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

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yes I saw some guys talking here on the internet saying they played an alternate way back in the day and then go on to say that everyone I knew were doing it all wrong apparently deliberately before 2E - so I came to say that it never occurred to me or anyone I knew to read the rule the way you do then and the insinuation of deliberate cheating was rubbish. I did re-read the rule now to see what you were talking about and saw then how it was 'possible' for the rule to 'interpreted' the way you do - whilst I could see your argument and said so I also said it looked to me to be incongruous and counter-intuitive and thus contrived way to read the rule - so I don't agree with you that your reading is a clear cut on and certainly don't agree with your suggestion that anyone else doing it in what I would view as intuitive way and you acknowledge was widespread, is deliberately cheating. That's taking it way too far, in my book anyway.

???? Seriously?

No one said it was cheating.

There is, like, an ENTIRE POST about how 1e had a multitude of playing styles, I should know because I wrote it. Moreover, I specifically wrote that this was a rule that was commonly misinterpreted and misapplied- not cheating. Sorry, not DELIBERATELY CHEATING.

In addition, if you read the rule, it's really not ambiguous. Here, I'll help you:

Zero Hit Points:
When any creature is brought to 0 hit points (optionally as low as -3 hit points if from the same blow which brought the total to 0), it is unconscious.

Let's stop right there. What does that mean (especially when you read it in pari materia with the PHB, the rest of the DMG, and every other D&D book published before then) ... it is about a hit that takes you to EXACTLY ZERO HIT POINTS (optionally, as low as -3 "IF FROM THE SAME BLOW WHICH BROUGHT THE TOTAL TO 0.").

What does this not include? Anything blowthat brings you below 0. Or, if you are playing with the optional rules, any blow that drops you below -3.

All the other words are about what happens to you in the unconscious condition- you lose a hit point a round until you die at -10.

But if you want to know how it was originally played, you can look at the OD&D rules- which are also quoted above. Hint: when you reach zero hit points, you die.

 

[Seramus]

Yeah. It's clear -10 wasn't a general thing until 2E, but it did create a hilarious situation where someone could die at -5, or still be alive at -9, depending on which happens first. Hahah.

 

[Ace of Shadows]

???? Seriously?

No one said it was cheating.

There is, like, an ENTIRE POST about how 1e had a multitude of playing styles, I should know because I wrote it. Moreover, I specifically wrote that this was a rule that was commonly misinterpreted and misapplied- not cheating. Sorry, not DELIBERATELY CHEATING.

In addition, if you read the rule, it's really not ambiguous. Here, I'll help you:

Zero Hit Points:
When any creature is brought to 0 hit points (optionally as low as -3 hit points if from the same blow which brought the total to 0), it is unconscious.

Let's stop right there. What does that mean (especially when you read it in pari materia with the PHB, the rest of the DMG, and every other D&D book published before then) ... it is about a hit that takes you to EXACTLY ZERO HIT POINTS (optionally, as low as -3 "IF FROM THE SAME BLOW WHICH BROUGHT THE TOTAL TO 0.").

What does this not include? Anything blowthat brings you below 0. Or, if you are playing with the optional rules, any blow that drops you below -3.

All the other words are about what happens to you in the unconscious condition- you lose a hit point a round until you die at -10.

But if you want to know how it was originally played, you can look at the OD&D rules- which are also quoted above. Hint: when you reach zero hit points, you die.

I don't know mate all that banging about people misinterpreting rules because the were motivated to go get an advantage that doesn't exist, instead of just interpreting them intuitively, sounded to me an awful lot like a thinly veiled insinuation that we were all cheating munchkins - I didn't even have a DMG when I was taught that rule by a DM - when I thought my PC was dead - 'you don't die at 0 you die at -10 ... its in the DMG' he said to me. And when I eventually bought one that's how I read it too - apparently along with a whole bunch of other people such that it was most of the playing pool so much so I never encountered your way.

None of that language carries the clarity you seek to ascribe to it - the point when someone is BROUGHT TO THE POINT OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS or enters unconscious is the start of the story - you then look for when he then specifies they die not where the gate to the field of unconsciousness is ... he then starts to bang on about losing more hit points and still being unconscious and then finally indicates an actual death point of -10. You have just assumed death must occurs immediately after the start point for unconsciousness [1 point as soon as you step past the gate] although it doesn't actually state this and you do that by turning a blind eye to the very extensive immediate discussion about losing further hit points whilst remaining unconscious all the way to -9 and the various things that can happen in that zone as if that has absolutely no bearing on interpreting the rule at all although its plainly a discussion concerning about being unconscious at certain other negative hit points IN THE RULE beyond the start points indicated and not something you just assumed in your head must occurred beyond 0 and -3 that isn't actually stated in the rule ... that is a very large and artificial assumption especially when no rational reason is supplied for such a weird inconsistency IN THE RULE or anywhere. That is why I am saying your interpretation is artificial, incongruous and counter-intuitive and I believe wrong. Good luck explaining a 10 year old kid the logic behind two PCs both being on -1 hit point, one dead [his PC] and one unconscious [his mates] and that the unconscious one can then bleeds out to -9 before he is still saved but the one on -1 is still somehow dead. I'm not going to do that because I don't want to look like a cheating DM playing favourites with my players and I seriously doubt it was the intention of Gary to put me in that position when he wrote those paragraphs. Not if he is expecting the kid to want to keep playing the game as any commercial designer hopes. No-one comes back to play game that flaunts broken logic unless they realise the issue isn't the game but the DM interpreting its rules - then they go somewhere else - where logic is a thing.

