I was thinking of incorporating the 4e death rules in my AOW campaign.
Wizards of the Coast actually provided rules for incorporating 4E death rules into your 3.5 game. Check it out.
While I like the concepts behind this variant, I don't like the idea of characters suddenly regaining hit points for no apparent reason. I also like using the d% better, because it feels like you have more chances of succeeding, even if statistically, it works out the same.
I tried a variant of this rule in an epic campaign, and it worked out quite well. Here's what I used.
Dying Characters
Instead of dying when they reach -10 hit points, epic level characters receive a certain number of negative hit points equal to 25% of their maximum hit point total. So for example, an epic level character with 100 hit points would receive 25 negative hit points instead of the usual 10.
In addition, the rules for dying have also changed. Instead of losing 1 hit point for every round that a character remains unconscious without healing or stabilizing, epic level characters roll d% on the following table each round to determine the status of their character.
01-10 Character stabilizes.
11-40 No change.
41-00 Character worsens. Characters who receive this result more than three times before they are healed or stabilized perish from their wounds.
A coup de grace attack against a character who is unconscious results in instant death.
Characters who receive healing while at negative hit points return to 0 hp before any healing is applied. So for example, when Jozan the cleric applies a heal spell to Regdar, Regdar is immediately restored to 0 hp before getting healed for 150 hp.
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Actually I don't think I gave this topic enough consideration when I replied to it the first time.
I don't think that the death and dying rules are only fixable by spells like Delay Death without house rules. I do however believe that spells like Delay Death can easily become a crutch that the PC's get accustom to having around, taking more risks as the fear of losing a character is greatly lessened.
So I think your seeing more the results of that in your remembered LG games rather then a hugely significant problem with the death and dying rules. It wasn't required to survive any of the encounters of the campaign, people just got used to having it around.
Heck, you had to find access to it if I remember correctly. Not exactly a huge problem of course as it was relatively common, but it still couldn't be assumed to be had by the better mod writers.
Pathfinder's death and dying system I think fixes a few problems, or at very least makes it a bit less harsh. A Constitution check instead of a flat 10% (well, minus how far your down under 0,) with a natural 20 still stabilizing automatically. Add that with the -constitution threshold and it not only adds a bit more survivability of bad situations, but it gives constitution something else to do other then add to HP and fort saves.
Being a veteran of 3.5, I've come to the conclusion that Delay Death is a needed crutch at higher levels and that the death rules (you die at -10) are terrible. I really enjoy the death rules in 4e and think they are more sensible.
At higher levels in 3.5, PCs can be at a very low amount of HP quite easily and get killed by full attacks quite easily.
I've mainly played Living Greyhawk and Delay Death was needed for games to happen at all or else PCs would die in almost every combat.
What do you think?
I was thinking of incorporating the 4e death rules in my AOW campaign.
Ported more or less straight from 4E you'd still die at negative some odd number that was a bit higher then -10 but well withing the amount of some high damage attack so I'm not sure this changes much.
Presuming that you set the negative hp threshold so high that this almost never happened you end up with the other element of the 4E death and dying rules which involves making some sort of save every round and if you blow that save 3 times you die.
Here we start to get into the issues, 4E has many shorter and smaller rounds when compared to 3.x. In 3.x the 'average' combat lasts 4 rounds. It might seem a lot longer but I bet if you actually count rounds you'll find that even the most epic combats rarely last more then maybe 7 or 8 - it just seems like more because a lot happens in those rounds. The problem then becomes that the death and dieing rolls are nearly meaningless. Your never going to fail three times before the combat is over one way or another.
Another problem is how to deal with healing. 4E makes getting ones hands on healing really tough. Even a pretty good cleric only usually has 2 or 3 healing type powers for use in any given encounter and maybe another 1-2 'emergency reserve' type powers. Characters that go down can stay down causing much panic among the players who are forced to resort to getting beside the character and making healing skill checks to stabilize. In 3.x type games healing is cheap and plentiful, stabilizing a downed character before its making that actually scary third roll is relatively trivial.
In other words you'll end up with an elaborate mechanism for dealing with downed characters but the reality at the table will be - characters that go down stay down until some one gets around to healing them back up. The use of death and dying rules only really would come into play if some one both went down and was moved in some manner to a place where they were inaccessible to the players. Only in this case do you end up in a situation where one might be racing the clock to see if you can save the character before the 7th or 8th round of being down comes along and snuffs the character out.
Basically you'd just get delay death but without the need to cast the spell.
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Really? Part of the issue we had with 4e was that healing was way too easy to get. Everyone has second wind, everyone has enough healing surges to go into almost any fight completely full up after like 5 minutes and the only time anyone is in any real danger of dying is the rare situation where almost everyone is down.
Suppose different groups have different experiences though.
Really? Part of the issue we had with 4e was that healing was way too easy to get. Everyone has second wind, everyone has enough healing surges to go into almost any fight completely full up after like 5 minutes and the only time anyone is in any real danger of dying is the rare situation where almost everyone is down.
Suppose different groups have different experiences though.
The healing seems pretty good at 1st but its not scaling.
