NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 6695265" data-attributes="member: 12731">Just a quick note: the reason you didn't see it before was because negative hp was tracked (unless, as has been pointed out, you're that old, in which case, you were that dead <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )... Cheers!But let's read an explanation for the current system, from the now-wiped-but-not-really-since-this-is-the-intarwebs:What I think is: it's not so much that the rule is favorable to the character, it's more how the rule makes combat healing INCREDIBLY MUCH MORE effective if you wait until 0 hp. The problem isn't that the healing is guaranteed to wake you up. The problem is how this rule alone erases more incoming damage than any other game effect, once you analyse it rationally and play accordingly. And my players are scarily effective at minmaxing.I choose to think this was simply overlooked by the designers and playtesters at the time. After all, a casual reading of the rules does not spell out the consequences a logical approach leads to - not that healing is friendly or even how much damage you can soak at 0 hp, but what we here and now call "double tapping".The fact that all this set-up to get adventurers back up on their legs has a trivial counter. But a counter that takes the game into a dark and vicious direction, a direction I do not want the game to take.  That's easy to say but impossible to do. Pandora's box and all that. No, this entire thread exists because once I got the whack-a-mole imagery in mind, I could not un-image it.And since I can't choose either of two bad choices 1) kill the fallen and 2) not kill the fallen, I need an out.Reintroducing at least a few negative hit points seems to be the simplest out there is. Remember, the problem that got negative hp nixed was that a bad roll meant your heal was ineffective. With a cap at -10 this is only true for healing effects of the lowest level. In other words, if you wish to ensure that your buddy gets back on his or her feet, shoot off at least a level 2 heal (level 3 if you want to cast Healing Word as a non-Life cleric). Level 1 heals might be cheap, but they're best used while the ally is still standing (or considered a life-saving stabilizing effect first, and hp heal second).To me, this is all good. Again, cheers.</blockquote>

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