The Problem of Unconsciousness

[Thoughtbot360]

The Alexandrian has an excellent set of house rules dealing with dying. Seriously, check them out.

The positives of these rules are:

-Includes a way to make resurrection cheaper, accessible to 1st level clerics, more dramatic, and less likely to put assassins out of business (and otherwise affect the world to much) all at once.
-Extends the amount of negative hit points you can suffer before dying permanently (useful)
-Decouples bleeding to death from unconsciousness. Allows people to have their "dying words".

However, the writer needs help on making a rule for waking an unconscious person. Here's what he says:

THE PROBLEM OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

One problem I haven't solved yet is the problem of unconsciousness. More specifically, the problem of waking someone up who has been unconscious.

In real life, if someone gets knocked unconscious you can frequently (but not always) wake them up again by slapping them, throwing water in their face, or waving smelling salts under their nose. In the game, however, this doesn't work. If you've hurt someone enough to knock them unconscious, the only thing you can do is either (a) magically heal them or (b) wait a very long time for them to naturally heal some damage.

This is a shortcoming, as my players frequently want to model that narrative conceit of slapping a prisoner awake so that they can question them. (Ironically, this can only drive them deeper into unconsciousness using the rules.) Unfortunately, I haven't figured out any particularly good way (and a simple way) to overcome this shortcoming.

Anyone have thoughts on the matter?

Well, do you have any thoughts on the matter?

[the_tick_rules]

pass a fortitude save of 10+how far your in negs and your conscious enough for speech and stuff?

[Thoughtbot360]

pass a fortitude save of 10+how far your in negs and your conscious enough for speech and stuff?

Uh, I mean how can you wake someone ELSE up?

[Mephisto]

Uh, I mean how can you wake someone ELSE up?

Heal check?

[zaei]

Seems like a bit of overkill to actually need rules to specify how to wake someone up from unconsciousness for narrative reasons.

I suppose you could create a feat for it...

Smelling Salts: Using water, smelling salts, or slapping, you can wake unconscious characters.

Improved Smelling Salts: As Smelling Salts, but can be used even on dead characters, allowing you to Speak With Dead.

[herrhauptmann]

There are ways to cause enough pain to wake a person without actually damaging them.
Knuckles on the breastbone works wonders. Especialy on narcoleptics. :)

'Ve hav ways of makking you talk.'

[Talic]

Cast CSW, and make your touch attack the pimp backhand. That'll wake them up.

[Satyr]

I think there is some misconception going on - unconsciousness from a lot of damage is more like a traumatic coma - and if it would be that easy to wake up come patients by " slapping them, throwing water in their face, or waving smelling salts under their nose."

[herrhauptmann]

Once again, problems with the thesaurus.
Like OOTS 12

And of course, I walked right into it. Time for bed guys.

[Thoughtbot360]

Seems like a bit of overkill to actually need rules to specify how to wake someone up from unconsciousness for narrative reasons.

I suppose you could create a feat for it...

Smelling Salts: Using water, smelling salts, or slapping, you can wake unconscious characters.

You know, someone once suggested that CPR should be a feat. I think that feats are terrible ideas for both actions. I mean, CRP is more like a skill and smelling salts are more like an item.

Improved Smelling Salts: As Smelling Salts, but can be used even on dead characters, allowing you to Speak With Dead.

Oooooh, you were being sarcastic, gotcha.

[Jack Zander]

Take an example from the sleep spell and take a full round action to wake someone. However, being stabbed with a sword will not let you simply wake up from a splash of water.

[Benejeseret]

Would DieHard feat not be unbelievably powerful under these rules?

A high level character with a death threshold in the hundreds and DieHard would auto-stabilize and never fall unconscious........but still be 'functional' and in essence double their hitpoints.

[Thoughtbot360]

Would DieHard feat not be unbelievably powerful under these rules?

A high level character with a death threshold in the hundreds and DieHard would auto-stabilize and never fall unconscious........but still be 'functional' and in essence double their hitpoints.

Hey, if he killed Raise dead, you can kill Diehard. Or you can say that a Diehard character becomes disabled at -10 hit points instead of 0, and like that, its just like Diehard in the system as it is.

Take an example from the sleep spell and take a full round action to wake someone. However, being stabbed with a sword will not let you simply wake up from a splash of water.

I agree. Being beaten into unconsciousness tends to mean that your systems simply shut down from the damage and some joker banging you around won't necessarily help. At least not for a little while. It seems like there needs to be a certain amount of time in which the victim of nonlethal damage simply can't get up. After that time, he's gone from a state shock to a simple state of sleep. In that state of sleep, then its relatively easy to wake him up with a sudden start (water/slapping) or smelling salts.

[Indon]

Awakening an individual unconscious due to nonlethal damage is a DC 10 Strength check to physically rouse them, or a DC 10 Wisdom check to rouse them with minimal physical interaction. An item such as smelling salts rouses such an unconscious individual automatically.