[3.5] Another take on the negatives

[PetterTomBos]

There is only one way of getting stabilized, trough a heal-check DC = negative Hp. You loose one hp/round, and one hp/failed heal-check. Death occurs at -max hp.

I have always found the "you die at -10 HP"-rule to scale badly, as it is a major chunk of Hp's early on, and almost nothing later. Also, the heal-skill has been sort of underwhelming, once you can reliably hit most DC's. So, I think this can improve upon both of them.

PEACH is appreciated :)

[Kasbark]

While the idea seems good, i can see a few balance problems with it:

The HP damage per level is too low - there's almost no threat of bleeding out at higher levels.

Also, the HP loss from a failed heal check seems a bit low, but i guess that's the same problem as above.

The Heal DC to stabilize scales badly. It's very easy to make a low levels, but seems almost impossible without major min-maxing at higher levels.

[PetterTomBos]

Hmm, that is very true. How to change it? Make people bleed out faster? That could possibly lead to some interesting combat choises.

What about letting healing provide some bonus to the roll? Like, you do not gain the healing in Hp's, but the heal check gain a +1/5hp bonus? Then we could make the check harder as well, making it DC = 10 + neative Hp or something?

[Kasbark]

hmm.

If you don't mind making some pretty sweeping changes, you could indeed rule that magical healing dosn't work when people are at negative (HP's are already an abstraction, so not too big a stretch there). Instead people can combine a healing spell with a heal check as a full round action, and receive a bonus to heal equal to healing done divided by 5 or 4 or something.

People at 0 or below would suffer x + 1/level damage, untill they reach their HP in negative Hit Points, at which point they die. Set x from 0 to, say 5 depending on how leathal you want the campaing.

A Heal Check (DC= 15+ (2*level) or something similiar, higher if your players are min-maxers) stabilizes people and brings them back a 1 HP

[Yitzi]

Perhaps the following rules:
-The HP at which you die is equal to (5+CON bonus)XHD/2
-You bleed out at a rate equal to your HD.

That way it scales with level, but a higher-level character will take a lower portion of his "safety room" with the blow that knocks them out. A first-level character could easily die with the blow that knocks them out...but having to roll up a new first-level character isn't such a big deal.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Pathfinder simply makes it so that your death threshold is equal to your Constitution score. If you have a Constitution of 13, you die at negative 13 hit points, etc etc.

This is distressing for characters with low Constitution scores, but good news for barbarians and tough melee warriors who usually get into those situations.

[NichG]

I use a four-stage system in my campaign:

0 hp: Disabled, as per D&D

-1 to -9: Unconscious and stable. If someone heals you, you get right back up and fight. This is where Diehard operates as normal.

-10 to -(MaxHP-1): KO. Once in this state you remain KO even if you are healed out of the zone, though of course you could still die. Recovering from KO is a 5% chance per round if your hp are positive. No magic or heal check can accelerate recovery from KO, and all swift-revival magics like Revivify leave the person in KO condition.

-MaxHP or worse: Dead.

Conceivably, you could make it so a Heal check (DC equal to -HP, minimum 20) could remove the KO condition prematurely, and get rid of the 5% per round thing. Then KO represents being in a coma pretty well - if you're 50hp down, most people can't make that Heal check so you stay in a coma until natural healing or magic brings you to a more reasonable range. It doesn't do the death spiral thing in your original rules (where you could theoretically stabilize someone who is almost all gone, but really they're going to bleed out without magical healing) however.

[PetterTomBos]

NichG - That sounds about right! I'll report how it went after implementing it!

Magic aids a heal-unconcious check. By HP-healed/5 rounded down. Restorations give a flat +5/+10 for lesser/normal. The fluff that pops up in my head about this:

The unconcious character lies on the ground. Her leg is smashed to bits, the cleric rushes in, yet realizes that normal healing would destroy the leg, turning all the small pieces into fully healed bone fragments inside the leg. The ranger crouches beside the wounded, starts to set the leg right, applying bandages and cloth, instructing the cleric to heal it up a bit here, mend some skin there. The wounded sigh, open her eyes and admits that it feels better now.

Some ideas:

This sort-of-nerfs physical damage. What about using it to do something with save-or-dies?

A character that has failed a saving throw, might "take the hit" by shielding herself. When "taking the hit" a character atuomatically makes the save, but looses HD*5 HP, or is knocked out at -11 HP, whichever loosest the fewest HP's. A knocked out character cannot "take the hit".