Its not the letter of the rule its the intent.

 

[Stormdale]

We always ran the if dropped to between 0 to -3 the deaths door rule kicked in (but if dropped to -4 by a single blow you were dead) in AD&D rule and started using the 0 to -10 option when Pool of Radiance came out in 1988 (i.e. before 2e codified it)

Stormdale

 

[House_Of_Dexter]

Elves couldn't get resurrected (except the rod, because reasons). Item saving throws.

Yeah...Elves didn't have souls they had spirits...

 

[Stattick]

We played with the houserule that your character died when they hit minus Constitution score.

 

[Lanefan]

Roughly speaking, it is some variation of, "You don't die unless the hit takes below -10 hit points." In other words, 1e characters don't die at 0. They have a 10 hit point "buffer." Which is great! Right?

Except it doesn't exist. Like a lot of things in the 80s, it was a rumor that spread and couldn't be contained. Sorry, Richard Gere.

So let's look at this, and why people believe it, and what ended up happening!

4. AD&D (1e) Dungeon Master's Guide (May 1979)
(Note- this is a specific subsection underneath the general HIT POINTS Section- the emphasis for the title is in the original, and this is the entire rule):

Zero Hit Points:
When any creature is brought to 0 hit points (optionally as low as -3 hit points if from the same blow which brought the total to 0), it is unconscious. In each of the next succeeding rounds 1 additional (negative) point will be lost until -10 is reached and the creature dies. Such loss and death are caused from bleeding, shock, convulsions, non-respiration, and similar causes. It ceases immediately on any round a friendly creature administers aid to the unconscious one. Aid consists of binding wounds, starting respiration, administering a draught (spirits, healing potion, etc.), or otherwise doing whatever is necessary to restore life.

Any character brought to 0 (or fewer) hit points and then revived will remain in a coma far 1-6 turns. Thereafter, he or she must rest for a full week, minimum. He or she will be incapable of any activity other than that necessary to move slowly to a place of rest and eat and sleep when there. The character cannot attack, defend, cast spells, use magic devices, carry burdens, run, study, research, or do anything else. This is true even if cure spells and/or healing potions are given to him or her, although if a heal spell is bestowed the prohibition no longer applies.

If any creature reaches a state of -6 or greater negative points before being revived, this could indicate scarring or the loss of some member, if you so choose. For example, a character struck by a fireball and then treated when at -9 might have horrible scar tissue on exposed areas of flesh - hands, arms, neck, face.
(DMG p. 82).

Woah! Now we see where the confusion began. Notice that this is a very specific rule - this is a rule under the subheading of ZERO HIT POINTS, and it starts with "When any creature is brought to 0 hit points ..." It's a bizarrely specific rule about characters getting hit by a blow that takes them exactly to ZERO hit points. Of course, then you get all the other verbiage, as Gygax likes to insert.

You can optionally have it work "as low as -3." And then, there is the bit about losing a point each round until -10, when you die. And you can administer aid to keep the person from dying. If you're not paying attention, if you're looking for some way to make the game easier, you can see how this mess of a rule can transmogrify into "You don't die until -10."

And the rationale for reading this as just "death at -10" is obvious: DMs and players wanted some wiggle room between fully functional at 1 hp. and outright dead at 0 h.p. The rules above, though clunky, gave this.

Okay, cool. So?

This misunderstanding was common and widespread. A lot of things in the 80s spread like wildfire through word-of-mouth, and I would say that this misunderstanding of this particular rule (many people probably not having actually gone and found the text of the rule) was so widespread that by the time of the publication of 2e, in 1989, it had become the actual rule. 2e changed it to "Hovering on Death's Door) (2e DMG p. 75) and explicitly stated it applied to -10.

I've got a sneaking hunch there was something in Dragon at some point that made death at -10 an official option long before 2e came out.

However, while a lot of misconceptions about 1e and 2e occur because people are misremembering and attributing 2e rules to 1e, this is an example, IIRC, of a widespread misunderstood rule being accepted and incorporated into 2e.

More importantly, it is, perhaps, the best example I can think of where a rule that was widely misapplied, eventually became the default rule. And the default rule became popular, and continued to be used throughout editions, eventually becoming the modern 5e version (death saves, etc.)

All because Gygax decided to complicate a rule, and in so doing, caused it to be misapplied.

He also caused it to be better, even if unintentionally.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I have to back up what others have said: this wasn't done by mistake, it was done to improve the game.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I only played 2nd edition and the hovering at death's door rule (up to - 10) was a sidebar in the night below adventure. So I don't know what was the deafult rule there. We played it like that all the time.

I also know that we played that raise dead can't bring elves back, but I think (true) resurrection worked... But that might have been 3e instead.
We also used level limits in ADnD which is why I usually played half elf bards...

 

[Wolfram stout]

Yeah...Elves didn't have souls they had spirits...

We actually always played by this rule, as rolling in the reincarnation table always had a certain "fun" tension about it.