So a new Design and Development article is up, and I gotta say, not all too impressed.
The text of it is:
Character death is one of the ultimate threats in any RPG, and D&D is no exception. Besides the obvious, um, “inconveniences” that death might cause your character and his allies in both the short and long term—inconveniences which vary based on your level, the current situation, and of course your attachment to that particular character—death is a mark of failure. In some hard-to-explain but very real way, a dead character symbolizes that you just “lost” at D&D. That can prove a bitter pill for many players, and in my experience is even more frustrating than paying for a resurrection.
What We Hated
Early in the design process, Rob, James, and I identified a number of ways that we were unsatisified with D&D’s current death and dying rules. For example, we strongly disliked the inability of 3rd Edition D&D’s negative-hit-point model to deal with combat at higher levels—once the monsters are reliably dealing 15 or 20 points of damage with each attack, the chance of a character going straight from “alive and kicking” to “time to go through his pockets for loose change” was exceedingly high; effectively, the -1 to -9 “dying” range was meaningless. Ask any high-level fighter whether he’d prefer the second-to-last attack from a monster to leave him at 1 hp or -1 hp; I’d put odds on unconsciousness, and how lame is that?
Among other problems, this also meant that characters effectively had no way to “lose” a combat except by being killed. This removes a lot of dramatic possibilities for the story—for instance, the classic scene of the characters being captured and thrown in a cell from which they have to escape using only their wits and a pack of chewing gum (or whatever).
On top of all that, the game added a complex state of being at exactly 0 hp, which wasn’t quite like being fully capable but also wasn’t quite dying. Honestly, though, how often does any character actually get reduced to exactly 0 hp? Why did the game need a condition that existed at exactly one spot on the big, broad range of hit point possibilities?
What We Wanted
We wanted a death and dying system that added fun and tension at the table, scaled well to any level of play, and created the threat of PC mortality (without delivering on that threat as often as 3rd Edition did).
Characters had to feel that death was a possibility in order for combat to feel meaningful. If it seems impossible to be killed, much of the tension of combat disappears. However, if the majority of combats result in death (as is the case for a lot of high-level play in previous editions), the game is forced to reclassify death as a trivial obstacle in order to remain playable. 3rd Edition accomplished this with popular spells such as close wounds, delay death, and revivify—mandatory staples of any high-level cleric’s arsenal due purely to the commonality of death. But that removes the tension, and now what’s the point of death at all?
The system also had to be simple to remember and adjudicate at the table. Being able to keep the rule in your head is important, because you don’t want to be bogging the game down flipping through a book when a character is clinging to life by a thread—that should be high-tension time, not slowdown time!
Finally, it had to be believable within the heroic-fantasy milieu of D&D. (Believability isn’t the same thing as realism—an error which has ruined more games than I can count.) Put another way, it had to feel like D&D—one of those tricky “you know it when you see it” things.
What We Did About It
Back in 2005, this was obviously a much lower priority than, say, creating the new model for how classes and races worked, so we put it on the back burner to simmer. As the months passed, we and other designers proposed various models that tried to solve the conundrums set out above, varying from exceedingly abstract to witheringly simulationist. We playtested every model, from death tracks to life points, each time learning something different about what worked or didn’t work. A few times, we even temporarily settled on a solution, claiming that the playtesters only needed time to get used to our radical new ideas.
Side note to all those would-be game designers out there: When you hear yourself making that claim, you might be in danger of losing touch with reality. Sometimes you’re right, and your innovative game design concept just needs a little time to sink in. (The cycling initiative system used by 3rd Edition D&D is a good example of that—back in 1999, some very vociferous playtesters were convinced that it would ruin D&D combat forever. Turned out that wasn’t exactly true.) But every time you convince yourself that you know better than the people playing your game, you’re opening the possibility of a very rude (and costly) awakening.
Thankfully, our awakening came well before we released the game (or even before widescale playtesting began, for that matter). Despite some quite elegant concepts, none of our radical new ideas met all the criteria necessary, including simplicity, playability, fun, and believability.
The system had to be at least as simple to remember and at least as easy to play as what already existed. For all their other flaws, negative hit points are pretty easy to use, and they work well with the existing hit-point system.
It had to be at least as much fun as what already existed, and it had to be at least as believable as what already existed. In ideal situations, negative hit points create fun tension at the table, and they’re reasonably believable, at least within the heroic fantasy milieu of D&D, where characters are supposed to get the stuffing beaten out of them on a regular basis without serious consequences.
