Dragon Age style dying in combat?

[Cookiemobsta]

tl;dr: It want to change the rules so that lethal hits in combat don't kill PCs; they make them unconscious and the PCs must then bleed out for 10 rounds without stabilizing before they are truly dead. After combat, the other character can revive the knocked out character, but the knocked out character will get penalties until they get the chance to heal.

Hey guys,

So I'm considering a slight chance to the game I'm DMing in order to add some extra drama and excitement.

Essentially, I run my games so that character death only happens if the player wants to roll a new character, or if the character does something they know will likely lead to death (like making a heroic rearguard last stand to help others escape.) In other words, for a character to die, the player has to choose that (because let's be honest, having the character you've invested months into go down to a lucky crit from an orc is just not that much fun.)

Since I don't want the characters to die accidentally, I'm usually pretty conservative in combat, which means that players tend to roll through combat fairly easily.

So what I'm considering is being more brutal in the combats I run, but having death in combat not actually kill you. Instead, much like Dragon Age, if a character goes down in combat, they can be revived by another character after the fight is over, but they'll have some kind of negative penalty until they get a chance to rest (like a -2 to hit.)

Mechanics wise, I'm going to say that whenever someone takes a hit that would reduce them to 0 hit points or below, they are moved to 0 hit points and fall unconscious. They lose one HP per round unless they stabilize themselves or are stabilized by a heal check. Since they have 10 rounds to bleed before they die, chances are another character will be able to save them in time.

This allows combats to be much more exciting and intense. If a character goes down, suddenly the pressure is on. The other party members need to work harder to stay alive, and they need to get over to the downed party member so they can stabilize him/her.

I'm planning on implementing this during our next game tomorrow, but I'd like to hear your thoughts first. Do you think this idea would work? Do you have any feedback/ideas/suggestions?

[Venger]

tl;dr: It want to change the rules so that lethal hits in combat don't kill PCs; they make them unconscious and the PCs must then bleed out for 10 rounds without stabilizing before they are truly dead. After combat, the other character can revive the knocked out character, but the knocked out character will get penalties until they get the chance to heal.

Hey guys,

So I'm considering a slight chance to the game I'm DMing in order to add some extra drama and excitement.

Essentially, I run my games so that character death only happens if the player wants to roll a new character, or if the character does something they know will likely lead to death (like making a heroic rearguard last stand to help others escape.) In other words, for a character to die, the player has to choose that (because let's be honest, having the character you've invested months into go down to a lucky crit from an orc is just not that much fun.)

Since I don't want the characters to die accidentally, I'm usually pretty conservative in combat, which means that players tend to roll through combat fairly easily.

So what I'm considering is being more brutal in the combats I run, but having death in combat not actually kill you. Instead, much like Dragon Age, if a character goes down in combat, they can be revived by another character after the fight is over, but they'll have some kind of negative penalty until they get a chance to rest (like a -2 to hit.)

Mechanics wise, I'm going to say that whenever someone takes a hit that would reduce them to 0 hit points or below, they are moved to 0 hit points and fall unconscious. They lose one HP per round unless they stabilize themselves or are stabilized by a heal check. Since they have 10 rounds to bleed before they die, chances are another character will be able to save them in time.

This allows combats to be much more exciting and intense. If a character goes down, suddenly the pressure is on. The other party members need to work harder to stay alive, and they need to get over to the downed party member so they can stabilize him/her.

I'm planning on implementing this during our next game tomorrow, but I'd like to hear your thoughts first. Do you think this idea would work? Do you have any feedback/ideas/suggestions?

I think that sounds like fun. it'd make low-to-mid level play much less deadly, and at higher lvls death was a slap on the wrist anyway, so nothing changes there

[Terazul]

There was a similar variant rule in the E6 variant rule supplement; Basically each player character had a "Death Flag", if your death flag was down, if you would've been killed by an attack or effect in combat, you would instead be rendered unconscious until the encounter was over. If it was up, the dying rules functioned normally, and you also had a pool of action points to spend to influence rolls/saves/damage/etc.

