Hitting the negative HP gap.

[Zarthon]

As characters increase in level the damage per attack taken increases. While most characters will try to leave battles or heal when their hit points get low this is frequently not possible. As a DM, it is much easier to accidentily kill a character by doing enough damage to blow completely past all 10 points of the negative buffer.

I am considering a rule that increases players negative hit points as they level up. Perhaps as simple as +1 neg point per level. Maybe something more class dependant. Not sure yet.

Anyone played with this and what kind of solutions have you used?

I have used the "Variant Rule: Slower Dying" on Sean K Reynolds web site for a while now, and Im quite happy with the way it works.

 

[KarinsDad]

My solution, as with so many issues that are only issues at higher levels, is a custom feat.

Aaaarrrrggggghhhhh!

I hate feats as solutions to game mechanics issues since virtually nobody will take the feat and hence, it will not address the issue. I hate feats anyway (because there are so darn many of them).


With regard to the original posters topic, I can understand that at high level, larger damage attacks will result in a greater chance of blowing through all 10 points.

However, I do not think that increasing those 10 points is the solution to the problem.

In our game, we have two house rules which combined allow us to handle this issue:

1) Each character is at -1 to all rolls for each 1/3rd damage s/he is at. In other words, a character with 30 hit points is at -3 at 0 hits, -2 at 1 to 10 hits, -1 at 11 to 20 hits, and -0 at 21 to 30 hit points.

Since most PCs attempt to heal up if wounded at all in our game, the chances of getting knocked below zero are less (i.e. they do not get in combat at all if possible if most or all of the players are 33% or more damaged on average).

2) Any character below -9 can be healed within one round of "dying" and if the healing gets them to -9 or higher, they do not die.

That means that Potions of Cure X Wounds become more important, both to get PCs (and NPCs) out of wounded categories and to keep allies alive.

 

[Spatzimaus]

The most common solution is just to replace "-10" with "-CON", or with "-10 - CON bonus" but I think the system has more fundamental flaws than that. Your "positive" HP scale with level, HD size, and CON bonus, so your negative could also. Some of the other suggestions here add 1 for every level or HD, but that's not quite enough to me; a Barbarian would still have the same buffer as a Wizard of similar CON, even though their max HP would be totally different.

One suggestion I've seen before was just to have a flat ratio, where your "unconscious" buffer is maybe 1/5th of your Max HP, rounded down of course, with a minimum of 1. So, a 200-HP Dragon dies at -40, and if he gains a few more HD or a CON boost his buffer will increase accordingly. At the low end, a first-level person won't have much room to work with, though. But, this gives another use for Toughness, in that you could have it also increase the buffer by 3.

 

[Coredump]

If the objection to a feat is that no one will take it, than maybe it isn't that much of a problem...

And my house rule is: You are much higher level, and have lots more hit points, and much more magic. You should be able to regulate when you heal and when you run better. Instead of waiting until you are at 5hp. heal when at 25hp.

The negative 10 mechanic I feel is just a kludge to keep low level characters from dieing from one sword blow. I don't think of it as cheating high level characters, high level characters shouldn't need the 'buffer'. It is only needed by low level characters. Therefore I like it the way it is.

.

 

[d(sqrt(-1))]

we've used

-(10 + CON bonus + level + Feat mods)

as the death threshold. The Feat mod is something like Toughness, etc, that gives you extra hp, which seemed to make it a more useful feat. Seems to work ok for us.

Mark

 

[TuDogz]

_____________
If the objection to a feat is that no one will take it, than maybe it isn't that much of a problem...

And my house rule is: You are much higher level, and have lots more hit points, and much more magic. You should be able to regulate when you heal and when you run better. Instead of waiting until you are at 5hp. heal when at 25hp.


The negative 10 mechanic I feel is just a kludge to keep low level characters from dieing from one sword blow. I don't think of it as cheating high level characters, high level characters shouldn't need the 'buffer'. It is only needed by low level characters. Therefore I like it the way it is.
_____________

It is not this simple. A balanced high level party will consist of a 130 HP warrior and a 40-50 HP rogue or sorceror.

As a DM if I get my NPC warrior up against the party warrior its no big deal. The juggernauts can work it out. Put that same NPC warrior into a full attack sequence against a fully healed rogue or sorceror and a death is highly likely. As a DM I find myself deoptimizing NPC tactics at critical junctures to avoid killing players. Also, high level spells are set to damage fighters and high HP characters. Low HP characters are stuck balancing their lives on one saving throw too often in high level games.

I also don't like the feat option. If every high level character should take a given feat, which is how I would classify a feat that solves this problem, then the problem is in the base rules.

