Death Saving Throws in 5e: How They Work

When you drop to 0 hit points in fifth edition, you usually fall unconscious and start making death saving throws: a plain d20 at the start of each of your turns. Roll 10 or higher for a success, 9 or lower for a failure. Three successes and you're stable. Three failures and your character dies. Here's the whole rule, including the parts that catch people out.

Dropping to 0 hit points

When damage takes you to 0 hit points, one of two things happens. Most of the time you fall unconscious. Very rarely, you die on the spot (more on that below).

Being unconscious is serious. You can't move or act, you drop whatever you're holding and fall prone, and attacks against you have advantage. Any spell you were concentrating on ends too, as our guide to how concentration works explains. The moment you regain any hit points, you wake up.

Instant death from massive damage

If damage takes you to 0 and there is damage left over, compare the leftover amount to your hit point maximum. If the leftover equals or beats your maximum, you die instantly. No death saves.

Say your maximum is 20 and you're on 8. A hit for 30 uses 8 to get you to 0, leaving 22 over. That's more than 20, so your character dies. If the hit had been 25, the leftover would be 17, which is under 20, so you'd fall unconscious instead. This mostly matters at low levels, when maximums are small.

How the roll works

At the start of each of your turns while you're at 0 hit points, you roll a d20.

The results don't need to come in a row. You keep a running count of each until one of them reaches three. So success, failure, success, failure, success means you're stable, even though you failed twice along the way.

Natural 20s and natural 1s

Death saves are one of the few rolls outside of attacks where the number on the die matters on its own.

• Natural 20: you regain 1 hit point and wake up. You're still prone, so standing up costs half your movement, but you're back in the fight.
• Natural 1: it counts as two failures. If you already had one failure, a natural 1 kills you.

Is a death save a Constitution save?

No. This is a common mix-up. The SRD says a death saving throw isn't tied to any ability score. That means you add no Constitution modifier and no proficiency bonus, even if your class makes you proficient in Constitution saves. It's a plain d20 against 10.

The only exception is a specific feature, spell or item that says it changes death saves. If nothing on your sheet says that, just roll the die.

Taking damage while you're down

Being at 0 hit points doesn't make you safe from further harm. Each time you take any damage, you suffer one death save failure. If the damage comes from a critical hit, that's two failures.

Here's the nasty part. While you're unconscious, any attack that hits you from within 5 feet is automatically a critical hit. So one melee hit from a monster standing over you costs you two failures, and a second one finishes you.

And if the damage you take at 0 hit points equals or beats your hit point maximum, you die outright.

The good news: any healing at all, even 1 hit point, wakes you up and wipes your death save count back to zero.

Stabilising a dying character

If a friend is down and making death saves, you have a few ways to help:

• Heal them. Any healing spell or potion is the best answer, because it wakes them up too.
• First aid. Use your action to make a DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check. On a success, they're stable.
• A healer's kit. Spend one use as an action to stabilise them with no check needed. A kit has ten uses.
• Spare the Dying. This Cleric cantrip stabilises a creature at 0 hit points with a touch. It doesn't work on undead or constructs.

A stable character stops making death saves but stays unconscious at 0 hit points. If they take any damage, they stop being stable and start rolling again. If nobody heals them, they regain 1 hit point after 1d4 hours. Not sure who in your party can heal? Our guide to the classes shows who does what.

When the count resets

Both counts go back to zero as soon as you regain any hit points or become stable. So every time you drop to 0, you start fresh. Failures from an earlier fight don't carry over.

Death saves are just one of several rolls in the game. Our guide to every type of roll in 5e covers the rest, and our free dice roller will roll them for you.

Questions

What happens if you roll a natural 20 on a death saving throw?

You regain 1 hit point, wake up, and your death save tally resets. You're still prone, so standing up costs half your movement.

Do you add your Constitution modifier to death saving throws?

No. Under the SRD rules a death saving throw isn't tied to any ability score, so you add no Constitution modifier and no proficiency bonus. It's a plain d20, unless a specific feature or item says it changes death saves.

What DC is a death saving throw in 5e?

10. Roll 10 or higher on the d20 and it's a success; 9 or lower is a failure. Three successes make you stable, three failures mean your character dies.