D&D 5E The -10 Myth: How a Poorly-Worded Gygaxian Rule Became the Modern Death Save

[QuentinGeorge]

Or just hit -6 hit points.

"If any creature reaches a state of -6 or greater negative paints before being revived, this could indicate scarring or the loss of some member, if you so choose."

I mean, I suppose it might not be a limb, but...

Man seems pretty bad to lose your genitals because you got below -6.

 

[Maxperson]

Man seems pretty bad to lose your genitals because you got below -6.

Things were harsher in the old days!

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

So, it’s if you are dropped to between 0 and -3 in one blow you’re able to have that extra slow drip of HP loss, but if the blow drops you to -4 or more that’s it?
interesting! I always played it as -10 buffer zone. Thank you for the clarity!

 

[Lanefan]

Or just hit -6 hit points.

"If any creature reaches a state of -6 or greater negative paints before being revived, this could indicate scarring or the loss of some member, if you so choose."

I mean, I suppose it might not be a limb, but...

True.

We've for a long time had a homebrew scarring system which I suppose is what replaced this; and while severe scarring can impact your overall Dexterity score (temporarily or permanently) or other things such as spellcasting depending where the scarring is, it doesn't include outright limb loss.

 

[Maxperson]

True.

We've for a long time had a homebrew scarring system which I suppose is what replaced this; and while severe scarring can impact your overall Dexterity score (temporarily or permanently) or other things such as spellcasting depending where the scarring is, it doesn't include outright limb loss.

Which makes sense. Limb loss that easily is a downright crappy mechanic.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Nobody I knew misunderstood that rule. We knew it was optional and optioned it in. Dying at 0 sucked and moving it to -10 gave people a chance of survival once they were down. We also optioned out the super severe injury, because losing limbs and the like just sucked to play.

I agree. Death at 0 hp stopped being fun when it started to take more than 5 minutes to roll up a PC, or once the DM started to make the game more narratively driven instead of the spelunking adventure wargame it began as in Men & Monsters. Nobody wants to stop the game to roll up a new character, it's a boring task as a DM to introduce a new PC to get the player back into the game, etc. As PC death became increasingly inconvenient to the pace of play and integrity of the campaign, it was only natural that the PCs got a bit more resistant to death.

But... But... But.... It was a good way to justify the spell Regeneration!!!!!

Eh, Any spell over level 5 wasn't really meant to be the purview of the PCs. Yes, yes, you may have played continually for 24 years in a single campaign and made it to level 97, but the design of the game is such that it's either to fundamentally change at level 10 or otherwise slow progression to a crawl. It takes as much XP to go from level 1 to name level as it does to go from name level to name level +1.

All that is to say that Regenerate is 100% there so DMs have an answer to the question on how to cure a major injury that implicitly makes it something the PCs must complete a quest to obtain. It's easier to bring back the dead!

 

[Blue Orange]

I always figured, as Stormdale said, it was codified by the goldbox games (Pool of Radiance and its 3 sequels, Champions of Krynn and its 2 sequels, Gateway to the Savage Frontier and its sequel, and then Unlimited Adventures and however many modules they've got for that now), which used mostly 1st ed rules with more 2nd ed rules as time went on (probably by mistake). The games came out from 1988-1992, roughly at the transition between the first two editions, and the construction set lets you see the XP and the like for the monsters, some of which have 1e XP and some of which have 2e XP. Similarly I think in Pools of Darkness (one of the later entries in the series) the fire giants had 1e stats and the hill giants had 2e stats; a major boss battle is with Thorne, a red great wyrm as per 2e, flanked by seven huge ancient red dragons as per 1e (and Thorne's breath weapon even does a random amount of damage, as per 2e, while his helpers' breath does their maximum HP, as per 1e!).

Reducing a character or monster to 0 HP would produce the message 'SOAND SO GOES DOWN', and it would be stable at 0; if you put it to -1 to -9 HP you would see 'SOANDSO GOES DOWN AND IS DYING', and the character would indeed lose 1 HP every round until dying at -10; if you reduced it to -10 HP or less the message would be 'SOANDSO IS KILLED'.

In some of the earlier games this was a way to raise characters; it would apparently store dead characters' HP as 0, so you would cast a weak damage spell on them (say 'cause light wounds', which did 1-8) to reduce them to -3 or so...they were now 'dying', so you would bandage them and they were now 'unconscious', i.e. alive.