Is a dying character still bloodied?

[Vicar In A Tutu]

See the title. A player in my campaign was wondering, since he is considering taking the lvl 5 cleric power Consecrated Ground.

Also, a follow-up question: A fighter has activated a stance (Boundless Endurance). In the battle, he was fighting against a powerful dwarven fighter-type, and a vrock. What happened was: The dwarven enemy dropped the fighter to 0 hit points, the following round another player character administered a potion to the dying fighter, bringing him up to 10 hit points, then when his turn came, he regenerated 6 hit points, etc. He went up and down, up and down, for a very long time, and it started to become ridiculous. My follow-up question is this: Does a stance power become "lost" when a character becomes dying? Or, for some strange reason, is he still able to "maintain" a stance even though he is uncounscious? (I know 4E is very, very gamist, so I know its not impossible.)

I'm having lots of fun with my 4E game so far, and enjoying the easier DM workload. But I have noticed one thing: killing a PC is damn, damn difficult. The party is now seventh level, and I haven't killed a single character. Not that this necessarily is a bad thing, mind you, but this is striking difference from 3E, IMHO.

 

[abyssaldeath]

The bloodied condition doesn't end just because you are dieing. As long as you are at or below your bloodied value you are bloodied. That said, regeneration does not work if your hitpoints are 0 or lower. Stances only end at the end of an encounter(5 minutes) or you use another Stance(page 55).

 

[Joshua Randall]

Short answers:
1. You are still bloodied while dying.
2. Stances don't turn off when you drop to 0 or fewer hp.

Citations (from the Compendium):

Bloodied Value: You are bloodied when your current hit points drop to your bloodied value or lower. Your bloodied value is one-half your maximum hit points (rounded down). Certain powers and effects work only against a bloodied enemy or work better.

Dying: When your current hit points drop to 0 or lower, you fall unconscious and are dying.

I don't see anything that says that when you become Dying, that you stop being Bloodied.

Stance
A stance power lasts until the end of the encounter, for 5 minutes, or until you use another stance power.

When you drop to 0 or below, it is not the end of the encounter, nor has it been 5 minutes, nor did you enter another stance. Therefor, you are still in your existing stance.

Those are my interpretations, anyway.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

A stance last until you assume another stance or until the end of the encounter.

Boundless endurance regenerates as long as the character is bloodied, so if you activate it while above bloodied and later become bloodied it'll still work.
If the character then heals back to above bloodied it'll cease to work until he becomes bloodied again.

Regeneration ceases to work however when one is below 0 hit points. But if a character/monster with regeneration is brought back above 0 the regeneration will start to function again.

So unless some one kept feeding healing potions (minor draw, standard to feed) or he got healed back above 0 in some other way, his regeneration would not help him.

P.S.
Try an @lvl+3 encounter if you want a more deadly challenge.
IME @lvl+4 encounters means PCs and monsters are most near to being evenly match so given equally intelligent tactics and terrain etc. victory is about 50/50 for PCs.

 

[frankthedm]

Does a stance power become "lost" when a character becomes dying?

i think that is reasonable.

Or, for some strange reason, is he still able to "maintain" a stance even though he is unconscious? (I know 4E is very, very gamist, so I know its not impossible.)

Sounds like how the way the 4e rules usually go.

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

Thanks guys!

 

[abyssaldeath]

One thing that I want to note about Stances. "Stance" is just a name the games uses for a particular mechanic. It could be used in a power that is very much like a fighting stance in the real word or it can be used in a power that just needs to use the stance keyword(for mechanical or balance reasons). Try not to get too hung up on the names of some of the mechanics the game uses.

 

[mpattee]

Short answers:
1. You are still bloodied while dying.
2. Stances don't turn off when you drop to 0 or fewer hp.

Citations (from the Compendium):

I don't see anything that says that when you become Dying, that you stop being Bloodied.

When you drop to 0 or below, it is not the end of the encounter, nor has it been 5 minutes, nor did you enter another stance. Therefor, you are still in your existing stance.

Those are my interpretations, anyway.

I always took it as discrete states. So when you went from bloodied to dying you were no longer bloodied. Does anyone know if there is a direct ruling on this?

 

[ValhallaGH]

I always took it as discrete states. So when you went from bloodied to dying you were no longer bloodied. Does anyone know if there is a direct ruling on this?

That's a really odd interpretation.
Nothing in Bloodied says that it is ended by another status, and it's open-ended numbers imply that you can be Bloodied well after you're Dead.
Nothing in Dying says that it ends Bloodied (or any other status).

Having them be discrete is an understandable choice, one that I almost made, but it's not one with any rules support.

 

[Xiax]

If you are still bloodied while dying doesn't that make Consecrated ground really overpowered? Pretty much next to impossible to kill someone when once you do they can get back up on their feet the next turn.