D&D 4E Grittifiying 4e: Making the death save deadlier

[Stalker0]

Here's an alteration to the death and dying rules to make them a little more gritty:

"If you fail a death save, you lose one healing surge. If your out of healing surges, it counts as if you failed 2 death saves."

This way you don't get the "oh, we have 3 rounds to save him" mentality. The longer you wait, now the worse it gets.

 

[Wiman]

On the other hand it also limits the "lets kick in this last door" style of play....anyone with anything less then three surges left and a squishy character is going to be super cautious.

I like it because I like a gritty feel to my game, but I can see others not liking it.

 

[Iron Sky]

Alternatively - and it would take less bookkeeping - you could just have a natural 1 mean they die. No healing surge loss and only gives a 5% chance for them to die, but I think it's enough incentive for the players to bust @$$ to get to their friends.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Or you could lessen the number of failures-to-death to two. That alone will increase deaths by -- definitely just eyeballing -- 80 percent or so, for an untended character.

 

[arscott]

Edit: Never mind, misunderstood the procedure.