You have barely more healing at 5th or 10th. Its still pretty much that cleric Healing Word power and maybe the cleric picked up another dedicated healing power but thats still a mere three,
Now there will be some more healing in the party there has too. Pretty much any 4E group thats playing for the first time is going to have this moment of epiphany. It'll going something like this - your 5th level and your going at it with a dragon - lots of damage flying everywhere. Cleric heals some one, does it again the next round and a again on round three and then you'll get "This is a public service announcement - I'm tapped there is no more healing your on your own."
Actual 4E parties that have gone past this point will have more healing because players will do whatever they can to get access to some kind of healing, a lot of groups put quite a bit of focus into this critical element. I've never seen a backup rouge but back up healer is pretty standard. So your party probably has surges but actually being able to use them in a combat presents issues.
Especially once we get to death and dying because, by the time you've got to this point the parties healing has usually been tapped out, thats why they are in this bad situation in the first place.
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Eh, I'm thinking more along the 6 month point, but that's just to clarify that it isn't a gut reaction from the start but more of a constant. Potions and heal checks tended to be the main source for us. Healing powers were just the gravy on top.
DC like 10 or 15? So easy to hit especially once you get some levels under your belt. Pop off someone else's healing surge in combat for them. Funfun.
Eh, I'm thinking more along the 6 month point, but that's just to clarify that it isn't a gut reaction from the start but more of a constant. Potions and heal checks tended to be the main source for us. Healing powers were just the gravy on top.
DC like 10 or 15? So easy to hit especially once you get some levels under your belt. Pop off someone else's healing surge in combat for them. Funfun.
Its a standard action to pop some one else's healing surge for them. Presuming you can do it automatically (its only a DC 10 check) you've still given up your turn to pull this off and they don't get any of the defensive benefits normally associated with using a second wind. Usually its best to just have the character use their second wind themselves and take your turn trying to hit the baddies.
There are exceptions but their corner case tactical ones - having some one pop the rogue's second wind when he has combat advantage can make sense because the rogue can do a lot more damage on his turn then you can on yours but most of the time the player should just use their own second wind since that has benefits associated with it and, usually, character X's standard action is not really significantly better then character Y's standard action.
Potions are useful but, again, they do not scale. After 5th or so drinking a potion is a last ditch emergency type action. You get 10 hps from a potion and that's going to be lower then what you normally get from a surge, it costs two minors to pull off as well which means transferring either your move or your standard into a minor which can complicate the rest of your turn significantly - finally the 10 hps is not really all that significant after 5th or so when monsters are starting to hit for 15-20. In other words you just spent a potion, much of your turn, used a surge in a really sub par manner and did not even buy yourself one measly hit...you just kind of took the sting out of the next blow.
After 5th your better off if you can stabilize the character and win the fight (easier said then done of course - if characters are going down winning is getting harder), if you can get out of combat they can spend their surges and get much better results, especially with a leader type such as a cleric around because he can use Healing Word out of combat and allow a player to use the surges with big benefits attached - your talking about spending a surge to get 10 hps versus spending one that gives you 20-30 hps.
Since healing surges are really the barometer that decides when the party must stop its best if you spend them for maximum effect (presuming that there is some kind of penalty in place for taking a long rest). Especially considering that the adventures are pretty much designed (read play balanced) assuming that your getting big value out of at least most of your surge uses. In effect each time you drink a potion you make successfully winning the adventure that much harder.
Now all of this is a bit 'different experiences'. But I'm arguing its all really a similar experience but at different points in the game.
At 1st you've got healing, though if you bump into a really nasty encounter it could be an issue, by 3rd you've hit the healing 'sweet spot'. Potions are really good - 10 hps is not much worse then a surge and you can use them like mad. I distinctly remember being in a huge fight at 3rd and pouring 5 healing potions down one guys throat. The problem is that by 5th the healing potions just don't cut it. Their basically detrimental to use...and there is no replacement. The next healing potion upgrade gives you 15 hps but it costs 1500 gold which is crazy insane and totally unaffordable until your at least into Paragon levels...by which point 15 hps is a joke.
Hence, outside of this 'healing sweet spot' that is pretty much 3rd and 4th level 4th edition parties are healing poor. A second wind is just one surge and the leader types have not been able to, significantly, up the amount of times they can heal party members.
Party make up can effect this but only by becoming a party made out of leaders (short explanation - bad idea - long explanation spoilered)
Note that the DM is likely the source of this problem. Usually the creation of a party with a lot of leaders comes about because the players are getting the snot kicked out of them every fight...4E parties can't normally 'go nova' but healing surges are kind of the exception. Going nova means finding some resource that the group spends over the course of a full day of adventuring and coming up with a way of using that resource faster. In 3.x the best resource is spells or psionic power points. Use more faster and you get more power - at the price of not having them in later encounters. In 4E the only resource that really fits the bill is healing surges so groups that are really being beaten up on sometimes resort to having the dead characters come back as clerics and paladins until everyone in the party can cast healing spells on them self every round.
It'll appear to the players that they have made the correct choice - they really will start winning fights that they where loosing before but this is a way of gaining a bit more power in a single encounter at the price of sacrificing an even greater sum of power over the course of a day...fundamentally its a case of bad resource management and a well designed adventure forces the party to be at least somewhat reasonable in terms of resource management.