Every one of our new ideas failed to meet at least one of those criteria. Maybe they were playable but too abstract to feel fun or believable, or they were believable but too complicated to remember. Nothing worked, and I admit we experienced a couple of freak-out moments behind closed doors.
The Breakthrough
Eventually we got it through our heads that there wasn’t a radical new game mechanic just waiting to be discovered that would revolutionize the narrow window between life and death in D&D. What we really needed to do was just widen the window, reframe it, and maybe put in an extra pane for insulation. (OK, that analogy went off the tracks, but its heart was in the right place.)
Characters still use a negative hit point threshold to determine when they move from “unconscious and dying” to “all-the-way-dead,” but now that threshold scales with their level (or more specifically, with their hit point total). A character with 30 hit points (such as a low-level cleric) dies when he reaches -15 hit points, while the 15th-level fighter with 120 hp isn’t killed until he’s reduced to -60 hit points.
That may seem like an unreachable number, but it’s important to remember that monsters, like characters, aren’t piling on as many attacks on their turn as in 3rd Edition. At 15th level, that fighter might face a tough brute capable of dishing out 25 or 30 points of damage with its best attack… or nearly twice that on a crit. The threat of “alive-to-negative-everything” on a single hit remains in play, but it’s much less common than in the previous edition. That puts that bit of tension back where it belongs.
The new system also retains the “unconscious character bleeding out” concept, but for obvious reasons speeds it along a bit. (There’s not really any tension watching that 15th-level fighter bleed out at a rate of 1 hp per round for 30 or 40 rounds.) Thanks to some clever abstractions, the new system also removes the predictability of the current death timer. (“OK, Regdar’s at -2 hp, so we have 8 rounds to get to him. Yawn… time for a nap.”)
It’s also less costly to bring dying characters back into the fight now—there’s no “negative hit point tax” that you have to pay out of the healing delivered by your cure serious wounds prayer. That helps ensure that a character who was healed from unconsciousness isn’t in an immediate threat of going right back there (and you’ll never again have the “I fed Jozan a potion of healing but he’s still at negative hit points” disappointment).
Monsters don’t need or use this system unless the DM has special reason to do so. A monster at 0 hp is dead, and you don’t have to worry about wandering around the battlefield stabbing all your unconscious foes. (I’m sure my table isn’t the only place that happens.) We’ve talked elsewhere about some of the bogus parallelism that can lead to bad game design—such as all monsters having to follow character creation rules, even though they’re supposed to be foes to kill, not player characters—this is just another example of the game escaping that trap. Sure, a DM can decide for dramatic reasons that a notable NPC or monster might linger on after being defeated. Maybe a dying enemy survives to deliver a final warning or curse before expiring, or at the end of a fight the PCs discover a bloody trail leading away from where the evil warlock fell, but those will be significant, story-based exceptions to the norm.
Oh, and speaking of zero hit points? You’re unconscious and dying, just like every new player expects it should be. It’s not as harsh as the “dead at 0 hp” rule of the original D&D game, but it’s still not a place you want to be for long!
Try It Now!
If you want to try out a version of this system in your current game, try the following house rule. It’s not quite the 4th Edition system, but it should give you an idea of how it’ll feel.
1) At 0 hp or less, you fall unconscious and are dying.
Any damage dealt to a dying character is applied normally, and might kill him if it reduces his hit points far enough (see #2).
2) Characters die when their negative hit point total reaches -10 or one-quarter of their full normal hit points, whichever is a larger value.
This is less than a 4th Edition character would have, but each monster attack is dealing a smaller fraction of the character’s total hit points, so it should be reasonable. If it feels too small, increase it to one-third full normal hit points and try again.
3) If you’re dying at the end of your turn, roll 1d20.
Lower than 10: You get worse. If you get this result three times before you are healed or stabilized (as per the Heal skill), you die.
10-19: No change.
20: You get better! You wake up with hit points equal to one-quarter your full normal hit points.
4) If a character with negative hit points receives healing, he returns to 0 hp before any healing is applied.
In other words, he’ll wake up again with hit points equal to the healing provided by the effect—a cure light wounds spell for 7 hp will bring any dying character back to 7 hp, no matter what his negative hit point total had reached.)
5) A dying character who’s been stabilized (via the Heal skill) doesn’t roll a d20 at the end of his turn unless he takes more damage.
Discuss?
I'm all-in-all satisfied with this, though I've long since stopped requiring my players run around and stab fallen enemies, "just to be safe".
The increased negative hit points is a good idea, as is the randomized roll to determine if you die (three strikes and you're out), because otherwise you would have people saying stuff like, "Oh, Renji's only at -13, we got 44 rounds to save him."
