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

[Nebten]

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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.

I'm running WotBS and I was concerned about the same thing after the second death. So why I did was instead of level loss, the PC lost 1 random attribute. That way they weren't falling behind in levels as the game continued, I didn't have to do side quests to make sure they keep up and there is still a sense of danger during the battle.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

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.
​

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.

That's very simple.

I come to this thread after experimenting with another variant on the Death & Dying Rules. Not your version. Conclusion on it was that players rejected it as it made death an extremely unlikely event.

I'll give your version some more thought. I like simplicity, for sure.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

The one thing that I just realized that I don't like about this system is that it's impossible for a character to die the moment he's hit. In most situations, the character will live for a few rounds after dropping below zero hit points.

You wrote, "What we need are rules that (normally) make dying a nice and slow process again." I'm not sure that that's exactly what I'm looking for. Instead, I'm looking for a system that makes dying potentially either a quickly lethal process or a slow process. I want the chance that a character will die immediately when dropped below zero hit points and I also want the chance that the character could take a while to die after dropping below zero. And, I don't want to know with 100% certainty, before-hand, which will be the outcome.

You wrote that with this system, "At best, you still have a 1 in 4 chance of dying if unaided, even if you can only fail on a natural 1." What changes would need to be made to make this a 50% chance of dying while maintaining the simplicity that you've achieved?

 

[eamon]

The one thing that I just realized that I don't like about this system is that it's impossible for a character to die the moment he's hit. In most situations, the character will live for a few rounds after dropping below zero hit points.

It's possible - the moment a creature falls to negative hit points, it must save. Regardless of fort modifier, rolling a 1 means instant death. In practice, most characters are felled by strikes that don't bring them very far below 0; for them only a natural 1 matters. That's intentional; a normal strike should only with unusual luck be able to instantly kill.

Also; don't underestimate the risk of rolling a natural one. Since you must roll each round, even though each roll is fairly likely to succeed, it's only a matter of time until that 1 comes up. It's 78% likely that even on minor damage you'll bleed out on or before the fifth roll. A character which drops frequently - even if he's healed right away - will eventually roll that 1; Mathematically, the chances are not insignificant, and anecdotally, I've seen it happen (this was, of course, right after the player smirked that he could only fail on a natural 1 anyhow...). Be sure to point this out, incidentally, to players that feel it's quite a safe bet; many people don't realize that it's quite likely you'll eventually roll that 1.

If you find the rolls too easy, the basic system is easy to adapt; just raise the DC of the Fort save. On the other hand,

You wrote, "What we need are rules that (normally) make dying a nice and slow process again." I'm not sure that that's exactly what I'm looking for. Instead, I'm looking for a system that makes dying potentially either a quickly lethal process or a slow process. I want the chance that a character will die immediately when dropped below zero hit points and I also want the chance that the character could take a while to die after dropping below zero. And, I don't want to know with 100% certainty, before-hand, which will be the outcome.

That's basically what it's designed to do as written. If the creatures damaged by anything vaguely threatening (so that you need just a 2, say rather than a 1) then the chance of death jumps to 2/3 - and that's if you need just a 2 to save.

The idea is that the system makes it very likely that a significant hit will kill you. Insignificant hits (when you only need anything but a 1 five times in a row) usually don't kill you, but even those aren't very safe bets. On the other hand, it's not that likely that a creature will die instantly, and no one knows when it'll fail.

You wrote that with this system, "At best, you still have a 1 in 4 chance of dying if unaided, even if you can only fail on a natural 1." What changes would need to be made to make this a 50% chance of dying while maintaining the simplicity that you've achieved?

Well, any hits that bring your hit point total down to lower than twice your fort mod the system already makes survival exceedingly unlikely. If you want to make natural stabilization even less likely, the easiest fix is just to remove it; Don't make the death saves stop after the 5th save, but let them continue indefinitely (100% chance of death, eventually).

Supposing you then find that too lethal, to then get a 50% of death, let a character stabilize on a natural 20; then you're basically letting the character flip a coin: will he roll a 1 or a 20 first?

Personally, if I thought the basic system were not lethal enough, I'd just remove natural stabilization entirely. Stabilizing on a 20 has it's downsides; namely that a character might stabilize right away, and that's just boring (IMHO). We've often (not always) played with the saves vs. dying rolled open on the table; it's a great tense moment and when it happens it's a constant reminder to everyone that their friend is down - but if you do roll openly, and that friend rolls a 20, you know he's safe and can safely delay healing him for a round. And avoiding that kind of behavior was the initial inspiration to make this system in the first place: I never, ever want a dying character to feel safe.

