Weak Deaths

[Plane Sailing]

I let the dice fall as they may ...although there are many situations where I won't call for a dice roll if it is just doing something inconsequential, thus bypassing some 'weak death' scenarios.

Cheers

 

[Troll Slayer]

The problem with this is- if the pc survived that kick to the chest long enough to fight on, why won't the cleric's healing spells keep him alive?

Does basic healing magic in your campaign world regrow lost limbs? I always had the impression that cure light wounds wouldn't give you back your apendages. Then why would it cure a ruptured splean?

If you're in a game world where magic is prevalent enough to cure all wounds, then you are also playing in a game world where death is trivialized by ressurection magic too. In that case a silly death is not really something to worry about anyway right? Perhaps wounds that are grievous enough can't be cured by common magic, which would explain why nobles don't just ressurect their villagers to ensure they can keep collecting taxes.

The bottom line is that you look at a player and say, "You're character is going to die here. Fate has decreed it so. Do you want to go out with a bang or a whimper?" In some game worlds this means roll a new character (WFRP) and in others (DnD) it means getting raised later if the party can afford it.

Do you also give dead bad guys the chance to "fight on"?

Well we are talking "weak deaths" here which bad guys rarely suffer. A paladin commanding his mount to kick the bad guy is not a weak death. It's a death in combat with your enemy.

However, should one of my bad guys die by misfortune, why not. You see it in movies all the time, the guy jumps up from behind the sofa for one last shot at the heroes before being thoroughly put down. It's definitely not something I would abuse, but the same goes for player last stands as well.

You can handwave these issues, sure- but there is no in-game reason why a cleric can heal one dying pc and not another. The burning building guy? A few cure spells will fix up all that fire damage, right? Right???

Just like there's no in game reason NPCs have to die permanently and PCs don't, but it happens all the time. Sometimes magic just won't help, it's why death is a very real possiblity for 99% of a game world's inhabitants.

Plus, even in high magic game worlds, a deity will only let magic do so much. Perhaps the lawful god of death requires that a sure death remain certain once in a while. Ressurection can't be 100% accurate or it risks trivializing one gods power (life) and weakening another's (death).

Although I admire the intent here, my one experience with trying something like this immediately underlined the problems with it. I strongly suspect I'll never do it again.

There are no problems if you a) don't abuse it, and b) decide as a group how foolproof you want magic to be in your game world.

 

[Callista]

That's what things like action points and luck feats are for. If you want to keep a bad roll from killing a character, then the ability to re-roll or modify that low number can save your character.

And, if it comes down to it, non-cinematic deaths can always be reversed with a Raise Dead (or, if you're high level enough, a true Resurrection).

I do have a house rule that anyone who's knocked to between -10 and -50 has a few moments to make one two simple actions before he falls over dead (not counting swinging a weapon or casting a spell; those are too strenuous for a dying character). In general this gets used variously to say goodbye to a friend, curse at the enemy, or possibly just look very surprised while saying, "...oops." I'd also allow stuff like falling onto a trap to trigger it on the enemy or dropping a sackful of alchemist's fire you happned to be holding (but then, if you were holding alchemist's fire, chances are it was what caused your death to begin with!). D&D doesn't allow characters in states other than unconscious or alive and fully dangerous (barring stat or level-reducing effects). When a character's going to die, the player ought to get the chance to have the death happen the way he wants it to happen.

 

[ShadesOfGrey]

Perhaps wounds that are grievous enough can't be cured by common magic, which would explain why nobles don't just ressurect their villagers to ensure they can keep collecting taxes.

Going off a tangent here, but thinking about it, it would make a kinda neat, grimdark-y campaign background, were the BBEG forces everyone in a kind of immortal slavery, and the PC's needing to bring natural death back to the world.

Such a world would trivialize failure / death at the same time though, so maybe rebels (like the PC's) get turned into undead instead?

Kinda reminds me of Planescape: Torment though..