Having a random roll adds tension and unpredictability, which are both great during combat (which should have high tension).
The "healing tax" is also a good idea, otherwise you could end up having to burn maximized cure critical wounds spells just to get higher-level characters OUT of the negative.
I think I'm going to introduce these rules to my current games and see how they pan out.
I think I'm going to try this out, too. It sounds workable, and pretty fun.
Having a "death-and-dying" window all the way down to half your hit point total sounds like an awfully long way, though. At least, when applied to 3.5.
Bryon - You said you're not too impressed. What part(s) of it don't you like? Any specific repercussions you see that you don't like?
I'm sorry, what was that about the 3rd edition Initiative system? I thought that was how it always worked.
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1) At 0 hp or less, you fall unconscious and are dying.
Any damage dealt to a dying character is applied normally, and might kill him if it reduces his hit points far enough (see #2).2) Characters die when their negative hit point total reaches -10 or one-quarter of their full normal hit points, whichever is a larger value.
This is less than a 4th Edition character would have, but each monster attack is dealing a smaller fraction of the character�s total hit points, so it should be reasonable. If it feels too small, increase it to one-third full normal hit points and try again.3) If you�re dying at the end of your turn, roll 1d20.
Lower than 10: You get worse. If you get this result three times before you are healed or stabilized (as per the Heal skill), you die.
10-19: No change.
20: You get better! You wake up with hit points equal to one-quarter your full normal hit points.4) If a character with negative hit points receives healing, he returns to 0 hp before any healing is applied.
In other words, he�ll wake up again with hit points equal to the healing provided by the effect�a cure light wounds spell for 7 hp will bring any dying character back to 7 hp, no matter what his negative hit point total had reached.)5) A dying character who�s been stabilized (via the Heal skill) doesn�t roll a d20 at the end of his turn unless he takes more damage.
Discuss?
All in all, I have to say that this is one of the better things I've seen in 4e so far. Not angry about, and I'm glad that the writer didn't act like he invented cold fusion during the writing of this post. It's a simply answer, using simple tested rules with a tweaking that works mathematically.
Now, as for applying it to 3.5, I agree with 1,2, and 5. I don't really like the roll a d20, on a 20 get back up. Granted, it is a 5% chance, but I'd be one to apply it to bad guys as well. As for healing going from 0 (#4), I'd use that only if the group didn't have a cleric. That way healing isn't need as much to get someone up.
All in all, good post. Still hasn't made me want to play 4e yet, but good post.
Enjoyed it.
I don't really like this. Way to many negative hit points are allowed. It seems almost impossible to die now.
And I know the -10 is small and insignificant to high level characters..But at high levels reaching 0 or less HP is much rarer.
The thing I disliked the most is the rolling every round while you are in the negatives. Yes thats in 3rd edition but this new system rubs me wrong because of this part:
Getting worse or stablizing is fine...But miraculusly getting better and getting up with a quarter of your HP back sounds nuts to me.
And healing magic jumping you straight to the positives I dont care for. In 3rd edition the most you can have is 10 HP below 0. If the healing spell doesnt bring you up to 1 thats fine. It just means the PC was really messed up. It makes sence.
Now if a character takes 4 points of damge and dropps to -1 and another character takes 60 points of damage and dropps to -57...the exact same Cure light wounds spell will bring them back to the same condition. That seems wrong.
And the article asks how often a character ends up with 0 HP exactly. I agree with this its a good point. But how often is a character in the negatives not revived because the healing magic wasnt enough? It doesnt happen very often either..Especially at high levels like the author was discussing.
The only thing I do like is ignoring negative HP on monsters unless the DM deems it important. But that's easily house-ruled and probably already done by 3rd editon DMs already.
Gyah - board ate my reply...
So, in a nutshell:
3E's design philosophy of "same rules for everyone" was completely wrongheaded and
Rather than coming up with a simple fix that requires maybe a few die rolls, they want to use a silly system that gives PCs bucketsfull of level-adjusted irrelevant "negative hit points" so that low level characters still die in droves and high-level ones can only be destroyed by a tactical nuclear weapon (and then only if they fail both the Reflex AND Fort saves).
Agreed. I don't care for this at all- it's a bit like redundant systems for a living being instead of a computer at high levels. I've never had a problem with people rolling to stabilize, or creating feats for people who didn't care for that system.
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The thing I disliked the most is the rolling every round while you are in the negatives. Yes thats in 3rd edition but this new system rubs me wrong because of this part:
Getting worse or stablizing is fine...But miraculusly getting better and getting up with a quarter of your HP back sounds nuts to me.
