Hero points make death & dying rules irrelevant?

[Tamago]

So, obviously the design team is doing a whole lot of work on the death and dying system, given that they have released multiple updates changing/fixing that system. However, in my games, despite the players going down fairly frequently, they don't really care about the death and dying rules at all because of Hero Points.

Let me explain:
Because anyone can spend 1 Hero Point to come back from dying, there's no tension in the death saves. If the party is doing badly, the player will spend a hero point to come back and take her turn normally. If the party has the situation in hand, she'll go, "Eh, whatever, I guess I'll roll. If I crit fail or whatever, I can just spend a hero point to come back."

Since each of my players has been getting 2-3 hero points per session, that essentially means they have to be taken out three times before actually being at risk of dying. And since combats are taking so long, there are only 2 or 3 encounters per session, so there's practically zero risk of any one PC dying unless there's a TPK.

I really do like Hero Points! But I am worried that the way they interact with the death and dying rules makes the latter irrelevant.

Personally, I'd rather swap the costs so that spending 1 Hero Point gives you a reroll, and two brings you back from dying. Or maybe make 1 point count as a crit success on a death save, and two points come back with 1 HP and clear the Wounded condition.

[Dire Ursus]

I haven't been handing out hero points as frequently. On average 1 person in total gets a hero point for doing something "heroic" in character per part in Doomsday Dawn.

My houserule for hero points in my Dragon's Demand game I've been playing is that you only get a single hero point per chapter. you can still earn them for doing heroic in character things but I felt like 1 per session was too much.

[Edge93]

Hard for me to weigh in on this because I've only had one player drop to 0 HP so far but my players have been using their hero points pretty often for rerolls and occasionally an extra action, so if someone did get dropped it's entirely plausible they would be out of hero points. That said I would like to see some canges to hero points but raising the cost of recovery isn't necessarily one of them.

[Charon Onozuka]

Tamago wrote:

Personally, I'd rather swap the costs so that spending 1 Hero Point gives you a reroll, and two brings you back from dying.

That's what my group has been thinking. We normally only have about 2 hero points per session, mostly since I forget to give more out. But players don't think much about the higher uses of Hero Points because the 1 point use to come back from dying is already so strong. They'd rather just save their points in case they go down (even though that hasn't happened much yet).

[Tamago]

Dire Ursus wrote:

I haven't been handing out hero points as frequently. On average 1 person in total gets a hero point for doing something "heroic" in character per part in Doomsday Dawn.

I've been doing the same for the in-character points. But everyone starts the session with 2 -- one for showing up, and one for being a good OOC member of the group (hosting, bringing snacks, chronicling the adventure, etc.)

So the baseline is 2, and sometimes people will have 3 by the end of the session.

[Tamago]

Charon Onozuka wrote:

Tamago wrote:

Personally, I'd rather swap the costs so that spending 1 Hero Point gives you a reroll, and two brings you back from dying.

That's what my group has been thinking. We normally only have about 2 hero points per session, mostly since I forget to give more out. But players don't think much about the higher uses of Hero Points because the 1 point use to come back from dying is already so strong. They'd rather just save their points in case they go down (even though that hasn't happened much yet).

I feel this too. No one wants to spend 2 HP to reroll, because that's two get-out-of-death-free cards they are giving up. Even if the reroll was for a critical failure on a saving throw or something, most of the time my players would be like, "eh, if I die because of this, I'll just spend one hero point and still be up, which is better than wasting two on the chance that I'll make the save the second time."

[MaxAstro]

I agree that "prevent death" being the cheapest option devalues the other options.

[Pan]

Hmm, they changed cheat death to one HP? Should be 2 so you are more careful, but when you get whacked at no fault of your own by unlucky crit, you dont lose the character.

[Tridus]

Yes, the get-out-of-death-free option is far too powerful for the cost. It really skews the dying rules, and you get a totally different experience dealing with them when you have a hero point than when you don't.