"I dive into the Bush of Burning Rashes"

[HellHound]

Light damage from chewing and swallowing glass shards? I might be wrong, but I strongly suspect that swallowing glass shards would be lethal.

I have friends who eat lightbulbs at least three times a week. (Part of a circus sideshow 'geek' act)

 

[WanderingMonster]

Reminds me of the Saturday Night Live sketch with Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest, "Oow. I HATE when that happens."

 

[jmucchiello]

In my gritty modern games, or my urban Arcanis campaign, I call for Will saves to be that brave. Which is odd when I think of it, as that means that Wizards are going to be more likely to jump into a withering hail of auto-fire than a Fighter.

Hmmmm....

You might want to try using a Character Level check for these kinds of things. Create a Foolhardy feat for +4 to Character Level checks used to override instinctual need for caution.

 

[Tiew]

Hey Ourph, did you ever see Dirty Harry? If you did, remember the scene were he's at the doctor's after taking a few shotgun pellets in the leg? It went something like this.

Doctor: "Ok, I'm going to cut the pants now."
Dirty Harry: "What? These pants cost 16 dollars!"
Doctor: "Well, they're stuck to the wound. If I just pull them off it's gonna hurt a bit."
Dirty Harry: "For 16 dollars I can stand a little pain."

I think Dirty Harry would jump off the cliff to save his expensive longsword. Sounds like a fighterish thing to do to me.

Tiew

 

[Ourph]

I guess it comes down to this....IRL everyone knows that if you jump off a 20ft cliff you'll probably survive, but there's always a chance you'll land wrong and break a leg or crack your skull open. In-game everyone knows that you'll take a couple d6's of damage and walk away otherwise unscathed. I'd like my players to look at taking damage from their character's perspective rather than just as numbers on a page. I'd like for them to see themselves at half HP and think "I'm exhausted, tired, pretty cut up. I'm really hurting!" rather than "Cool, I'm good to go for another couple rounds, then I'll have the Cleric slap a Cure Serious on me." There are two ways to promote that viewpoint rules-wise. 1) The DM can make the rules support it by adding in all sorts of criticals tables with various injuries and disabilities to make jumping off a 20ft cliff more dangerous; or 2) The DM can just take the time to remind the players what damage really means to their characters every once in a while, and veto certain actions when the players start metagaming.

I prefer #2 because #1 complicates things too much for my taste, and often comes with its own set of metagame problems.

This isn't to say that I'm dead set against letting characters choose to do something heroic or macho if it fits the situation. The Dirty Harry example is a good one. I'd definitely allow something like that. OTOH, if an NPC offered a PC 20gp to stab himself with a dagger and the players response is "Sure, I can heal 1d4+2 damage overnight. Hand over the gold." that's obviously not playing the situation in character. Would Dirty Harry give himself a superficial stab wound to the leg for $20.00?

 

[OaxacanWarrior]

Anyone else find the Title of this thread really naughty?

Yep...that's why I'm here reading it! j/k

 

[Laurel]

I use the "Rule of Three".
"Seems dangerous. Are you sure?"
"On reflection that seems unwise and potentially harmful with no upside. Are you positively sure?"
"I hope you have you been planning what type of character you'd like to play next. Are you absolutely positive?"

My DM uses similar tactics... though obviously not in your exact words, the meaning is the same.

 

[Particle_Man]

I guess it comes down to this....IRL everyone knows that if you jump off a 20ft cliff you'll probably survive, but there's always a chance you'll land wrong and break a leg or crack your skull open. In-game everyone knows that you'll take a couple d6's of damage and walk away otherwise unscathed. I'd like my players to look at taking damage from their character's perspective rather than just as numbers on a page.

You might like Unearthed Arcana's alternative to hit points. The injury system has the pc's make saves, and follows the "if you roll a 1 you are hooped" saving throw rule. That might make pc's think twice before jumping off of a cliff for a mere economic reason.

 

[shilsen]

Anyone else find the Title of this thread really naughty?

I thought it was positively Biblical

 

[Tiew]

Yeah, now that you've elaborated Ourph I think I have to agree with you. Roleplaying a tough guy is cool, but the stuff you're talking about comes closer to not roleplaying to get mechanical advantages. I think you're definitely right to want to discourage that.

Tiew