I like the idea behind this system, especially the rolling to see your status when below 0 hp, but I agree that in 3.5, getting back up with 1/4 hit points is a little much.
I'm thinking of keeping it very similar, except that if you roll a 20 and recover, I'll probably just have the character be conscious and disabled at 0 hp. This way he's up, but he's still clearly wounded until he gets some healing. At least he can manoeuvre into position and do something, but he's not all-of-a-sudden jumping back into the fray.
I'm sorry, what was that about the 3rd edition Initiative system? I thought that was how it always worked.
In 2nd Edition, you'd reroll initiative each round, I believe. (Man, it's been a long time since then...)
Am I supposed to tell 4th edition players 'sorry you keep killing them, because they're only monsters, which means 0 hp is automatic kill time for them'? Or does the fact that a PC expresses a sudden interest in taking a goblin prisoner suddenly grant it access to negative hit points?
I guess you could go either way with that.
Of course, in 3rd edition, if you want to take a monster prisoner, isntead of dropping it into the negatives, your best bet is dealing non-lethal damage. I'd assume 4E will have some sort of non-lethal-damage option. (Yeah, I know what they say about assuming things...)
Am I supposed to tell 4th edition players 'sorry you keep killing them, because they're only monsters, which means 0 hp is automatic kill time for them'? Or does the fact that a PC expresses a sudden interest in taking a goblin prisoner suddenly grant it access to negative hit points?
No, you are suppose to realize that these *story elements* are and have always been under the purview of the DM -- regardless of edition.
How many times do developers need to stress to people that rules are not to get in the way of the game?
Of course, if your players are interested in a goblin prisoner, it is ENTIRELY up to you as the DM if you want to give it negative hit points, have it surrender, etc. How do you handle it in 3.5?
You are not suppose to tell your players anything you don't want.
What is the difficulty in understanding this?
I am sorry if I am ranting but I fail to see how people do not grasp this concept.
Why not just make the following changes:
Because it doesn't solve the aforementioned problems.
2. A character at 0 HP has to make a FORT check each round with a DC of, say, 20 each round; if they take damage from any source during that round, the damage increases the DC.
This doesn't solve the problem of scaling and it's another thing to track (DCs in this case).
I don't really like this. Way to many negative hit points are allowed. It seems almost impossible to die now.
You might be missing the point, which is that the increased negative hit points reflect rules you haven't seen yet, which they're saying is an environment where you need those extra points.
So now, that 120 hp fighter gets knocked to -2. He's dying. Yet he can still survive when that dragon blasts him with his icy breath for another 55 points of damage?? This new system is terrible. Since people have more hit points now, and levels go to thirty, it's way out of hand. No one when knocked unconcious and dying should be able to take more than a few more HP to finish them off. It's harder to knock a 15th level fighter down there, but when you finally do beat him down, it shouldn't take ANOTHER 50, 60, whatever hit points to kill him. Unconcious and bleeding is unconcious and bleeding. This is so pathetic...
But it fits the lame new 4E m.o.
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Why not just make the following changes:Because it doesn't solve the aforementioned problems.
2. A character at 0 HP has to make a FORT check each round with a DC of, say, 20 each round; if they take damage from any source during that round, the damage increases the DC.This doesn't solve the problem of scaling and it's another thing to track (DCs in this case).
I think it does nicely. What's the point of having negative hps at all ?
otherwise, the system is not as bad as I would have thought. Also, there is the impact of the "bloodied" thingy ?
Not sure how I feel about this.
I'm not too keen on the ability of a cure light wounds spell to (potentially) take a character from, say -60 points to +8.
On the other hand, I agree that the -10 window gets very small when playing 20th level characters.
(As CE Brown says) It may just be easier to ignore HP once you go below 0 (and, indeed, simply state that the PCs *are* at 0), and then use the d20 method provided above - although I don't like the "suddenly you are at 25% hit points" option.
I'm sure there's a good house rule in there somewhere, though.
Want a cheap heal spell?
A dying character who’s been stabilized (via the Heal skill) doesn’t roll a d20 at the end of his turn unless he takes more damage.
So, [heal=skill not spell]
Heal' em. Kick' em.
Wait two turns.
Heal' em. Kick' em.
Wait two turns.
Eventually he'll roll a twenty and pop back up with 1/4 health.
