We Used the new death and dying rules and it saved our ninja

[Wormwood]

The little girl and Mike Tyson are now both at negative HP. Why should Mike Tyson be more likely to wake up after being bitten in the neck and taking several blows from the bear, when the little girl suffered only one attack? The fact that Mike Tyson is a boxer doesn't matter after he's unconscious. His superior strength, pain tolerance, and fighting skill are no longer a factor. In reality, Mike is more likely to die because he suffered more attacks from the bear.

For the record, I think your analogy is spot on.

 

[Thundershield]

Well, let's take a look at the problem people have raised it to be and what surrounds it, why it is considered a problem by these and what can be done if something needs to be done:

• It is a problem because the 3-failed-rolls-and-you're-out rule doesn't take the character's resilience into consideration.
• It is a problem because a character at his negative hit point limit can recover as easily as someone at 0 hp.
• It is a problem because the 3-failed-rolls-and-you're-out rule is too random.

That's the opinions I've spotted so far so far in this thread that are construed as "problems" with the 4E way of handling death and dying. Let's then look at what we, as a gaming fanbase, require of the rules, as per the statement of the WotC team:

• They need to be simple, and easy to remember and use.
• They need to confer the feel of fantasy adventure to the gaming table (e.i. keep the mortality relatively low while possible).

And going from this we'll look at the problems now. As it has been said, a character's resilience is already a factor in that the hit points (representation of a character's resilience) determine when this state of dying is reached. Likewise the hit points also determine how likely a character is to simply go unconscious over outright dying when reduced to a given number of hit points below 1.

While hit points are abstract, the new concept of "bloodied" does imply that at some point, the character will know that he's trying his luck or tempting fate. Being bloodied, however, can manifest in many ways, from a drop of blood on your lip or nosebleed to a flesh wound.

And while the abstraction that is hit points seems to treat a character near his negative hit point limit the same way as a character at 0 hit points, there is a difference. First off, the attacks that reduced these sample characters to the state of dying were of different strengths, but only in so far that one attack could have killed a lesser creature while the other couldn't possibly have done anything but render the target unconscious. In that regard there is little difference between, say, -50 and 0. However, the difference becomes apparent with a follow-up attack on the dying characters.

Lastly, the 3-rolls-and-you're-out rule is criticized as random. While that is true, it gives considerably more warning than a simple save-or-die effect. With no failed rolls (yet), you know you have at least 2 rounds to reach the dying character unless someone decides to stab the body.

That brings me to the requirements of the rule: Is it simple? Yes, it is relatively simple and easy to use at the table. That hasn't been contested in this thread, anyway.

Does it inspire heroics and fantasy adventure? Well, the fact that you can roll a 20 to have a miraculous recovery does add a sense of heroics to it, making it possible for someone to stand up and "save the day" despite being down for the count just moments before, while the 3-rolls-and-you're-out creates a sense of urgency in the party if they see a comrade fall, though without causing a panic (since they still have at least 2 rounds). Also, both the chance of recovery and the negative hit point buffer ensure that the heroes, despite their dangerous lifestyle, don't die too easily.

Lastly, what can be done if something needs to be done? This is obviously a simple set of rules to govern the state of dying, mostly appealing to a gamist mindset, and it might not carry the complexity and "realism" analogy a simulationist demands. However, such a complex system could (and probably would) severely slow down the game, making the state of dying undesirable for more than the obvious reasons, or it could - as other posters pointed out - create too heavy an emphasis on some game elements.

In the end, this is a simple rules set that serves the purpose. It doesn't require math or take much time, allowing players to focus on whatever part of the game they wish. Someone wishing for a more complex system is of course free to invent such a system and use it for their game, but with these being the rules intended for the default and core system, they work perfectly well.

 

[KarinsDad]

Why are the rules inferior?

To what they could have done.

The rules have obvious problems:

1) PCs either die, or wake up. There is no self stabilization middle ground (even though getting captured is one of the designer goals of these rules, sigh).

2) Amount of damage is irrelevant. 0 hit points (barely down) is treated the same as -50 hit points. And before someone states that these are the same because of hit point abstraction, they are not. At -50, a 5 point Aura of Fire will kill the PC in less time than at 0. It will kill him 10 rounds faster. These ARE different states of unconsciousness because some of the rules work differently with them.

3) If a downed PC is not dead, he cannot die in one round after unconsciousness. He cannot die in two. The earliest he can die is three. This is metagamey. Normal sounding events in the game cannot happen, just because of the rules.

