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Rainbownaga
2011-01-15, 05:07 AM
My dilemma is that players get attached to their creations, even at level 1. Death at these levels is far too easy, restoration to life is a long while away, and bringing in replacements is a hassle anyway.

I've also noticed a few systems where characters don't actually die, per se, as just get permanently affected when they 'become unconsious'.

What if pc's didn't so much die after being knocked to -10 as had, say, an arm ripped off, an eye split open or a nasty scar across their chest?

What I'm thinking of is this

1) Get rid of the bleeding out process, it would just be confusing. -1 to -9 just means that you're unconscious and automatically stable (unless you're still moving). This also applies to NPCs.

2) At -10 you suffer from one of a list of nasty side effects ranging from mildly inconvienient to severe. Instant death spells and attacks dealing massive damage (regardless of fort. save) add a number to the result of the roll to make them much worse.

3) This should be considered some kind of divine boon for the PC's. Most NPCs that are dropped below -9 or subject to a death effect suffer some horribly described death.



Any ideas or suggestions? I'll start posting some ideas soon

Rainbownaga
2011-01-15, 05:10 AM
List so far.

Roll d20 add +5 for death effects or massive damage
1- A large visible scary showing signs of the brush with death.
2-
3-
4-
5-
6- Painful wound that doesn't heal. -2 to concentration checks and saves vs. pain effects.
7- Lose one eye. Blinded when last eye lost.
8- Life-force weakened. Lose 1 level (-2 con for first level characters)
9-
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24-
25- Hideously maimed. 50% chance of being unable to perform any action attempted. Apply before additional checks.

Mordokai
2011-01-15, 05:35 AM
The problem, as I see it, when you start applying those penalties to characters it just gets, well... sucky. Yes, nobody likes their character dying, but seeing your character crippled sucks even more, since it prevents them from being effective and thus more likely to die in the future again. And when that happens, you roll on that table again, gaining another penalty. And I presume those stack, as it would be only sensible.

This may be realistic. The problem is, this is DnD. Logic and realism take back seat to fun and awesome. After few deaths, you'd end up with a character that's basically a cripple and not being able to do anything well, therefore being a hinderance to the party. Seriously, I'd much rather see my character die swift and relatively painless death rather than live on as a cripple.

Rainbownaga
2011-01-15, 05:57 AM
That's where grafts and the like can come into it. Say you lose a hand, you can just have an undead one put in its place. (Or a hand of Vecna).

As it is you lose a level if you get brought back, in this case that will be one of the more severe outcomes and you get to keep the gold. Once characters get access to true ressurection it'd be the same since you get regeneration at a simmilar level.

Being maimed sucks, but being maimed to the point of uselessness would likely require multiple results, and hopefully they aren't dying that much.

GhostwheelZ
2011-01-15, 08:50 AM
The problem, as I see it, when you start applying those penalties to characters it just gets, well... sucky. Yes, nobody likes their character dying, but seeing your character crippled sucks even more, since it prevents them from being effective and thus more likely to die in the future again. And when that happens, you roll on that table again, gaining another penalty. And I presume those stack, as it would be only sensible.

This may be realistic. The problem is, this is DnD. Logic and realism take back seat to fun and awesome. After few deaths, you'd end up with a character that's basically a cripple and not being able to do anything well, therefore being a hinderance to the party. Seriously, I'd much rather see my character die swift and relatively painless death rather than live on as a cripple.
Another side to this though is that it lets characters become more unique if false limbs and other things that make the penalties "go away" are abundant and not too hard to get. People rarely remember that one fighter, but they'll remember their character who had an arm and leg ripped right out and later got a psychic transplant for the arm made of semi-precious crystals and a clockwork mechanism for their leg that functioned as well as their real limbs.

But second to the whole "suckiness" of actual penalties crippling a character.

Gelscressor
2011-01-15, 07:50 PM
I'm going to recommend ''Warheart'' (http://www.poradkyna.sk/wh/d20.php) here. It's a ...sort of conversion project from DnD to Warhammer Fantasy. That is to say, it still uses the DnD rules, but it is made appropriately grimdark to fit the Warhammer Fantasy setting.

