Implementing a Delayed Death Mechanic

Help and Feedback Scripting Support
#1

I’m working on a mechanic where, instead of instantly dying when a player’s health reaches zero (or lower), they enter a brief “critical state” where they have a chance to save themselves before ultimately dying. However, I’ve encountered an issue: Roblox automatically resets health to 0 when it goes negative, preventing me from implementing this feature as intended.

To work around this, my approach is as follows (though I may have some misconceptions, as I’m still learning):

  1. Utilize HumanoidStateType to disable the default death behavior and re-enable it once the timer expires.
  2. Use an alternative system (e.g., a NumberValue) to track health separately, allowing for negative values without Roblox overriding them.

Since I’m relatively new to handling mechanics like this, I’d appreciate any insights on what I might be missing or misunderstanding. Thank you!

1 Like
#2

You can create a value inside of your player and then make a script that checks if that value is 0. If it is, you can do these actions you want. If it’s not 0, you just set your health to this value

#3

i think it is easy for you to test that out
like you said, try disabling the dead state, then damage the humanoid to negative
see if it still set health to 0

#4

i’m pretty sure it won’t work… i think it’ll just force sets the health to 0

#5

11:47:54.750 Humanoid.HealthChanged 83 - Client - LocalScript:13
11:47:55.033 Humanoid.HealthChanged 66 - Client - LocalScript:13
11:47:55.286 Humanoid.HealthChanged 49 - Client - LocalScript:13
11:47:55.465 Humanoid.HealthChanged 32 - Client - LocalScript:13
11:47:56.066 Humanoid.HealthChanged 15 - Client - LocalScript:13
11:47:56.216 Humanoid.HealthChanged -2 - Client - LocalScript:13
11:47:56.616 Humanoid.HealthChanged -19 - Client - LocalScript:13

#6

oh, last time i tried recreating what i said, the health just sets back to 0… weird, i’m going to see what i can do

#7

image
notice a default “Health” script will be added to your character if you have not provided one.
and it will regenerate your health and somehow reset health to 0 when it attempts to gain health the first time

#8

yes, i have a script that removes that from the player, would it be more understandable if i showed you a gameplay that has the health system/mechanic that i want to achive?

#9

you can show us whatever you see fit

#10


pay attention to the health, notice how it goes negative, then i heal myself (if i didn’t heal myself, i would’ve died), thats what i’m trying to achive.

#11

so it’s working now right? we can see the health stays negative

#12

no no, thats another game, not mine

#13

it is just a reference on what i’m trying to achive

#14

here is my test scripts
image

client

local Humanoid = script.Parent:WaitForChild("Humanoid") :: Humanoid
local RemoteEvent = script.Parent:WaitForChild("RemoteEvent")

game:GetService("UserInputService").InputBegan:Connect(function(input: InputObject, gameProcessedEvent: boolean)
	if gameProcessedEvent then return end
	
	if input.UserInputType == Enum.UserInputType.Keyboard and input.KeyCode == Enum.KeyCode.K then
		RemoteEvent:FireServer(17)
	end
end)

server

local Humanoid = script.Parent:WaitForChild("Humanoid") :: Humanoid
Humanoid:SetStateEnabled(Enum.HumanoidStateType.Dead, false)

local RemoteEvent = script.Parent:WaitForChild("RemoteEvent")
RemoteEvent.OnServerEvent:Connect(function(player: Player, damage: number)
	Humanoid:TakeDamage(damage)
end)

Humanoid.HealthChanged:Connect(function(newHealth: number)
	print("Server Humanoid.HealthChanged", newHealth)
end)

also empty Health server script

result:

  11:58:38.407  Server Humanoid.HealthChanged 83  -  Server - Script:10
  11:58:38.807  Server Humanoid.HealthChanged 66  -  Server - Script:10
  11:58:39.024  Server Humanoid.HealthChanged 49  -  Server - Script:10
  11:58:39.191  Server Humanoid.HealthChanged 32  -  Server - Script:10
  11:58:39.507  Server Humanoid.HealthChanged 15  -  Server - Script:10
  11:58:39.690  Server Humanoid.HealthChanged -2  -  Server - Script:10
  11:58:39.990  Server Humanoid.HealthChanged -19  -  Server - Script:10

so it demonstrates the ‘empty health script’ is the solution to your original issue (health reset to 0).
and your approach to make your mechanic would be disable the dead state, your custom Health script would handle the health regen if any, check for critical state and recover or die after period of time

#15

yes i know the “Health” script resets your health back to 0 if you try to set it to negative, when i get back on my computer i’ll see what i can do with your script if thats ok

#16

I think your best bet would to just have a health that triggers your ‘critical state’. in my games where i had a knock/revive system i wouldnt allow anything to do any damage past 5hp which then you can use your desired code from there. im not completely sure if this all adheres to what you want with your game though

#17

that is also okay. we can then display the health on ui as having a value of ‘Health - 5’
and do some delay logic so if we don’t heal back, the server do the final 5 damage

however, with ‘negative health’, it becomes possible that, if using the health kit or even used multiple times does not heal enough, you can still die. it needs some other bookkeeping if simply locked the health at 5hp

#18

this might be not really efficient but, i can make 2 values a “MaxHealth” and “CurrentHealth”, CurrentHealth will not affect Humanoid Health, but will be displayed in custom health GUI, when it reaches negative numbers, fire an event (activates critical state) and wait 1 second, if CurrentHealth is not above 0, kill the player, how does that sound?

#19

using another bookkeeper variable is of course doable.

#20

i’ll keep yall updated on the mechanic, im pretty excited to make this work