Recently it was brought to my attention that PF carried death by massive damage over from 3.5, which surprised me. It was like stepping out of a time machine into the future, and stumbling over a telephone cord. But maybe that's just me.
So do you in PF, and did you in 3.5? Do you have an opinion about this strange rule?
Yes, we use it - but at the halfway mark of RotRL we've had probably 3 saves against it, none of them failed for either PCs or NPCs/monsters.
I use 'em. Gives martials at least some sort of Save or Die effect they can use on rare occasions.
It's a pretty easy Fortitude save for monsters and martials after all, at higher levels.
Made for an awesome moment in our Serpent's Skull game where a mini-kraken popped out of the water and our Barbarian won initiative, immediately turned around, and sliced the thing's head open in blow.
Actually it may not have been the mini-kraken. Lemme check the Chronicle.
Edit: Yes it was the mini-kraken, but he passed his save after the crit and ended up being finished off by my character (Sun Xiao).
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I don't use it.
Much like Insta-kill crits, the rule results in more PC deaths than monster deaths.
Maybe a Fort save to avoid being stunned or something like that, but not death.
I never thought of using a stun effect to replace the death effect. I may start using that rule instead. Good Idea, thanks.
If my players didn't like it, I'd happily houserule it away.
Have never used it myself, for most of the reasons outlined above. (I like the "replace it with Stunned" idea, though.)
I'm currently running a Skull and Shackles campaign, and although my PCs aren't near high enough yet for this to come into play I am considering using it later to utilize the AP's option to substitute impressive scars, eyepatches, peg legs and the like for the otherwise fatal damage. That's primarily for campaign flavor, though, so probably not outside of that....
If my players didn't like it, I'd happily not use the optional rule.
Yeah, that'd probably do it...
I use it, but I work the rule that you drop to 0 hp and begin dying instead of outright death. That way, the PCs still have a chance.
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We use the "massive damage" rule at our table whenever it is called for. The way our group see's it, death lurk's around every corner, though it rarely come's to visit, yet there should always a chance it comes knocking. The massive damage rule's are just another means to that end, and though hp's are abstract taking 50 hp's or getting them cut in half on one single attack, in our minds should bring on the onset of shock and/or possible death. We have gone one step further in all truth and have added a +1 to the fortitude save for ever 10 hp over the bench mark 50 hp (eg. 60hp sv @ 16 fort. 70hp sv @ 17 fort. etc.).
Yes, it sucks when a PC dies, but the upside is at lower levels you try something new and at higher levels death is temporary anyway so add a little drama.
We as a group always play with six member's in our party and that could be why we find death to be less significant when it does happen. Yet because of bad choices and/or luck there should be some repercussions and added stresses to the rest of the party.
My question is why do people exclude this rule? Do they not see death as an option in there games? Does it happen to often in their group's?
We always found it to be a viable option (massive damage) and I'm wondering are we as a group looking at it wrong.
My question is why do people exclude this rule? Do they not see death as an option in there games? Does it happen to often in their group's?
I can't speak for others, but here's why I never used it:
It's non-intuitive. It's a rule that (at least in part) defeats the point of having hit points to begin with. The whole point of having hit points is to make death cinematic and somewhat predictable, rather than realistic and sudden.
It's one more pesky rule to remember, because it doesn't naturally follow from any other rule or concept. Like mana burn in Magic the Gathering, if it were excised from the book new players wouldn't miss it. Nobody would ever wonder "Gee, I feel like something is supposed to happen when I lose 50 or half my hp in one shot..." In fact I played 3.0 for quite a while before stumbling across the massive damage rule.
It flies in the face of pretty much every definition of hit points imaginable. If you like abstract hit points, it's one more strain on the abstraction: "I fail the save and die from what, exactly?" Holy cow, that was a close call I almost...*croak* OMG, my luckiness hurt...*croak* Etc. If you like concrete hit points as I do, you have your explanation as to how characters survive attacks that deal lots of damage, and an arbitrary death save is equally silly.
It's annoying to use at the table, especially the pre-PF version. The half-hp adjustment is an improvement, but rolling the save is still largely a wrist exercise. "Oh gee I rolled another 2, I'm safe." IMO, when a d20 is rolled there should always be a 25-75% chance of success/failure. Your adjustment may or may not make the DC threatening, but with all the multi- and iterative attacks happening at high levels, I don't want anyone rolling saves every time they get walloped.