The idea was to prevent the player's characters from dying to mooks like your generic kobold encounter, but if the player felt the encounter was something their character would put their life on the line for or would be heroically appropriate, say, a fabled match with the barbarians who destroyed their village or what have you, they could, and would receive a boon to help them, resulting in a more dramatic combat.

But yeah, these rules seem similar enough that they'll be fine; As Venger points out, it makes low level much less of an issue of "welp that orc has a greataxe, better make a new character", and at higher levels most parties tend to have a method of dealing with death or numerous ways to prevent it anyway.

[Yora]

In short, attacks that put a character under 0 hp instead put him on 0 hp.

[Seatbelt]

Seems simple enough. If you would otherwise die you drop to 0hp and bleed out for 10 rounds. If a companion spends a full round action/combat ends you recover at 100% health but you suffer a penalty. It should be both representative of the method that killed them and relevant to their character, and you can come up with them on the fly. Just remember the Golden Rule of -2. -2AB, Damage, Saves, or AC is a pretty serious thing and you can flavor it to be appropriate. Increase casting time for casters to reflect a broken hand/wrist/jaw/ general disorientation. Swift becomes standard, standard becomes full, full becomes 1 round. Penalties to speed are annoying too, especially for already slow characters.

Penalties to skills are less serious for some characters than others. Whats a fighter care if he's taking a -4 penalty to listen and spot? He was probably only getting a +1 at best from his wisdom score anyway. But -4 to tumble for a rogue? That stings a little bit.

Then you make lesser restoration remove 1 of those affects, regular remove 2, and greater remove 3 of them. Boom you're done. Dragon Age style death.

[Person_Man]

How do you manage experience? I use a common house rule - players all gain a level when the DM says so - and I try to hand one out whenever they do something exceptional and/or every 3-4ish game sessions.

If you do something similar, you could have death (-10 hit points or lower, or any "death" effect) render the PC unconscious (and unable to wake up or be revived) until the end of combat, and impose a negative level. When combat ends you "wake up" with 50% of your hit points (based on your new, lower level). You maintain this negative level until the next time you gain a level. Death is only permanent if you are reduced to 0th level, or if the character chooses permanent death as you outlined above.

For example, Bob is a 10th level Paladin and Jane is a 10th level Wizard. Bob dies in combat. When combat is over, he wakes up as a 9th level Paladin. He continues to adventure with the party, and eventually you decide that they've experienced enough to level up. Bob regains his lost level and gains a new one, and Jane gains a level, and now they are both 11th level characters.

In this way, you can still make combat dangerous, and death still carries a real penalty, but players need not fear having their favorite character killed.

[Coidzor]

How do you manage experience? I use a common house rule - players all gain a level when the DM says so - and I try to hand one out whenever they do something exceptional and/or every 3-4ish game sessions.

If you do something similar, you could have death (-10 hit points or lower, or any "death" effect) render the PC unconscious (and unable to wake up or be revived) until the end of combat, and impose a negative level. When combat ends you "wake up" with 50% of your hit points (based on your new, lower level). You maintain this negative level until the next time you gain a level. Death is only permanent if you are reduced to 0th level, or if the character chooses permanent death as you outlined above.

For example, Bob is a 10th level Paladin and Jane is a 10th level Wizard. Bob dies in combat. When combat is over, he wakes up as a 9th level Paladin. He continues to adventure with the party, and eventually you decide that they've experienced enough to level up. Bob regains his lost level and gains a new one, and Jane gains a level, and now they are both 11th level characters.

In this way, you can still make combat dangerous, and death still carries a real penalty, but players need not fear having their favorite character killed.

Way too much of a penalty, since it leads to being easier and easier to drop in a fight until one's been turned into a wight, unless you mean to say that there can only be one negative level from this source at a time in play. Heck, at first level, this rule would just result in any character who got dropped in a fight dying and turning into a wight.

Which, I suppose, could be used to farm XP.

[Seatbelt]

You just make a distinction between a Vampire's Pimp Hand Slap level drain attack and a death negative level. Thats all.

