RangerWickett
Legend
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.
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.