Stat requirements

[Asmo]

A question:

Brak,the half orc barbarian finds an Amulet of Health (+2) that pushes his Con from 16 to 18, but he doesn´t know that, to him it´s just a fine picture of a lion on a chain that makes him feel more alive, so he happily hangs it around his neck.
Later the same day he and his half orc buddies is ambushed by a couple of trolls.
The fighting starts and several rounds later he and his friends are victorious, but Brak is badly hurt, but still alive ( he´s at 1 hitpoints ). He is saddened to see that his nice shiny lion is smeared with blood, so he walks to a nearby stream to wash the blood away.
What happens when he removes the Amulet from his neck to wash it?

Asmo

 

[Plane Sailing]

A question:

Brak,the half orc barbarian finds an Amulet of Health (+2) that pushes his Con from 16 to 18, but he doesn´t know that, to him it´s just a fine picture of a lion on a chain that makes him feel more alive, so he happily hangs it around his neck.
Later the same day he and his half orc buddies is ambushed by a couple of trolls.
The fighting starts and several rounds later he and his friends are victorious, but Brak is badly hurt, but still alive ( he´s at 1 hitpoints ). He is saddened to see that his nice shiny lion is smeared with blood, so he walks to a nearby stream to wash the blood away.
What happens when he removes the Amulet from his neck to wash it?

In my game, as he starts to lift it over his neck weakness starts to overcome him and blood starts flowing from his wounds - giving him a strong hint and the option to stop and remain OK or continue to remove it and slip into dying.

That's how I'd see it in a film or a book, and it meshes with my sense of verisimilitude; I wouldn't go for a binary 'oh, you start dying them'.

Now don't go thinking I'm a soft touch... I'm not a member of the Rat Bastards Club for nothing I just like to give players a hint about the likely consequences of their actions.

Cheers

 

[KarinsDad]

A question:

Brak,the half orc barbarian finds an Amulet of Health (+2) that pushes his Con from 16 to 18, but he doesn´t know that, to him it´s just a fine picture of a lion on a chain that makes him feel more alive, so he happily hangs it around his neck.
Later the same day he and his half orc buddies is ambushed by a couple of trolls.
The fighting starts and several rounds later he and his friends are victorious, but Brak is badly hurt, but still alive ( he´s at 1 hitpoints ). He is saddened to see that his nice shiny lion is smeared with blood, so he walks to a nearby stream to wash the blood away.
What happens when he removes the Amulet from his neck to wash it?

He loses the bonus hit points for it and will fall unconscious (if he is level 2 or higher) and might die.

 

[KarinsDad]

That's how I'd see it in a film or a book, and it meshes with my sense of verisimilitude; I wouldn't go for a binary 'oh, you start dying them'.

Now don't go thinking I'm a soft touch... I'm not a member of the Rat Bastards Club for nothing I just like to give players a hint about the likely consequences of their actions.

Wuss.

You just got kicked out of the club. Verisimilitude is a wussy word!

 

[Asmo]

So a wizard with a Headband of Intellect will lose his bonus spells directly if Brak manages to rip it of his head - a new shiny thing- ?
(Or a cleric with a Periapt of Wisdom, etc)

Asmo

 

[Twowolves]

I think it is an awfully large leap of logic to go from someone saying there is risk involved for the character to assuming that they would go out of their way to hose the character at every turn.

Maybe SR's attitude was making you more hostile than you would otherwise be, but that strikes me as a fairly unreasonable conclusion.

I never intended to project any hostility. I apologize if it seemed that way. I was using an absurdly extreme example to illustrate a point.

 

[Twowolves]

So a wizard with a Headband of Intellect will lose his bonus spells directly if Brak manages to rip it of his head - a new shiny thing- ?
(Or a cleric with a Periapt of Wisdom, etc)

Asmo

It seems that way, yes.

And if he needed that headband to qualify for entry into his presteige class, he'd lose all of those benefits as well. That is, if the DM allowed stat boosting items to meet such prerequisites.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Wuss.

You just got kicked out of the club. Verisimilitude is a wussy word!

Heck, I find it difficult enough to prevent their PCs from dying at the best of times

Where I'm a Rat Bastard is that the half-orc now realises that if he puts the amulet on the dying evil cleric party member, it will save the clerics life... but will the grateful cleric then heal him, or will he just let Brak die and run off with the goods himself...

...and Brak needs the cleric to get past the wights lair before the treasure...

 

[IcyCool]

I never intended to project any hostility. I apologize if it seemed that way. I was using an absurdly extreme example to illustrate a point.

The problem here, from what I saw, is that instead of illustrating your point, you obfuscated it. What was your point?

 

[Twowolves]

The problem here, from what I saw, is that instead of illustrating your point, you obfuscated it. What was your point?

That that kind of "risk" was very easily taken advantage of, and could be seen as picking on the character when the gamble didn't pay off. It's one thing to have an ability negated by a monster as a plot point or adventure challenge (like a Beholder's Anti-Magic cone, or the "you wake up naked" adventure hook), but it's another to have an unusual vulnerability like that. Now either the DM avoids Dispel Magic or Anti-Magic situations or else it has a compounded affect on the risk taking character, which could be perceived as intentionally punishing a character for obtaining a feat/PrC this way.