Death & Dying - a better (and simple!) system.

[Mark Chance]

So ... you chose to ignore the high-level characters going from "fine" to "dead" problem? Because a hypothetical -26 hp buffer (while better than the RAW) is not really survivable when the Barbarian at 27 hp (of 406) takes 78 damage and instantly dies.

I'm not so much ignoring as I am discounting that it's a problem.

 

[ValhallaGH]

You could rule that anyone dropped to below his death threshold with one hit gets a free Fort save on the next round; if the save fails, he dies, and if it succeeds, he remains unconscious but dying. As long as he keeps making successful saves, he remains hovering on death's door (call it "clinging to life") - since he's below his normal threshold, he can't stabilize on his own, but this gives the others a chance to save him. The first save he fails, though - boom, he's dead.

Yeah, Iron Heroes did that (no saves before -10, DC = negative hp). It worked pretty well, too. I watched one PC (level 14) go from 57 to -79 in one hit, natural 20 his way to next round, and get stabilized by an ally. Who was then cut down to -45, failed her save and died instantly.
The remaining PCs negotiated a hasty withdraw, to plan again with the information that one foe was a vampire and the other a demon knight riding a kashmir.

I'm not so much ignoring as I am discounting that it's a problem.

Different tastes for different tables.
I think it's a pretty big problem, myself, since it comes into play at level 3 and is exacerbated with every level after that.
But that may be influence by the fact that my games have always been with folks who hated playing a healer-cleric; the exceptions were a) bad at it and b) weren't prepared to resurrect me when their poor performance got me killed.

 

[Sadrik]

Since we are throwing our house rules for this up... here are mine:

Take CON damage after 0 HP, at 0 CON you are dead. Many death effects deal CON damage instead. You can make a Fortitude save to remain conscious and disabled while having suffered CON damage.

That is not the full described rules but it is a synopsis of them.

 

[Kerrick]

Yeah, Iron Heroes did that (no saves before -10, DC = negative hp). It worked pretty well, too.

Sweet. I just came up with that as I was writing my reply this morning. GMTA.

I watched one PC (level 14) go from 57 to -79 in one hit, natural 20 his way to next round, and get stabilized by an ally. Who was then cut down to -45, failed her save and died instantly.
The remaining PCs negotiated a hasty withdraw, to plan again with the information that one foe was a vampire and the other a demon knight riding a kashmir.

Since we are throwing our house rules for this up... here are mine:

Take CON damage after 0 HP, at 0 CON you are dead. Many death effects deal CON damage instead. You can make a Fortitude save to remain conscious and disabled while having suffered CON damage.

That is not the full described rules but it is a synopsis of them.

Not a bad idea, but there's a small problem: Fort saves are modified by Con.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Yeah, it was a neat scene, and very cool, though tragic. We learned a number of things from it, including the facts that a) high-level vampires are freaking scary when PCs have zero magic, b) big demons with magic axes who are granted concealment by their mounts are a pain in the neck (sometimes literally) to fight, c) CR 10 Demonic Brutes reskinned as hell hounds are impressive but non-threatening speed bumps when the party is at mid-teens.

Not a bad idea, but there's a small problem: Fort saves are modified by Con.

Sounds like a feature to me. The more messed up you are, the more likely you are to pass out from your wounds.

 

[Sadrik]

Not a bad idea, but there's a small problem: Fort saves are modified by Con.

Exactly. More CON damage worse fort save --> makes staying conscious harder. DC 20 looks pretty hard when your CON is 4 even if you are 10th level.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I like our house rule better...

When you "die" (e.g., reach -10 hp or fail a save or die effect), you are actually placed at "death's door." You cannot be revived during the current encounter.

If the party wins the encounter, or escapes the encounter with your body, you can be healed normally afterward (i.e., no raise dead required).

If the party loses the encounter, well, then it doesn't matter because it's probably a TPK. If they don't get away with your body then you're dead and need the regular means of being returned to life.

We're playing the Age of Worms adventure path and this house rule has saved the game from becoming a constant influx of new characters and/or a bunch of ticked off players.

 

[eamon]

Random chance of survival sucks. I'm honestly unsure why they didn't go with some kind of save (Con or Fort) instead of a 10% chance. That's pretty much a death sentence for anyone cut off from his friends.

Personally, if someone is bleedinging out and unconscious, I think it's ok that death is quite likely unless helped.


On the topic of the PC-sudden-death-syndrome...

You're going to have that problem with just about any system, unless you make the death threshold equal to max hit points (which would make most PCs practically unkillable except for SoD effects).

The system as in the original post avoids both problems. The chance of dying in any one of the total of 5 saves is generally low unless you're very far negative, but nevertheless the chance of succeeding on all 5 isn't that good. In short; if you use the house rule as posted in the starting post, PC's will usually face trivial saving throws (fail only on 1) vs. easy threats - but even those saves are risky in fives, so they are strongly encouraged to help their allies quickly.

You avoid sudden death syndrome by having a large hp buffer, but you avoid making PC's practically unkillable by both limiting the buffers size and by making even -1 hp a risky proposition.

In general, there have been a lot of alternative suggestions, some with good ideas. However, some alternatives are too complex. To each his own, but I think it's absolutely essential that a house rule be as simple as possible. You can remember 5 death saves and a fort save DC, but it's entirely different matter if you mix Con-checks, Con modifiers, Con totals, staggered, etc. stuff. Really, you're best off getting rid of staggered; it's totally pointless and doesn't add anything to the game as is since it's so extremely unlikely to matter.


Simplicity really matters, especially for house rules. I generally aim to make house rules in my games simpler and shorter that the PHB rules they replace.

So, to anyone still reading this thread, I strongly suggest taking a look at the original posted house rule, which can be summarized in one paragraph:

A creature with negative hit points is dying. The moment it drops to negative hit points and again each round later, the creature must make a Fortitude save with a DC of 1/2 of its negative hit points. On success, it loses 2 hp, but on failure it dies. The creature stabilizes automatically on the fifth save after it last received other damage; so a dropped creature must save immediately and then 4 more times if it isn't healed or hurt in the meantime.
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No staggering, no new types of roll, no requirement to combine multiple stats - just a fort save. Stabilizing effects such as healing work normally.

If you want to change this, I recommend you make it even simpler, for instance by removing the 2 damage on a successful save and adding a 6th save instead, say.

 

[Stillgrave]

Would this system also include the massive damage rule? The DC idea is nicely done, it makes sense that it would be easier to stabilize from say.. a dagger strike then from being stepped on by a dragon. At the same time though, the option of saving when you are say.. stepped on by a dragon, nags at my mind.

 

[eamon]

Would this system also include the massive damage rule? The DC idea is nicely done, it makes sense that it would be easier to stabilize from say.. a dagger strike then from being stepped on by a dragon. At the same time though, the option of saving when you are say.. stepped on by a dragon, nags at my mind.

The massive damage rule is pretty orthogonal to this house rule. You can have it if you want, but I've never been a fan. I suppose an obvious idea would be to use some damage-dependent fort save on massive damage too; that's kind of in the same spirit I suppose - but I haven't worked out what scaling would be appropriate for that. Personally, if damage can't bring you to negative hit points, I don't think a death save is warranted. But of course, to each his own ;-).