Suggestion - Dying

[Archade]

Hi guys,

One of the things I notice is the dying rules are still the same, and this causes a few small issues

1) Metagaming and a lack of urgency. If your friend is at -2 hp, you tend to leave him. And most groups metagame, calling out how many negative hp they are at, and making decisions based on that.

2) An awkward mechanic. Percentage dice are a strange mechanic vs most other combat effects which are d20 based. As well, lower is better in the case of stabilization, which is against higher is better for everything else. Heck, a lot of groups I've seen have reduced the stabilization roll to 'roll a 1 or 2 on a d20' to simplify things.

So, I suggest the following:

DYING
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. 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.

[All DMs are evil]

The death rules have a very small change, you now die at -10 or minus your constitution ability score, which ever is the lower (Page 122).

This is a step in the right direction.

I use my own house rules for death and dying that involve being still active up to -10 and then requiring fort saves after that to stabilise or die. The mechanics are pretty complex and I will be reviewing them soon.

In the last season I had a 5th level barbarian charge a creature with reach in the first round of combat in the first room they entered. The creature was using power attack with a Scythe, it only had +7 to hit but was doing 2d6+25 damage. The attack of opportunity on the barbarian was a natural 20 and the critical was confirmed. Luckily for the barbarian we were using the Critical Hit cards and he only ended up receiving double damage and 3d6 dex damage. This still took him from full hit points to -9 in one hit (He was not raging). One more damage, or the lack of no critical fumble cards and he would of been dead under 3.5 rules. This would be very harsh as it was his replacement characters first battle after his last one died a few sessions ago.

While character death needs to be part of the game, otherwise where is the challenge? I like there to be some sort of last chance saloon for characters to avoid death.

My house rules are, you get a fort save on your go to stabilise, the DC is equivalent to the minus hit points you are on, so if you are on -25 hit points, you need to make a DC25 fort save to stabilise. Succeed and you stabilise, fail by less than 5 or less and you lose one hit point and have to role again next round, fail by more than 5 and you lose another 5 hit points and die at the start of you next go. This gives you the chance to get cured and saved by the party.

As said I am reviewing these with the changes to raise dead and the death rules in the Alpha 2.

i would be interested to know who else house rules the death and dying rules, or is it the norm to use the standard rules?

[Pneumonica]

My players often hate me, but my reaction to Dying is whenever the character is "stabilized" to roll a CON check against a DC equal to the number of hit points below zero. A failure means the character dies and does not stabilize. It kept players from saying "we have time" for too long - even somebody with a CON of 20 is only guaranteed survival down to -6 hit points.

[sysane]

Why not a mechanic that forces a PC in negatives to roll a percentile dice each round to see if their character instantly dies?

There could be a cumulative 5% chance per -1 hp the unstabilized character possesses of instantly dying. Where at -10 the character is automatically dead.

[Chris Mortika]

Incapacitated: 0 down to negative CON bonus.
Lying There Unconscious in Your Own Viscera: Down to negative (CON score + Character Level)

Each round your character's at negatives, roll two d6's. Choose one of those two results, and apply that many hit points in damage. (Most people choose the lesser result). Characters with the Diehard feat choose from among three d6's instead.

When a raging barbarian drops unconscious, she needs to succeed at a Will save (DC = current negative HP total) to stay enraged.

[fliprushman]

I don't know what others think but I'm fond of the Death and Dying system brought up in Unearthed Arcana. When you get to 0 HP, you can make a Fortitude save to determine weather you die or not. This makes death unpredictible and removes the 10% chance of stabilization for something the players have a little more control over.