Nine lives optional rule

[dm4hire]

I was thinking about a comment someone mentioned about dying in 4e, about death saves and how PCs get their hit points back after a rest so that it doesn’t seem like there’s as much risk. Indeed unless a player roles bad or the table has a TPK I’ve seen where PCs get close to that threat and their player is on edge, but for the most part their seems no real threat, especially when you add Raise Dead to the mix.

So I started thinking about how I could change the game up a bit to add a little more risk to the game. I came up with the idea of using a cat’s legendary Nine Lives myth. Here’s how it would work. If a PC drops below 0 at least once in any encounter it counts as losing one of their Nine Lives, but only once per encounter whether they don’t die or not. Once the PC reaches the ninth death or borderline death during its life it can’t be raise if it dies a tenth time. This encourages the players to really work as a team and to proceed with caution, stressing the need for tactics.

I know this might seem harsh but it could be remedied by incorporating a higher level ritual that removes at least one of the strikes against the PC, but the down side would be that it could only be cast once on said PC. Also realize that some PCs may never have this rule come into effect.

Any thoughts?

 

[-Avalon-]

Sounds great for most parties/DMs, wouldn't work at my table because my players hardly ever are below 0...

I throw 2 or 3 levels above them worth of xp, have tried solo's, elites, elite squads, mix'n'match of regular + minions, all sorts of things...

My players are just very very very tactical, and have a cleric and a warlord, so is almost impossible to really threaten them without seriously endangering a TPK...

Any suggestions for that?

 

[dm4hire]

An encounter I came up with would be they get trapped in a room with only one way out. The room is trapped with an electric trap and is pretty big, more long than wide. At the far end in the shadows is a Medusa doing range attacks. You could try something like that

Also a friend of mine offline suggested that maybe make it so you can only be raised once period and do away with the death saves. You just get to go below zero to negative half before completely dead nine times during the coarse of the PCs life.

 

[Quickleaf]

Sounds like a good way to make death scarier in a game with frequent resurrection. What's the story behind the 9 lives thing in game? Does the Raven Queen take a bit of your soul each time you cross the eternal boundary or what?

 

[dm4hire]

I really hadn't thought about the in game theory behind it. However after thinking about it one could attribute that nine lives for heroes might be a blessing from some diety or another. How many times has the phrase "You've got more lives than a cat" been thrown around. Perhaps following in a theme like "Clash of the Titans" nine lives could be just one of the many gifts granted. One could view the powers used by the classes as gifts from the gods. Whatever I'll leave it up to everyone to decide.

 

[C_M2008]

I don't see the need. In the current campaign we've played 8 sessions and I've killed one PC already. Several PCs have gone from low life to almost dead in oneshot (and better rolling would have brought them below negative bloodied and to outright dead). Multiple PCs have had to roll the dreaded "last chance death save" although no one has failed the last one yet(and we had a cool nat 20 in the last session).

We almost had a TPK last session even as the players fought a level +1 encounter against deathjump spiders (who admitedly are very good for their level). At the end one PC had 4 hp (and had to pass a save to end the ongoing poison damage or would have been out and facing her last death save), and the other 2 PCs (normally 5 but had some absentees) were in the deep negatives.

The risk of death is still very real. Remember that it's 3 failed death saves per encounter not per time unconcious (if you were really mean I guess you could make it per day).

 

[gnogamer]

I don't see the need. In the current campaign we've played 8 sessions and I've killed one PC already. Several PCs have gone from low life to almost dead in oneshot (and better rolling would have brought them below negative bloodied and to outright dead). Multiple PCs have had to roll the dreaded "last chance death save" although no one has failed the last one yet(and we had a cool nat 20 in the last session).

We almost had a TPK last session even as the players fought a level +1 encounter against deathjump spiders (who admitedly are very good for their level). At the end one PC had 4 hp (and had to pass a save to end the ongoing poison damage or would have been out and facing her last death save), and the other 2 PCs (normally 5 but had some absentees) were in the deep negatives.

The risk of death is still very real. Remember that it's 3 failed death saves per encounter not per time unconcious (if you were really mean I guess you could make it per day).

I tend to agree since I have had a similar experience. Some games the players get the better of me but most I end up having a 3 or 4 of the 5 thinking their next swing could be their last. No one has died outright yet, but several have gone below zero and several death saves have been failed. The group really protects their cleric though so he is usually last man standing and can help when the dust settles. Been a few times where a character has died to save the cleric.

Tactics are very important in 4th edition and there is always a way to make the seemingly simple encounter into a fight of their lives. Usually creating the variations in roles among the monsters is all it takes. I had a couple needlefang drake swarms with a few kobold slingers nearly wipe out the entire party. Get creative and things will work out without having to drastically change the rules.

 

[dm4hire]

I don't see it as a drastic change to the rule as much as a balance to the PCs that Yo-Yo through the game consistently. Another aspect would be to just make the Nine Lives a set rule that after the encounter, except for a total TPK, the hero comes back and do away with the whole need for Raise Dead rituals. This approach would be similiar to movies where everyone thinks the hero is dead as someone leans over them yelling for them to come back then they suddenly open their eyes as if nothing is wrong or cringe from pain. This approach would mean you allow them to drop to negative half nine times and come back then it's lights out for good.

I agree whole heartedly about tactics though. Having both DMed and Played I have seen how the lack of Tactics will kill a party member. There is no lone wolfing in this edition.