D&D General The thread where I review a ton of Ravenloft modules

[Tonguez]

Well sure, but we still had Cure Light Wounds. If a PC drops to 0*, they're unconscious and bleeding out. If you're able to talk, you're obviously at positive hit points.

*Or just dead, depending on what version of the rules you go by.

So someone being able to gasp out their final breath, or perform a few final actions and then keeling over is a complete segregation of narrative and gameplay mechanics. Just like "the villain has a knife to the NPC's throat and threatens to kill them" when a knife is unlikely to do enough hit point damage to kill most people.

I mean, yes, obviously, the rules should take a backseat to these kinds of events, but it's still jarring when it comes up and you realize that all your magic and power to preserve life is suddenly negated by "Cutscene Power"!

which is an issue with DnD healing rules not with "dramatic death"

its why I let healing word restore HP only but require Medicine Skill to stop bleeding and close wounds - a victim can still bleed out if they arent treated with Skill. I'd drop cure wounds from Ravenloft myself or at least nerf it by making it a concentration spell until real healing occurs.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If a PC drops to 0*

Exactly zero. If the damage took them negative (optionally, -3) they were dead. The probability of actually landing on zero is low, hence the optional -3 rule.

 

[James Gasik]

Exactly zero. If the damage took them negative (optionally, -3) they were dead. The probability of actually landing on zero is low, hence the optional -3 rule.

Yeah well, like I said, it depends on which version of the rules you go by.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah well, like I said, it depends on which version of the rules you go by.

However you spin it, at the time these adventures were written D&D was much more deadly and it was a lot less likely that a dying person would jump back up again.

You can’t really evaluate these adventures without considering the ruleset they were designed to operate under.

 

[Voadam]

Exactly zero. If the damage took them negative (optionally, -3) they were dead. The probability of actually landing on zero is low, hence the optional -3 rule.

That is the 1e DMG rule. So applicable in I6 and I10.

The 2e DMG optional one is alive until -10 hp like in 3e.

A cure light wounds often was the at hand way to save a person dying from wounds in 2e. It was a consideration for me in both of the 2e Ravenloft campaigns I ran.

I am sure some used the dead at 0 hp rule, but saving dying people was an official campaign option in 2e.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That is the 1e DMG rule. So applicable in I6 and I10.

The 2e DMG optional one is alive until -10 hp like in 3e.

A cure light wounds often was the at hand way to save a person dying from wounds in 2e. It was a consideration for me in both of the 2e Ravenloft campaigns I ran.

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I am sure some used the dead at 0 hp rule, but saving dying people was an official campaign option in 2e.

The dying person not being able to be saved, more likely was some old fashioned 90s railroading than anything to do with the rules (The Created module has a sequence where an NPC cannot be killed no matter what, the GM is instructed to just not let it happen). But one thing to note about the Ravenlfot modules is they generally didn't use optional rules. I am sure there are exceptions as the line wasn't always consistent, but NWPs generally didn't come up in them for example. So I doubt the Hovering On Death's door was assumed (though again in this particular case I think it was railroading not a concern about characters dying at 0)

 

[Bedrockgames]

You can’t really evaluate these adventures without considering the ruleset they were designed to operate under.

This is true. You also have to consider the gaming culture at the time and the publishing culture too. Modules were written very differently in this era

 

[der_kluge]

My theory is that TSR hired a bunch of creative writing graduates to write these modules, and so they end up reading like stories, and less like what we'd expect from a module where the PCs have actual free will.

 

[Bedrockgames]

My theory is that TSR hired a bunch of creative writing graduates to write these modules, and so they end up reading like stories, and less like what we'd expect from a module where the PCs have actual free will.

I think there may have been some of that, but this was also just the era of GM as storyteller. It was pretty common not just in modules but at a lot of tables too. I don't think there is one particular cause of it

 

[TiQuinn]

That's what I intend to do with Captain Timmothy in Evil Eye. In the module, he attacks the party. But I think it's just as well-served if he has them sleep on the shore, and he ties himself up in his cabin. The party could hear him at night jerking the chains around, and baying at the moon. Then they get to decide whether they want to continue traveling with him the following day, and certainly puts them on edge. To me, it makes the NPC more sympathetic.

So Nathan Timothy used to be a darklord of Arkendale which was retconned out in an new edition of the setting and for some reason, I always had it in my head that his boat was like a Mississippi River paddleboat. I don’t know if that was ever canon, but I base it completely off a picture of him in the original box set.

Sorry, total non-sequitor.