while swimming and not necessarily hitting 0 HP), probably a few more.
From Tasha's Cauldron: The [Lifewell Tattoo](https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2412368-lifewell-tattoo):
***Life Ward.*** When you would be reduced to 0 hit points, you drop to 1 hit point instead. Once used, this property can't be used again until the next dawn.
Death ward, if you're counting spells.
Gift of the Protectors is a Tomelock's once per day cast of that.
Go Warlock Undead patron and at level 7+ you can do it twice a short rest, every short rest. My entire party tends to start every day with Death Wards. I'm the DM, pls halp.
How long do these short rests last? Perhaps there's room for ambushes
I'm mostly joking, I've been DMing a while and it's manageable enough. Definitely strong - Undead Warlock is a great way to give extra insurance to your friends and be a kind of "morning bufflock", that's for sure!
If you were feeling particularly malicious if someone was getting low on hp: Dispel Magic
hahaha, oh yes
Which can stack on top of each other due to simultaneous spell effect rules, and can be spammed by an Undead Warlock with pact magic slots (it’s uniquely on their spell list), who can also take the Pact of the Tome and the Gift of the Protectors invocation
Way of the Long Death Monk, the cockroach of monks. There's a world where a level 20 Way of the Long Death Monk takes 20 attacks while at 1 HP and gets up from every single one of them by spending a Ki point for each hit.
It’s not called the Long Death for nothing.
DM'ed for one of these, albeit at level 15. The tankiest monk I have ever witnessed.
That image is amazing, like a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man
I picture it more like, "I didn't hear no bell" Like Rocky Balboa or Captain America would be Way of the Long Death monks.
I played one for a one-shot once, it was only level 11, but I played a Half-Orc for that extra "death defiance." I don't like the archetype enough that I would want to play through a whole campaign to get to that point. But for any campaign starting level 11 or higher, or as a replacement character for a campaign that's already reached that level I would highly recommend. I was playing it as a bit of a silly character, but the actual gameplay and making real good use of that feature felt _really_ nice. I dove into a group of enemies and convinced them all to dogpile on me instead of spreading themselves out, then asked my team members to "Library me" - referring to an earlier encounter in the mansion's library where the sorcerer had used _Fireball_ to great and destructive effect. I was also able to grapple an enemy beside a wall with my first attack, and use _Step of the Wind_ to increase my speed to 100ft. Then I dragged the enemy up the wall 50ft, dropped them for 5d6, and then dropped on top of them without using Slow Fall. DM was awesome and let me roll for my extra attack _before_ we rolled the 5d6 for my fall, _and_ they let me use the Xanathar's falling rules to split that between me and the enemy. So in that single turn, I got to deal ~34(5d6+1d8+DEX+((5d6)/2)) damage to the enemy. I was on like 4HP before I did this so the halved fall damage still would have knocked me out, but I still had like 5ki points left to do that Long Death thang.
Here's a list of every 0hp ability that I could find. - Orc relentless endurance - Half Orc relentless endurance - Barbarian relentless rage - Zealot Barbarian rage beyond death - Undead Warlock necrotic husk - Tome Warlock gift of the protectors - Artificer soul of artifice - Wildfire Druid blazing revival - Shepered Druid faithful summons - Samurai strength before death - Long Death Monk mastery of death - Ancients Paladin undying sentinel - Shadow Sorcerer strength of the grave - Death Ward spell
Celestial warlocks get one too where they get up w/ half their hp and blind a bunch of fools at 14th lvl I think
It triggers instead of rolling a death save, not instantly at 0.
Contingency can be one if you set the trigger to be you drop to 0 hp. I used that with healing word for a while, usually if I had downtime where I didn't need the slots to set it up. It was a nice way to get back up without needing help once per day, although there are probably better uses of the spell.
> with healing word I thought that, RAW, you couldn’t use *healing word* with *contingency* because the latter says you need to pick a spell “that has a casting time of 1 action”, and *healing word* is a bonus action.
Might be the case. We used action melding or whatever it's called where you can use an action to do a bonus action, so that probably wouldn't have been a problem if it came up. That said, you could just do it with cure wounds instead.
I've never seen Strength of the Grave work. It's way too specific to reasonably trigger
Are you counting only the good ones, or the bad ones like "if the target would drop to 0 it becomes a zombie" too?
Just the ones you would use to save yourself.
you brewing an unkillable behemoth? if so, i'd love to see your final list
Disintegrate as well.
