Will you try the new "Death & Dying" rules now?

[Greg K]

I voted no. Negative hit points should have been taken out back, shot, and buried.

 

[kennew142]

I'll suggest it to the GMs of my D&D games.

My only concern is remembering this kind of stuff:
Lower than 10: You get worse. If you get this result three times before you are healed or stabilized (as per the Heal skill), you die.
10-19: No change.
20: You get better! You wake up with hit points equal to one-quarter your full normal hit points.

I hope the system is not littered with things like this.

I voted yes. The next game I run will try them out. Another GM is currently running in our home games. I don't know if he'll want to try them out at this point. [One campaign will likely conclude in one or two playing sessions].

From the post, it seems that the table above is a new core mechanic. We don't know what all it will be used for, but I'm fairly confident that we won't see a separate mechanic for each issue (like earlier editions of the game).

 

[Zaruthustran]

My group has been using "dead at -10 -level", so if you're 5th level you die at -15, if 10th level you die at -20, and so on. It's helped out.

But I really like that "three strikes, you're dead" rule. *And* the dramatic comeback of the natural 20.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

No, I find the d20 roll as currently formatted lacks elegance. Perhaps the 4E system will be better.

 

[PeelSeel2]

This is a good clean rule. We have been playing with -con for ever, this extends it a bit, but add's a high level of uncertainty to it too.

Your character can go negative a lot more hit points, but once he/she he reaches 0 or below, he/she is unconcious and dying, having to make a roll every round to see what his/her condition does. If he/she fails the d20 roll three rounds in a row, they are dead! Excellent! Better healing rules for being negative too. Also, if he/she reaches their 'negative threshold' they are dead too. More heroic and dramatic all they way around!

 

[Dausuul]

I'll suggest it to the GMs of my D&D games.

My only concern is remembering this kind of stuff:
Lower than 10: You get worse. If you get this result three times before you are healed or stabilized (as per the Heal skill), you die.
10-19: No change.
20: You get better! You wake up with hit points equal to one-quarter your full normal hit points.

I hope the system is not littered with things like this.

The roll in question appears to be a saving throw, as 4E defines it (judging by the new DDM rules). I expect the text in the Player's Handbook will be something like, "Make a saving throw each round. If you fail a total of three saves without being stabilized, you die. On a critical success, you recover and wake up with hit points equal to one-quarter your normal total."

And I would absolutely adopt this mechanic if I were planning to run a 3E game again. As it is, I doubt my group will be doing any more D&D to speak of until June.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Definitely not.

I like the disabled rule for its dramatic possibilities, and the only problem with it in 3e was that the window was too small.

So in our games the disabled window is from 0 down to -level and then you've got an additional dying window for an additional amount equal to your Con.

1st level wizard with 10 Con? disabled at 0 or -1, dying from -2 to -11, dead at -12.
15th level fighter with 20 Con? disabled at 0 to -15, dying from -16 to -35, dead at -36

With the elimination of multiple damage from crits in 4e, and apparently (judging by the pit fiend) general reduction in amount of damage done, I think this rule which has worked really well for us in 3e will continue to be the bees' knees for us in 4e.

Cheers

 

[pweent]

With the elimination of multiple damage from crits in 4e, and apparently (judging by the pit fiend) general reduction in amount of damage done, I think this rule which has worked really well for us in 3e will continue to be the bees' knees for us in 4e.

Emphasis mine. At the risk of going off topic, this is an interesting point. There is an assumption out there post-Pit Fiend that attacks will be doing less damage per round in 4e. And yet the Design and Development article itself explicitly asserts the opposite:

This is less than a 4th Edition character would have, but each monster attack is dealing a smaller fraction of the character’s total hit points, so it should be reasonable.

One obvious solution here is that 4e characters may have fewer HP overall. Alternately, people may just be misjudging the average damage of a 4e attack. It'll be interesting to see.

On topic: I despise the deterministic death countdown of 3e, and really like the Three Strikes mechanic of the preview. We're currently using Disabled from 0 to negative Con modifier, dead at negative Con. I'll propose to my players that we give these rules a try once we establish to our satisfaction how they interact with existing 3e mechanics. (What happens to a character with Fast Healing 1 under these rules? If she gets knocked down to -17 HP and is still alive, does she immediately pop back up at 1 HP on her next turn? That would make Fast Healing WAY too beaucoup.)

 

[Stormtower]

I like these rules and certainly will give them a test drive in my 3.5 campaign.

My homebrew is narrative driven but features regular and difficult tactical combats. So rebalancing the -10 threshold might have good effects... we shall see.

I like the direction of many of 4e's rules that I've seen of late.

 

[MerricB]

Emphasis mine. At the risk of going off topic, this is an interesting point. There is an assumption out there post-Pit Fiend that attacks will be doing less damage per round in 4e. And yet the Design and Development article itself explicitly asserts the opposite

Note that in 3e, a Pit Fiend has 6 attacks per round! It racks up a *lot* of damage per round, compared to the 4e 2 attacks per round.

Percentage of HP-wise, it's likely the 4e attacks are higher than an individual 3e attack.

Cheers!