Why not have characters stay conscious below 0 hp

[Windrammer]

It really, really breaks the immersion when barbarians simply faint when hit by too many magic missiles. No one dies after sleeping a bit, they just do what they can until they die. Why not just have characters enter a state of semi-incapacitation instead? Each round you can crawl five feet or utter a sentence, but no more... Unless you make a fort save (dc 20 or something). Boom, combat got a whole lot more epic, martial characters are buffed, and there's legitimate reason to coup de grace. Additionally, a character isn't completely screwed if stranded with negative hp. You can do what Aragorn did in the Two Towers when everyone thought he was dead.

"But what about diehard?" You may ask. It's still a good deal to take actions without having to make a fort save.

This is a better way to emulate those epic final stands of fiction, with the hero stumbling around as he occasionally manages an attack as the moola close in.

What do you guys think? Any issues I may be overlooking?

[Crake]

In my experience, unless the DM is specifically going for it because he doesn't want to kill you negative HP will almost never come into play except in the early levels. As your career continues, that 10hp buffer zone (a little more in pathfinder) becomes neglidible, and the chances of being left in negatives as opposed to just outright dead becomes fairly minute. That said, if you get lucky and land in neg hp (in this case a good thing, as the alternative would be death), then being able to act works entirely against you, because you remain a threat, and enemies will then proceed to outright kill you, rather than leaving you for dead, and giving you the chance to stabilise, or hope that your allies win the fight and rescue you before you bleed out. Death is rarely worth that extra partial action imo.

[Bronk]

"But what about diehard?" You may ask.


Well, yeah, that is the whole point of the diehard feat. If you want your character to do be able to move around when he'd otherwise be dying and bleeding out, that's the way to go. It represents a character who goes one step beyond tough, even more than other adventurers that might have 'wasted' their time in book study and took a metamagic feat instead. (Also, a barbarian going into negatives after being hit by a magic missile can't just sleep it off... He or she has to make stability checks or get some help or they will die.)

That's the whole point of going beyond 0HP... you're dying. It's normally too late to do anything about it. A more realistic but far more annoying way of representing this would be to start having penalties accrue the more damaged you are. Some games do that, like earthdawn's wound system, but it really bogs the game down.

[Inevitability]

In my experience, unless the DM is specifically going for it because he doesn't want to kill you negative HP will almost never come into play except in the early levels. As your career continues, that 10hp buffer zone (a little more in pathfinder) becomes neglidible, and the chances of being left in negatives as opposed to just outright dead becomes fairly minute. That said, if you get lucky and land in neg hp (in this case a good thing, as the alternative would be death), then being able to act works entirely against you, because you remain a threat, and enemies will then proceed to outright kill you, rather than leaving you for dead, and giving you the chance to stabilise, or hope that your allies win the fight and rescue you before you bleed out. Death is rarely worth that extra partial action imo.

You can always play dead...

[Andezzar]

The immersion break does not happen at negative HP IMHO, but with the damage system in general. A character with 1 HP is exactly as capable as a character with full HP. Other systems give rising penalties based on the amount of damage received.

@Bronk: In my experience the penalties do not bog the game down much, but then again I did most of my roleplaying with such games (VtM, DA:V, SR4). The advantage of games where such penalties are expected to happen (as opposed to only semi-rarely happening with conditions such as shaken) is that the character sheets already show you the penalty.

Also something similar to that extra effort the OP is describing already exists, but it only occurs if a character reaches exactly 0 HP (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#disabled). You could extend the disabled HP range to [+5;-5] to make that outcome more likely.

[Umberhulk]

The author of the Goblins comic lets characters in negative hit points continue to be aware of whats happening around them, and even to speak. I believe his reasoning is that its what players at the gaming table are doing anyways.

I wouldn't mind some kind of system where you roll a Fort save to be able to draw an item or crawl 5 feet, possibly losing additonal HP as you go.

[GilesTheCleric]

This is just a houserule, but I think you might find it an attractive option: I allow characters to go to -con score before dying. It gives barbarians et al that extra toughness, and makes that -10 scale a little bit better. If characters do decide to pick up die-hard or other similar feats, I allow them to start doubling/x3/x4 etc that number so that those feats are a little less terrible.

I think that rule is part of PF by default, but someone who plays it would have to confirm.

[Rebel7284]

Also something similar to that extra effort the OP is describing already exists, but it only occurs if a character reaches exactly 0 HP (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#disabled). You could extend the disabled HP range to [+5;-5] to make that outcome more likely.

Yeah, it always seemed strange to me that the staggered condition only occurred at 0 HP. Very narrow range. However, -5 to +5 is probably the wrong way to do that. Otherwise most commoners would be staggered all the time.

Perhaps a good houserule would be 0 to -10 is staggered and then Con mod to death? Diehard is weakened slightly, but still useful on high-con barbarians. =)

[Sacrieur]

It really, really breaks the immersion when barbarians simply faint when hit by too many magic missiles. No one dies after sleeping a bit, they just do what they can until they die. Why not just have characters enter a state of semi-incapacitation instead? Each round you can crawl five feet or utter a sentence, but no more... Unless you make a fort save (dc 20 or something). Boom, combat got a whole lot more epic, martial characters are buffed, and there's legitimate reason to coup de grace. Additionally, a character isn't completely screwed if stranded with negative hp. You can do what Aragorn did in the Two Towers when everyone thought he was dead.

Sleep isn't the same as being unconscious in the real world. Many people who are injured enough will become completely dissociated from reality and unable to function with any clarity.



This is just a houserule, but I think you might find it an attractive option: I allow characters to go to -con score before dying. It gives barbarians et al that extra toughness, and makes that -10 scale a little bit better. If characters do decide to pick up die-hard or other similar feats, I allow them to start doubling/x3/x4 etc that number so that those feats are a little less terrible.

