New Article: Death and Dying

[Dausuul]

Just say yes. DM's discretion is exactly for this sort of thing. The rules default to abstraction designed for ease-of-play. If the situation requires that abstraction be provisionally extrapolated to something more detailed, just do it.

It's not hard. It'll make your game a thousand times better. On another thread there are people talking about how there are no rules in 3e for blocking an attack with a grabbed opponent. This implies that they think 3e can not already handle this situation. That terrifies me. Of course it can! You have a Strength attribute, right? Rules for grappling? What more do you need?

This is the problem with 3E's attempt to make up rules for everything. You can't actually have rules for everything, but by attempting to do so, you give the impression that anything not covered under the rules is impossible. DMs and players soon settle into the comfortable mental channels provided them by the seemingly all-encompassing ruleset, and are less and less inclined to bust out of it. I've noticed that in 3E games, it's the newbie players who try all the wacky, crazy stunts that blow the rules out of the water. Experienced players are too comfortable within the system.

For all its myriad flaws, 2E didn't have this particular problem. Every 2E DM knew that the rules were not all-encompassing... the idea was laughable. If your players ventured into territory not covered by the rules, it didn't throw you off balance; you just winged it and went from there.

4E seems to be trying to reclaim a bit of that mindset. It will be interesting to see how and if it succeeds.

 

[Grog]

So, save or die is gone; insta-kills from hits at low hit points are much reduced; negative hit points is less of a threat. Can you see now why I would wonder if PC death in 4e might be, as I carefully put it in my original post, "nearly impossible?"

Well, they have said that they want character death to happen less often than it did in 3E. That's a 4E design goal - make it harder to die, and harder (or impossible) to be resurrected after you die.

However, they have not said it's nearly impossible.

 

[Benimoto]

I don't get it. Maybe it's the writing. Take this example:

That may seem like an unreachable number, but it’s important to remember that monsters, like characters, aren’t piling on as many attacks on their turn as in 3rd Edition.

Yes, it does seem like an unreachable number, give that monsters aren't piling on as many attacks on thier turn as in 3rd edition. Perhaps the author meant to say that it seems like a 'reachable number'? It's hard to know what the design goal was based on that sentence.

What I got out of it is that since the monsters aren't making as many attacks, their attacks will typically do more damage than any single attack did in 3rd edition. Also, although it's not mentioned specifically in the article, I think that PCs will have less total HP at higher (10+) levels than they did in 3rd edition, what with +con items being gone.

What I got from the article is that it will be rare but remotely possible that a single hit will bring a character from alive to dead. The character will nearly always move to a "dying" stat first. Area of effect attacks or just a particularly spiteful monster might kill off a dying character though. Since the character can spring back up alive, you'll always want to keep track of where the character fell, and so a dying character will always be vulnerable.

They said right in the article that they wanted outright death to be less frequent in 3rd edition, and I can say that with the death at -10 hp rule currently in 3rd edition, I would have a death nearly every session if it weren't for spells like "delay death". I feel as though the change is a good way to fend off spells like that, which I think add more to the feeling of PC invincibility than this system will.

 

[Professor Phobos]

This is the problem with 3E's attempt to make up rules for everything. You can't actually have rules for everything, but by attempting to do so, you give the impression that anything not covered under the rules is impossible. DMs and players soon settle into the comfortable mental channels provided them by the seemingly all-encompassing ruleset, and are less and less inclined to bust out of it. I've noticed that in 3E games, it's the newbie players who try all the wacky, crazy stunts that blow the rules out of the water. Experienced players are too comfortable within the system.

For all its myriad flaws, 2E didn't have this particular problem. Every 2E DM knew that the rules were not all-encompassing... the idea was laughable. If your players ventured into territory not covered by the rules, it didn't throw you off balance; you just winged it and went from there.

4E seems to be trying to reclaim a bit of that mindset. It will be interesting to see how and if it succeeds.

Yes, well said. As a player, if I try something off the wall, not in the rules, and the GM says: "You can't do that, it's not in the rules." I don't have fun. That's anti-fun. I don't mind trying something and failing, but not being able to try? That's boring.

If I'm a GM, and I introduce something off-the-wall, not in the rules, and a player says, " You can't do that! It's not in the rules!" then he can get up and walk away for all I care. That's anti-fun. I don't mind later extending the same exception to the PCs if they acquire it, but not being able to do anything new? That's boring.

Rules only go so far. These games are played with actual people for a reason. If I wanted unbreakable rules in a rigidly defined world, I'd go play WoW.

 

[S'mon]

Except that your way isn't much fun. If I get a nasty hit and go down, then spend the next 10 minutes sitting there while everyone else fights, I'm left with… well, nothing. Besides, what would be the alternative? No healing until combat is over?

I find losing a PC much less fun than watching the other players fight for a few minutes. Ten minutes is nothing compared to having to roll up a new PC, and seems to me like a reasonable punishment for failure - whereas I find Classic D&D's dead-at-0 overly harsh.

Alternative: I liked 1e's approach; a PC reduced to negative hp is incapacitated for a week, no matter how many cure lights he gets.

 

[Zimri]

Lackhand: You're right. Either way, players and DMs are going to do their own thing.

I suspect that I'm guilty of looking at a hidden meaning in the death rules where there may not be any. I was thinking that if they're going to trivialize (in my view) NPCs and monsters by making it so that once they're down they can never get up again, where else are they simplifying things? But I have no evidence either way, so I'll just have to wait and find out.

Ultimately, as a player I like not knowing if the evil bad guys are actually dead unless I make sure, and I like as a DM forcing the players to deal with the consequences of a enemy who isn't dead yet. When I run the game it'll continue to be that way (assuming the players are willing). As a player, I'm going to have to hope that the DM is willing to house rule it that way as well.

But which enemy the 56 henchmen in robes or the evil vizier masquarading as the benevolent if doddering old priest ? I for one don't like the minutiae of making the party make 57 coup de gras roles and turning them from the saviors of the town into the throat slitting saviors of the town (we'll even put aside what this could mean for a paladin as we don't know the rules for them yet)

"Okay we loot the vizier dicker over his loot and move on to the *miscellany the mooks were carrying"

"Is that what everyone is doing"

party "yes"

when they are done counting the lucre

"Role a perception check please"

"hmmm seems something is amiss the vizier's body is not where you left it a trail of blood leads to a curtained off passage that ends abruptly."

*miscellany being the coinage, jewelry, and anything that might be used as a disguise, any notes etcetera

 

[Warbringer]

In any heroic narrative, the heroes of the story operate under "completely different rules" than the rest of the characters in it. If you're not comfortable with that, may I suggest that a different rules system, such as Warhammer, might be more to your taste.

Or, maybe even 3.5!

 

[Warbringer]

Clint Eastwood gets nearly beaten to death in A Fistfull of Dollars, but recovers enough to drag himself away. He heals up in a mine and comes back to kill everyone....

After learning to shoot with his other hand; and after a long period of time that is left unclear.

He doesn't jump up and run off to the mines unaffected by his near death experience

 

[S'mon]

Because my PC would be the one who walked around after every fight slitting the throats of all the dead monsters, "just to be sure."

I just assume that happens off-camera, like going to the toilet it's one of life's necessities better not dwelled on. When I had basic (British) army training, a lot of it focused on how to safely finish off enemy wounded/incapacitated/bodies, with various drills depending on the position of the body etc.

 

[Darkwolf71]

How is that NOT what we're trying to duplicate?

Oh, is that EVER not what I am trying to recreate.