Should I have let her die here?

[Little Skylark]

Last session the party I'm Dm of met a underwater monster, they needed something that was in her nest. So they looked up the swim and drowning rules and the cleric mentioned she could learn waterbreathing the next day. Knowing this four of them (not the cleric) decided to swim 40ft of shore, dive 40ft down and attack the monster.
One of them almost drowend getting there, but was rescued by a summoned dolphin.
The creature had improved grapple and grappled the fighter. The fighter came loose, but decided to grapple the creature. It grapple her back, she drowned. (She spent no hero points at this moment.)
After she got dragged back on shore she asked if she could spent two hero points to cheat death. I thought long and hard about this, but i'm still not sure what i should have done.
Looking at the rules, she would have spent the heron points the moment of dieing, bringing her back alive but still underwater, so she would have died. On the other hand, people are known to live after being unconscious in the water much longer than she was.
And on one hand, she was truly extremly stupid, on the other, we just had a new player and it migth have ruined the mood.

What would you have done?

Btw. It's not that i migth change my decision. It's just that i'm still pondering if i did the right thing.

[KidDangerous]

Let her burn the hero points and have her wash up on shore. Warn her that next time she does something stupid she'll have to live (or die) with the consequences

[WarDriveWorley]

This is the wrong forum for this. It should be in Advice.

That being said. There's nothing wrong with killing a character, especially if it's warranted, and getting into an underwater combat without waterbreathing even though the part has access to is is a warranted situation.

There's also nothing wrong with "stretching" the rules to keep a character alive in the face of a mistake as long as it's not something that happens so often the PCs rely upon it.

I think if I was the DM I would have probably had the fighter live, but not through hero points entirely. Maybe the summoned dolphin came back and rescued her after she used the first hero point or her body washed up on shore and the PCs were able to revive her, but she had some temporary con loss as a result of the near death experience.

[Aleron]

Would have let them spend the hero points and live. I really don't like killing off PC's without a good reason and believe if one does die it should be in a heroic moment or against a big, bad boss. Then again, I also don't hand out hero points very much (for achieving plot and character goals only) so if they have them, they could definitely use them. There is plenty of ways they could have survived in that situation by fluke or luck.

[Malachi Silverclaw]

In situations like the one described, foolishness should carry a price.

Burning two hero points is that price. If you use hero points in your campaign you are also allowing players to burn two to avoid death; points that he'd still have had he not been so foolish. The player will either learn from this, or not. Either way, he'll deserve what happens next time!

As for the delay from death to jetsam, that's fine. Burning the points should not leave you in the same situation that led to your death if that death is so probable. There's plenty of ways to explain that in story terms, and it has the added benefit that his death took him out of the fight, so his foolishness in getting himself killed contributed to his party suffering his absence from the fight.

BTW, what was your ruling?

[Little Skylark]

I let her live, and i think i made the right decision reading all this. Thanks for your opinions!
In this case the hero points ment that the cleric made a very lucky heal check. I did give her a phobia of swimming.

[Malachi Silverclaw]

Little Skylark wrote:

I let her live, and i think i made the right decision reading all this. Thanks for your opinions!

In this case the hero points ment that the cleric made a very lucky heal check. I did give her a phobia of swimming.

Top drawer DMing! : )

[wraithstrike]

If she had used the hero points when she was about to die I would have been nice. Waiting until the combat is over would not work unless she forgot she had them in which case I would have made it cost 2 hero points.

Your call was a good call also.

[Nymian Harthing]

Yep. Letting her live because it cost her two (presumably precious) hero points was a good ruling if you ask me.

[JrK]

Let her live, take away 2 points of Con.

[DayneTheWickman]

Similar to what happened to me in one campaign.

One of the players basically got shot in the heart and died instantly. No one tried to save them with healing and no one had the ability, or funds, to cast a resurrection on the player to bring them back. This was at a time however BEFORE I knew about hero points, so I used a technique my group calls "purple smoke" to keep the player alive.

After the combat was finished the other players found the dead player's body inexplicably missing. After three in-game days, this is what happened according to what our scribe recorded:

GM: You suddenly awaken in a small, round room that is dim, lit only by a fire in the very center of the room. Although the walls are made of a black mud, everything is very neat and orderly. The fire is built up with perfectly placed pieces of fire wood, the bed you are lying in is made from fresh furs that are layered over you very neatly and hanging above your head is a nearly perfectly symmetrical collection of bones hanging on a string.
Player: I sit up.
GM: You sit up with some effort and pain, noticing that it causes you to begin breathing hard just by doing this action. You also notice that you are entirely naked with the exception of bandages over your chest.