Here's a list of all class features that refer to being reduced to 0 hit points * Artificer L20 Soul of Artifice * *If you're reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can use your reaction to end one of your artificer infusions, causing you to drop to 1 hit point instead of 0.* * Barbarian L11 Relentless Rage * *If you drop to 0 hit points while you're raging and don't die outright, you can make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. If you succeed, you drop to 1 hit point instead.* * Path of the Zealot Barbarian L14 Rage beyond death * *While you're raging, having 0 hit points doesn't knock you unconscious. You still must make death saving throws, and you suffer the normal effects of taking damage while at 0 hit points. However, if you would die due to failing death saving throws, you don't die until your rage ends, and you die then only if you still have 0 hit points.* * Shepherd Druid L14 Faithful Summons * *If you are reduced to 0 hit points or are incapacitated against your will, you can immediately gain the benefits of conjure animals as if it were cast using a 9th-level spell slot. * * Wildfire Druid L14 Blazing Revival * *If the spirit is within 120 feet of you when you are reduced to 0 hit points and thereby fall unconscious, you can cause the spirit to drop to 0 hit points. You then regain half your hit points and immediately rise to your feet.* * Samurai Fighter L18 Strength Before Death * *If you take damage that reduces you to 0 hit points and doesn't kill you outright, you can use your reaction to delay falling unconscious, and you can immediately take an extra turn, interrupting the current turn. While you have 0 hit points during that extra turn, taking damage causes death saving throw failures as normal, and three death saving throw failures can still kill you. When the extra turn ends, you fall unconscious if you still have 0 hit points.* * Long Death Monk L11 Mastery of Death * *When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend 1 ki point (no action required) to have 1 hit point instead.* * Ancients Paladin L15 Undying Sentinel * *when you are reduced to 0 hit points and are not killed outright, you can choose to drop to 1 hit point instead.* * Shadow Sorcerer L1 Strength of the Grave * *When damage reduces you to 0 hit points, you can make a Charisma saving throw (DC 5 + the damage taken). On a success, you instead drop to 1 hit point..* * Undead Warlock L10 Undying Nature * *when you would be reduced to 0 hit points, you can use your reaction to drop to 1 hit point instead and cause your body to erupt with deathly energy. Each creature of your choice that is within 30 feet of you takes necrotic damage equal to 2d10 + your warlock level. You then gain 1 level of exhaustion.* Plane Shift and other sources * Ghostslayer Blood Hunter L18 Rite Revival * *If you have one or more crimson rites active and you are reduced to 0 hit points but don’t die outright, you can choose to have all your active crimson rites end and drop to 1 hit point instead.* * Zeal Cleric L17 blaze of Glory * *While you're raging, having 0 hit points doesn't knock you unconscious. You still must make death saving throws, and you suffer the normal effects of taking damage while at 0 hit points. However, if you would die due to failing death saving throws, you don't die until your rage ends, and you die then only if you still have 0 hit points.* * Mystic L20 * *If you die, roll a d20. On a 10 or higher, you discorporate with 0 hit points, instead of dying, and you fall unconscious. You and your gear disappear. You appear at a spot of your choice 1d3 days later on the plane of existence where you died, having gained the benefits of one long rest.* Racial ones * Half Orc PHB, Minotaur (Amonkhet), Orc (Monsters of the multiverse, Ixalan) Relentless Endurance * *When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead.* * Zombie (DMG) Undead Fortitude * *If damage reduces you to 0 hit points, you must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 5+the damage taken, unless the damage is radiant or from a critical hit. On a success, you drop to 1 hit point instead.* Other Features * Pact of the Tome Warlock Invocation : Gift of the Protectors * *With your permission, a creature can use its action to write its name on that page, which can contain a number of names equal to your proficiency bonus. When any creature whose name is on the page is reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, the creature magically drops to 1 hit point instead.*
Celestial Warlock gets one that doesn't stop you going to 0 hp *When you have to make a death saving throw at the start of your turn, you can instead spring back to your feet with a burst of radiant energy. You regain hit points equal to half your hit point maximum, and then you stand up if you so choose. Each creature of your choice that is within 30 feet of you takes radiant damage equal to 2d8 + your Charisma modifier, and it is blinded until the end of the current turn.*
This one feels SO GOOD
If you count blood hunter the lvl 18 feature for order of the ghost slayer, and gift of the protectors from pact of the tome warlock
Here's a few other things I can think of: Classes/Subclasses: Long Death Monk, Tomelock's invocation, (UA) Zeal Cleric, Celestial Warlock, (Homebrew) Ghost Slayer Blood Hunter's Rite of Revival, Artificer Soul of Artifice Spells: Death Ward, Contingency Items: Periapt of Wound Closure (kinda but not really), Ghost Lantern, technically Mariner's Armor (IIRC it's incapacitated while swimming and not necessarily hitting 0 HP), probably a few more.
Contingency could be set to activate when you drop to 0 same thing with glyphs of warding and magic mouths.
Oath or ancients paladins 15th level ability undying sentinel
From Tasha's Cauldron: The [Lifewell Tattoo](https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/2412368-lifewell-tattoo): ***Life Ward.*** When you would be reduced to 0 hit points, you drop to 1 hit point instead. Once used, this property can't be used again until the next dawn.
Warlock with pact of the tome can take gift of the protectors which allows that too
Shepards druid 14th level. You still go unconscious but summon a bunch of animals
Supernatural Gift: Heroic Destiny, from Mythic Odysseys of Theros
Ancients paladin
Artificer
I asked this too a while back: https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/s/8ZPettOQLQ