(remember a heal skill stabilizes you, and you roll after taking more damage, and a roll of 20 brings you to 1/4 health)
I'll agree that the RAW 0 to -10 hp window creates problems in 3.5. But an easy and satisfying fix has been what Monte Cook proposed in his Arcana Unearthed/Evolved rulebooks.
The disabled range extends from 0 to whatever your Con bonus is. So if you have a 14 Con, w/ a +2 bonus, your disabled range is now 0 to -2.
The dying range would then extend to your actual Con, in negative hp. Again w/ the 14 Con example, you would die at -14, instead of -10.
It adds a little breathing room, feels a little less arbitrary, but escapes being a gross amplification of the PC's abilities. I quite like it.
Now, w/out knowing all of 4th edition's mechanics, I obviously can't say this is the fix they should have tried. But it works well for me in 3.5. YMMV.
EDIT: also, the last part of this is whacked; I liked everything but the wake up w/ a quarter of your normal hp. Maybe just roll that back a bit and they'd have a decent mechanic:
3) If you’re dying at the end of your turn, roll 1d20.
Lower than 10: You get worse. If you get this result three times before you are healed or stabilized (as per the Heal skill), you die.
10-19: No change.
20: You get better! You wake up with hit points equal to one-quarter your full normal hit points.
So, if Ace and Buzz are well into negatives (say, -20 and -50 respectively) the cleric just needs to score a crit (5% chance with no need to confirm, or higher percenta chance since they did say there were abilities that extended crit range) and up pops Ace and Buzz (who healed as if they were 0hp).
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How many times do developers need to stress to people that rules are not to get in the way of the game?
Hi, LR.
I see your point: the idea is to tell a story, and a game's rules provide a structure from which to hang the story's decision points.
The issue, as I see it, is that the change from "critters are like PCs" to "critters are different" makes the story they want to tell harder to tell. It works against the narrative.
And in a sense, you're right; it's simple to ignore the rules and tell the narrative the way you like. But I see two issues here:
"First, do no harm." Let's say that we design a new edition of the Star Wars game which makes it harder to simulate the action of the movies. You could certainly suspend that rule and go on with the game, but people would justifiably object to a rule change that everybody'd want to house-rule roll back.
Second, DMs aren't entirely in control of the narrative in D&D. So, the new rules don't allow for critters "dying" but savable. You're right, a DM fiat could allow for an unconscious NPC, but let's say the DM just follows the rules, declaring the bad guys dead, expecting to go on with the game. What happens when the players then want to question the bad guy who had been doing fine before being bopped in the head with a dagger?
PC: "How's the Evil Lackey doing?"
DM: "The dagger took him to 0 hit points. He's dead."
PC: "Dead? Damn it! We needed to talk to him, to send a message to his boss."
DM, suddenly realizing that the party's plan would help the plot along: "Oops."
The 4th Edition rules seem to impose new limits on the possible outcomes from a combat. That's why people are griping.
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This seems a bit unbalanced. I'd like to hear from some playtesters about how this actually worked. It seems to give the PCs a huge advantage over their opponents since PCs can go deep into negatives without dying, while a monster dies immediately at zero (I don't buy into the argument from one poster who stated "DM purview" to change the rules. That's house-ruling, which 4e was supposed to help eliminate).
PCs are hard to kill in 3.5 at high levels. Now they'll be downright impossible, as monsters will have to do 1.5 times (or more) the amount of damage to kill a PC as they do in 3.5 - AND they do less damage per attack/have less attacks than they do in 3.5 (per the OP).
Meanwhile, the PCs are now able to do more in a combat round, and have a chance to just randomly recover with a percentage of their full health if they roll high enough (20). Meanwhile, monsters must stay dead, regardless of what happens - no die rolls to recover, no negative hit points.
This may work fine at low levels, but high level BBEGs who die at 0 and have 4e's version of regeneration/fast healing become less threatening, as they will have no chance of reviving. Heck, if a troll dies at 0, what's the point? Half the challenge (and fun, to coin a phrase) of fighting a troll is to make sure it stays dead and attack it with the right type of weapon so it doesn't revive. Without negative hit points, the troll hits 0 and stays dead rather than going down at negative-whatever and coming back to harass the PCs just when they've started to relax.
I like the idea of rules applying equally to the PCs and their opponents. It levels the playing field, and adds suspense to combat. I think these dying/death rules will detract from that quite a bit.
The more I read about 4e, the more it seems like all of the rules are tipped in the favor of the PCs. This seems to take some of the challenge out of playing the game, as the chances of actually being killed are very slim. It seems like 4e is promoting a reckless style of play that emphasizes an act without thinking ("Get him" - think Ghostbusters) style of combat.