From there the player found that a small humanoid saved them from death, but the player had a -4 to con for quite some time until they were able to have the wound fully healed. They also had trouble sleeping due to nightmares of the arrow hitting them and they couldn't go near bows/crossbows without having to roll willpower to resist feeling fear, and they had a -2. This persisted until they got some mental help. It also took them a game week to locate their party and a game month to join back up with them.

With the hero point system I would have said that their spirit somehow tenaciously held onto their body and allowed them to live at a two point cost, but at the penalties of a -4 to con and -2 when around bows/crossbows as well as having nightmares (which ultimately leads to lack of sleep, which means more penalties could stack up without proper rest).

Then again my pathfinder games do find a lot of inspiration in the GURPS advantages/disadvantages system as well as having a heavy psychological thriller element to it.

Ultimately it depends on the setting as to the details, but the basic gist is that unless the player deserves the death (charging into hand-to-hand combat with a CR 40), the death is epic (they take an arrow to the hearth while defending their entire party from certain doom), or the death is completely unavoidable (falling 1000 ft without any way of slowing down or cushioning the fall to survivable levels), then the player should be given some sort of chance to keep going. That's my rule at least. Unfortunately the players usually only get one "purple smoke" per campaign and the rest of the deaths must be avoided in some way by the players or the player has to be brought back to life.

Ultimately though, yes, you made the correct choice. However, you should warn the player that next time such an action is taken, they may not come back at all. If they do, it'll be at a 2 hero point cost to them AND a 2 point hero cost from another party member to attempt reviving them, and that the player will incur penalties such as con damage or negative levels. If they're going to rely on cheating death with hero points and the such, make them pay for it MORE each time that player dies under circumstances that allows them to live.

Just my two cents though. It's up to you in the end. :)

[DMFTodd]

The deciding factor for me is whether or not it requires any "rewind" to the campaign. Do we have to go back and say, "oops X, Y, and Z didn't actually happen, instead A, B, C happens". If it requires rewind, I generally say no. If it's something that is easily remedied without rewind, I let it slide.

"Oh, three rounds ago I forgot to add in the Bless bonus, so I would have hit, so can I roll damage now?" - No.

"Oh, forgot I have PoE on and I shouldn't have been mind controlled the last three rounds." -- Tough, but you snap out of it now.

Is this requiring any rewind? It doesn't sound like it so let it slide.

[robin]

If you want to feel mean , tell her it would cost 3 points and not 2.

[PsychoticWarrior]

Little Skylark wrote:

Looking at the rules, she would have spent the heron points the moment of dieing, bringing her back alive but still underwater,

I'm not 100% what Hero Points are but assuming they work anything like Fate Points in the old Warhammer Fantasy RP game (you spend them to avoid catastrophe - in that game that was almost always death)this would be a terrible way to have adjudicated it. It would be akin to being hit for X damage where X damage kills you (something low like 10-12 points say). You spend a Hero/Fate point and the blow doesn't land. However you are still locked in combat with a foe who can one-shot you. Keeping it like that you spend Hero Point after Hero Point until they are gone and you're dead :/ Hardly 'heroic'.

A better solution was to allow the blow to land and just knock the PC out. If his friends win the fight they can revive him - if they lose they awaken to find their stuff stolen or they're locked in a prison or any number of interesting things. Death is the boring way to do it.

Quote:

so she would have died. On the other hand, people are known to live after being unconscious in the water much longer than she was.
And on one hand, she was truly extremly stupid, on the other, we just had a new player and it migth have ruined the mood.

What would you have done?

Btw. It's not that i migth change my decision. It's just that i'm still pondering if i did the right thing.

I would likely have had her spend a Hero Point when she 'drowned' then, after the battle the party finds her body washed up on shore - miraculously, after a Heal check or three, she is alive! But the way you did is just fine. And it makes the player pay even more for a rather dumb decision (fighting after she'd managed to break away from the thing that was killing her).

I'm such a softie!

[Liz Courts]

Moved thread.

[Bruunwald]

Yes, there is something wrong with "killing a character." The dice and the rules are good at doing that on their own. The GM/DM is the person whose job it is to NEUTRALLY and FAIRLY adjudicate whether that is the case. It is not his job to, and therefore, not okay, for him to "kill" a character.

You (the OP) are expressing great doubt over this situation. In matters of such great doubt, ALWAYS side on the player(s) in question. This is my advice after 32 years of GMing, and it is also the advice you will read in most GMs/DMs guides.

Don't know? Don't kill. Players are there to have fun, not to listen to you explain about how you are not 100% sure why you ruined it for them.