Death and -10 HP?

[moticon]

I thought I read some time back a long article describing 4th Edition's HP treatment of death an dying. The article said that the expectation was that PC's would not die at -10 HP, but be able to go to 1/2 their HP total before dying, and that they would make saves (stabilization roll?) to determine if they die (3 chances if I recall right).

In the Epic Destiny article linked in another thread on this board, the ability called "Unstoppable destiny" said "you don't die when you reach -10 HP, instead you go to 1/2 your HP"...

A change? I was liking 1/2 HP to avoid the problems of losing 45 HP when you're at 10 HP, but normally have 150...

Thoughts? Anyone else see this?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

The Epic Destines is if you want to bring Epic Destines into 3.5, not 4e Epic Destines. Thus the difference.

 

[Boarstorm]

The article in question pertains to 3.5, not 4e.

 

[Henry]

I thought I read some time back a long article describing 4th Edition's HP treatment of death an dying. The article said that the expectation was that PC's would not die at -10 HP, but be able to go to 1/2 their HP total before dying, and that they would make saves (stabilization roll?) to determine if they die (3 chances if I recall right).

In the Epic Destiny article linked in another thread on this board, the ability called "Unstoppable destiny" said "you don't die when you reach -10 HP, instead you go to 1/2 your HP"...

A change? I was liking 1/2 HP to avoid the problems of losing 45 HP when you're at 10 HP, but normally have 150...

Thoughts? Anyone else see this?

As described in the other thread on these boards, and in the first paragraph of the article, these Epic Destinies are a conversion for 3.5, not 4th edition. Easy mistake, though -- a lot of people are missing it in the article.

 

[baberg]

I thought I read some time back a long article describing 4th Edition's HP treatment of death an dying. The article said that the expectation was that PC's would not die at -10 HP, but be able to go to 1/2 their HP total before dying, and that they would make saves (stabilization roll?) to determine if they die (3 chances if I recall right).

Just to clarify, the rules from the PrRC 2.1 (which we think reflect the actual 4e rules) are as follows:

You die if you reach negative Hit Points equal to your Bloodied value. At the end of your turn if you have 0 or fewer HP, and haven't been stabilized, roll a d20 death saving throw:

• 1-9: You get worse. If you get this result 3 times (nonconsecutive) before being stabilized, you die.
• 10-19: No change. You don't lose HP on a failed death saving throw.
• 20: You stabilize. If you have an available healing surge and have not yet activated your Second Wind this encounter you may do so now.

If you were under an ongoing effect at the time you went down, such as ongoing poison, acid, fire, etc, you get a separate save for that effect. If you fail that save, and the ongoing effect inflicts damage, you still take damage. If your HP reach the same negative value as your bloodied amount (-50% maximum HP), you die.

From a previous discussion and some great PERL scripts, we found that on average you should expect to live 6 rounds as the median - roughly half of all characters died before round 6 and half died after.

 

[Rex Blunder]

Interesting. I wonder what the average life expectancy of someone with negative HP is in 3e, given stabilization chances and the erroneous assumption that any number between -1 and -9 is equally likely? Does Larry Wall have a username here?

 

[Caliber]

Interesting. I wonder what the average life expectancy of someone with negative HP is in 3e, given stabilization chances and the erroneous assumption that any number between -1 and -9 is equally likely? Does Larry Wall have a username here?

I believe 4E's system was closest to always being knocked to -6, but I don't have the time right now to re-crunch out all the numbers to confirm that. It was definitely about there though.

Hope that helps.