Never used it, hate when other DMs do. It's really not that hard to do 50 damage, even at low levels for certain characters. And at higher levels, combats can turn into "who rolls a 1 first?" because lots of things can hit for massive damage. Extending the threshold for what qualifies as "massive damage" just shunts the problem back a few levels at best, and most likely still means it can happen on basically any crit from a melee attacker.
Seriously, getting pegged for 50+ damage is bad enough already, it doesn't need to be made worse.
It´s not 50+ damage.
If you ever sustain a single attack that deals an amount of damage equal to half your total hit points (minimum 50 points of damage) or more and it doesn't kill you outright, you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save. If this saving throw fails, you die regardless of your current hit points. If you take half your total hit points or more in damage from multiple attacks, no one of which dealt more than half your total hit points (minimum 50), the massive damage rule does not apply.
Correctly used it can kill low HP classes pretty fast because most of them also don´t have a good Fort save, but all martials etc which go into melee or near there normally have a higher CON + good saves eventually as well as enough HP.
I think it´s a cool rule, weak on monsters, but it really enables martials vs casters, in 2 dimensions (vs NPC´s and PC´s).
I do not use it.
I am interested in seeing how many DM's who do use it also use the 15 point buy though.
I don't use it. Combats are short enough as it is!
Correctly used it can kill low HP classes pretty fast because most of them also don´t have a good Fort save, but all martials etc which go into melee or near there normally have a higher CON + good saves eventually as well as enough HP.
I think it´s a cool rule, weak on monsters, but it really enables martials vs casters, in 2 dimensions (vs NPC´s and PC´s).
Completely the opposite.
1. Casters have the highest Con scores, because they need the fewest ability scores to be high.
2. It is not a cool rule.
3. It's not weak on monsters; the rule FAVORS them. A lot of monsters' only claim to challenge is doing a lot of damage. And any increase in sheer randomness is an empowerment to the weaker side in a fight, less randomness increases the liklihood of the stronger side winning, as predicted. Since the PCs are expected to win and suvive most fights, and a single enemy human with class levels equal to those the party has is considered nearly an equal CR challenge for an entire party of ~4 characters, they're clearly the stronger side in most fights. So the massive damage rule, which adds randomness, favors team monster.
Not only that, it's an instant death effect. Monster dies...he was in combat with the party, he was supposed to die. PC dies... story is messed up by losing a main character, or the party is set back a ton of gold to raise the PC. One monster dying never affects the wealth and gear of some other monster encountered later on.
4. It's actually a huge nerf to the melee characters, who take the vast majority of attacks, including the really damaging ones. The rule gives them a 5% chance of dying each time they do their job and take a big hit would have otherwise been directed at the "squishy" casters.
I refuse to play a melee character in a game with the death from massive damage rule (or I will do so only if I can start the game with Steadfast Determination and a +14 Fort save, which...is basically equivalent to making the rule not apply to me anymore anyway). Playing a melee character in a game with DFMD is basically a death sentence. You're gonna roll a 1 eventually! The game has too much save or die already, I don't need another constant threat of save or die hanging over my head.
Language mistake. I meant weak versus monsters, because they have normally a high Fort save.
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I use a variant on it. The minimum only needs to be 30 (so we can start using it earlier), and instead of instant death it knocks the character unconscious for 1 minute or until the character has magical healing or a DC20 heal check. I also make the fort DC equal to half the damage dealt, instead of a straight 15.
Certainly, in most cases it favors the monsters--especially very large ones with high strengths and big weapons--but at the same time, the party's rogue loves this rule.
In Skull & Shackles the rogue snuck up to a pair of cyclopses playing cards while on guard duty, ducked under the table and stabbed one, got a critical on the sneak attack, knocking it out with a big scream. Its buddy got to see what happened, then got stabbed too. Of course, later the boss came out and knocked the monk out with one good swing, panicking the party.
All in all, adds tension and excitement to the game without sudden random death, which is very frustrating for players.
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Just doesn't seem that important of a rule. What is the benefit? The players do more than 50 to a monster with a +12 fort save (because if it has over 100 HP it usually has something like this, if it has between 50-100 and you do 50+ to it you are probably gonna kill it next round anyway). So they have a 15% chance of killing a monster with massive damage... or less if they have higher Fort saves, saving them a round. Whoopity doo. Or your monster kills a player (and again, if the monster is dishing out 50+ shots the players aren't lasting many more rounds anyway). No real benefit to it, IMHO.