Color me unimpressed.
Monsters don’t need or use this system unless the DM has special reason to do so. A monster at 0 hp is dead, and you don’t have to worry about wandering around the battlefield stabbing all your unconscious foes. (I’m sure my table isn’t the only place that happens.) We’ve talked elsewhere about some of the bogus parallelism that can lead to bad game design—such as all monsters having to follow character creation rules, even though they’re supposed to be foes to kill, not player characters—this is just another example of the game escaping that trap.
See, that's completely counter to my most basic gaming philosophies. It' a "Mook Rule" that's applied to all monsters.
If this rule applies to the PC's, it has to apply to the monsters as well. To not do so is unbalanced, to say the least.
I don't think game balance is nearly as much of a concern in 4e as giving PC's unfair advantages to avoid the "un-fun" eventuality of character death.
It's not a "bogus parallelism." It's blatant cheating to help the PC's, and it demeans the game and cheapens the accomplishment of defeating the enemy.
It's a big move toward the Save Game/Easy Rez environment that 4e's target audience is used to playing in.
The dying range would then extend to your actual Con, in negative hp. Again w/ the 14 Con example, you would die at -14, instead of -10.
I've been doing this for a while. Really the whole thing is relative for me. Yeah when your 20th level that -10 or even -15 might not seem like much. It's that why you start to worry when your down to 20 hit? At 1st level that -10 is just fine. There is always gonna be some point in my hit points where I start to worry. It depends on how many I have normally or maybe what we're fighting. Now if the issue is really the difference between unconscious and dead well, adjust it to whatever type of play you want. Yeah death is worse than unconscious but from a character point of view they are the same since you never know if you'll wake up again. I dunno the current works for me.
i do not like this . isn't there already systems out we can play super heros. for me its just one more sign that 4e is not the fantacy game i wise to run or play.
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I think they found a death and dying system that fits with the new MMORPG feel of 4th edition; I can't yet decide if I like it.
My impression from the beginning is that in 4th Edition PCs are harder to kill. If death is not a threat (or not as threatening as before) to the PCs, they will not behave in a sane manner, imo. Combat should be potentially lethal, and some challenges and monsters should be very lethal to encourage cautious players to use ingenuity or tackle the problem from a new angle.
The changes I would make to the new suggested rules would be:
-A dying PC who rolls a 20 returns to 1hp.
-A PC's negative HP range = zero to -(10+ 1/4 HP) That kind of math might be too much for the new system though.
The new dying rules also leave no room for a character to be unconscious for a long period of time, which can be conducive to a storyline. Perhaps this is covered in a subdual damage chapter?
I have plenty of complaints about the new rules but most of the above posters have already stated them. So all I will add to the conversation is....IF I were to ever play 4th edition (not going to happen) but if.....my evil twin say did play......she would be wearing a super hero costume over her armor.
Do we still have armor in this game...or maybe we don't need it anymore.
Quote pulled from original text above...
Side note to all those would-be game designers out there: When you hear yourself making that claim, you might be in danger of losing touch with reality. Sometimes you’re right, and your innovative game design concept just needs a little time to sink in. (The cycling initiative system used by 3rd Edition D&D is a good example of that—back in 1999, some very vociferous playtesters were convinced that it would ruin D&D combat forever. Turned out that wasn’t exactly true.) But every time you convince yourself that you know better than the people playing your game, you’re opening the possibility of a very rude (and costly) awakening.
hmmmm....this paragraph hooked me the hardest...And it wasn't because of the initiative quip.
As to the rule, -10 is good at low levels. Home ruled -10hp as a base + current total level (or hit dice for monster) I found that the only creatures that could handle much once beaten down were epic level monsters and NPC type nasties that I may actually WANT to be left for dead by the party.
The rest just reeks of monty haul. I'm waiting to hear about the spirit graveyards that you can respawn, er, ressurrect at when you really do ACTUALLY die. Thw Wotzis are missing the point. "Without the threat of death, there is no reason to live at all." This game isn't about knitting circles around the bad guys, it is about blood, guts, and explosions. Even heroes die in D&D...that is one of it's coolest parts.
I really like that 4E is going the "play like you got a pair" rout. Personally, I don't like playing heroes as if they were mice. Really in 3x, even fighters you have to friggin tip toe around every where, if you don't you're meat.
If I want that experience I'll play Call of Cthulu. I like that I can now jump into melee kick ass and take names. Yeah, you gotta be careful when something SCARY comes along (i.e. Dragons) but any other time you can beat heads and high five each other.
