My Low Magic Game and Coming Back from the Dead

[Zhure]

Could you provide a link to the thread in question? I'd like to read what others have said about this subject.

http://enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=77162

 

[Zhure]

Thanks to everyone for their ideas.

I'm probably going to use a combination of 'sacred sites' and 'holy men' and 'unique method for each raise.'

Greg

 

[mmadsen]

There are essentially two "death states" in our game. Mostly Dead... and Dead-Dead.

Although I love the Princess Bride-inspired names, I recommend gravely wounded for what is now called dead, and dead for something worse (negative 2 x Con, beheaded, disemboweled, eaten, rotted, incinerated, etc.).

Rename raise dead to cure grave wounds, and away you go!

 

[Desdichado]

Well, how often characters die is largely dependent on the DM, so if you're worried about it, make sure you don't kill characters very often! I actually happen to not like the ease with which standard D&D can bring a character back from the dead, making death an inconvenience at worst. Most other games do just fine without resurrect dead type spells, so I wouldn't worry about it.

However, if you don't want to take that into account; i.e.; you want to kill characters but not have them stay dead, so to speak, the armor as damage conversion is a good rule (in the new UA book.) The Cliff Note's version is that armor value serve as conversion values from lethal into subdual damage. Therefore, characters who go down are actually unconscious, not dying, more often than not.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

1) Unearthed Arcana's "Armor as DR" rule - Scale Mail (+4 AC) reduces four points of lethal damage to Subdual, and provides four points worth of damage reduction to that non-lethal damage, as well... So a Fighter-1 who gets hit with a sword for 1D8+2, taking 6 HP of damage, takes two points of lethal damage, and four points of subdual, which the armor absorbs. (Sorry, not sure if Shield Bonuses work the same way, or not).

Quick correction there, Steveroo.

The armor conversion doesn't "double up." It doesn't covert lethal to subdual and then also absorb the subdual. (Otherwise, in essence, you're absorbing lethal-- do the math).

If you are hit with a non-lethal attack (a punch, etc.) the armor absorbs, rather than converts it.

Otherwise, I agree, I think this is a GREAT solution for a low-magic game.

Just make sure your players are mature enough to take prisoners and become prisoners themselves, or there will be a lot of gruesome post-battle throat-slitting going on.

Wulf

 

[Desdichado]

Are you guys confusing two separate rules from UA there? Armor as DR and Armor Conversion aren't the same rule...

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Skull & Bones brought up an interesting concept of players having "Lives". Basically, any time a PC would normally die he instead expends a life and comes up with some miraculous way he survived. Using the Pirates of the Carribbean movie as an example when Captain Jack Sparrow was left on the island with no way to escape in game terms he would have expended a life and then the player would have had him stumble across the rum runners and bargained his way off the island. Since Skull & Bones is a low magic setting this works well. When you run out of lives, your number is finally up.

 

[Nifft]

Just make sure your players are mature enough to take prisoners and become prisoners themselves, or there will be a lot of gruesome post-battle throat-slitting going on.

This is certainly "realistic" for some kinds of campaigns, and some kinds of foes.

-- N

 

[mmadsen]

Well, how often characters die is largely dependent on the DM...

I think it's more accurate to say that how often characters lose is largely dependent on the DM -- and the only real way to lose in D&D is by dying.

With instant healing, characters can't be hurt in a way that they'll stay hurt. They have to either run out of healing resources, or they have to cross that special threshhold of -10 hp.

As I mentioned before, if we redefine that threshhold to mean mostly dead or gravely wounded, we can sidestep "the ease with which standard D&D can bring a character back from the dead, making death an inconvenience at worst." For all mechanical purposes, the character is dead, but we avoid most of the suspension-of-disbelief issues.

 

[Crothian]

Necromancer has a really cool book called Raise the Dead (I think that's the title) and in it are 4 adventures for characters were the end goal is raising someone from the dead.