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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7756183" data-attributes="member: 4937">My rules you get staggered when you have less than 10% of your maximum hit points remaining.   I don't really think this is a functional answer.   I mean it's a very Old Skool and Traditional answer, and it is functional for games that maintain the full list of tropes, rituals and methodologies of play that where part of Old Skool gaming.   But it is not and has not been a functional answer for every table even going back to the 'old days' when we weren't actually cognizant enough to even realize we actually had completely different methodologies of play governing how we played.   It took me until the early 2000's to really understand Gygax's writing in the 1e DMG, because only then did I get inside Gygax's head and realize what unspoken assumptions were governing his play and how - at least for those assumptions - the advice he was giving was actually very functional and well thought out.   It had to that point only seemed weird because I wasn't playing the same game he was, even when I was using the same rules to do it.In brief, that old school model is this:1) There is a dungeon that is the focus of play.2) There is a nearby Haven that the party can retreat to.3) There are such a large number of players that it is not functional for the gaming group to insist that everyone be present in order to game.From those assumptions arise all sorts of wonders.  But you can remove those assumptions and end up with a game were the stopping to allow the injured a chance to recover doesn't really work.  As such, assuming that the game can accommodate that and so having a rule set that requires it very much limits the sort of game you can play.   In fact, even Old School gaming can't accommodate that model in the strictest sense, which is one of the reasons that they never even attempted to model injury realistically.Imagine the situation in play.  You've shown up at Gygax's house as one of the 15 players for that evening.  You elect a party leader/caller because otherwise it would be bedlam, and your well organized group spends about 15 minutes pouring over the collection of maps made by the map makers before planning a well organized raid on some sublevel of the vast Castle Greyhawk.  In essence, you are playing a game not that dissimilar from the early Raids on a game like World of Warcraft, you are just doing it on paper.  Now imagine mechanically if you have a Death Spiral injury system and your character is now down for the count.  Socially what you are asking those other 14 players to do is abandon the 'raid' and take you back to town to recover.  If they do, the night's gaming is basically over.  There is no 'waiting for a week' to let you get better because per the DMG real time is basically game time.   Waiting for a week means no one at the table can use this character again for one week real time.   You will have ruined every one at the table's evening, including that guy who hasn't been able to play for two weeks and was really looking forward to this.   There is a strong social impetus to just abandon you, and suddenly you have table tension between the Chaotics who are OK with that, and the lawfuls who are mechanically forced to not be OK with that.   So forget it.  TTB is the way to go; slap a cure moderate wounds on it and move him off the front line.  That way everyone continues to have fun.</blockquote>

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