Pentius
First Post
RE: Spending surges while dying.
This may be technically possible(I'm not going to look up the fiddly bits of whether it is or not), but even if it is, it isn't practically feasible. You're Dying. The game term, Dying, where you have to roll a d20 every round and if you get under a 10 three times you're dead. You can't spend surges freely until after a short rest, which means 5 minutes, which means 50 times rolling that d20. Good luck.
RE: [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s changed narrative flow for 4e.
That's all well and good, and it sounds like it'd work fine, though I've never personally done it. But you don't have to drop linear narrative to have narrative in 4e make sense. I've been doing linear narration, with the occasional split-second retcon for interrupt moves, since I started playing, and it works out. What you have to do is simply not describe any non-fatal wound as a fatal wound. You don't describe a PC has having a broken leg when they take 10HP of damage and are mechanically capable of walking around just fine. You don't describe a Fighter with 54hp of damage and 1hp left as being a pincushion of arrows. You don't do this because in any edition, that Fighter can still stand up and run a marathon in full plate with no ill effects. And he can do it the next day, and the next, and every day after that, unless another hit comes along and drops him for real.
Or, you can do like I've seen countless groups do, and describe it exactly that way, and just take in stride situations like the 1hp pincushion Fighter dragging his dead cleric friend's body for a day's walk back to the temple for healing, and never mind the idea of bleeding out. And if you're among that number who are fine with these sort of wahoo damage descriptions, then you're probably fine with it in 4e, because 4e isn't really any more wahoo about it.
This may be technically possible(I'm not going to look up the fiddly bits of whether it is or not), but even if it is, it isn't practically feasible. You're Dying. The game term, Dying, where you have to roll a d20 every round and if you get under a 10 three times you're dead. You can't spend surges freely until after a short rest, which means 5 minutes, which means 50 times rolling that d20. Good luck.
RE: [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s changed narrative flow for 4e.
That's all well and good, and it sounds like it'd work fine, though I've never personally done it. But you don't have to drop linear narrative to have narrative in 4e make sense. I've been doing linear narration, with the occasional split-second retcon for interrupt moves, since I started playing, and it works out. What you have to do is simply not describe any non-fatal wound as a fatal wound. You don't describe a PC has having a broken leg when they take 10HP of damage and are mechanically capable of walking around just fine. You don't describe a Fighter with 54hp of damage and 1hp left as being a pincushion of arrows. You don't do this because in any edition, that Fighter can still stand up and run a marathon in full plate with no ill effects. And he can do it the next day, and the next, and every day after that, unless another hit comes along and drops him for real.
Or, you can do like I've seen countless groups do, and describe it exactly that way, and just take in stride situations like the 1hp pincushion Fighter dragging his dead cleric friend's body for a day's walk back to the temple for healing, and never mind the idea of bleeding out. And if you're among that number who are fine with these sort of wahoo damage descriptions, then you're probably fine with it in 4e, because 4e isn't really any more wahoo about it.