[Cookiemobsta]

If you do something similar, you could have death (-10 hit points or lower, or any "death" effect) render the PC unconscious (and unable to wake up or be revived) until the end of combat, and impose a negative level.

This is an interesting idea. The problem is that (like others have noted) it's a very serious penalty. In addition, it requires a lot of housekeeping. If you make a player lose a level, they have to go back and recalculate all of their saves, HP, attack bonuses, etc, and they also have to remove feats/spells/etc that they earned in the level they lost. This would slow down the game dramatically.

However, it would be fairly straightforward to take your idea of more permanent penalties and adapt to be simpler. When a player falls unconscious, apply a -2 modifier to something. When the player is able to have a short rest to heal (making camp for the night), the modifier falls to -1. When the player levels up, is healed with magic, or has an extended rest (returning to their home base), all negative modifiers are cleared.

The effect is that during an adventure, the injuries you acquire will accumulate. So even though you might be able to rest for a night during a dungeon crawl, your injured leg will still bother you the next day. This leads to added realism and flavor, as well as interesting tactical decisions (the party rogue has an injured leg, so the party bard sneaks in instead).

However, once the party has returned victorious from the dungeon (or leveled up, or whatever), then all negative statuses are cleared. This means that although falling unconscious in battle carries a steep penalty, the penalty is not permanent. Thoughts?

[Coidzor]

You just make a distinction between a Vampire's Pimp Hand Slap level drain attack and a death negative level. Thats all.

Might as well come up with a different penalty. Also, you're ignoring the bit where it snowballs, much like the level loss of having a bad "oldschool" DMwho has new characters start off 2-3 levels behind the party in an unfavorable role and then have to come in at a level behind each time they died or had to replace the character due to it not working anymore due to being deleveled.

[Eldest]

You might want to change it so that when they get revived, they have 1hp per level, but gain fast healing (x) untill they are at half/three-fourths/full health. That way they aren't able to pull the bucket of water drowning trick.

[NNescio]

This is an interesting idea. The problem is that (like others have noted) it's a very serious penalty. In addition, it requires a lot of housekeeping. If you make a player lose a level, they have to go back and recalculate all of their saves, HP, attack bonuses, etc, and they also have to remove feats/spells/etc that they earned in the level they lost. This would slow down the game dramatically.

However, it would be fairly straightforward to take your idea of more permanent penalties and adapt to be simpler. When a player falls unconscious, apply a -2 modifier to something. When the player is able to have a short rest to heal (making camp for the night), the modifier falls to -1. When the player levels up, is healed with magic, or has an extended rest (returning to their home base), all negative modifiers are cleared.

Negative Level ≠ Losing a Class Level


A creature takes the following penalties for each negative level it has gained:

-1 on all skill checks and ability checks.
-1 on attack rolls and saving throws.
-5 hit points.
-1 effective level (whenever the creature’s level is used in a die roll or calculation, reduce it by one for each negative level).
If the victim casts spells, she loses access to one spell as if she had cast her highest-level, currently available spell. (If she has more than one spell at her highest level, she chooses which she loses.) In addition, when she next prepares spells or regains spell slots, she gets one less spell slot at her highest spell level.

Negative levels remain until 24 hours have passed or until they are removed with a spell, such as restoration. If a negative level is not removed before 24 hours have passed, the affected creature must attempt a Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ draining creature’s racial HD + draining creature’s Cha modifier; the exact DC is given in the creature’s descriptive text). On a success, the negative level goes away with no harm to the creature. On a failure, the negative level goes away, but the creature’s level is also reduced by one. A separate saving throw is required for each negative level.

(Sheesh, what's with WotC and their lack of thesauruses... (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html))

Of course, as Coidzor mentioned, the accumulated penalties can get rather severe, and there's still the Wight problem:


A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight.

[Cookiemobsta]

Of course, as Coidzor mentioned, the accumulated penalties can get rather severe, and there's still the Wight problem:

If penalizing players for dying in combat is wrong, I don't want to be wight.