how long do you let combat go? why?

[rkanodia]

Kind of a side topic, how do people deal with 'knocking on death's door'? I remember it was a big deal in the version I originally learned to play (AD&D 2E), wiped your spell slots, fatigue, just generally cleaned your clock. However, I haven't really seen anything like that in 3.0/3.5 (which I admittedly have limited experience in). In one (not-so-recent) play session, my Sorceror got shredded to -4 HP by a Baaz-like draconian, and nearly died from the acid spray when it was killed. The party Cleric threw a couple of cures down on him and he was back in business at about half his maximum life. The DM asked us what we were going to do, and it went something like this:

DM: What are you doing?
Rogue: There has to be a secret door, the bad guy couldn't have made it all the way down that hallway carrying the girl in one round. I'm searching.
Cleric: Anyone else need heals?
Rogue: Yeah, I could use a cure light wounds.
Cleric: Ok, I cure him.
Monk: Is there anything left of the draconian-like creature? I want to examine it.
DM: Ok, just one sec. What are YOU doing?
Me: I'm slumped against the dungeon wall, catching my breath. 'Thanks. I guess we're even.'
Monk: Why?
Me: I just got battered into unconsciouness, then woke up with a bucket of acid splashed on my face.
Monk: Right, that's why the cleric healed you.
Me: Sure, but it's still traumatic.
Monk: Traumatic? You're supposed to be a hero.
Me: A hero who has just been KO'd for the first time and didn't particularly enjoy it.

Anyway, the DM broke it up before it could get any more pointless. But I am curious: how do other people handle low HP? I can see that the game will quickly degenerate if every near-death experience turns the victim into a paranoid psychotic, but doesn't it take some of the drama out to have characters spring up from the jaws of death and get moving without so much as asking 'What happened while I was asleep?'

 

[Crothian]

If I was runny a grittier game, I'd use con x2 rounds before exhaustion penalties apply.

 

[Pants]

Kind of a side topic, how do people deal with 'knocking on death's door'? I remember it was a big deal in the version I originally learned to play (AD&D 2E), wiped your spell slots, fatigue, just generally cleaned your clock. However, I haven't really seen anything like that in 3.0/3.5 (which I admittedly have limited experience in). In one (not-so-recent) play session, my Sorceror got shredded to -4 HP by a Baaz-like draconian, and nearly died from the acid spray when it was killed. The party Cleric threw a couple of cures down on him and he was back in business at about half his maximum life. The DM asked us what we were going to do, and it went something like this:

DM: What are you doing?
Rogue: There has to be a secret door, the bad guy couldn't have made it all the way down that hallway carrying the girl in one round. I'm searching.
Cleric: Anyone else need heals?
Rogue: Yeah, I could use a cure light wounds.
Cleric: Ok, I cure him.
Monk: Is there anything left of the draconian-like creature? I want to examine it.
DM: Ok, just one sec. What are YOU doing?
Me: I'm slumped against the dungeon wall, catching my breath. 'Thanks. I guess we're even.'
Monk: Why?
Me: I just got battered into unconsciouness, then woke up with a bucket of acid splashed on my face.
Monk: Right, that's why the cleric healed you.
Me: Sure, but it's still traumatic.
Monk: Traumatic? You're supposed to be a hero.
Me: A hero who has just been KO'd for the first time and didn't particularly enjoy it.

Anyway, the DM broke it up before it could get any more pointless. But I am curious: how do other people handle low HP? I can see that the game will quickly degenerate if every near-death experience turns the victim into a paranoid psychotic, but doesn't it take some of the drama out to have characters spring up from the jaws of death and get moving without so much as asking 'What happened while I was asleep?'

I remember that. During 2ed, my DM used to rule that you were pretty much useless after getting knocked below 0 and healed until you got a full nights rest. I hated getting KO'ed so I ended playing a coward all the time. It was just too excessive for my tastes, but I wouldn't mind something less extreme, like having the character make only single actions for a number of rounds modified by the character's Con modifier.