Anyway, the thing that ought to be of interest here, is the section on "Deadly Hits''. Essentially, a character can not have negative HP. Instead, each negative Hit Points adds +1 on the Deadly Hits chart. Naturally, you can change this to -9 and say that each additional hit point past this adds +1 on the chart. However, as the name suggests, some of the results are deadly. A fair number of them are not though and just involve the character being maimed. Regardless of what you exactly want, I'd think its not a bad chart to start with.

AugustNights
2011-01-15, 08:20 PM
The problem, as I see it, when you start applying those penalties to characters it just gets, well... sucky. Yes, nobody likes their character dying, but seeing your character crippled sucks even more, since it prevents them from being effective and thus more likely to die in the future again. And when that happens, you roll on that table again, gaining another penalty. And I presume those stack, as it would be only sensible.

This may be realistic. The problem is, this is DnD. Logic and realism take back seat to fun and awesome. After few deaths, you'd end up with a character that's basically a cripple and not being able to do anything well, therefore being a hinderance to the party. Seriously, I'd much rather see my character die swift and relatively painless death rather than live on as a cripple.

This is why you always save your game and carry five or more injury kits (http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Injury_Kit).

I keep meaning to do this for my own games, but then I forget.

werik
2011-01-16, 12:25 AM
I'm really not a big fan of replacing maiming with dying. As Mordokai said, having a player that's seriously deformed and much less effective after "dying" seems like a worse fate than rolling up a new character. When I DM I tell my players to not get too attached to their characters at lower levels in case they die. At higher levels, when players are understandably more attached, it's much more feasible for them to be raised and so the dying becomes less of an issue. In short, XP and gold loss sucks, but not as bad as having a permanently burdened character.

I do like the idea of encouraging players to think of passing into negative hit points as scarring in some way for the purpose of texture. If players include unseemly scars from melee damage or wheezing heavily in cold weather after suffering from a finger of death spell for their characters this could add an extra dimension to the role playing side of the game. Grafting undead limbs, as the OP cited, is a particularly cool idea for evil characters who pass into negative hit points (I couldn't see my current paladin character being particularly drawn to a skeletal foot).

Delwugor
2011-01-16, 03:08 PM
The difficulty I see is that D&D does not have a Advantages/Disadvantages mechanism. So what you are looking at gives a single huge advantage while the character deals with continuous smaller disadvantages.
To players this may not balance out over a longer campaign. I.E the balancing based on severity does not compensate for the unbalancing of the frequency.

Worira
2011-01-16, 03:45 PM
I don't especially want to be playing Johnny Got His Gun: The Game while everyone else is playing DnD.

bloodtide
2011-01-17, 01:48 AM
So how does this work again?

So the rules of life and death have changed...and everyone knows this fact, right? It would be well known that some 'special' people don't die. There are people that you can run your sword through and they will get up later with a 'slow limp from a wounded foot'(even though you hit only their chest).

After all the current PC are not the first people in the world to ever 'not die', right?

And even if they are the first 'blessed' non-death folks...it will only take a fight or two for word of this amazing power to spread. (''Yup, Togh cut the head off that Rogen guy...but he got back up and put his head on, but oddly had a broken hand wound. Rogen? My band fought his group on Tuesday! We shot Rogen with five arrows and he fell off a cliff...but later he go up all better with a wound on his nose'')

And once that happens, any bad guy with an intelligence of over 5 will obliterate any 'dead' body. (We killed Rogen! Wait..he will come back again..with an odd wound that we did not give him. OK, cut his body up into 1,000 chunks and sens them in all four directions and burn them. )

And what about the hungry monster problem? An owlbear will eat the dead PC body, so how do they come back from that? Do they just get to reboot from a safe point. (Yup, I was eaten alive, but I reloaded myself from the safe point, but ow, I'm missing an ear).

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2011-01-17, 03:26 AM
I mean, if you chose to have it work that way, sure. Alternatively, you could declare that the "fatal blow" severed his arm and sent him into shock, and all-in-all do it much more reasonably, as well. It's a strawman to argue the proposed rule says stabwounds to the chest cause foot problems.

Personally, I think there aren't enough ways to get garishly crippled in D&D.

