Should D&D Have an Alternate Death Mechanic?

[Voadam]

I ran Demon God's Fane with 15th level characters. Had a room with 8 hidden bodaks. "Everyone make 8 fort saves every round, don't roll a one or you die (except for the archmage, don't roll a 4 or lower). If you succeed nothing happens to you." Boring, not fun, serious game halting consquences for die rolls and not choices.

I swapped them out for another equivalent CR monster.

I dislike save or die. I changed it to save or dying(-1) in my campaign. At least this way the game doesn't screech to a halt, and there is some drama trying to save the fellow pc.

As for the earlier point about possible healing a bad guy after a wizard uses a major spell to take him out, most bad guys don't have a healer at hand.

 

[RFisher]

I ran Demon God's Fane with 15th level characters. Had a room with 8 hidden bodaks. "Everyone make 8 fort saves every round, don't roll a one or you die (except for the archmage, don't roll a 4 or lower). If you succeed nothing happens to you." Boring, not fun, serious game halting consquences for die rolls and not choices.

Again, I'm failing to see how there's no choice in this situation. Sure, it's pretty scary at first. Once you start to realize what you're up against, though, it's time to pull out the retreat plan, regroup, & figure out how to approach this in a way that maximizes the odds in your favor. If you just mindlessly slog through an encounter like this...

& what about the context? Is this room in a place where you aren't expecting any encounters? Or is it someplace where you should be expecting the unexpected & be doing your best to limit the party's exposure when investigating a room?

Sure, play the game however you want. This example, though, seems like it has a lot of fun potential because of the choices it forces you to consider.

 

[Superj3nius]

You don't remove death. You just make random death of individual PCs rarer. D&D is a party-based game, so I'm perfectly fine with a character dying if the whole party is defeated, but I don't like it when one PC dies in combat, and the rest of the party survives. Killing someone should be a major event. You shouldn't just die when your HP reaches -10.

My suggestion: At negative hit points, you are dying, but conscious. You lose a hit point each round. If you take any action other than talking or moving at half speed, you drop immediately unconscious and lose a hit point. You lose your Dex-modifier to AC, but you aren't helpless.

When your negative hit points equal or exceed 10 + your level, you fall unconscious if you haven't already, and are at death's door. You count as helpless. If left untended, you don't die if you're a PC. If you're an NPC, you have to make a Fort save every hour (DC 15) or die.

Normal coup de grace attempts still take a full round, but if you're at death's door, you can be couped as a standard action. This must be deliberate, however. Area effect spells still deal damage, but don't kill you, nor to attacks that are not intended to kill you. You have to intentionally kill a PC for him to die.

This way, if a single PC drops, he's bad off, but as long as the party prevails, he can be brought back. This keeps the same level of danger and tension as normal D&D, but removes the ridiculousness of resurrection being an expected part of adventuring life. In normal D&D, you die easily, and get raised fairly easily. In this version, you are removed from combat just as easily, and you get back to the adventure a little more easily (it just requires healing magic, instead of resurrection), but you don't continually interrupt the game at early levels by having to replace PCs who die.

The GM has to want to kill your character. He can't do it accidentally any more. This way, mean GMs can kill PCs just as they always have, but GMs who want a cohesive story with consistent characters don't have to pull their punches.

then what are the point of hit points??? you have to have death to spice up the normal D&D if the the character was really important hve the party go on a side quest for some cleric if the character isnt that important have the character go on his on on a quest as like a spirit to get back his body so he doesnt waste the partys time and if the chracter isnt at all important than have himake a new charater in hope he can contribute more than his last character.

 

[maddman75]

then what are the point of hit points??? you have to have death to spice up the normal D&D if the the character was really important hve the party go on a side quest for some cleric if the character isnt that important have the character go on his on on a quest as like a spirit to get back his body so he doesnt waste the partys time and if the chracter isnt at all important than have himake a new charater in hope he can contribute more than his last character.

The point of hit points is to tell when the character can no longer go on fighting.

The whole 'side quest' business sounds fine, until you realize that in 3e as written, once you get over 12th level or so, the game becomes so deadly that you'll be doing nothing but side quests.

