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

[lolstrider7]

I don't know how much of this has already been suggested, but here goes:
Allowing a Fort save to avoid death vs hp damage makes people with Steadfast Determination nigh-unkillable. Also it makes people with ways to trivialize saving throws (read: casters > level 3) and people who substitute other checks (read: any 5th level initiator from ToB or anyone with a few thousand gp to spend) downright impossible to kill via hp damage.

Making this save a constitution check might alleviate some of the problems here.

 

[eamon]

I don't know how much of this has already been suggested, but here goes:
Allowing a Fort save to avoid death vs hp damage makes people with Steadfast Determination nigh-unkillable. Also it makes people with ways to trivialize saving throws (read: casters > level 3) and people who substitute other checks (read: any 5th level initiator from ToB or anyone with a few thousand gp to spend) downright impossible to kill via hp damage.

Making this save a constitution check might alleviate some of the problems here.

Yeah; there are a few corner cases to be aware of. Having a large save bonus is not enough to cause problems, but if you can avoid the natural 1 rule, you can take small wounds risk-free. The DM will need to make a judgement call when there's a rule interaction; fortunately that's very rare. I'd rule that steadfast determination does not apply, for instance.

I kind of like the fact that it's a fortitude save because those with high saves (e.g.fighters not wizards) will tend to have a larger margin of safety. Constitution checks are less ideal because often e.g. wizards may have a higher constitution bonus than fighters; after all, for them constitution affects hit points much more significantly. Then again, maybe there's a reasonable alternative...

Alternative: Constitution check modified by base attack bonus vs. negative hit point total; natural 1 always fails.

Would this avoid the issues you see? Minor extra benefit: this doesn't require halving the number of hit points .

 

[eamon]

Why all the NPCs have to be clueless? Someone who is down can be back in the fight next round, with a single spell...(and usually they do) why risk it and not use an attack to get rid of the guy who is down?

It depends on the situation. In-combat healing usually just doesn't work all that well (in my experience); if there's a choice between taking down another character or hitting a character that's probably not going to contribute to the combat anymore anyhow, well, the guy bleeding on the ground can wait.

Even if the fallen character is to be healed; that means a caster is spending his round without attacking or casting an offensive spell; the healer usually needs to be adjacent and that may mean concentration checks; even if healed the fallen character is still on the ground: easy to hit, might provoke by standing up, likely less dangerous while prone too.

This doesn't really have anything to with this house rule, so it's a bit of a tangent, but I don't think that attacking a fallen PC is usually sensible in-game. And of course, it's also rather nasty... I'd only do it very sparingly, for dramatic effect. Maybe some crazy, vindictive cultist would disregard self-preservation like that, but not most monsters.

 

[Zireael]

What if we shuffled healing to minor actions, as it is in 4e? Would it solve the problem a bit?

 

[lolstrider7]

I kind of like the fact that it's a fortitude save because those with high saves (e.g.fighters not wizards) will tend to have a larger margin of safety. Constitution checks are less ideal because often e.g. wizards may have a higher constitution bonus than fighters; after all, for them constitution affects hit points much more significantly. Then again, maybe there's a reasonable alternative...

Alternative: Constitution check modified by base attack bonus vs. negative hit point total; natural 1 always fails.

Would this avoid the issues you see? Minor extra benefit: this doesn't require halving the number of hit points .

1) Fighters tend to have the lowest saves of any character, even fort saves. Having a good base save =/= having a good save. Clerics have spells like recitation, wizards have spells like heroism, rogues have UMD as a class skill. But I understand the reasoning behind your argument, which holds true for wizards and rogues at level 3 and below. Clerics still vastly outstrip fighters though (although they have good fort saves as well).

2) I like the alternative, as it alleviates ALL of the issues.

 

[Lwaxy]

I occasionally use something similar so I'd like that.

 

[eamon]

1) Fighters tend to have the lowest saves of any character, even fort saves. Having a good base save =/= having a good save. Clerics have spells like recitation, wizards have spells like heroism, rogues have UMD as a class skill. But I understand the reasoning behind your argument, which holds true for wizards and rogues at level 3 and below. Clerics still vastly outstrip fighters though (although they have good fort saves as well).

Well, I've used this rule for years by now, and that essentially doesn't happen IME.

• The casters usually don't bother casting these buffs. They'll cast something else except if they know a big battle is coming up, because they want to conserve spell slots and if you don't want to cast more than a few spells then things like hold person or fireball or whatnot make much more impact than a fairly limited 1 person buff.
• Most buff spells like that tend to be better on the "fighter" like characters since they also boost offense; not to mention the fact that the fighter will be attacked more (hopefully), so when the wizard casts something like heroism at all, it's usually on the "fighter". What's the point of save and attack boosts if you don't attack and hope to avoid being targetted most of the time anyhow? (I'm putting fighter in quotation marks here because I don't think we've ever had a pure fighter character with 10+levels, but whatever).
• PC's that drop are rare. Player's don't know when it'll happen, so optimizing these saves isn't something they're trying to do with their limited magic budget. It's a nice bonus, but it's not something really critical. And of course, once a battle takes a turn for the worse, there are usually more important things than buffing fort saves to prolong life after you drop - like not dropping in the first place.

Still, using a constitution check modified by BAB is a simple fix. The only shame is that it's no longer modified by things like Great Fortitude or similar, but that's no biggie.


I'm really liking this alternative - thanks for the feedback!