MythMage
2011-02-04, 06:43 AM
I think the general idea of being maimed instead of killed at -10 isn't bad at all, whether you're striving for a bit more realistic combat with actual lasting consequences or your players find their characters die inconveniently often. Even if you aren't attached to your characters (though how is it fun if you don't care at all about the character you play?), rolling new ones takes a lot of time, so I think this is a solid direction both in terms of practicality and tone.

As for mechanics, just keep the option of death on the table. For example, Pathfinder says you die at your Constitution score's worth of negative hit points. If you keep the rules mostly as normal, but:

1. say that you die at 2xCON or CON+level negative hit points, and

2. say that each point past 10 or so gives you a progressively worse scar or other lasting injury

then you preserve life longer without making 'em immortal and also provide the option of interesting stories.


I would apply this to everything, not just PCs. Might be good to make the PCs have an easier time of it (such as the whole 10 point gap of "safe" dying condition being smaller or nonexistent for NPCs), but I like this being an excuse to add texture to recurring NPCs too.

The table might be something like:

0 and up - mild injury (little to no scar)
-1 to -3: small moderate injury (scar, fades after a few months)
-4 to -6: large moderate injury (scar, fades after a few years; or minor concussion)
-7 to -9: lasting injury (1 ability drain depending on where it is, which fades after a few decades or when healed; mental ability drain includes minor concussion)
-10 to -15: lifelong injury (1d3 ability drain, which never fades)
-16 to -21: severe injury (as above, but 1d4+1 drain or lose finger, toe, or ear)
-20 to -27: debilitating injury (as above, but 2d6 drain or lose eye, foot, or nose)
-28 to -33: terrible injury (as above, but 3d6 drain or lose limb)
-34 and higher: grave injury (as above, but 3d8 drain or severe head injury or ruined organs)

A lost finger imposes -1 penalty on skill checks calling for fine motor control (Disable Device, Open Lock, Sleight of Hand).
A lost ear imposes -2 penalty on Listen. A destroyed ear imposes -4 penalty on listen. Destroying all ears causes deafness.
A lost eye imposes -2 penalty on Spot and Search. Losing all eyes causes blindness.
A lost nose removes the scent ability and imposes a -4 penalty on Charisma-based skill checks.
A lost toe reduces speed by 5 ft.
A lost foot reduces speed by 1/3.
A lost leg reduces speed by 1/2.
Minor concussion causes unconsciousness for 1 minute.
Ruined organs or severe head injury inflict the full limitations of the dying condition on even the hardiest of creatures. The body is too badly injured for conventional healing to put it back together. Only regenerate, resurrection, or special magical life-support items can restore the victim to normal functioning.

A more common prosthesis or appropriate support reduces penalties by half; a masterwork version negates it. Such items should be made fairly available unless you're running a particularly grim and gritty game. Price for a crude support for an injury depends on its severity:
Lasting: 15 gp/ masterwork 60 gp
Lifelong: 35 gp/ masterwork 150 gp
Severe: 75 gp/ masterwork 300 gp
Debilitating: 150 gp/ masterwork 600 gp
Terrible: 500 gp/ masterwork 1,500 gp
Grave: 2,000 gp/ masterwork 6,000 gp


Of course, that's just a quick thing I rattled off for an example. The only thing I'm totally unsure of is when to inflict unconsciousness... with negative hit points as normal seems too early considering how uninjured one is, relatively. At -10? Later?

Mulletmanalive
2011-02-04, 08:19 AM
I actually use something similar on a voluntary basis.

I have a simplified system that doesn't use Ability Damang/Drain, so that might be more helpful in your case, though what I basically do is allow people who would die in non-spectactular ways, simply fall to -1 hp [or remain where they are if already maimed] and gain 1d3 negative levels [which i treat as permanent]

These can be negated with prosthesis, which comes in the form of the Steamborg class in my games, but you could make them magic items. The basic jist is that all that changes in the shift is that you lose your latest class feature from the class lost, everything else remains the same, and you gain the [usually considered inferior] Steamborg class feature in it's place, which basically boils down to having a cyborg limb.

This is capped at twice your Con modifier, so there is a limit to the number of "continues" one can have...