No brains
2011-11-28, 09:08 PM
Dying sucks.
Dying stops you from playing, penalizes your team, and is all too often unavoidable.
I have an idea to 'soften dying' with a replacement condition I call Crippled.
When a character reaches -10 hp, they do not die but are instead Crippled. When Crippled, a character can be healed back to consciousness, but they can only be healed up to 0 hp, and are continually Disabled.
I see several advantages to this status over straight death:
- Closer to reality. In our world, plenty of people get grievously injured to the degree they cannot recover to what they were before the injury.
- Closer to 'plausible fantasy'. Even in legends, returning from real death is a major miracle, but healing the sick and blind are more 'mortal miracles' that keep heroes further away from being god-like entities.
- Keeps players playing. Normally a dead player can't help the party, and some DMs even refuse to let dead players contribute advice to their living comrades. The crippled condition is still grievous enough to keep players from taking stupid risks as it slows down the game, but players who are smart but just unlucky can still aid their teammates without metagaming.
Obviously though, the idea still needs work. Some might think Crippled is too harsh a word for the condition, and real death becomes more difficult to define. If you have any ideas that can help, please contribute. For the issue of real death, perhaps no character can die unless hit with a coup de grace, and being conscious but Crippled still leaves you vulnerable to such an attack.
So, tell me what you think.:smallsmile:
P.S. I got a headache shortly after beginning this so please excuse any crappy syntax, grammar, or general incoherence.:smallfrown:
Dying stops you from playing, penalizes your team, and is all too often unavoidable.
I have an idea to 'soften dying' with a replacement condition I call Crippled.
When a character reaches -10 hp, they do not die but are instead Crippled. When Crippled, a character can be healed back to consciousness, but they can only be healed up to 0 hp, and are continually Disabled.
I see several advantages to this status over straight death:
- Closer to reality. In our world, plenty of people get grievously injured to the degree they cannot recover to what they were before the injury.
- Closer to 'plausible fantasy'. Even in legends, returning from real death is a major miracle, but healing the sick and blind are more 'mortal miracles' that keep heroes further away from being god-like entities.
- Keeps players playing. Normally a dead player can't help the party, and some DMs even refuse to let dead players contribute advice to their living comrades. The crippled condition is still grievous enough to keep players from taking stupid risks as it slows down the game, but players who are smart but just unlucky can still aid their teammates without metagaming.
Obviously though, the idea still needs work. Some might think Crippled is too harsh a word for the condition, and real death becomes more difficult to define. If you have any ideas that can help, please contribute. For the issue of real death, perhaps no character can die unless hit with a coup de grace, and being conscious but Crippled still leaves you vulnerable to such an attack.
So, tell me what you think.:smallsmile:
P.S. I got a headache shortly after beginning this so please excuse any crappy syntax, grammar, or general incoherence.:smallfrown: