nagative hit points A.U. style. Opinions?

A.U. style negative hit points; use or don't use?

  • it's Good!

    Votes: 25 73.5%
  • it's Bad!

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • not worth making a change

    Votes: 4 11.8%
  • I don't know I just like to vote?!

    Votes: 5 14.7%

paulewaug

Registered User
So I have been considering adopting the A.U. version of how to handle what happens with the characters when they go into negative hit points.

I just wanted to gather some input and opinions about
"How ya all feel about it?"

Is it good, bad, or just not that big a deal so why bother?

I kind of like that it can extend the "disabled" spread since otherwise it only happens at 0. (Not very likely)
This kind of adds a nice element of "being hurt" that hit points don’t seem to cover.

As the rules exist by Core, at "1" hp you are perfectly fine (ya know except for being so dangerously close to "dying" ;)), at "0" you are (pretty badly?) hurt, and at "-1" you are Completely Comatose.

Since the hit point system is abstract, representing "whatever" and is as "D&D" as rules get, it's maybe not worth messing with.
But it does seem kind of odd that having 90 (or whatever) hit points or 1 hit point and you are at the same operational capacity while there is only a 1 point area of actually being "badly hurt" but still operational, as opposed to the negative area where you are feeling deaths cold touch.

On one side I guess is the hit point concept that, basically, the equivalent of your first hit dice worth of hit points are your actual points to account for the vital parts of your body being hurt as opposed to the advanced hit dice points where you have learned to not get run through so easily or have learned how to 'suck it up' a bit. (There by giving Fighter's etc a much better ability to "suck it up" than a bookworm Wizard that has a lower threshold for pain and is less used to getting sliced open and watching his blood flow.)

(And this is of course all in relation to a "D&D style game" not a d20 modern etc kind of thing. So I'm not looking to go as realistic (or whatever) as
"Grim and Gritty" or a Wounds and Vitality system, etc. I just want to add a "tiny bit" more "realism") ;)

Well anyhow I'm sure you see what I am getting at, so...

"What do you all think?!"

BTW thanks!!
 

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thalmin said:
So you gonna explain the AU version?

Instead of being disabled at 0 and unconscious at -1 (as in 3.x), in AU you are disabled at 0 and until the negative of your Con bonus. For example, a character with a 16 Con has a +3 Con bonus. Therefore, he would be disabled and conscious from 0 to -3 hit points. At -4 hit point he would go unconscious as normal.

Its a nice little rule but not that big a deal. I, for example, have the character make a Fort save to stay conscious when below 0 hps. I like the randomness of it better. But that's just IMHO.


Aaron
 

When I saw AU in print I had a feeling of deja vu ... I had already instituted this rule in my game.

Hey! Great minds think alike, neh? ;)
 

Aaron2 said:
Instead of being disabled at 0 and unconscious at -1 (as in 3.x), in AU you are disabled at 0 and until the negative of your Con bonus. For example, a character with a 16 Con has a +3 Con bonus. Therefore, he would be disabled and conscious from 0 to -3 hit points. At -4 hit point he would go unconscious as normal.
Just to be complete, and to extend your example, the above character would be "dying" from -4 to -15 hit points, and would be "dead" at -16 hp or less.

So you're:
Disabled from 0 to -ConMod,
Dying from -1-ConMod to +1-ConScore, and
Dead from -ConScore or less

I like it, though I realize the chance of falling into either the "disabled" zone or the "dying" zone isn't really significantly greater as characters reach higher levels. After all, taking 50 damage a round as the frontline meat shield means you may still go directly to death without passing go...err...disabled/dying. I think it's a lot of fun in the lower levels, though, and gives players of those levels a greater feeling of freedom from dying if they sneeze wrong.

DrSpunj
 


heh heh, that's a good question.

The rule, as presented in a.u., states it as:
"If a character has a Constitution bonus"...

So disabled is "0"at worst, or 0-Con.Bonus at best,
With dying "being" negative points=Con score
So if the character has a negative Con 'bonus' they have no increased disabled range and have a dying/dead range of less than the average 10.

Factor in the fact that they will already have fewer hit points and...
"Dying time is here" happens a little bit sooner.
 


Aaron2 said:
... I, for example, have the character make a Fort save to stay conscious when below 0 hps. I like the randomness of it better. But that's just IMHO.
I would like to know more about how you're handling this, as I've been working on something similar.

What's the DC for this Fort save? A set number, or does it depend on how far into the negative HP's you are?

How about bleeding and stabilizing? If you make the Fort save and stay conscious, do you still loose 1 HP each round unless you stabilize, or doesn't that happen until you miss a save and fall unconscious?
 

You could have them make a fort save DC 10 + [how negative] to remain conscious but disabled. This would make the DC from 11-20 which seems fairly hard. The again, this sort of nullifies DieHard, so perhaps higher numbers...
 

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