New Article: Death and Dying

[Peter LaCara]

Hmmm, seems to be a bit of misinterpretation here on what 10-19 means.

The Table again:



Note that 10-19 doesn't say stabilize -- it says "no change." That means you're still in the same condition as last time and you keep rolling. You roll until one of two things happen: 3 results of "get worse" OR a Nat 20, "HAH! It was just a flesh wound after all!" There is no middle ground "stabilize."

Hmm. I'd missed that. I don't think it's right to visualize the natural 20 as "Just a flesh wound." I think it's more appropriate to visualize it like Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride, stabbed in the gut and on the verge of death, but pulling through with sheer force of will and fighting on.

And honestly, now that I think about it, how often do you hear of people who were mortally wounded recovering when left completely on their own, but not enough for them to get up and stagger around a bit or get back into the fight? Pretty much everyone, either in fiction or in real life needs medical attention to not die.

This makes Heal much more integral to combat, but with the way the skill system works, everyone will at least get some sort of decent bonuses to Heal checks even without any training.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Good point. Knowing that there could be as few as three rounds until death will force PCs to act quickly to heal a dying partner. (Of course, from what we've seen of 4e, this basically means using any of a number of "I do random action X and this heals an ally" powers, none of this messy trying to run to his aid and taking a round off from attacking stuff...I swear, sometimes it looks like every time you sneeze in 4e, someone gains back half their hit points...)

I hope unconscious characters are not considered allies for such inspiring abilities.

 

[HeinorNY]

Also, here's another pretty absurd corner case:

A fighter has 200 hit points at maximum, and is down to 5 HP. An orc stabs him for 6 points of damage, taking him down to -1. The next round, the fighter rolls a 20, and pops back up with 50 HP. So the orc just healed the fighter for 45 points by stabbing him in the gut.

I know that hit points are abstract, but that's pretty ridiculous.

Another one for your repertoire:
If the Second Wind works the same way as they do in SWSE, a character with 1/2 HPs +1 couldn't activate Second Wind, but then he bites his tongue to deal himself 1 point of damage and heals up lots of HPs.

 

[Grog]

Jack McFighter's allies had all fallen. The castle was overrun. Beset on all sides by his foes, one finally brought him down- a sword through the chest. Jack stared down at it as he fell to the ground, life leaking away, watching as the enemy found the civilians taking refuge in the cellars and began their conquest. NO! Thought Jack. It cannot end this way! With great strength of will Jack rises to his feet...

I know what the rule is supposed to model; I'm just saying that mechanically, it's going to lead to some pretty silly things on rare occasions.

Now, the excitement at the table of a player rolling a 20 and getting to rejoin a battle may be worth those rare moments of ridiculousness. I suppose I'll have to use the rule for a while to find out.

 

[Imban]

Hmm. Now that is silly. I hope that wont be possible due to some mechanic (bloodied??) we don't know about.

lol...I can just see the ways that could be abused...

That is annoyingly silly, but hard to abuse - it relies on getting that 27% chance of not dying and instead ending up with 25% of your maximum HP back from inflicting negative HP upon yourself, and that's a crappy gamble.

EDIT: Best "abuse" I could see would be if you had limited-resource healing your party didn't want to use, and were at very low HP, or already unconscious - waiting to see if you stabilize might be more effective in some cases than immediately moving in with healing.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Also, here's another pretty absurd corner case:

A fighter has 200 hit points at maximum, and is down to 5 HP. An orc stabs him for 6 points of damage, taking him down to -1. The next round, the fighter rolls a 20, and pops back up with 50 HP. So the orc just healed the fighter for 45 points by stabbing him in the gut.

I know that hit points are abstract, but that's pretty ridiculous.

That last scratch was just enough to send the fighter down. To let him know "this orc isn't the push over I thought he was going to be." After he snapped out of it (rolled the 20) the fighter woke up and realised that he's actually going to have to start fighting "for real". The fighter then gets back on his feet and growls "You just made me angry. You aren't going to like me when I'm angry!"

Much orc slaughter commences.

I don't really see a problem here.

 

[reezel]

I'd be willing to bet once you get to 4th edition you can spend an action point to stabalize/recover as well, similar to Star Wars.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Good point. Knowing that there could be as few as three rounds until death will force PCs to act quickly to heal a dying partner. (Of course, from what we've seen of 4e, this basically means using any of a number of "I do random action X and this heals an ally" powers, none of this messy trying to run to his aid and taking a round off from attacking stuff...I swear, sometimes it looks like every time you sneeze in 4e, someone gains back half their hit points...)

That brings up another question: if, say, the Warlord has some sort of battle cry ability, for example, that boosts the hit points of everyone in the party, does it affect you if you’re not conscious to hear it? Perhaps bringing a character around that’s gone negative should require direct contact?

 

[A'koss]

There has to be some way to self-stabilize, if it's not rolling 10-19, it's going to be some other way.

 

[Greg K]

I was hoping they would have ditched negative hit points and gone with the Death and Dying rules from Unearthed Arcana.