Recap, your options are realistically: keep it as is (minor wounds have only a 22% mortality rate), make stabilization take more than five rounds, remove stabilization entirely (100% mortality rate, but minor wounds can take long to kill), or finally, stabilize only on a natural 20. I'd pick one of the first three options and tell your players you're still tweaking the number of rounds.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Thank you for your patience in expaining this, Eamon.

I misread the part about a creature dying if they fail their fort save. Please, accept my apologies for misunderstanding that. Now, that that's taken care of, I think I like this system a whole lot more.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Me, again, Eamon. Since I like the Disabled condition, here's the variant that I have in mind to try...

When reduced to zero or fewer hit points, a creature must make a Fortitude save (DC 1/2 of negative hit points). Failure means that the creature dies (and a natural result of 1 on the die always indicates failure in this situation). Success means that the creature suffers 2 hit points damage, falls unconscious, and is dying. Success by 10 or more means that the creature is disabled.

A dying creature must make a Fortitude save (DC 1/2 of negative hit points) each round. Failure means that the creature dies (and a natural result of 1 on the die always indicates failure in this situation). Success means that the creature suffers 2 hit points damage. Success by 10 or more means that the creature has stabilized. If a dying creature succeeds on its Fortitude save for five consecutive rounds since it last suffered damage, the creature stabilizes.

The Diehard feat does not cause a creature to automatically stabilize. Instead, it grants a +4 bonus to all the Fortitude saves mentioned above (remaining disabled and resisting death). Also, a creature with the Diehard feat that is stable may still choose to act as either disabled or unconscious.​

Not as concise as your one paragraph summary, but it does allow greater opportunity to use the Disabled condition in play. Also, the possibility of a dying creature stabilizing by succeeding by more than 10 has interesting potential interactions with the Diehard feat. Think of all the movies where someone doesn't make sure the villain is dead and he gets up and continues the action!

 

[eamon]

Me, again, Eamon. Since I like the Disabled condition, here's the variant that I have in mind to try...

When reduced to zero or fewer hit points, a creature must make a Fortitude save (DC 1/2 of negative hit points). Failure means that the creature dies (and a natural result of 1 on the die always indicates failure in this situation). Success means that the creature suffers 2 hit points damage, falls unconscious, and is dying. Success by 10 or more means that the creature is disabled.

A dying creature must make a Fortitude save (DC 1/2 of negative hit points) each round. Failure means that the creature dies (and a natural result of 1 on the die always indicates failure in this situation). Success means that the creature suffers 2 hit points damage. Success by 10 or more means that the creature has stabilized. If a dying creature succeeds on its Fortitude save for five consecutive rounds since it last suffered damage, the creature stabilizes.

The Diehard feat does not cause a creature to automatically stabilize. Instead, it grants a +4 bonus to all the Fortitude saves mentioned above (remaining disabled and resisting death). Also, a creature with the Diehard feat that is stable may still choose to act as either disabled or unconscious.​

Not as concise as your one paragraph summary, but it does allow greater opportunity to use the Disabled condition in play. Also, the possibility of a dying creature stabilizing by succeeding by more than 10 has interesting potential interactions with the Diehard feat. Think of all the movies where someone doesn't make sure the villain is dead and he gets up and continues the action!

I like the mechanic - it's a great way to enable the disabled condition without adding extra checks or other unnecessary gameplay roadbumps. Part of the reason I leave that kind of stuff out is that it makes the thread easier to read - this kind of detail is something every group needs to choose for themselves (kind of like massive damage saves...).

I particularly like the way you make stabilization random, except for the first saving throw - that's nice, because what you don't want is that people immediately save and then the rest of the party focuses on the bad guys cause "he's safe anyhow". If someone immediately passes by 20 or more he's disabled instead...

What happens when a disabled creature takes an action? I don't think it's reasonable to have him receive 1 damage and therefore make another save and possibly instantly die. He should just becoming dying, otherwise disabled characters are very rarely going to risk taking an action (there might be a save to stay disabled).

Anyhow, that kind of complexity is why I though I'd keep it out of the basic house-rule, even though it's quite possibly fun and reasonable.