 

[Norfleet]

Hell, you don't even need to be knocked out to do some honest gasping and wheezing after a fight. Having been in fights before, I can tell you that I wouldn't mind a breather after any fight, even one that ended without injury. The sheer tumult of being in a FIGHT is enough to make one wish a moment's contemplation to get one's thoughts in order, even if the fight itself wasn't physically tiring.

 

[tetsujin28]

As long as they want -- they're D&D characters. If I wanted realistic exhaustion rules, I'd use Hero or something like that. Normally I just find it gets in the way.

 

[green slime]

Wow. I see many people have 10 round combats as being unusual. The average time for a combat IMC is around 15-18 rounds, with quite a few stretching beyond 30 rounds.

 

[jeffsforehead]

I remember six minute matches. I was a lightweight (112's), and those matches are all moving (unlike heavyweight matches, which were just fat guys slamming into each other). Sometimes you couldn't help but vomiting and quivering like a jelly afterwards. I couldn't imagine doing it with a sword and shield and plate mail and against an orc or ogre or dragon or something.

 

[S'mon]

I'd start making Fatigue rolls after 50 combat rounds/ 5 minutes of constant fighting - this only matters in mass battles of course, the typical 3e combat lasts 2-5 rounds. It's relevant to how many hundred enemy sword-fodder mooks the high level PC fighters can kill in one battle (the highest number I know of in western-European mythology is the 900 Saxons Arthur supposedly killed at Badon Hill), not to a regular dungeon-crawl. Check can be avoided by 5 minutes' rest for every 5 minutes of fighting. A typical high level fighter PC IMC can thus roam the battlefield killing 1 NPC mook (charge or move + standard action) per 12 seconds, 50/10 minutes or 300/hour, which is about as long as a typical medieval battle's engagement period would usually last. They could kill 900 in 3 hours, but will typically have been attacked themselves once per mook they kill, 900 in 3 hours, 1/20 hits - 45 hits, if typical damage is 5hp that's 225hp damage over the period. That assumes little or no concerted enemy attempt to kill the PC.

 

[green slime]

Requiring Fatigue/Exhaustion rolls for PCs seriously up the danger level when fighting masses of constructs or undead, which don't have Constitution scores and need not worry about such mundane things.

Not a bad idea.

I have been considering the following rule for my next campaign:

Fighting in melee for a number of rounds greater than your Constitution score entails a Fort save DC 10 to avoid becoming Fatigued. The DC increases by one each round beyond the first. A fatigued character cannot run or charge, and suffers –2 to Strength and Dexterity. Fatigue is removed by 8 hours of complete rest. If a fatigued character remains in battle, the Fort DC continues to climb, and this time they become exhausted on a failed save. An exhausted character can only move at half normal speed and suffers an effective penalty of –6 to Strength and Dexterity. After one hour of complete rest, an exhausted character becomes fatigued.
The feat Endurance grants a +4 bonus to this check.

I remember from fencing just how tiring it was to bounce around and try to poke a piece of metal into someone. I was rather fit then, as well.

 

[Silverglass]

This is a hard one to answer, SCA is more about pitched battles than adventuring and LARP doesn't have the same equipment weights although the exertion model is right. But I will use the LARP experience as the fact that the equipment is around half to two thirds the weight (20 lbs for a chain shirt, 2-3 lbs for a longsword etc) should be balanced by the factors that a) I LARP about 4 times a year and b) I spend the rest of the time sitting at a desk so I would not approach the level of fitness of a professional adventurer and hero. So taking that into account I will draw some parallels

Within a 12 hour adventuring day of 6 hours trekking through the forest and hills there are normally about 8-10 fighting encounters. Fights of about 10 mins did not lead to a noticeable impairment of fighting ability (although after the adrenaline wears off you do need a rest). A big running battle of 20-30 minutes is where you start to reach the point where fatigue really starts affecting your abilities (although less so for unarmoured people).

All in all I would say that a reasonable ruling would be between CON and CON *2 minutes until characters start accruing penalties, if you want to be accurate then base it off load, CON * 2 for a light load, CON * 1.5 for a medium load and CON minutes for a heavy load would be accurate IMO.