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

[Alnag]

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.

Oh. Players love me... despite or perhaps due to my tendency to sadistically punish every last moment of strategic or tactical error on battlefield. You would love it too...

 

[Darkness]

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.

Assuming I didn't mess up my Excel code somewhere...


The following will eventually happen to a character without assistance:

Normal system
Chance of death: 72.9%
Chance of stabilizing: 27.1%

Bagpuss' house rule
Chance of death: 74.6%
Chance of stabilizing: 25.4%


More detail for the first 20 rounds:
(note - percentages rounded to 2 digits)

		Normal			Bagpuss	

Round		Death	Stabil.		Death	Stabil.
1		0	5		0	5
2		0	9.75		4.25	9.75
3		9.11	14.26		15.7	14.05
4		22.78	18.09		29.69	17.56
5		36.45	21.05		42.61	20.2
6		47.84	23.18		52.94	22.06
7		56.38	24.62		60.49	23.31
8		62.36	25.57		65.68	24.12
9		66.35	26.18		69.09	24.63
10		68.91	26.55		71.27	24.94
11		70.52	26.78		72.62	25.13
12		71.49	26.91		73.44	25.25
13		72.08	26.99		73.92	25.31
14		72.43	27.04		74.21	25.35
15		72.63	27.07		74.38	25.37
16		72.75	27.08		74.48	25.38
17		72.81	27.09		74.53	25.39
18		72.85	27.09		74.56	25.4
19		72.87	27.1		74.58	25.4
20		72.89	27.1		74.59	25.4

 

[UngeheuerLich]

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.

Hmmh... i see it this way: in 3.x you never attack a PC on the ground because it outright kills him. In 4e you can attack a downed char, because a quick strike (no coup de grac) will have no effect at all if you don´t kill him with your strike... and the hp to kill value is half your normal HP. if a standard attack kills you with one swing, than the enemy was to tough from the beginning...

So attacks on a downed character in 3.x are much more deadly than attacks to a downed char in 4e.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Hmmh... i see it this way: in 3.x you never attack a PC on the ground because it outright kills him. In 4e you can attack a downed char, because a quick strike (no coup de grac) will have no effect at all if you don´t kill him with your strike... and the hp to kill value is half your normal HP. if a standard attack kills you with one swing, than the enemy was to tough from the beginning...

Melee attacks against unconscious foes are automatic crits, although they don't force a death save.

Also, people are forgetting about undead, many of whom gain hp from hitting people. For example the Warrior Wight from here can gain 10hp and a move action from smacking an unconscious character. Hilarity for all.

 

[spontaneuscombustion]

Why hit unconscious guys?

The way I see it, unless all of the characters are unconscious, living characters are much more of a threat than half-dead ones. It is much more utilitarian to keep other characters from healing the guy by smacking them than it is to kill a guy who's already out of the fight until someone bothers to use an action to heal the guy. Second of all, does "stabilize" mean "get up and start fighting again" or does it just mean that you stay there, unconscious but not getting any worse? If it is the former, then sure, slit the guy's throat! However, the latter would make it much more useful to just attack the other guys.

 

[Revinor]

Second of all, does "stabilize" mean "get up and start fighting again"

Even if it does (and I think it does), only PCs have this ability. This means that there is no way any monster can expect this to happen - all the previous fights they had in life were different. Unless there is some kind of fairy tale given from goblin to goblin about those 'horrible PC monsters' and goblin will somehow understand that this is a PC (as opposed to NPC) party of adventurers, he should not expect anybody waking up from dead.

This is a side effect of having different rules for PCs and NPCs/monsters. Nobody should expect PC to pull PC-specific tricks. They should expect them to behave exactly like all the other people in the world - and other people in the world do not stabilize.

 

[brehobit]

Even if it does (and I think it does), only PCs have this ability. This means that there is no way any monster can expect this to happen - all the previous fights they had in life were different. Unless there is some kind of fairy tale given from goblin to goblin about those 'horrible PC monsters' and goblin will somehow understand that this is a PC (as opposed to NPC) party of adventurers, he should not expect anybody waking up from dead.

This is a side effect of having different rules for PCs and NPCs/monsters. Nobody should expect PC to pull PC-specific tricks. They should expect them to behave exactly like all the other people in the world - and other people in the world do not stabilize.

So "in world" PCs are different and can me measured as such?

Just seems weird.... Though it would explain this...

Mark

 

[Syrsuro]

Even if it does (and I think it does), only PCs have this ability.

Perhaps in its simplest form.

But I am almost certainly going to houserule this one to read: "Only those who have a destiny have this ability".

A destiny has to be worth more than just knowing you can be raised someday.....



Carl