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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hawken" data-source="post: 5068104" data-attributes="member: 23619">Valhalla, how can you argue with me that being burned alive for 4 minutes or falling 100 feet is insignificant and then comment that 1d6 nonlethal and fatigue from starving is a terrible fate? That's quite a discrepancy. Damage is not insignificant because healing is available. This topic is about the effects on characters not on what you can do afterward to reduce or negate the effect. And I'm not going to argue point by point with you. We could throw out examples back and forth to no end. The point is that the rules regarding hazardous conditions (not just environmental extremes) are sadly deficient in D&D, always have been. The fact is many effects cause a person to suffer cardiac arrest (resulting in death if no one else is around to tend to them with the proper medical training). Many effects cause brain death, paralysis, nerve damage, organ failure, internal bleeding, etc. These effects/side-effects/after-effects are not even considered or handled at all by the rules. If you want a super heroic game, play one. If you want characters to survive a fall, play a Jedi in a SW game, they can all survive falls (except Mace Windu) as long as they land on their feet or hit the ground running. But the cold hard truth is that hazardous conditions kill, maim or cripple. Its not very dramatic or entertaining but it does and should happen to PCs that are careless or unprepared. If a PC falls off a mountain, yeah, it sucks for that character, but you can be sure the remaining PCs are going to be a lot more careful about what they are doing and the tension (and excitement) is going to ratchet up a notch.Unless a character dies by combat with a monster, a trap or the direct or indirection action of the BBEG, PC death sucks and is no fun at all. But it can and should happen. DMs shouldn't be afraid to kill off a character because they failed to prepare for something. Those bones in the dungeon the PCs casually pass by were previous adventurers that weren't as prepared. D&D is about resource management.Hit points, Con scores and Fort saves go up so that battles can be drawn out even longer with tougher monsters--its just poorly written rules that have those increase turn characters into super heroes that can blithely ignore the perils of the real world as they make their way toward the BBEG. Without making drastic changes, applying Con damage, or whatever, just have hazardous effects work around Fort saves, or maybe Reflex saves for things that can be avoided, and maybe Will saves that allow the character to ignore ongoing effects for a round or two. AND.AND...use their save values for these hazardous effects from their 1st level save modifiers. So, a 1st Fighter with a 10 Con would have only a +2 Fort save against poison or suffering the effects of extreme heat or dehydration. And a 15th level Fighter with a 10 Con would also only have a +2 Fort save against those same things--although he would have access to items that improved that save (suddenly a Cloak of Resistance seems like a cool thing again) or mitigated damage (extreme heat isn't so bad when you've got Fire Resistance 10 or Endure Elements going on). Those same characters would have the same chances of starving to death if they ran out of food, but in combat, the higher level character would definitely be a bad-ass without necessarily becoming super heroic.</blockquote>

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