toucanbuzz
No rule is inviolate
Meant to comment your proposal bypasses the absurd scenarios that arise with death saves.
The unconscious option was a mechanical necessity when a counter to staggered needed to be implemented (otherwise everyone would opt for it). Unless my monsters were trying to take them alive, it puts the narrative a bit more in the players' hands.
Lingering wounds in play are largely inconsequential despite their name. To get back in the fray, a character is going to receive magical healing, which cures pretty much all lingering wounds. It's really the threat of rolling a 1-3 (lose a body part) that adds something lasting into play (other than interesting scars), and as such, it's got to be a rare mechanic. Over an approximately 3-4 year span of using it, we've had 2 players lose limbs (a two-handed fighter lost an arm and a war cleric lost a foot). We turned this into role playing glory, so it can take the story somewhere else. Off topic a bit, but sharing what I've seen.
EDIT: this play pre-dated vitality, and at that time I used the optional rule when a character "fails a death save by 5 or more." That's a 25% chance per death save roll, so we saw the lingering wounds fairly often. But there's not much point in describing a devastating belly wound only to have a cure effect go into play next round that removed it.
The unconscious option was a mechanical necessity when a counter to staggered needed to be implemented (otherwise everyone would opt for it). Unless my monsters were trying to take them alive, it puts the narrative a bit more in the players' hands.
Lingering wounds in play are largely inconsequential despite their name. To get back in the fray, a character is going to receive magical healing, which cures pretty much all lingering wounds. It's really the threat of rolling a 1-3 (lose a body part) that adds something lasting into play (other than interesting scars), and as such, it's got to be a rare mechanic. Over an approximately 3-4 year span of using it, we've had 2 players lose limbs (a two-handed fighter lost an arm and a war cleric lost a foot). We turned this into role playing glory, so it can take the story somewhere else. Off topic a bit, but sharing what I've seen.
EDIT: this play pre-dated vitality, and at that time I used the optional rule when a character "fails a death save by 5 or more." That's a 25% chance per death save roll, so we saw the lingering wounds fairly often. But there's not much point in describing a devastating belly wound only to have a cure effect go into play next round that removed it.
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