New Article: Death and Dying

[Wolfspider]

<returns to conciousness and forces his hand inside his gut wound, sealing it shut with pressure>
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Sounds perfectly alright to me.

Excellent example. Dramatic and exciting. Wonderful way to end an epic adventure.

That being said, if this kind of thing--characters popping up from devastating damage like punching bags--happens too often in combat, I think it has the potential to diminish drama and become rather ridiculous.

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

I actually like this a lot.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

I think the fun part will be rolling desperatly for that 20 and with each roll risking another step beyond the Death's door

 

[S'mon]

Moreover, what happens if the PCs "don't have time" to complete the grisly task of finishing off all their downed adversaries (putting aside for the moment whether that's a problematic act for "good" characters)?

In that case a bunch of enemy wounded recover and will be a threat later. If as usual I'm not rolling stabilisation chances I'd probably give them a 50% chance. Anyway I'm not forcing you to play it the way I play it.

 

[JohnSnow]

In that case a bunch of enemy wounded recover and will be a threat later. If as usual I'm not rolling stabilisation chances I'd probably give them a 50% chance. Anyway I'm not forcing you to play it the way I play it.

But the point is that this isn't then something like going to the bathroom that happens but we just never talk about. In your games, it happens every time you have dead NPCs, and if anything prevents it from happening, they come back.

Which means you have to explain why (i.e. talk about it) the first time that happens.

PC: "What? I thought we killed those guys."
DM: "Well, you didn't have time to slit their throats before you were chased off."

All I can say is "thank goodness I don't have to play it the way you play it.

By the way, 50% is an awfully generous survival rate. Most people die if they pass out from blood loss and don't get any medical attention. And by the rules, at least 75% of them should kick it, at least at low levels.

 

[S'mon]

Except that there are 3 or 4 other PCs present, each capable of sending the enemy to the big dirtnap, who would make much better targets than the guy with a 5% chance per round of getting sort of better, and a 50% chance per round of getting worse.

Monsters should finish off the fallen after they drop the ones who are trying to stab them. Otherwise, they really are acting like idiots.

My point was in relation to how healing magic works better on PCs at negative and how the system incentivises foes finishing them off before they're healed. Not the 1 in 20 rule.

 

[S'mon]

When you're (or in this case I) wrong, you're wrong. I could have sworn that the rule about -10 hp had come from a Dragon article, but it is there in black letter on page 82 of the DMG.

I don't think that I, or anyone I knew, ever used the rules about long term incapacity.

I used it - it was only for a week, and it didn't happen very often. Usually in 1e if things were going so badly that PCs were being dropped to negative the PC party was going to lose anyway, and the wounded would be killed by the victorious enemy, or bleed out.

 

[S'mon]

Page 82, 1E DMG: "When any creature is brought to 0 hit points (optionally, as low as -3 hit points if from the same blow which brought the total to 0), it is unconscious. In each of the next succeeding rounds 1 additional (negative) point will be lost until -10 is reached and the creature dies."

Rereading it now, I think it meant that if reduced from positive to negative you died immediately. Optionally, only if reduced to -4 did you die immediately. It's not clear though.
An alternative reading is that you can't be reduced below -3 from 1 blow!
I always ignored that bit and just did incapacitated at 0, death at -10.

 

[S'mon]

But the point is that this isn't then something like going to the bathroom that happens but we just never talk about. In your games, it happens every time you have dead NPCs, and if anything prevents it from happening, they come back.

Which means you have to explain why (i.e. talk about it) the first time that happens.

PC: "What? I thought we killed those guys."
DM: "Well, you didn't have time to slit their throats before you were chased off."

All I can say is "thank goodness I don't have to play it the way you play it.

By the way, 50% is an awfully generous survival rate. Most people die if they pass out from blood loss and don't get any medical attention. And by the rules, at least 75% of them should kick it, at least at low levels.

I'll talk about going to the bathroom in-game if it becomes an issue: "OK, so you're holing up in that dungeon room for three days? It's going to get pretty nasty in there..."

Likewise, I'll talk about finishing off the wounded (or not) if it becomes an issue. But I'm certainly not going to roll a bunch of times for CDG Fort saves or whatever (anyway I run C&C now, not 3e - in C&C at 0 through -6 you're unconscious but stable, -7 to -9 dying).

50% survival rate assumes the enemy wounded are tended to by their comrades. If not tended to I'd probably have them all die, or give a 1 in 10 survival chance.

BTW I ran Classic D&D a while back, the PCs brought a bunch of 1st level NPC soldiers (1d8 hp) with them on a 3rd-4th level adventure. I used Classic's 'dead at 0' for the NPCs and the PC healer was annoyed that the soldiers died at 0, giving him nobody to heal.

 

[S'mon]

All I can say is "thank goodness I don't have to play it the way you play it.

I like a fairly gritty game. You don't. I don't see the problem. I'm still highly abstracting it.

I guess if I ran a realistic-simulation game like Twilight: 2000 or similar I probably would make the PCs deal with the need to finish off the enemy wounded, or deal with the consequences - like listening to the Russian soldier slowly dying from a sucking chest wound, or screaming for hours with his guts spewed out. I don't do that in D&D. I just say "OK, you finish off the goblins and catch your breath. In their pouches you find 3sp..." etc.