Death and delaying Fort save roles?

[Mike Schneider]

A PC died during out last PFS session, and it brought up an interesting rules quandary:

Situation: the party fighter had originally rolled lowest on initiative, but for various reasons (mainly cramped confines), everyone else in the party had eventually ended up delaying to go after the fighter.

Long story short: fighter takes a Scorching Ray right in the kisser from a CR+3 boss and goes down way deep neg to exactly 1hp over death threshold. Boss bad's turn over; players are up. Guess who's first? Make that DC 10 Fort save with a -14 penalty....

Q. Can the player of the fighter say, "I delay until everyone else has gone!" --?

(Note: the CR does not actually say that a PC has to be conscious in order to delay.)

[Gorbacz]

Small correction: it's a Constitution check, not a Fort save.

[Jason Beardsley]

Also, if he's beyond the death threshold, even by one point, he's dead. No check required. Go directly to heaven/hell. Do not pass go.

[Drejk]

Mike Schneider wrote:

Q. Can the player of the fighter say, "I delay until everyone else has gone!" --?

(Note: the CR does not actually say that a PC has to be conscious in order to delay.)

Yes, it actually says that PC has to be conscious to delay. In section about dying.

Quote:

Stable Characters and Recovery

On the character's next turn, after being reduced to negative hit points (but not dead), and on all subsequent turns, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check to become stable. The character takes a penalty on this roll equal to his negative hit point total. A character that is stable does not need to make this check. A natural 20 on this check is an automatic success. If the character fails this check, he loses 1 hit point. An unconscious or dying character cannot use any special action that changes the initiative count on which his action occurs.

Note to self, worth remembering that while benefiting from Diehard or Ferociousness characters cant delay or otherwise change initiative count on their own.

[Tilnar]

Drejk wrote:

Quote:

Stable Characters and Recovery

On the character's next turn, after being reduced to negative hit points (but not dead), and on all subsequent turns, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check to become stable. The character takes a penalty on this roll equal to his negative hit point total. A character that is stable does not need to make this check. A natural 20 on this check is an automatic success. If the character fails this check, he loses 1 hit point. An unconscious or dying character cannot use any special action that changes the initiative count on which his action occurs.

Note to self, worth remembering that while benefiting from Diehard or Ferociousness characters cant delay or otherwise change initiative count on their own.

Why not? Diehard auto-stablizes, in which case, while you may be staggered, you aren't dying.