-10, Only MOSTLY Dead

[dvvega]

IMC I use the "you're not dead at -10 until the next round" method.

I have found that it adds to the dramatic flavour ... the tension actually increases when the cleric (or other healer) must get to the character and heal them, sometimes sucking up AOOs to get there.

I leave the decision to save someone squarely into the hands of the players as opposed to the diece roll by using this rule.

If the character dies it is due to other players not saving them.

I even allow multiple attempts to save them from multiple characters - which is useful if they have suffered grievous injuries, for example down to -30.

 

[Michael Morris]

IMC your dead at - your con score. You stablilize by rolling higher on a d10 than the absolute value of your negative hit point total. (hence if your are at -5 you need a 6 or higher. Yes, this means that once you are at -10 you can't stabilize on your own). The heal check to stabilize a character is 10 + |hp total| (the || mean (absolute value)), so stabilzing a character at -11 hit points is a DC 21 check.

I don't agree with pulling raise dead spells, indeed my setting has a 4th level variant of raise dead that must be used within 1 round / level of the character dying. There are even MORE death spells flying around in my game but more ways to counter them.

 

[ValhallaGH]

In my game, you're dead when you fail a fortitude save. Starting at -10, make a Fort save each round, DC = negative HP. Succeed and you live for another round. Fail and you die.

Someone could go to negative 1,000,000 if they roll enough 20's.

There is no chance to stabilize on your own once you get to -10; without help of some sort you will die. However, stabilizing is just another heal check (DC 15 as usual); natural healing from extreme negatives takes a lot of time but that's what Cure spells were invented for.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

Here's an idea I just thought of while reading this thread:


You die at - ( 10 + Con Mod + Hit Dice)

But, while you are laying there, bleeding out, with the 10% stabilization, you also are taking 1d4 damage per round, instead of 1 per round, so the rest of the party isn't saying stuff like "oh, he's only at -4 hit points, so we can get to him in about 5 rounds or so"

The threat of death is still real, but less likely, unless your party decides to ignore you.

I'd also say, let the 10% stabilization check only work down to -Con Score, after that, it's up to your deity and your dice rolls. (except as below, with action points)

Also, make the Raise Dead line of spells ritual castings, needing several participants.

Perhaps, if you are using action points, luck points, or something similar, they can spend a point to stabilize, or, if they are still taking damage, to 'cling to life for one round longer'. Or, maybe they can spend their XP, maybe 100/HD to stabilize before they die.

How about burning xp to stay awake while at negative hit points? Say, 10xp/HD lets you stay awake for 1d4 rounds, or until you're literally dead on your feet.


We play the standard -10 is dead of 3.5, and the list of former party members is very long. We're playing a level 1-20 campaign, and only 1 person in the party is still an original member.

 

[Ilium]

In my game, Save-or-Die effects generally reduce you to negative 1d8 hit points (rolled secretly) and you go from there. With the rules below that means it's possible for mid-to-high level characters to fail such a save and still be conscious (though at negative HP).

Here are the dying rules from my campaign web site:

Dying
Normally, a character is considered disabled at exactly 0 hit points, unconscious and dying at -1 to -9 hit points and dead at -10. In the Heirs Of Empire campaign, it works like this instead: A character is considered disabled at 0 to negative his character level. The character is unconscious and dying if his negative hit points are greater than his character level, but less than or equal to his CON attribute + character level. If negative hit points exceed the character's CON + level, he is dead.

When a character is dying, all of the various rolls to become stable and regain consciousness are DC 20 Con checks instead of a flat 10%. Remember that you can spend one of your Action Points to stabilize automatically.

This all obviously serves to help most characters live a little longer, but not dramatically. If a character has an 18 Constitution (which is certainly remarkable) and is 3rd level he is now disabled at 0 to -3 hit points, unconscious at -4 to -21 hit points and dead at -22. If dying, he has a 25% chance (16 or better on d20) to stabilize each round and may actually survive even if left untreated. This seems reasonable for a character whose Constitution must be in the top 0.1% of the game world population.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

Scratch what I said earlier, our original party member died an inescapable and pointless death. So our 1 to 20 campaign is now a 12 to somewhere-slightly-past-12 campaign.

 

[taferial]

I have to agree on the no raise dead/ resurect. I personaly feel when one of my character dies he/ she loses something intangible anyway, and I never feel quite the same about the character.

I came to DnD from games in which any sort of rez was dificult to come by. And run games where a resurection is a truly miraculous event or uber quest reward. In one case the party took down a major villian and one of their rewards was a magical acorn that could resurect a corpse but also inflicted a fatal curse on the resurectee that the party had to get removed before the timer ran out via another quest.

In DnD death is just another status effect.

What I do is remove the majority of rez abilitys and issue the players "fate points" which they may spend in various ways - 1 point allows them to re-roll one result, saves, attack rolls etc. 2 points to force a villian to do the same. 3 points to avoid certain death (generaly from player stupidity).

I also issue my big bad's fate points too, which they can use to do the same to the party.

I hand out these points for heroic (or villianious depending on the character) acts and the like, saved the princess, theres a fate point, holding the pass against against incredible odds single handed, so the party can deliver the vacine in time, heres 6 to spend on that fight.

It works out well with my group, I will always remember the day the party were captured and placed in an overly elabourate death trap and one of the members turned to the others and said "Oh crap, I just realised what we're doing here. The bad guys bumping up his fate points" which, as it turned out, was exactly right.

 

[Miles Pilitus]

There's a solution to this kind of situation that my group's been using for a while now. It was published in Spell Compendium, a spell called Last Breath.

I'm not the owner of the book, nor do I have access to it at work, but what I think it does is it brings someone back from the dead at 0 if you manage to get to them inside of a single round of their death. Doesn't help if you need a ressurection to bring you back, but it seems like a nice little trick.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Very interesting stuff.. the ones I like, and will probably use...

Death occurs at CON + level
Death Effects reduce you to -1D8 hps
You stabalize on a roll of 1D10 if you get higher than the absolute HP value
First aid application DC for stabilize is 10 + |hps|

Raise dead has to be cast within the 'golden hour' after death
Ressurect has to be cast within the the same day of death
Reincarnate can be cast any time after death

Then add in Critical Hits for lasting effects.