I like the solutions that create a "disabled state" hit point range. It gets rid of some of D&Ds fully functional until dead system without creating the bookeepping nightmares of some other systems. I guess I just want to see some heroic/vile last words occasionally.

 

[KarinsDad]

It is not this simple. A balanced high level party will consist of a 130 HP warrior and a 40-50 HP rogue or sorceror.

This seems a bit of an exageration.

If your Warrior is using a D10 or D12 versus the D4 or D6 of the sorcerer or rogue, he should have about double the hit points, not more. Granted, Con can bump this up, but at least in our games, Sorcerers and Rogues take Con too.

Example: 13th level Fighter with 18 CON has an average of 132 hits. 13th level Sorcerer with 14 CON has an average of 60 hits.

As a DM if I get my NPC warrior up against the party warrior its no big deal. The juggernauts can work it out. Put that same NPC warrior into a full attack sequence against a fully healed rogue or sorceror and a death is highly likely.

Again, this seems strange. If your opponent is dealing 60+ points of damage to take out the Sorcerer or Rogue in one round, he is dealing 60+ points of damage per round to take out the Warrior in two rounds (3 if the warrior has a high AC). In either case, it would seem that the opponent is the problem, not the -10 rule.

As a DM I find myself deoptimizing NPC tactics at critical junctures to avoid killing players. Also, high level spells are set to damage fighters and high HP characters. Low HP characters are stuck balancing their lives on one saving throw too often in high level games.

Low hit points characters have options that high hit points characters can only dream of.

Rogues get Evasion at second level. That stops boatloads of hit points of damage from spells.

Sorcerers can get protection spells which boost saves. They can get ability score enhancement spells (which can boost hit points, saves, and/or AC).

High hit point characters have AC and hit points to protect them. Sure, they can have magic items or get spells cast on them by allies, but its not the same as having the ability themself.


I think you should do the opposite of deoptimizing NPC tactics. You should hit PCs with everything including the kitchen sink with your NPCs. That will force your players to improve THEIR tactics.

You are doing a disservice to your players by spoon feeding them with inferior tactics and changes of rules to protect them. IMO.

 

[hong]

High hit point characters have AC and hit points to protect them. Sure, they can have magic items or get spells cast on them by allies, but its not the same as having the ability themself.

Huh? Why not? Evasion is evasion, whether it's a class ability or something you get from a ring. A +4 enhancement bonus to Con is a +4 enhancement bonus to Con, whether it's from bear's endurance or an amulet of health.

I think you should do the opposite of deoptimizing NPC tactics. You should hit PCs with everything including the kitchen sink with your NPCs. That will force your players to improve THEIR tactics.

You are doing a disservice to your players by spoon feeding them with inferior tactics and changes of rules to protect them. IMO.

IME, it's scarily easy to kill PCs at high levels, whether you try to or not. There just isn't that much room for error. My campaign is about 11th level now, and there's been five deaths in the last six sessions. These are strong PCs (36-point buy) with plenty of magic stuff, and I'm not trying to kill people (quite the opposite, really), but all it takes is one slip-up.

And anyway, maybe I don't WANT to force people to improve their tactics. I'm playing D&D for the chance to relax and kick righteous butt, not to engage in the intellectual exercise of a tactical wargame. Others play for the chance to pretend to be someone else, or to take part in a storyline, or to explore an imaginary world, etcetera. If you're a gamer fitting into any of these categories, changing the rules so that the game becomes less deadly as a default is a perfectly reasonable pursuit.

 

[Chacal]

we've used

-(10 + CON bonus + level + Feat mods)

Judging by your username, I expected something a little bit more complex/weird


Back to the topic :
I like the staggered from 0 to - level, dying from -level to (-level+con bonus)
using tougness to expand the staggered range is interesting.
I might worry a bit about the [insert monster]'s toughness, though.


Chacal

 

[Musrum]

This is my system.
At first level everything is the same:
You get your full HD in hit-points ( 1 to HD);
You get your level in disabled-points ( 0 );
You get your level plus 8 in unconcious-points (-9 to -1).

As you level up you get and extra:
Half your HD in hit-points (round down);
One extra disabled-point;
One extra unconcious-point.

Example:
1st Level Fighter, CON 14
Hit-points: 1 to 12
Disabled-points: 0
Unconcious-points: -9 to -1

2nd Level Fighter, CON 14
Hit-points: 1 to 19
Disabled-points: -1 to 0
Unconcious-points: -11 to -2

20th Level Fighter, CON 18
Hit-points: 1 to 185
Disabled-points: -19 to 0
Unconcious-points: -48 to -20