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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Wound Levels instead of Death Saves house rule
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<blockquote data-quote="5ekyu" data-source="post: 7799043" data-attributes="member: 6919838"><p>Some points I will make...</p><p></p><p>Dropping to zero vs staying up is usually not anything close to something the player controls. Most characters cannot heal themselves enough to offset incoming dsmage and do its either the effort of multiple PCs needed or somehow avoiding critical hits which are pretty random. </p><p></p><p>So this seems to be punishing the PCs for stuff <strong>they dont conttol.</strong> </p><p></p><p>IMO the single biggest changes a GM can make to reduce zero-n-back-up would be to remove NPC crits from the game <em>and</em> use the success at cost rule that allows PCs to take a setback to make a narrowly missed save. I think those open up a lot of options and put the flow of combat a lot more in the arena of choice than adding more severe penalties for unlucky breaks. </p><p></p><p>One level of exhaustion is definitely going to lead to many more cases of Retreat. Its disadvantage on initiatives, its disadvantage on perception, on escapes from grapples etc - it's very risky to proceed with such.</p><p></p><p>Maybe try something simple first, like "going to zero hp costs you an unspent HD and do foes each failed death save."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="5ekyu, post: 7799043, member: 6919838"] Some points I will make... Dropping to zero vs staying up is usually not anything close to something the player controls. Most characters cannot heal themselves enough to offset incoming dsmage and do its either the effort of multiple PCs needed or somehow avoiding critical hits which are pretty random. So this seems to be punishing the PCs for stuff [B]they dont conttol.[/B] IMO the single biggest changes a GM can make to reduce zero-n-back-up would be to remove NPC crits from the game [I]and[/I] use the success at cost rule that allows PCs to take a setback to make a narrowly missed save. I think those open up a lot of options and put the flow of combat a lot more in the arena of choice than adding more severe penalties for unlucky breaks. One level of exhaustion is definitely going to lead to many more cases of Retreat. Its disadvantage on initiatives, its disadvantage on perception, on escapes from grapples etc - it's very risky to proceed with such. Maybe try something simple first, like "going to zero hp costs you an unspent HD and do foes each failed death save." [/QUOTE]
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Wound Levels instead of Death Saves house rule
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