There are other issues, but they are more minor, or more distasteful or not depending on the type of game a DM wants to run. For example, the chance to die is 73%. For some DMs, that's too high. For others, it's too low. For others, it might be just right. Personally, I think going to 0 hits and having the same chance to die as being at -7 in 3E is on the high side.


I'm glad that these rules might work for your game. They don't work for me. I do not think that they are well thought out at all and will be a common source of 4E house rules. Several of the new WotC rules are bad rules. Another example is the 1 square diagonal movement rule. That's a bad rule too because it has mechanics and believability problems.

And trust me, if a rule is good, I'll give it it's due praise. I really really appreciate good rule design. So far, we haven't seen a lot of good rules out of the solid rules we know. There are some, but there have been a few stinkers as well. And, we've seen a lot of simplifications, but simplifications do not necessarily equate to good rules. They can, like with the Monster Stats which is a good rule, but simplification by itself does not necessarily equate to good rules.

 

[Thundershield]

3) If a downed PC is not dead, he cannot die in one round after unconsciousness. He cannot die in two. The earliest he can die is three. This is metagamey. Normal sounding events in the game cannot happen, just because of the rules.

That's what I meant with my reference to the gamist/simulationist mindsets. While it is true that it is possible for someone to die the round after they go unconscious, it is hardly desirable in the game. Such a situation would elicit much the same "I was robbed of my character because of sudden death" feeling as the old save-or-die effects did.

Also, in 3.x it was very unlikely for someone to go unconscious for 1-2 round and then die. They'd have to hit exactly -8 or -9 hit points. Much like the state of "disabled" at 0 hit points was removed, these "dead in a moment" situations were removed for the sake of the game. And while it does stray from simulationism by almost negligible amounts, it benefits the game immensely, letting players keep their characters while experiencing the dread of "dying".

Oh, I should add that it is still possible to die within those 2 rounds... if some sadistic creature decides to stab you while you're down.

 

[Steely Dan]

Wow, a lot of people stating their "opinions" as facts in this thread.

 

[Thundershield]

Wow, a lot of people stating their "opinions" as facts in this thread.

Sorry about that. The wording in my first post was affected by my desire to sum up this thread in an objective manner. However, below the listings the objectivism vanishes in favor of my arguments in the matter.

 

[DarenCommons]

We used the rule too

and everyone liked it. It only came up once but it was more fun than counting to ten.

We've already decided to house rule that the Die Hard feat will give a fourth roll....

 

[Wormwood]

Wow, a lot of people stating their "opinions" as facts in this thread.

[ insert obligatory "Welcome to the Internet" joke here ]

 

[Fifth Element]

3) If a downed PC is not dead, he cannot die in one round after unconsciousness. He cannot die in two. The earliest he can die is three. This is metagamey. Normal sounding events in the game cannot happen, just because of the rules.

Complaining that a game rule, which is by definition an abstraction of reality, is metagamey is not valid. All game rules are metagamey. Any time imprecise or random results are reduced to a numerical game rule, that is metagamey.

Ability scores are metagamey.

Hit points are metagamey.

Attack rolls are metagamey.

Saving throws are metagamey.

Etc, etc, etc.

In 3E we know precisely how long it will take a character to die if he does not stabilize, based on his negative hit points reaching -10. In 4E there will be uncertainty, though there will be a minimum of 3 rounds, as you point out. Why is one metagamey but not the other?

Pretty typical situation in 3E:

"What are you at, Bob?"
"-5 hit points."
"Cool. The cleric has time to heal me first before heading over to stabilize you. You have five more rounds."

 

[Wolfspider]

Stop getting hung up on what version 3.5 did about death and dying. I think we can all admit that the situation with negative hit points in that game is not ideal. It is too predictable. There, I said it.

Can we move on to 4e now?

I don't think that the new rule is too metagamey, whatever that means.

I just think it's too unpredictable, and that it doesn't represent the kind of heroic fantasy that I envision when playing D&D.

Sure, death can come at us from any angle, at any time. I could keel over at any time due to eating too many cheese sticks at Sonic, or from being crushed by a weather satellite while I'm posting to a mesage board. Death IS unpredictable.

But D&D involves heroes, and I just can't find it in my imagination to think that Conan the Cimmerian has the same chance to die from his wounds as Little Miss Muffet.