[PFS] Battlefield Triage: Dying, Stable, or Dead.

[DM Livgin]

Tables have a lot of variation on how they communicate hit points, and there are pros and cons to describing them in narrative, or to giving hard numbers of HP left. But we are not here today to discuss hit point values, I want to discuss the communication of the Dying, Stable, and Dead conditions and what RAW says on it.

Why do we care? It is a frequent occurrence at the table that a character takes a yeti to the face and now the party is down a man, the proverbial feces is hitting the fan, and the party must start playing Russian Roulette with their comrades life: Do they spare an action to stabilize their poor friend or to they deal with the towering yeti problem. It is a tactical decision with hidden information, a decision that would be much easier if they knew that the character managed to stabilize on their turn, or if they knew that the yeti separated spleen from body and that brave Agent of the Pathfinder Society was beyond mortal aid.

What are some common responses? At tables that do not share the exact Dying, Stable, Dead condition a down character is in the frequent triage methods are a Heal Check, the Deathwatch spell, or the Status Spell.

First the Heal Check; is there a RAW check DC or action required to identify if a character has stabilized by themselves, or if they are beyond dying and are dead.. The use of the heal check is wide spread that I assumed there was, but I have not been able to find it.

Second is the Deathwatch spell. It is a relatively long duration and low level spell, if there was a mechanical answer this would fit the bill. See the spell text below; it helps with the alive/dead binary but gives the same result for someone at 2 HP and full attacking as someone who is at -13 and still bleeding out. Unless you take the hit points left as HP from negative Con, in that case it is a very good battle field triage tool.

Deathwatch:

Using the powers of necromancy, you can determine the condition of creatures near death within the spell's range. You instantly know whether each creature within the area is dead, fragile (alive and wounded, with 3 or fewer hit points left), fighting off death (alive with 4 or more hit points), healthy, undead, or neither alive nor dead (such as a construct). Deathwatch sees through any spell or ability that allows creatures to feign death.

Last is the Status spell. The status spell is special that it allows you to know the condition of characters out of sight, and lets you track their location. Implying, but not stating, that if they were close enough to see you would be able to know these conditions without magic intervention.

Status:

When you need to keep track of comrades who may get separated, status allows you to mentally monitor their relative positions and general condition. You are aware of direction and distance to the creatures and any conditions affecting them: unharmed, wounded, disabled, staggered, unconscious, dying, nauseated, panicked, stunned, poisoned, diseased, confused, or the like. Once the spell has been cast upon the subjects, the distance between them and the caster does not affect the spell as long as they are on the same plane of existence. If a subject leaves the plane, or if it dies, the spell ceases to function for it.

What I'm trying to get at is: Are Dying, Stable and Dead conditions that can be recognized without checks much like the way prone, paralyzed, sleeping, and exhausted are? If not what spell or check DC and action is required?

[Ferious Thune]

For Deathwatch, it's very poorly written. My belief is that it's supposed to be hitpoints from dead. Otherwise it is not very useful. But RAW it is almost always interpreted as knowing when they are at less than 4 HPs from 0. That's mildly useful. Less so when you consider that they are still conscious at that point and can yell for help.

Status is a much better written and much more effective spell.

[CampinCarl9127]

If somebody goes down, I will do my damnedest to keep them alive. If I'm the cleric, that means healing them. If I'm the fighter, that means beating the snot out of whatever is the biggest threat to them. One way or another I think the cleric should spend an action to either heal them or, worst case, confirm they are dead. Dying sucks.

Personally in my games, if somebody dies from obvious wounds (as in not a poison or necromancy spell or something), I make the flavor description very obvious they are dead. Decapitation, cut in half, burned to their bones, etc. At higher levels it gets more and more obvious because people tend to go negative a lot further than at low levels.