Minor simplifying detail: I think it'll work fine as is, but you could choose to remove the clause "If a dying creature succeeds on its Fortitude save for five consecutive rounds since it last suffered damage, the creature stabilizes." I added that to the original to give people a chance to survive on their own, but you already have that with the "succeed by 10 or more" bit. Probably, succeeding by 10 or more is actually more likely than surviving for 5 rounds for most scenario's anyhow. Only if you really can't save by 10 or more is this new method bad for survival; and frankly, if you can't save by 10 or more, your save chance in the old system was virtually nil anyhow (if your first save needed an 11 to succeed, overall survival chance was less than 1% anyhow). To cut a long story short, that clause really doesn't do much anymore, you don't need it.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

I like the mechanic - it's a great way to enable the disabled condition without adding extra checks or other unnecessary gameplay roadbumps. Part of the reason I leave that kind of stuff out is that it makes the thread easier to read - this kind of detail is something every group needs to choose for themselves (kind of like massive damage saves...).

Thanks, Eamon. I agree about the level of detail, too. I've been wrestling with various house rules concerning hit points and death and dying, etc... for a while, now. Partly inspired by the Grim-n-Gritty style of play and Vitality/Wound points, etc... I've experimented with different versions of the Massive Damage Save, too. 50 points being too arbitrary and other systems being too complicated. So, I appreciate what you wrote about house rules needing to be stated as simply as possible.

I particularly like the way you make stabilization random, except for the first saving throw - that's nice, because what you don't want is that people immediately save and then the rest of the party focuses on the bad guys cause "he's safe anyhow".

Glad you like that part.

If someone immediately passes by 20 or more he's disabled instead...

That's an interesting idea. Hadn't thought of that, actually.

What happens when a disabled creature takes an action? I don't think it's reasonable to have him receive 1 damage and therefore make another save and possibly instantly die. He should just becoming dying, otherwise disabled characters are very rarely going to risk taking an action (there might be a save to stay disabled).

I agree. I'll have to clarify that part.

Anyhow, that kind of complexity is why I though I'd keep it out of the basic house-rule, even though it's quite possibly fun and reasonable.

I can see why. Thanks for sharing your houserule on this.

Minor simplifying detail: I think it'll work fine as is, but you could choose to remove the clause "If a dying creature succeeds on its Fortitude save for five consecutive rounds since it last suffered damage, the creature stabilizes." I added that to the original to give people a chance to survive on their own, but you already have that with the "succeed by 10 or more" bit. Probably, succeeding by 10 or more is actually more likely than surviving for 5 rounds for most scenario's anyhow. Only if you really can't save by 10 or more is this new method bad for survival; and frankly, if you can't save by 10 or more, your save chance in the old system was virtually nil anyhow (if your first save needed an 11 to succeed, overall survival chance was less than 1% anyhow). To cut a long story short, that clause really doesn't do much anymore, you don't need it.

Thanks for pointing that out. The math part isn't my strongest point. I didn't realize that the chance of succeeding on 5 consecutive Fort saves was that low.

What I do like about your houserule and my variant is that it's hard for players to metagame how long they have to help a fallen comrade. The version I considered using before, allowed too much possibility of metagaming.

 

[Nonei]

The houserule that currently use is that we follow RAW up to -9. At -10, you are mortally wounded. If you are bleeding, you continue to bleed until you make your 10% check. You can be healed normally, but you are unconcious for 5 minutes regardless of improved health, and you lose 100xp/level. If you pass -20 you're dead.

For drowning, the failed saves go: 0, -1, -11, -21, but the checks to drop from -11 to dead dead (-21) are qminute instead of qround (we changed this after a too-lethal hydra fight in 3 feet of water - plenty of people have been revived IRL after several minutes in the water)

This was done to make it less likely that an individual character would die, but still painful to go to -10. However, I dislike that it doesn't scale - a 10th level character should be more likely to survive unconciousness than a 1st level character.

I like the ideas of fort saves presented here... I will have to do some thinking. I like the mechanic of losing xp/being out of the fight for being almost dead as well so would probably substitute some sort of fort save for the 10% chance of stabilizing.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

However, I dislike that it doesn't scale - a 10th level character should be more likely to survive unconciousness than a 1st level character.

I agree, that's why I've abandoned any set number of negative hit points resulting in death.