In the Play-by-Post game I DM, this situation came up and I am curious as to how it should be handled:
The Initiative order is like this:
a) Monster
b) Player #1
c) Player #2
Now, Monster attacked Player #1, and brought him to -2 HPs.
On Player #1's Turn (unconscious), he rolled his Stabilization check.
Next up, Player #2 heals Player #1 and brings him back to positive HPs, so that Player #1 wakes up.
Now the question is:
Does Player #1 STILL has an action in the current round?
OR did he 'miss out' on his action, and will have to wait for the next round to play?
Is this covered in the Rules?
Please clarify, thank you!
RiTz21
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I think this cover it:
Inaction: Even if you can't take actions, you retain your initiative score for the duration of the encounter.
It is under the initiative section in the Combat chapter.
If you are out of combat when you initiative come you do whatever you can do at that time (like the stabilization roll the character in question did) and then your turn end.
Bleeding to death or stabilizing is an action. :P
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Player #1 loses out on his action.
It helps to realize that the combat rounds aren't strictly separate from each other. A more accurate model would be to draw everyone's name and initiative on a card, sort the cards, and arrange them in a circle. Something that start during player #1's turn and would take a whole round, takes exactly one full circle of your initiative cards.
Now, when player #1's turn rolls around, the game checks if he's conscious or not; if not, he tries to stabilize and that's it; turn over. His turn did happen, he just didn't get to do a whole lot in it. If he had an effect running that lasted X turns, it would count down one step to X-1 even though he's not conscious, because his turn did happen.
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Could you delay? Especially if you expected to be healed?
No, unless you are conscious. And you should be careful that it will not mess with some other effect.
I.e, if something make you suffer 1 point of damage when your turn start you can't avoid that delaying your action.
A barbarian can't stay enraged for an unlimited time without spending rage points simply delaying his turn.
(hard to envision why he would do that, but maybe a barbarian with come and get me and combat reflex could find that useful if he is short on rage points)
On the other hand, if you are conscious and staggered or reduced to very low hp, delaying to be healed before engaging in combat is a perfectly valid tactic.
Could you delay? Especially if you expected to be healed?No, unless you are conscious. And you should be careful that it will not mess with some other effect.
I.e, if something make you suffer 1 point of damage when your turn start you can't avoid that delaying your action.
A barbarian can't stay enraged for an unlimited time without spending rage points simply delaying his turn.
(hard to envision why he would do that, but maybe a barbarian with come and get me and combat reflex could find that useful if he is short on rage points)On the other hand, if you are conscious and staggered or reduced to very low hp, delaying to be healed before engaging in combat is a perfectly valid tactic.
And just to clarify, in the Combat section under Stable Characters and Recover, there's this item:
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.
Readying\delaying alters your initiative count. So you can't use it while unconscious or dying.
No, unless you are conscious. And you should be careful that it will not mess with some other effect.I.e, if something make you suffer 1 point of damage when your turn start you can't avoid that delaying your action.
A barbarian can't stay enraged for an unlimited time without spending rage points simply delaying his turn.
(hard to envision why he would do that, but maybe a barbarian with come and get me and combat reflex could find that useful if he is short on rage points)
I think I'd like to see rules on that. Not that the intention doesn't make sense -- similarly, I shouldn't necessarily be able to avoid taking bleed damage indefinitely by simply not taking my turn (bleed damage happens at the beginning of my turn) -- but I could also easily come up with some explanation as to why I was not doing anything except not-bleeding (for example, I'm actually applying pressure to the wound to keep from bleeding out, but that keeps me from being able to do anything else useful...)
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At my tables it has been standard practice that you retain your place in initiative, but once you have been restored to positive HP, your initiative drops to immediately after the effect that healed you, provided you have had an action between when you were dropped and when you are healed.
It might not be strictly RAW, but for our table everyone seems to agree that is a reasonable sequence of actions.
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This is all covered in the Core Rulebook, as quoted by others, above. There's really nothing else to talk about. Here's both quotes again, quoted together for clarity:
Even if you can't take actions, you retain your initiative score for the duration of the encounter.
An unconscious or dying character cannot use any special action that changes the initiative count on which his action occurs.