Death and Life through rules mistakes

[Quasqueton]

The beginning of the first combat of the game session:

On my first action I ride my horse up to the fight perimeter and dismount.

An orc charges up 60' and hacks with his greataxe. Natural 20. Crit confirmed. 31 damage vs. my fully healthy 20 hit points. -11. Damn.

The DM said to put my character at -9 and get two rounds of stabilization checks. I first explained that -10 is dead, so I'd get only one round of stabilization. But he said he had a DM let him stabilize at -10, so he'd let me this time.

But I then said I don't want to live by cheating. It was a fair attack by the orc, and I just wouldn't feel right letting him twist things so my character would live.

So the combat around my dead body continued, and I started sadly considering a new character.

The next round, an orc moved 30' around a dead horse to attack the barbarian PC.

I said, "didn't you say these orcs are wearing hide armor?"

"Yes."

"Well they have a speed of only 20' then. He can't move 30' and attack." [Was not a straight line, so no charge.]

"Are you sure."

"Yep." And I checked the PHB to show.

"OK, the orc just moves up into position."

Then another player pointed out, "Didn't your orc charge 60' to attack you last round?"

BOING! My character was back up and in the fight. When all was over I had survived the fight without a scratch, and even revived another dying PC. [Only one round had passed since my PC fell, and the orc that had "killed" him was still standing in the same spot.]

It's kind of a jolt to go from contemplating a next character to finding out you are actually alive and well in one round. Why didn't I notice the orcs' movement descrepancy when the orc attacked me? That's a really bad time to have a brain lapse.

Oh well, all's well that ends well.


Do you have any such tales of having to alter past actions because of a rules mistake with serious consequences?

And would you have taken the DM's offer to stay at -9 and have two rounds of stabilization?

Quasqueton

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Happens all the time. The game has, what, 400 pages of basic rules? We don't worry about it much. It is jarring, but what are you gonna do (aside from play lots and lots and lots and lots!)

I have the "If it's Tuesday" ruling. That is to say, "If we are playing on Tuesday when it is raining outside and the DM looks in the book and reads a rule that if it is Tuesday and it is raining, people named Biggus Geekus automatically lose the combat and die horribly. Then that is what will happen."

It's basically a kind of mantra I use to remind myself that this is just a game and we're all there to have fun. I may get boned by a rule this week, but the rules may work in my favor next week, so I won't complain.

Just my two cents.

 

[Arnwyn]

I agree with BiggusGeekus and his mantra. The same goes for me and my group.

It happens *very very* rarely, but we are willing to quickly "fix" a mistake in the middle of battle - it is just a game, after all, and as a DM, my personal motto is to "never let a PC die due to the DM's mistake".

I can only remember one time when it happened - about 5 months ago, I had an NPC move up to a held PC and coup de grace'd him. In the same round. Oops. (The PCs didn't even catch that and let him die, until a round later I realized what I had done. So the coup de grace never happened, and the PCs grabbed their held companion and retreated. AoO against the held guy was still safer than a coup de grace.)

As for the "bonus" round of stabilization - as a player I would have taken it. No biggie. I know for sure that all my players would have taken it in a second.

 

[Centaur]

Not exactly a mistake with the rules, but more of an omision of descriptions.

I was DMing a group of 3 1st level characters at the begining of a campaign. They had managed to sneak up to an area they wanted to gain access to.

I described a group of 5 tough looking guards at the door. My intent was for the party to sneak past them behind some crates and through an archway. They would then be free and clear.

They decided that it was too risky and dicided to attack the guards head to head and take them down. I tried to talk them out of it, but they were tired of sneaking around and wanted to fight.

3 rounds into the fight, two of the PCs were dead or dying and the third was running for his life with 1 HP remaining.

After some heated discussions, it was discovered that I had failed to mention (and the Players failed to ask) what sort of armor the guards where wearing. In this case, it was Full Plate.

So we reset the scene, and I let them make their sneak rolls to et past the guards like they were supposed to do in the first place.

To this Very Day, I am known for the Saying "Oh, By the way, Their wearing Full Plate"

The moral, it's not just rules that can get you. As a DM, make sure you describe the scene very well. As a Player, assume the DM has missed something and ask questions about anything you feel may be important.

As for the extra round of stabalization, I probably would take it, unless I wanted to make up a new character.

House Rule Alert
In our games, we allow characters to be in the staggered state (normaly happens at 0 HP) to be from 0 to a negative total of the characters Con bonus.
Also, your don't die until you go to a negative total of your con attribute past your stagard range. This allows for some variation in survivability between characters and makes it a little harder for a character to be outright killed.
(example. 16 Constitution = Staggered from 0 to -3 and dies if he goes down to -20 or lower)
End Houe Rule

 

[Henry]

Just happened to me this weekend. The PC's fought goblins in a dead-magic zone, and I stupidly forgot that they were in a Dead Magic Zone. So we had to reorganize

-1 mage armor casting that actually failed
-1 cure light wounds that a player never would have cast had he realized it would not work
-1 spear hit that missed but actually hit because of the 4-point armor difference

All in the space of one round. Oh, well. The rest of the combat played noticably easier.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Don't sweat it, stuff happens -- I make mistakes all the time, particularly with spell effects. If it really screws a PC, we'll redo, but usually it's just "Oops, this is how it's supposed to work" and we go from there.

I've had one or two BBEG's go down in a fight because I forgot to write a special quality (SR, DR) in a stat block, or a player misread a spell effect. But no biggee, it's just a game after all, and the final outcome would probably have been the same, just the path there would be different.

We happen to use death at -Con score, instead of -10, which gives a little variability between PCs.