ExploderWizard
Hero
If you permenantly lose a point of CON when you are brought back and a lower CON means the chances of surviving the process becomes more difficult then death still has a high cost.
D&D 5E Does anyone DIE in D&D Next: Stabilization Problems
- Thread starter Johnny Champion
- Start date
If you permenantly lose a point of CON when you are brought back and a lower CON means the chances of surviving the process becomes more difficult then death still has a high cost.
howandwhy99
Adventurer
The -10 dead rule from early games of D&D was a house rule because 0 hp = dead usually resulted in at least one or more lost PCs early on. The game was balanced with damage rolled to hit points rolled. d6 each. With the rare modifier to damage from Str possible. Say +1 or +2 at 18.
Extended Str (percentile) was possible in part because of Fighters gaining the d10 hit die. The +4 damage on a single attack by a Fighter was probably being delivered to another Fighter. Did you roll poorly on hit points? You should bulk up on armor and attack from ranged and behind cover. It was possible to have 1 hp and 18 extended Str, but you would want to shore up your weaknesses and maximize your strengths (like in any game) before entering battle.
-10 kept PCs of the early, say, third of the ten levels from automatically dying from a single hit. Even if you only had 1 hp at 1st level, the enemy 18/00 fighter wielding a 2-handed claymore rolling maximum damage (a critical!) meant you might lose 14 hit points. That's just barely dead, but you could do the math and realize this guy needed to be fought from range. 18 strength and +2 was more likely, but 12 hit points still meant dead.
If you get hit in early D&D, you probably should run. Most monsters roll morale then. Loss of half the hit points is a shock.
Extended Str (percentile) was possible in part because of Fighters gaining the d10 hit die. The +4 damage on a single attack by a Fighter was probably being delivered to another Fighter. Did you roll poorly on hit points? You should bulk up on armor and attack from ranged and behind cover. It was possible to have 1 hp and 18 extended Str, but you would want to shore up your weaknesses and maximize your strengths (like in any game) before entering battle.
-10 kept PCs of the early, say, third of the ten levels from automatically dying from a single hit. Even if you only had 1 hp at 1st level, the enemy 18/00 fighter wielding a 2-handed claymore rolling maximum damage (a critical!) meant you might lose 14 hit points. That's just barely dead, but you could do the math and realize this guy needed to be fought from range. 18 strength and +2 was more likely, but 12 hit points still meant dead.
If you get hit in early D&D, you probably should run. Most monsters roll morale then. Loss of half the hit points is a shock.
Sword of Spirit
Legend
I actually house-rule it myself (in Next I would raise the price and cause the penalties to decrease by 1 after a month rather than a long rest), as well as providing in-setting non-mechanical (mostly) reasons why it is almost a taboo practice.
@GMforPowergamers ,
Sounds fairly standard. I wasn't commenting specifically on your usage, just offering a general questioning observation. I so often see comments from a variety of sources about having to make new characters, that it makes me wonder if many people are changing the resurrection rules and then commenting on how the dying rules don't work. Well yeah, if you change one part of the rules you aren't playing by the book any more. It may work better (and often does) or may work worse, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to criticize the the system based on a combination of your own house-rules with other rules as written.
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
There's a monster in 4e that explicitly violates this rule, the charnel cinderhouse. It's a brute. If it drops a PC, it gets an automatic attack against the now-downed opponent, and that attacks does ongoing damage. I haven't yet used it, but that's nasty.
The last two 4e PCs IMC died of two causes: one from failing three death saves (most of the PCs were unconscious, and were rescued by the bad guys and imprisoned), and another from being dropped to below minus bloodied by two simultaneous psychic attacks. If you have seen the exploding head in Scanners (aka Your Head 'Asplode) then you know what happened. That same PC nearly died in the previous encounter when he got dropped and then an opponent got to attack him again. (And rolled a "1" to hit. Yes you can apparently miss an unconscious and helpless PC.)
If stabilization is hard, you get more one-off kills. If stabilization is easy, PCs tend to die when everyone else has been hacked apart, so one-off kills are rare and most deaths occur in TPKs. If you can't take much damage below 0, the line between life and death becomes very thin, and downed PCs can easily die due to AoE attacks, zones, and auras. (I need to write monster auras that don't damage downed PCs, somehow.)