 

[nedjer]

Dumb no way backs baffle me. 'Oh, look lava - lets show a total disregard for our safety' or 'stepping stones across a pool of acid, lets play hopscotch'.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For me, I don't fudge - but do play 4e. Characters go down hard. A trip and fall won't break their necks.

Ahhh, but it depends on the trip and fall, doesn't it?

I had a 3Ed .5Orc Ranger named Klor-kon, an utter blast to play for 3 sessions. He decided during a combat to break down a door through which a foe had escaped. The party rogue hadn't had any luck on the lock, and Klor-kon was quite the bruiser, so he charged...

Just as he got there, the rogue opened the door wide, revealing a dark passage beyond. But KK couldn't slow himself on the slick floor; nor could he avoid the knee-high safety rope that marked the boundary between walkway and abyss. He also failed to grasp said rope as he tumbled into the earth's maw.

Nobody heard him hit bottom...except maybe whatever lived down there.

(I suspect most 4Ed PCs would be as "incapacitated" as he was...some deaths are system neutral)

 

[fuzzlewump]

Depends on the campaign. In my Eberron murder mystery campaign, your character can't die unless you want them to. Only a TPK means a total loss, even then, if the players wanted they could probably come back from it. In Gamma World, if you die in a crit on the first round of the first combat, you die on a crit from the first round of the first combat.

 

[Doctor DM]

I'm playing a game. If the dice come up, "Go to Jail. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.00," then that's what happens.

Scenario: You're playing an 18th level character you've run since first level for over 3 years in real time. He's the leader of the party, and the hope of middle-earth. He's defeated dragons and hordes of undead. His magic weapons are legendary. This character is really part of YOU. You've played with him every week for THREE years.

Your party is on their way to the island fortress of the Demon King for the final epic battle. It's gonna be awesome. The entire campaign has led up to this. You have to swim across a river to reach the castle. You roll a 1 on your swim check. You get another chance, and roll a 2. One more chance, roll another 1. You are swept away and drown. Your character is dead. You miss the final epic battle, because you had a bad stroke of luck, and the greatest hero the world has ever seen drowned in rather unheroic fashion.

You're totally fine with that?

RPGs are a lot more involved then Monopoly. I know Monopoly can take FOREVER to play sometimes, but I don't think I've ever heard of a Monopoly game running for years.

I'm all for letting the dice land where the may, and I will absolutely NOT protect a player from a combat death, but I just don't think a great character dies in a trivial manner.

 

[Argyle King]

You're totally fine with that?

.

Honestly, yeah, I would be. Does that mean I wouldn't be upset or that I wouldn't piss & moan about it a little bit? No, it would probably bother me; however, I would view that death and failure as being just as much a part of my character's legacy as I would view my triumphs. For me, being able to juxtapose my victories against those failures (and the chance of failures) makes victory have more meaning.

Also, if I may touch upon another point... when the GM lets the dice fall where they may and allows the small details to share the stage from time to time, it makes me feel more confident as a player that choosing something like 'skill focus: swimming' as a feat in D&D or putting a few points into my GURPS character's hiking skill aren't wasted choices.

That being said, if I know ahead of time that I'm playing with a GM who handwaves some of the small details; if that is communicated to me ahead of time, then, ok, I won't bother with those choices. And, yeah, I would be upset by the 'weak death' you gave as an example if the GM didn't normally use certain rules and then suddenly decided that he was going to. Overall, what makes me happy is GM consistancy, and consistancy is also what I give to the players I GM for.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, put me in the "Fate Chips" category. If it's a game where the characters are actually important, then drowning meaninglessly while swimming the moat is ballocks. Blow your Action Point/Drama Point/Whatever and mulligan the death. Have a limited number of times you can do that, and now you've kept the threat of death while greatly mitigating the "stupid" death factor.

Granted, there are some styles of game where the character isn't all that important. The campaign doesn't change whether I'm playing Father Generic or Fytor, so, why bother saving PC's from stupid death's? Roll up the next character and carry one from there.

Really depends if I'm playing a plotsy or sandboxy game.