Keep in mind, this just sounds a lot more fun to me than creeping around trying to not get killed by everything. I guess, it's the distinction between playing to not die and playing to win.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I can dig it. The symmetry thing has long been my biggest concern, but not in this situation. It's fairly simple to just give players the combat option of inflicting some form of non-lethal damage for when they want to take prisoners rather than applying the same death and dying rules to everyone. Which is generally good IMO, because while the player with the dead character has nothing better to do than roll a d20 each turn to see if he comes around, the DM has much more pressing needs on his time.
(Yes, yes, I know that you, DM of the gods, make every roll conceivable at all times and in all situations, all while calculating power attack using your own decimal point homebrew system, tracking cumulative penalties to die rolls, tally hit points for your monsters and the PCs, and know the effects of every spell without cracking a book. Your mother must be very proud. Sadly, I am not as gifted, and thus welcome the change.)
Anyway, carry on with the discussions of how the new rule destroys the spirit of the game, results in WoW-like resurrection, etc, etc, etc, though I would suggest maybe coming up with some clever new acronym to save us the trouble of hearing the same arguments over and over. Maybe you could just post "SD WoWL" and that could mean "Spirit Destroyed/WoW-Like Rule."
Hmmm....that's not a half bad idea. Now I just need to come up with an "I like it and will condescend in your general direction on my way out the door" acronym. That will need some thought...
Did I spell symmetry right?
Want a cheap heal spell?
A dying character who’s been stabilized (via the Heal skill) doesn’t roll a d20 at the end of his turn unless he takes more damage.
So, [heal=skill not spell]
Heal' em. Kick' em.
Wait two turns.
Heal' em. Kick' em.
Wait two turns.
Eventually he'll roll a twenty and pop back up with 1/4 health.(remember a heal skill stabilizes you, and you roll after taking more damage, and a roll of 20 brings you to 1/4 health)
Wow. That is the twinkiest thing I've ever seen, but yes, this is exactly what you'll get.
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Did I spell symmetry right?
Yes, you did. However, I think you miss-spelled WoW.
Seriously though, the big thing that I have a problem with is the "if you roll a 20, you get back 1/4 of your total hit points." I think they need to shrink that number, or say instead that you stabilize on a roll of 20.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Wow. That is the twinkiest thing I've ever seen, but yes, this is exactly what you'll get.Want a cheap heal spell?
A dying character who’s been stabilized (via the Heal skill) doesn’t roll a d20 at the end of his turn unless he takes more damage.
So, [heal=skill not spell]
Heal' em. Kick' em.
Wait two turns.
Heal' em. Kick' em.
Wait two turns.
Eventually he'll roll a twenty and pop back up with 1/4 health.(remember a heal skill stabilizes you, and you roll after taking more damage, and a roll of 20 brings you to 1/4 health)
Yeah, that works, as long as you've got an arbitrarily large amount of negative hit points to work with. If you actually read the article though, you'll see that once you exceed the negative hit point threshold, you just die.
Characters still use a negative hit point threshold to determine when they move from “unconscious and dying” to “all-the-way-dead,” but now that threshold scales with their level (or more specifically, with their hit point total). A character with 30 hit points (such as a low-level cleric) dies when he reaches -15 hit points, while the 15th-level fighter with 120 hp isn’t killed until he’s reduced to -60 hit points.
Presumably, those kicks are inflicting damage of some kind. So, each time you do it, you drive the person closer to the negative hit point threshold, and once they pass it, they die.
But don't let the facts stop you from hating. Carry on.
So now, that 120 hp fighter gets knocked to -2. He's dying. Yet he can still survive when that dragon blasts him with his icy breath for another 55 points of damage?? This new system is terrible. Since people have more hit points now, and levels go to thirty, it's way out of hand. No one when knocked unconcious and dying should be able to take more than a few more HP to finish them off. It's harder to knock a 15th level fighter down there, but when you finally do beat him down, it shouldn't take ANOTHER 50, 60, whatever hit points to kill him. Unconcious and bleeding is unconcious and bleeding. This is so pathetic...
But it fits the lame new 4E m.o.
My experience is that its not really that much longer to get them to lower hps with high level play and I think the article pretty much addresses the issue. In my experience CR 15 brutes do 30-60 points in a hit and twice that with a critical. For the full strength fighter thats not really an issue, whats really an issue is if the fighter is already wounded. That -10 hps is basically irrelevant at high level - if the fighter is down to 3/4s full hps then its already crisis time because its improbable you'll ever be between 0 and -10. Much more likely is that you'll go straight from 35 (bruised but unbeaten) to -25 (your brains are splattered all over the ceiling) without any intermediate steps.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Did I spell symmetry right?Yes, you did. However, I think you miss-spelled WoW.
