new death save == leave your buddy on the floor for 3 rounds?

[Alnag]

From the monster point of view he is already finished - everything else is dead after dropping down.

Is it? Well, and since when monsters don't attack dead things? Against some animals it helps to pretend you are dead, against some it does not help. Neither monster is able to detect heart beat? I belive some monsters would have no problem to detect life spark in the character and act accordingly.

Also about "pettiness" etc. I think that if other PCs left one of them dying, do not try to stabilize it or protect it, because they produce clearly metagame explanation like "he has three rounds" than isn't that petty as well? If they don't care about one of them, why shouldn't the foes use the advantage and strike deep and hard.

This is not sport or game... (I mean in-game). It is serious life or dead fight. And I as an enemy will and should do whatever to hinder and stop PCs. The risk of dead for not protecting each other is part of it.

 

[AllisterH]

I'm pretty sure "kill the cleric first!" will take the place of "kill the wizard first!" in the 4E metagame.

Wasn't it already "Kill the cleric first"? There's a reason we have the term Codzilla...

 

[Sir Brennen]

Is it? Well, and since when monsters don't attack dead things? Against some animals it helps to pretend you are dead, against some it does not help. Neither monster is able to detect heart beat? I belive some monsters would have no problem to detect life spark in the character and act accordingly.

But will they have the time/opportunity to do so in the middle of a combat, or would they actually even want to to when there are other characters still attacking them? Intelligent monsters may know a downed foe is still a potential threat, but if they're intelligent, they're also going to realize it's better to deal with the *actual* threats before the potential ones. And a monster of animal intelligence will pretty much automatically disregard a downed foe for an attacking one, without having to mull it over.

Exceptions I can see... if a predator large enough to consider the PCs prey attacks, it may snatch a downed victim and try to escape with the body (which, if it does so, as a DM I'd still probably have the monster store the victim in some food larder somewhere so he could potentially still be rescued by the other PCs.) Still not the same as simply continuing to attack until the victim is dead-dead.

Other possibility is creatures that are very violent or hungry that also have zero regard for their own defense. Flesh-eating zombies may fall upon the first victim that goes down, even as the other PCs are continuing to attack. Creatures which stop to feed even on their own fallen comrades are always good creepy fun, too.

IMHO, both of these cases are exceptions to the rule with regard to attacking a downed character, though.

 

[komi]

Exceptions I can see... if a predator large enough to consider the PCs prey attacks, it may snatch a downed victim and try to escape with the body (which, if it does so, as a DM I'd still probably have the monster store the victim in some food larder somewhere so he could potentially still be rescued by the other PCs.) Still not the same as simply continuing to attack until the victim is dead-dead.

We had a DM do this to us. A buddy dropped, but we knew we had a few rounds and didn't worry about him, so the monster scooped him up and took off. The problem was that we were on a boat in the middle of the ocean, and the monster was a sea cat. So, we needed to act immediately to keep him from drowning. In about two seconds, we went from planning a major offensive to saying "Oh crap!" and scrambling to save our buddy. We were high enough level to fly and such, so we were able to, but it definitely took us by surprise.

 

[Bagpuss]

Out of interest could someone work out the probability for a house rule that if you roll a 1 you get two death ticks...

IE: 1 = 2 death ticks, 2-9 = 1 death tick, 10-19 = no change, 20 = can use healing surge (or stabilise).

Dying at 3 death ticks as normal.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

you should at least threaten the monsters so that they don´t have time to think about mutilating the bodies...

and going down from 10 death ticks to 3 sounds quite good!

 

[Alnag]

But will they have the time/opportunity to do so in the middle of a combat, or would they actually even want to to when there are other characters still attacking them?

Good analysis. I agree. Although I see more exceptions to this. One is overwhelming number of attacking foes. They might even have problems all to reach the PCs so they can attack those down already.

Another one - necromancer or whatever... trying to create more servants on the fly and use the body against the rest of the party.

Some kind of sadist foe who doesn't want to hurt the characters physically but rather hit their morale with some kind of cruel death of one of them. Or someone who wants them to carry dead body around hence slow them down (for whatever reason).

Another option I see, is third party in the combat - like scavenger animal following one of the combating parties...

Those might be exceptions, but they are not so rare as it seems...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Good analysis. I agree. Although I see more exceptions to this. One is overwhelming number of attacking foes. They might even have problems all to reach the PCs so they can attack those down already.

Another one - necromancer or whatever... trying to create more servants on the fly and use the body against the rest of the party.

Some kind of sadist foe who doesn't want to hurt the characters physically but rather hit their morale with some kind of cruel death of one of them. Or someone who wants them to carry dead body around hence slow them down (for whatever reason).

Another option I see, is third party in the combat - like scavenger animal following one of the combating parties...

Those might be exceptions, but they are not so rare as it seems...

And if such things occur, chances that PCs will survive are higher than in 3.x!

 

[Sir Brennen]

Good analysis. I agree. Although I see more exceptions to this. One is overwhelming number of attacking foes. They might even have problems all to reach the PCs so they can attack those down already.

Another one - necromancer or whatever... trying to create more servants on the fly and use the body against the rest of the party.

Some kind of sadist foe who doesn't want to hurt the characters physically but rather hit their morale with some kind of cruel death of one of them. Or someone who wants them to carry dead body around hence slow them down (for whatever reason).

Another option I see, is third party in the combat - like scavenger animal following one of the combating parties...

Those might be exceptions, but they are not so rare as it seems...

Well, I think your exceptions still smack a little bit of DM sadism, purposely stacking things against downed PCs. They all also still seem that they would be very rare circumstances to me, and if they're not, I'd be hesitant to play under such a DM.

Also, we don't even know if the rules support the necromancer example you give - I'd be willing to bet that animating dead bodies is a ritual, not a spell cast during combat.

 

[Sir Brennen]

And if such things occur, chances that PCs will survive are higher than in 3.x!

Not if you also take death by HP loss (no save) into account, which would be the more likely result of continued attacks against a downed character.