My Deathwatch house rule.

[Duke Malagigi]

Deathwatch
Necromancy
Level: Clr 1, Pal 1, Drd 1, Rng 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 30 ft.
Area: Cone-shaped emanation
Duration: 10 min./level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

By the power of your faith or arcane methods, you can determine the condition of creatures near death within the spell’s range. You instantly know whether each creature within the area is dead, fragile (negative hit points, but still alive), fighting off death (alive with 25% or less hit points), severely wounded (alive with 26%-50% hit points), moderatly wounded (alive with 51%51%-75% hit points), lightly wounded (alive with 76%-99% percent hit points), unharmed (alive with 100% hit points), undead or neither alive nor dead (such as a construct).

Deathwatch sees through any spell or ability that allows creatures to feign death.


Not much to it people. I just removed the [Evil] descriptor, opened it up to more classes and slightly modified the flavor text. When do you think WotC will follow suit? Any questions people?

[Fishies]

I like it a lot more than the standard Deathwatch; why the hell should finding out if something that's about to die or not evil? You can, for example, use Deathwatch to find out who needs healing, and go help them.

Anyway, I think that maybe you should alter the spell so that instead of the categories sorted by HP, sort them by HP percentage.

[Ing]

I like the non-evilness

but it should register wounded, fighitng off death etc to be in the negative hit points.

Many living creatures naturally have a max HP of about 3 or 4. It wouldn't at all be uncommon to find a commoner with that low hp. By this system a perfectly healthy peasant would cause a big glaring ding on the death radar.

[Fishies]

Many living creatures naturally have a max HP of about 3 or 4. It wouldn't at all be uncommon to find a commoner with that low hp. By this system a perfectly healthy peasant would cause a big glaring ding on the death radar.

It's how the spell's written in the PHB.

[Deesix]

Quite frankly, a commoner with 10 Con. is PROBABLY knocking at death's door anyways. People are fragile and life is a baby bird--it tastes like chicken.

[TheLogman]

Ya, I had some qualms about this being an evil spell as well, and the other changes were needed as well.

As for the commoners, ya, most serfs and commoners died with little or no notice.