Seriously though, the big thing that I have a problem with is the "if you roll a 20, you get back 1/4 of your total hit points." I think they need to shrink that number, or say instead that you stabilize on a roll of 20.
Damnit. Is it WOw?
I'm not entirely pleased with the 1/4, but I would be more bothered if it were like the UA Wound Point system, where (IIRC) you get a Fortitude save against a fixed DC, which eventually becomes easy to make and thus no one stays dead for very long. If it's only on a natural 20 and not modified by anything, it should be fairly rare, but if a DM house ruled it that you stablized, I wouldn't be upset (though in such a case, I'd like it better if you stablized on a 15-20).
Death and Dying is probably the most house ruled thing in the game (or maybe hp generation is). I can't imagine how they would find any rule that would be right for everyone. I think the biggest plus here is the scaling of the negative hit point buffer. The rest is just a variant on any number of house rules that is currently implemented.
The more I read about 4e, the more it seems like all of the rules are tipped in the favor of the PCs. This seems to take some of the challenge out of playing the game, as the chances of actually being killed are very slim.
The argument seems to be that dying is going to be harder but in turn there won't be such easy access to resurrection and revivify which sits well with me. I never really liked the aspect of 3.5 where the PCs died in droves but death was a minor speed bump and nothing to actually be at all concerned about.
If the players are harder to kill but dying is a really big deal the game will actually get more challenging not less. In the current edition of the rules the bad guys can kill you but thats really all they can do and thats not something to really worry to much about.
Reminds me of a line from KOTDT where the players are considering using a dangerous artifact that has about an equal chance of giving them levels and treasure or killing them. They of course all decide to use the item after all ..."Death can always be circumvented but treasure is forever!". Thats really one of the core assumptions of the current (and past) editions - death is everywhere but its no big deal,
I'd hope to get more drama from my heroic fantasy if death is a big deal and if its less common to compensate thats a worth while payoff IMO.
Overall, I like this series of changes. I'm not sold on the negative hp threshold, but I'll have to look at how things run before I carp about it. I don't like that 'get up with 1/4 hp' either, but that's easily dealt with. I'm a little concerned that there's a 1/8 chance of a character dying (blows 3 of those d20 rolls in a row, each with a 1/2 chance), but not that much. If someone in the party can't get you healed in 3 turns when everyone will have some healing power, then you're probably screwed anyway. I like that healing just sets you positive equal to the points gained, though we've had some gritty moments where healing spells didn't revive people to positive hp in the past which I'll miss.
Surprisingly well-done.
The more I think about it, the more I am stunned by this. So now everyone has more hit points, the monsters do less damage, a 120 hit point character can get knocked down to neg hit points, still take full damage from an 8th or 9th level lightning bolt, not die, roll a 20, and gain back the 50 or so negative hit points AND THEN GET 40 more hit points (coming back at a 1/4). You have got to be kidding me!
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I think it's kinda like pro rasslin.
See, the Spoilers, or the Mongolian Butcher, they was always wuppin up on Dusty Rhodes. You'd see Dusty all bleeding out of his forehead, and you'd think, "dayum."
Then alla sudden, Dusty go get up, and put an atomic elbow up side their head, and smack their heads together. He wus back up to 25% h.p.!!!!
Yup, just like pro rasslin. It's great.
"Death can always be circumvented but treasure is forever!"
Word. It's significantly more desirable to sacrifice your life instead of your treasure.
If given the choice between dropping dead and losing a high-level magic item, the choice is clear: Drop dead! The consequences of death are negligible and easily forgotten but the consequences of losing a 50,000 gp item is far more harmful to your character for far longer a period of time.
That's not very heroic.
Therefore, I support most anything that either makes death less frequent or reduces the overriding dependence on high-ticket magic items for basic survival.
I think it's kinda like pro rasslin.
See, the Spoilers, or the Mongolian Butcher, they was always wuppin up on Dusty Rhodes. You'd see Dusty all bleeding out of his forehead, and you'd think, "dayum."
Then alla sudden, Dusty go get up, and put an atomic elbow up side their head, and smack their heads together. He wus back up to 25% h.p.!!!!Yup, just like pro rasslin. It's great.
Did you play the Smackdown: Know Your Role D20 RPG? Pretty interesting take on a lot of tabletop wrestling rules.
A quote from "Family Guy" says it best for me.
CUT, PRINT, GAY