MORTALLY WOUNDED: Death / Raise Dead flavour change

Just thinking about the topics of "frequent death / easy resurrection", and want to get feedback/help about a house rule that is mostly a FLAVOUR change.

The main idea:

Characters at -10 HP and below are not dead but only MORTALLY WOUNDED.

A mortally wounded character works like a dead character, specifically (1) cannot take any action and (2) healing spells don't restore his HP.

Raise Dead can be used to restore a mortally wounded character to life, and otherwise works like before, but cannot be used to revive someone who really died.


The expanded idea:

This is where the changes affect the rules more...

To emphasize that the mortally wounded character is not dead yet, we could allow him to stay conscious, as long as this doesn't have significant effects on the gameplay. Perhaps an easy-going DM will just let the player choose if his PC stays conscious or become unconscious, while a more rules-fan DM will require some sort of roll, like a Fortitude save to stay conscious. Let's leave the decision to the DM. However, it is essential that there is some continuity with the -1 to -9 window... so perhaps the DM applies the same rules for consciousness to that window as well (without changing the most important thing, which is what actions you can actually do in that condition).

One more thing to take care of: how long does the character stays in the mortally wounded condition before dying for real?

My proposal is 1day/level. This is somewhat in line with the original usability of Raise Dead (1 day/caster level). A commoner or non-significant creature may die quicker at DM's decision.

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I think that within these changes, in practice the characters will die more rarely (they can still die in other fashions: poison, mass damage, drown, spells...) if by "dying" you mean "having to actually say that your PC was dead" However, from the point of view of the penalties, including being out of the game for a while and getting level drain or ability damage, it will be just the same as before, so the balance is barely touched.

Some streamlining today...

• Characters are treated as DISABLED when they are between 0 and -9 hit points. Use normal rules for being disabled, including the restrictions of what actions can be taken (a partial/standard action or less) and the fact that doing a strenuous action will cause 1 point of damage.
  
  
• Characters at -10 hit points and below are MORTALLY WOUNDED. When becoming mortally wounded, a Fortitude save (DC 15) is required to stay conscious, otherwise the character loses consciousness. Another ST is required every hour.
  
  
• A mortally wounded character can take no actions (other than speaking), and is considered helpless. No healing spell can restore hit points to a mortally wounded character.
  
  
• A mortally wounded character dies within 1 day/level.
  
  
• Raise Dead removes the mortally wounded condition and restores the character to positive hit points (see Raise Dead description for details). Raise Dead does not return a truly dead character back to life. A character saved from death with Raise Dead suffers a -1 penalty to one random ability score; this penalty replaces the standard penalties from Raise Dead, but cannot be overcome in any way.
  
  
• Most save-or-die spells automatically reduce a character to -10 hit points, therefore making it mortally wounded.
  Ability loss/damage/penalty that brings Constitution down to 0, also works the same way.
  A failed save on a massive damage ST, also works the same way.
  
  
• Coup-de-grace and some specific spells (DM's call, for example Disintegrate or Power Word: Kill) do make the character immediately dead.

Li Shenron said:

One more thing to take care of: how long does the character stays in the mortally wounded condition before dying for real?

My proposal is 1day/level. This is somewhat in line with the original usability of Raise Dead (1 day/caster level). A commoner or non-significant creature may die quicker at DM's decision.

Click to expand...

I must admit that I really like where you're going with this. There are many stories of where the hero lingers on for a few days mortally wounded with just enough life to ride through the castle gate and say one last goodbye to their beloved and then falling dead on the spot.

What I have been doing in Grymwurld™ is replacing negative hit points with temporary CON ability score damage. CON 0 = Death (per the RAW). This gives the mortally wounded heroes an opportunity to rest up at the nunnery/monastery without requiring clerical magic.

Upon considering this further, I'm reminded of an old Chivalry & Sorcery rule whereby any character who has had confession with a priest before battle, lingers on long enough on the battlefield to be found and healed (or at least stabilized). Thus an incentive to confess one's sins.