Death and Dying: Annoying new subsystem reduces fun.

[Xethreau]

This works for me! I'm going to petition my players to use this system, because it looks quite good. I already use the house rule "[It's at zero or less HP due to this hit, so] You kill it! Would you like to describe how you do it?" so, this will be an interesting supplement to it.

 

[Celebrim]

If I were converting to 4e, I'd be immediately adding the following house rules...

<snip>

Ahh, nevermind. I started to write out what I would like to change, got to the third paragraph and realized that it was all just too much trouble.

But here is what I don't like:

a) Annoying subsystem you have to remember.
b) Always 'healthy' or 'dying' with no in-between states.
c) Constitution plays no role in your chance to stabilize or recover, and hit points play no large role in how likely you are to stay alive.
d) NPC's and PC's have to be treated differently, except arbitrarily when they don't.
e) System has no major advantages over minor house rule variants of 3.X (such as not dying until negative level + CON, or similar systems).
f) System may simulate cinematic results, but it doesn't simulate cinematic action. I don't particular care to simulate cinemas tropes, but I would like a game system that tended to create evocative descriptive events. The other way around, simulating the tropes - like bouncing back without injury - but not the mentally stimulating action seems to me to be the worst of both worlds.

 

[Shazman]

So now PC's are not only nearly impossible to kill (-60 hp! Give me a break!), but they have a 5% chance of regenerating like a troll on steroids. The rest of it they can keep, but these two parts are cheesy and lame.

 

[Jim DelRosso]

I'm not going to debate your subjective takes on the article, but it's worth pointing out that this:

b) Always 'healthy' or 'dying' with no in-between states.

Is incorrect: the Bloodied condition has been confirmed for a while now.

 

[Lurker37]

But isn't a protagonist recovering from unconsciousness at a critical point in the fight to strike a telling blow a staple of the genre?

And I agree with the interpretation that monster = "DM controlled character" and thus includes NPCs, heroic levels or not. By the same token, I'd expect it to include monsters with heroic levels (assuming such a concept still exists in 4E).

As for players being harder to kill - read the article! It's now possible for a PC to die in 3 rounds. The -(half full HP) scenario seems to only exist for the purposes of determining if they were killed instantly.

Also, since this mechanic replaces hit point loss per round when at negatives, there is actually less bookkeeping, not more.

 

[Nymrohd]

Important NPCs should be the equals of the heroes. That is at least how I have always seen it in my game table. When my players get to face the other adventuring party that is trying to ransack the Lost Temple of Zehir that adventuring party will be fleshed out with all the rules in the PHB and will use the same death and dying rules because they matter too much. After all they are the most likely to interact with the players and might even join them in combat. If the NPCs defender is helping my characters, why should he not be able to be stabilized by a heal check or brought back from the bring while at negative hit points?

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Note that in real life, if one can die quick, there was a few stories that show that the human body can be surprisingly resiliant....

 

[Nymrohd]

What I really wonder is, will the villain be able to threaten the party with a coup de grace on an incapacitated ally to force them to capitulate? Or will he have to hack at said ally till he is at -60 and dead?

 

[DSRilk]

a) Annoying subsystem you have to remember.
b) Always 'healthy' or 'dying' with no in-between states.
c) Constitution plays no role in your chance to stabilize or recover, and hit points play no large role in how likely you are to stay alive.
d) NPC's and PC's have to be treated differently, except arbitrarily when they don't.
e) System has no major advantages over minor house rule variants of 3.X (such as not dying until negative level + CON, or similar systems).
f) System may simulate cinematic results, but it doesn't simulate cinematic action. I don't particular care to simulate cinemas tropes, but I would like a game system that tended to create evocative descriptive events. The other way around, simulating the tropes - like bouncing back without injury - but not the mentally stimulating action seems to me to be the worst of both worlds.

A. You take hit point damage when hit at negative hit points (just like you do at positive hit points) and you make a saving throw if you're at 0 or less hit points (the same savingthrow system used in the rest of the game). I'm not sure how this is something you have to remember -- it uses two of the most commonly used systems in the game. The only thing you could arguably say is different is that after 3 failed saves, you die, and it's possible that 3 failed saves is the standard "permanent badness" feature of the saving throw system in general, in which case there's not one new subsystem.

B. Bloodied - we know it can affect what you can do and what can be done to you. There may also be penalties attached, we don't know (though I personally hope not).

C. Con plays a roll because it affects your hit points and thus your max negative hit points. It actually plays more of a roll than in 3.5, even with the common -CON house rule (at level 10, a 16 CON gives you 6 extra negative hit points with the house rule in 3.5 and gives 30 extra negative hit points in 4.0 with no house rule). The recovery rule never relied on CON (it was an unmodifiable % roll). And there may be con-based feats that modify this, thus allowing high con to make a difference.

D. If you've ever DM'd, you'd know why this is gold. It's the standard rule nearly all experienced DMs use -- not because it requires an experienced DM to run it that way, but because an experienced DM knows how much simpler it is to run the game in this fashion and how little bang for your buck you get out of keeping track of NPC negative hit points. They've simply added in the very intuitive rule most of us already use.

E. There's a huge difference between being at 5 hit points at level 15 and being able to survive to -60 instead of only -15. Huge difference.

F. I'm not sure what this means.

 

[Generico]

But here is what I don't like:

a) Annoying subsystem you have to remember.

How is it anymore annoying or difficult to remember than the current rules?

The system is incredibly simple. Roll a d20, if it's less than 10, you fail. If it's 10-19, nothing happens. If it's 20, you win. If you fail 3 times before you win, you die. There's nothing there that makes you keep track of -HP.

b) Always 'healthy' or 'dying' with no in-between states.

If you need that for the system to feel believable, use the SWSE condition track.

c) Constitution plays no role in your chance to stabilize or recover, and hit points play no large role in how likely you are to stay alive.

Well, HP definitely does play a roll in how likely you are to stay alive. In fact, it plays a bigger roll because it's increasing your survivability chances in 2 ways now.

d) NPC's and PC's have to be treated differently, except arbitrarily when they don't.

They're treated differently for everyone's convenience. If you want to treat all monsters like PCs, there's nothing to stop you. But if a monster has no role in your story aside from attacking the PCs until they die, then what's the point of giving it the chance to get back up after it's dead? Whether or not Owlbear #4 gets back up after falling to -3 HP probably isn't going to have any serious effect on your game, so why bother rolling percentiles for him?


Personally, I like the fact that the system is unpredictable. I also like that you have a chance to get back up and be in plausible fighting condition without the need for healing magic (though it's a slim chance).

I think everyone has to keep in mind that this article is somewhat out of context. We really don't know all the details of the system, and we don't know all the details about how healing magic and resurrection will work. I think it's a bit early to be doing all this mechanics bashing.