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I know that this is the first Alpha release, but I was looking to get an idea of what people think before another release happens. Do you think that the current stabilization and death and dying rules works? Is going through 0 to -10 and only having a 10% chance to stop losing hit points a fair or worth while system to keep?
The reason I ask these questions is because I made a switch in my games to the Death and Dying variant in the UA. My players never go below 0 HP and they must make Fort saves to determine if they die or not. I only made one modification to this and it works out nicely. (DC for the fort save is 10 +1 per 5 points of damage dealt instead of the +2 per 10 points of damage dealt. Can be found in the UA on pg. 121 or on the SRD.)
we use em as RAW never had an issue but then its been a while sence i killed a few pc's
They work well. I modify them a bit:
Straight core SRD but dead is -(10+CON_Modifier) HP instead of -10 HP.
Chance of becoming stable is (10+CON_Modifier)% instead of 10%.
Chance of recovery is (10_CON_Modifier)% instead of 10%.
Recipient's CON bonus or penalty applies to Heal checks (as well as the healer's WIS bonus or penalty).
Mike
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I have house ruled the following, and it works very well ...
DEATH, DYING, AND HEALING
–1 to –9 Hit Points: If your hit points drop to from –1 to –9 hit points, you’re unconscious and dying, and you lose 1 hit point per round. Each round, before losing that hit point, you must attempt a DC 20 Fortitude save. If you succeed, you’re still unconscious and stable. If you fail this save by 5 or more, you lose 2 hit points. If you fail by 10 or more, you lose 5 hit points. If you are stable, each hour you make a subsequent DC 20 Fortitude save to regain consciousness, and if you fail, you lose 1 hit point instead.
STABLE CHARACTERS AND RECOVERY
Recovering with Help: One hour after a tended, dying character becomes stable, make another DC 20 Fortitude save to become conscious, at which point he is disabled (as if he had 0 hit points). If he remains unconscious, he has the same chance to revive and become disabled every hour. Even if unconscious, he recovers hit points naturally. He is back to normal when his hit points rise to 1 or higher.
Recovering Without Help: … A character who becomes stable on his own (by making the DC 20 Fortitude save while dying) and who has no one to tend to him still loses hit points, just at a slower rate. He must make a DC 20 Fortitude save each hour of becoming conscious. Each time he misses his hourly roll to become conscious, he loses 1 hit point. He also does not recover hit points through natural healing.
The -10 limit becomes increasingly narrow as levels (and average damage) increase. The phenomenon where you know someone cannot lose more than a point a round leads to an unrealitic situation where there's no hurry to stabilize someone because they are "only at -3".
It would be nice to have a system that was still applicable at high level, and that did not have a deterministic duration (the guaranteed 3 rounds that 4th Ed proposes seems like a bad idea to me too).
There are many variants and systems out there which achieve these goals and I'm sure the designers can come up with something similar. It's a good place to improve the game without impacting compatability.
I houseruled that sure... the baddie takes you to -23 if before your next turn on init. (when you would roll to stablize between -1 to -9) if the party can heal you above -10 you don't die.
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As I have mentioned, I use the Death and Dying from the UA. It has brought back a sense of urgency to heal someone. You never know when someone may fail a fort save and die. I think the negative HP thing is just a bad buffer(works well at earlier levels but doesn't work at all at later) along with the Stabilization rolls being a percentage(when else do you only have a 10% chance to actually save yourself from death).
I have used a variation of the Fortitude save mechanic that works pretty well. Character reduced to 0 hp or less must make a Fortitude save (DC 15 + double the caracter's negative hp) to stabalize. a character that fails bleeds for 1 point of damage and must make a new save the next round. A character dies at negative 10 + Con modifier unless they roll a 1. A 1 is instant death. This creates a bit of uncertainty at even high levels.
I don't possibility of instant death on a bad roll since I have the raise dead spells inflict a temporary negative level or Con damage instead of premanent loss.
I have been extremely unhappy with the 10% rule to stabilize since it came out and once tried, almost gauranteed that a player would not stabilize. I always figured a CON modifier should aid this roll. Hence, for each positive bonus modifier to CON I added 5% chance to stabilize. High CON characters were rewarded and low CON characters tend to die if not helped.
But as pointed out before, at higher levels, the damage that one could recieve, didn't usually make much difference. -67 points from a lightning bolt when you were at 10 hp is still dead.
It would be beneficial to the overall game design if this were some sort of sliding check, or even going back to the "Resurrection/Survival" roll based on CON that was present in 2nd ed.