The point of making the game less deadly is not to assure the PCs can't lose, but rather to ensure that the characters losing does not make the game unfun for the players.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I always ask the dice to go easy on the players....but they rarely listen.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

See, here's where my disconnect comes inn, there's a lot of posters in this thread who treat their games as a storytelling device first and a game a distant second. The attachment to PC's being paramount to most else and the worry of upsetting the players if their PC's are killed or the idea of PC deaths "disrupting the story". In a way, it's kind of creepy. I mean are your players going to wig out if their PC's die? If that's the case I really dont want anyone like that at my table. I've been playing a 11th level Cleric off and on for the past few years in my buddy's ultrasporadic game, in fact it's the only D&D game I've played in for the past few years. But if Vandronic (my PC) dies, guess what, I'm gonna say "He was pretty cool, a bit too pius sometimes, but real cool. I'm gonna miss playing him" and then start thinking about what other type of character I want to play.

I agree there are other ways to make things interesting for the PC's, but in my experience there's almost nothing that PC's hate more than having thier stuff taken from them and or being imprisoned. A fair number of my players past and present would prefer straight-up DEATH than that. I remember when I ran Scourge of the Slavelords many years ago after it's original release and it got to a part where most of the PC's were captured and the Capt of the Slaver vessel took thier magic items and other stuff and threw the one's that he couldnt use over board. They were pissed, they were even more aggravated at their imprisonment. HATED IT it almost ended the game. The only thing that kept them at the table was that they trusted me not to completely screw them and not give them a shot at revenge. Even afterward at the end, the imprisonment was the one part that they absolutely hated about the adventure.

So all I'm saying is that once again I think it depends on the players at the table and what type of game you're running. For me (and my players) I think that death isn't that big of a deal. Either they're going to roll up new PC's and incorporate them into the game / story or they're going to find away to raise the PC. I let my players know from the outset that resurrection magic exists, but unless youre at a level to cast it yourself, it's going to be hard to come by much less pay for and even if you do come by it and can pay for it, they better hope that the Cleric is willing to cast it for them.

There's nothing wrong with the death mechanic as it stands, but some other DM's that I know alter it to suit their style of play. Personally, I use the -con rule, Derg the paladin has 16 con. This means that he can get knocked down to -16 hit points before he's actually dead. More chances for him to stabilize. I also use Paizo's critical hit cards, but only the PC's and major NPC's have access to them. I want the game to be fun for them, but as I said in another thread, I'm not going to molly coddle them. I don't want to slaughter my player's PC's all willy nilly, but at the same time, if they are arming themselves and going into dangerous situations, expect danger and possibly death. To expect other wise is, well kinda, self centered and unrealistic (game wise and story wise).

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I always ask the dice to go easy on the players....but they rarely listen.

D00d, when ever I ask it's like my D20 throws me the finger and starts critting the PC's left and right. Session before last, I must have rolled like 6 or 7 19-20's. The first encounter in 3 Faces of Death (AOW) the monk got critted with a great axe (x3) damage and I rolled just short of maximum damage which put him right to -11 ( his death threshold was -15). Luckily for him the paladin was close (braved an AoO) enough to get to him and stablize him.

And that wasn't the end of the critting that day.

 

[Corinth]

No, there shouldn't be an alternate death mechanic for D&D. PCs are just playing pieces in a glorified board game, so people shouldn't get attached to them. Grab the books, roll a new one, tune for best performance, kit him out and get back into the game right now.

 

[wildstarsreach]

One of my pet peeves with the current version of D&D is how fatal it can be. So many save or die options out there and potential triple-damage-digit attacks that fatalities are almost impossible to avoid.

Death isn't really a problem due to the abundance of resurrection-type spells. But that usually costs you a level.

Wouldn't it be better to have an alternate mechanic for death? Instead of instant death, why not some kind of comatose/incapacitated state that takes you out of the encounter but allows you to come back after the battle (presuming it's not a TPK)?

I think the game would be more fun if death wasn't as penalizing as it is.

Thoughts?

Our DM's state if you get to -10, spend an action point, yes non-eberron campaign using that heroic boost, and you don't die but are incapacited for the rest of the combat. No magic can get you back into the combat. After the combat you can be healed. If there is a TPK or your body is left by the party being forced to leave, then there is death. Campaigns run better with continuity as opposed to death happenning constantly.

 

[shilsen]

No, there shouldn't be an alternate death mechanic for D&D. PCs are just playing pieces in a glorified board game, so people shouldn't get attached to them. Grab the books, roll a new one, tune for best performance, kit him out and get back into the game right now.

Riiight. Because there's only one way to play the game, isn't there? As far as I'm concerned, I can't see how having extra options is going to make things worse. Pick the one that works for you and let other people use what they want without telling them how they should play the game.