Do Monsters Dream of Vampire Sheep?

[BobbyMac]

I know that when you hack a monster down to 0 hp it's dead. That's the way I've always played it cause who the heck cares if it stabilizes at -7 hp or not.

I had a player ask me where this is in the rules and, for the life of me, I can't find it!


Please help!

 

[frankthedm]

It is not in the rules sadly. Everything gets that -10 window in this edition. In other editions It may have been specified as a PC / Heroic / Villan NPC option, but in 3e everything gets till -10.

In my own houserules I reseve the right to Declare Dead any NPC sent into negative HP by lethal damage.

 

[IanB]

You may be thinking of undead and constructs, which do die at 0 hp.

 

[BobbyMac]

It is not in the rules sadly. Everything gets that -10 window in this edition. In other editions It may have been specified as a PC / Heroic / Villan NPC option, but in 3e everything gets till -10.

In my own houserules I reseve the right to Declare Dead any NPC sent into negative HP by lethal damage.

That's an eminently reasonable house rule, but is it in the RAW that they REALLY expect us to roll stabilization checks for NPC's!!!!!!!

AHA HAHAHAHA!!! (sorry, got a little carried away there...)

(excepting major NPC's of course...(although of course they would certainly live if necessary ))

 

[orcmonk220]

Personally, I agree with frankthedm. An NPC in all my games go down at 0 hp, they don't get that -1 - -10 option.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think that you can done whatever you want with the monsters and NPCs, and that the stabilization rules are mostly added as a touch of realism and maybe as a hope for the PCs, in rare cases anyway (99% of the times the PCs are saved by their comrades, or they die).

I never roll stabilization checks for monsters and NPCs... In the unlikely case that I think an apparently dead NPC should return, I'd rather decide with a single roll (or even without it).

Rolling these checks for ALL monsters and NPCs is quite an insane waste of time IMHO

 

[Aeric]

Rolling these checks for ALL monsters and NPCs is quite an insane waste of time IMHO

Unless you really want to make your players' lives hell and have every opponent they ever dropped but didn't finish off come back for vengeance against them later on....

 

[IanB]

I definitely disagree with the NPCs-die-at-zero idea in play terms; that makes it much more difficult for characters to ever take prisoners, in a way that doesn't apply to their enemies.

 

[frankthedm]

I definitely disagree with the NPCs-die-at-zero idea in play terms; that makes it much more difficult for characters to ever take prisoners, in a way that doesn't apply to their enemies.

Strike to subdue. If someone can't bring themself to take -4 to hit someone, they obviously feel that foe is too dangerous to be left alive.

My beef with -10 is that it started out in basic or 1e or dragon magazine as a chance, not an assurance for a PC to stay alive. Save vs death each round until you pass on, make the save and loose 1 more HP. Dead at -10 no matter what. In 3e is it now a guaranteed buffer, something that gets expected and taken for granted.

 

[BobbyMac]

I searched hi and low for something to confirm or deny this in the RAW.

I finally found this in the SRD which seems to support (albeit a bit indirectly) the -1 to -10 dying range for NPC's and monsters....

It's one of the wereboars extraordinary combat abilities:



Ferocity (Ex): A wereboar is such a tenacious combatant that it continues to fight without penalty even while disabled or dying.



Learn something new everyday! (although Ima yoinkin frankthedm's houserule...heh)