I think that rule is part of PF by default, but someone who plays it would have to confirm.

Yep, that's how it works in PF. Your negative hitpoints must equal your Con score before you're dead.

[Banjoman42]

On the subject of Diehard, the feats uses are limited by the situation. If you fall below 0 because that one random kobold got a crit, it can be helpful. If it's because the great red wyrm has 8 kazillion attacks per round, it might be best to lie down.

I have a house rule that lets you make a reflex save DC 15 when you go from (max hp to max hp minus your level) to negatives. If you make the save, you are instead at 0 hp. This helps early level survivability.

[Bronk]

@Bronk: In my experience the penalties do not bog the game down much, but then again I did most of my roleplaying with such games (VtM, DA:V, SR4). The advantage of games where such penalties are expected to happen (as opposed to only semi-rarely happening with conditions such as shaken) is that the character sheets already show you the penalty.

That does sound more convenient. The bigger problem in Earthdawn was that everything was already hard for your character to accomplish, and since wounds often took in game days to get rid of, your character would get worse and worse, racking up more and more wounds... It might have been made worse by some of the people I was playing with (come on guys, can we just yadda yadda one day for resting without you wandering off?), but it just makes me glad DnD works differently.

[Albions_Angel]

So here is how my group plays it, and it works very well.

Below 0 hp you are STAGGERED. Doing anything more than a single move action will cause you to "bleed" one point of damage.

Below your NEGATIVE CON BONUS, you are unconscious. If you have a CON bonus of +3, you feint at -3 hp. Or in some other way collapse. You will bleed one point a round unless you stabilise (successful heal check by another to stop bleeding, or a roll of 10%)

Below your NEGATIVE CON, you die. So if you have 16 CON, you die at -16 hp.

This leads to you actually making some interesting decisions. Say you are the party fighter, and you are being swarmed, and your party is about to go down, but you are in combat with the enemy general and you (through a knowledge check) think the enemy host will flee upon death of their captain. You are staggered and have no healing items. You could try to retreat to your healer, and risk being overrun. Or you could attack the general, bleeding a point of damage, hoping to batter him down before you bleed out or he hits you again.

It works very, very well.

[Mr Adventurer]

I'm considering doing the same thing but more extreme: when a character has a positive hit point total and takes damage that would reduce them to 0 hit points or less, they are reduced to 0 hit points and staggered per the normal rules. If they take damage while on 0 hit points, they... I haven't worked out this part of the death spiral yet! But it's supposed to simulate those painful, crawling last stands we see in stories.

[Windrammer]

Sleep isn't the same as being unconscious in the real world. Many people who are injured enough will become completely dissociated from reality and unable to function with any clarity.
I've awareness of the real world, I fail to see how it's inconsistent with what I said. I used the word "sleep" to emphasize the silliness of the mechanic, I'm indeed aware that being knocked unconscious is not such a comfortable experience. But it's not some sort of prevalent standard for people to pass out in any way from injury in the same fashion as characters do in DnD. Especially in a fighting situation. It goes from consciously injured to dead in most cases of reality. Do you have any idea what people withstand when running on adrenaline? They stay conscious way past the point people do in DnD.

People don't pass out from getting damaged. They pass out from fatigue, blood loss, and in the rarest case, pain.

Now tell me... Why would a Barbarian pass out from magic missiles? He wouldn't. He'd be hurt until he dies.

[nedz]

This is just a houserule, but I think you might find it an attractive option: I allow characters to go to -con score before dying. It gives barbarians et al that extra toughness, and makes that -10 scale a little bit better. If characters do decide to pick up die-hard or other similar feats, I allow them to start doubling/x3/x4 etc that number so that those feats are a little less terrible.

I think that rule is part of PF by default, but someone who plays it would have to confirm.

I've been running this houserule since the days of 1E; 10 is just an arbitrary number anyway. I am moving to death at -(Con+Level) to help this buffer scale better otherwise there is no buffer at high levels and the game is even more binary. The tension of "Will we rescue Fred before he bleeds out?" adds to the game — IMHO. I don't think you need to change this for die-hard though.

[Curmudgeon]

Damage that leaves the character above 0 HP normally does not impair effectiveness in D&D. When I'm going for a more gritty game experience, I use the following house rule:

If you're reduced to 75% or less of normal maximum HP, your AB, caster level, and dodge bonuses are reduced to 75% of maximum (round down).
If you're reduced to 50% or less of normal maximum HP, your AB, caster level, and dodge bonuses are reduced to 50% of maximum (round down).
If you're reduced to 25% or less of normal maximum HP, your AB, caster level, and dodge bonuses are reduced to 25% of maximum (round down).
With this rule, getting hurt does make it harder to attack or cast spells.

[Albions_Angel]

I think the trick is to keep it simple. The bleed mechanic I use is simple, as is allowing a char to go to -con and doubling with feats, while restricting certain abilities to 75% etc starts to get very complex.

You expressed an interest in my method (which seems to be a common house rule), but want to make it "harsher".

To keep it simple, here is how I would change it.

HP>0, act as normal
-Con Bonus < HP <= 0, Staggered, lose one hit point for actions greater than a single move (this allows use of the withdraw mechanic to reach a healer, or get a spell caster out of dodge, or draw a potion, or take 2 turns to do something like use a wand).
-con < HP < -con bonus, bleeding out, lose one HP per round regardless of action, lose 2 for actions greater than a single move. This would create your last stands and daring escapes, but can also mean a player, through their own actions, can kill themselves. I am not personally a fan of this, but it would achieve what you want.

This is a simple 3 part rule, that involves no working of complex maths. I hope this helps.