I don't really see that happening here. I mean, from the point of view of a DM who hates easy resurrection but wants a fair bit of continuity in the party, 5E's lenient death-and-dying rules are a feature, not a bug. The people complaining want character death to be more frequent, not less so.
I suspect that this will be an adjustable dial, though. If you want to increase campaign lethality, ratchet down the number of failed death saves you're allowed. If PCs die on the second failed save instead of the third, the body count will go up noticeably. If they die on the first--ouch! And, of course, you can crank the lethality up to maximum by dispensing with death saves altogether. Characters die at zero, old-school style.
Sadras
Legend
In our last session, the PCs were in combat against an enemy Fighter. After a few rounds of fighting, the enemy Fighter dropped a PC with one of his regular attacks to 0hp, the enemy Fighter then utilised his Action Surge to gain an additional action performing a successful Coup de Grace killing the PC instantly.
So sadly ended the 2&1/2 year run of a PC. (No known resurrection in this campaign).
But generally if you do not use house rules or the 0=dead old rule, what you have is a terrible "I'm down - No I'm up" approach in combat which, IMO, breaks immersion and requires, if you're playing intelligent NPCs to execute the PCs immediately when they fall to ensure their opposition never gets up.
Healing generally needs to be reworked (especially recovering when a PC has fallen) - PCs that drop should be out of the combat for a few rounds at least while the wounds are being knit closed by the healing spell. PCs shouldn't be fighting fit the round after the heal.
So sadly ended the 2&1/2 year run of a PC. (No known resurrection in this campaign).
But generally if you do not use house rules or the 0=dead old rule, what you have is a terrible "I'm down - No I'm up" approach in combat which, IMO, breaks immersion and requires, if you're playing intelligent NPCs to execute the PCs immediately when they fall to ensure their opposition never gets up.
Healing generally needs to be reworked (especially recovering when a PC has fallen) - PCs that drop should be out of the combat for a few rounds at least while the wounds are being knit closed by the healing spell. PCs shouldn't be fighting fit the round after the heal.
Last edited:
ExploderWizard
Hero
I don't believe its correct to assume that all people who enjoy playing a higher lethality system want more frequent character death. I much prefer characters survive thier adventures (from either side of the screen) but also that they do so by playing smart. I see character survival as a win condition not a guaranteed outcome. If I, as a player, can keep doing ridiculous stupid things again and again yet survive no matter what then the game isn't much of a challenge, and gets boring quickly. If I'm doing my best to have my character commit suicide and its next to impossible then thats a bug not a feature.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I agree.
Also, while in some ways I'm as old-school as they come straight death-at-0 has never worked for me, mostly because I think there needs to be some sort of middle ground where someone can be incapacitated or knocked out...dying, but not dead yet. Setting the death pont to -10 works really well here, as it opens the 0 to -9 range up for unconsciousness chance, lessened ability to do anything if conscious, and increasingly-fast bleed-out until and unless someone gets to you to stabilize and-or cure you. It's far from perfect but it's a bit more realistic - and sometimes more dramatic - than straight death at 0.
And if you do go below 0 and get patched up we have a (very low) limit on how much healing you can get until a certain amount of time has passed, with the time amount set by how far below 0 you went and by what grade of cure was used to heal you up...we call this status "incurable". If you only went to -1 you become curable again in a few hours at worst, and often immediately. If you went to -9 you're usually incurable for at least a few days. Needless to say, incurable characters should probably rest until they regain curability, or at least stay well away from anything that causes damage.
Lanefan
Doctor Futurity
Hero
What I am hoping for is that this will be a "variable setting" rule where you can ratchet up or down the lethality to suit to taste. The problem is that if you make the system too forgiving then that has an effect on player behavior; make it too lethal and likewise. But some groups want games where dropping to 0 HP is just a matter of a surge or helping hand away from relief, while others want zero hit points to mean something more significant or "realistic" in terms of limited action, incapacitation and so forth.
Hopefully the final product will accommodate both styles of play and whatever is in the middle, too.
Hopefully the final product will accommodate both styles of play and whatever is in the middle, too.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
If you want a more lethal system, just use the existing rules. Once a PC goes down to 0, simply have monsters coup de grace them. It's a simple system: "If you hit, the attack is automatically a critical hit. If the creature was already at 0 hit points, it dies." Your players will figure out real quick that 0 hit points usually results in death, if you start doing that.
Similar Threads
D&D General
Hard Moves (in D&D)
