Alternatives to the Death Save

[brainstorm]

After sitting and watching one of my players bored out of his mind round after round making death saving throws, just waiting for his luck to run out, I got an idea about an alternative to the death save.

I haven't worked out all of the details, which is why I'm posting here, to get ideas. The concept is as follows:

A character is knocked down to 0 or fewer hit points and is dying. Their physical body drops on the spot, but instead of making Death Saves, their spirit goes to the Shadowfell and has to battle the Death Spirit that the Raven Queen dispatches to collect their soul. This can take place right on the battle mat where the character fell, but it's in a different dimension so the others in the party don't see it. The character can do battle with the Death or they can run from the Death to give their companions time to heal them. If they choose to do battle, they can only use At Will & Racial Powers, they can't use any healing powers on themselves, nor can they use Action Points or powers from magic items.

Now, my dilemma is the Death. I'm thinking it gets one attack: Death Touch. All it has to do is to successfully hit the character 3 times and he/she dies. However, if the character successfully hits the Death 3 times, he defeats it and immediately awakens in his body with 1 hit point. So, no need to track hit points. However, what should the Death's attack rating and defenses be? They need to be simple enough so that they can be used any time on any character that drops to or below zero hp, at any level, but challenging enough so that the player doesn't laugh off the Death and dispatchs them without any difficulty.

Maybe the Death is a shadow version o the character, with the same attacks and defenses? I want to keep this simple, yet fun and challenging. Ideas?

 

[Stalker0]

The 3 attack model is certainly one way to do it.

Another is that death's damage is real, and continues to drop the person's negative hp....causing them to die at negative bloodied. This means the person's negative score actually means more than it does now.

 

[Starfox]

There is also the issue of fairness - the Wizard is a lot less apt at dueling death than the Striker if you use anything resembling normal combat. But if you make it too abstract, then its really back to the old save mechanic.

I think some variant of "attack yourself" could work, but its really just sleight of hand for the usual save mechanic - if both you and death use the best attack against each other and first to three hits wins, then its not much different from making 3 deaths saving throws. Still, it IS narrative, and your players might bye it. I doubt mine would.

 

[aco175]

I like this idea to give the dying pc something meaningful to do. I does slow down combat a bit, with the player having a turn rather than just a roll. Would you want to adjust the power of the death shade acording to the tier the pc is in, thus keeping with the 4e flavor. Maybe death tries harder for those with more power to get of them.

lev 1-10 atk as pc; damage= 10% pc hit points
lev 11-20 atk as pc+2; damage= 10% pc hit points
lev 21-30 ark as pc+4; damage= 10% pc hit points

This seems like it may allow for a round or two extra or less of staying alive before reaching negative bloodied, depending on where you started when you fell. You can have the shade use the same atacks as the pc allowing for the wizard to use magic missiles or the thief to use deft strike.

In the end this may be a bit more involved than you want. It allows for some randomness with the fighting and seems simple enough to be able to insert it at any level.

 

[brainstorm]

Here is what I'm going to test in my next game:

• • Dying PC battles Death Shade, which appear 20 squares away from the PC, or in the farthest square possible in a confined space.
  • Terrain surrounding the PC and Death Shade are the same as the terrain the PC's physical body is in. Damage dealing terrain effects, traps, etc., are ignored. The only thing that can damage the PC's dying spirit is the Death Shade. Terrain still impacts movement, however.
  • PC and Death Shade go on the PC’s initiative. PC goes first.
  • Death Shade has same Attack and Defense and Speed values as PC
  • Attacks vs a Death Shade doesn’t do damage. 3 successful strikes banishes the shade and the PC awakens with 1 HP on their next turn and all on-going damage they are taking is automatically saved. If they are in a zone or a situation in which they will take damage upon awakening, they gain resistance to that damage for 1 round.
  • Death Shade attacks don’t do damage. 3 successful strikes against the PC kills them permanently.
  • No Powers can be used against a Death Shade.

 

[bardolph]

I think this depends a bit on your campaign. If a duel with the Raven Queen or Death Shade has meaningful significance in the context of your campaign, then this can be a nice added touch. However, I'm skeptical that adding extra mechanics just to give dying characters something to do will improve the game. More likely it will just slow it down.

One way of looking at it is this: having less to do is your penalty for losing the fight.

The Wound System is an excellent compromise, however. Another option is to allow players to take a wound instead of rolling the death save.

 

[DanmarLOK]

Interesting concept! Probably would not work for my group but it sounds like it would make the players more involved in what's going on and player engagement is key to a good session.

Since I dislike players sitting out except for making a death roll to see if they die as well, it disengages them from the game IMO or at least with my players. So when they hit 0 or lower I inflict a Mostly Dead condition on them. Dazed, Weakened, Slowed and Knocked Prone and -5 on attack and skill rolls. But they can still do a standard action to crawl 2 squares, or get out a potion and the next round drink it etc. Or hell they try to attack someone from the ground if they wanted although the impact is minimal.

But they still get to do something proactive rather than reactive and it seems to work well for us.

It does tend to make them save their second winds till they go down. But I'm okay with that.

They still die at negative bloodied and still have to make death saves to avoid dying from shock.

 

[john112364]

Here is what I'm going to test in my next game:

• • Dying PC battles Death Shade, which appear 20 squares away from the PC, or in the farthest square possible in a confined space.
  • Terrain surrounding the PC and Death Shade are the same as the terrain the PC's physical body is in. Damage dealing terrain effects, traps, etc., are ignored. The only thing that can damage the PC's dying spirit is the Death Shade. Terrain still impacts movement, however.
  • PC and Death Shade go on the PC’s initiative. PC goes first.
  • Death Shade has same Attack and Defense and Speed values as PC
  • Attacks vs a Death Shade doesn’t do damage. 3 successful strikes banishes the shade and the PC awakens with 1 HP on their next turn and all on-going damage they are taking is automatically saved. If they are in a zone or a situation in which they will take damage upon awakening, they gain resistance to that damage for 1 round.
  • Death Shade attacks don’t do damage. 3 successful strikes against the PC kills them permanently.
  • No Powers can be used against a Death Shade.

Here's my problem with this: The concept is interesting, but without being able to use powers, you are simply replacing the death save with two attack rolls. "I roll to hit. Darn. Missed. Oh good he missed me too." There is no real stategy beyond attacking because you can't use anything but basic attacks. I've played wizards with a very good armor class with a very piss poor basic attack. If we're using the same attacks and defenses this tedium could go on for a looong time. (Which I guess could be good from a player point of view) But it really doesn't add anything. Now if they could at least use at will attacks it becomes a little more interesting. Personally I don't see why they can't use all of there resources to stay alive. When your life is on the line you tend to be very creative.

 

[LostSoul]

Instead of making it a "physical" contest, why not a mental one?

The PC faces the part of himself that wants to shuffle off this mortal coil.

It would be a good opportunity to explore the character.

The mechanics would basically be the death shade saying things like, "I'm at peace; what do you have that's worth living for?" "Why go through all that pain when you can be at peace?" etc. The PC would make some kind of roll against his own Will defense, and if he fails 3 times it's off to the Shadowfell. A natural 20 means he wakes up, like rolling a 20 on a death save.

The real key is to make what the PC says in response tie into mechanics. Quests based on the stated goals of the PC, maybe a Disease, bonuses or penalties, that sort of thing. It would rely heavily on the context of what was said, successful rolls vs. failed ones.

I don't think you'd want to do this every time, but sometimes it could be interesting. You'd also want to make the shade's arguments differ each time, building on the last.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Personally I use the wounds system posted in this forum.