The Way is Shut - Death and Dying in D&D 4E
Hey folks, back again with another dip into the D&D 4E inkwell. I think this installment is pretty exciting! Why? Because we’re actually given a piece of 4.0 rules that we can try out right now! Yeah it might only be pseudo-4th edition but I think it has a lot of meat to it. So read on and learn about this little tid bit of what’s to come in Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition.
So it has to deal with character death. I cannot tell you how many times, all the different ways, my group has come up with to cheat death. Well, not cheat death but keep death from ruining a campaign. I think I can safely say that most of the players at our table would rather not come back to life - raise dead is for losers - resurrections are for the gimped. It’s gotta be true resurrection or the DM can lie in the bed he made - which means he can deal with the dead character we’re bringing in a new one. Forget the hard work, the intricate story woven around that character, all the laughs and all the tears.
Let’s face it, dying sucks. You take a significant penalty in losing a level and at the rate many of us play that level can take weeks, if not months, to get back. I’m sure this doesn’t ring true for all gaming tables but I bet there are a good number out there with similar outlooks.
In the lower levels death isn’t as eminent with each blow as it is at higherlevels. You’re not really dead until you it -10hp. So an orc or gnoll might drop you with its blow but you’re not dead yet. At the higher levels your foes are more apt to bypass that cushion of negative hit points and kill you outright. And therein lies the dilema as Design and Development moves forward with the new edition and ow it will handle character death.
On top of all that, the game added a complex state of being at exactly 0 hp, which wasn’t quite like being fully capable but also wasn’t quite dying. Honestly, though, how often does any character actually get reduced to exactly 0 hp? Why did the game need a condition that existed at exactly one spot on the big, broad range of hit point possibilities?
So what’s a game designer to do? Well I’ll cut to the bone and tell you what they went with. They have widened that margin of life-to-death. Now your negative hit point cushion will scale with your maximum hit points. For example, a character with 30 hit points isn’t dead until she its -15; a character with 60 hit points isn’t dead until she hits -30. You’re still disabled at 0hp (should you hit that magic number) and you’re still dying while in negative hit points. But at least you can take comfort in the knowledge that you’re less likely to be killed in a single blow - not impossible, but less likely.
Ah, but what about that attitude we all take when a comrade hits negative hit points? Hey, he’s at -2, we got 8 rounds to get to him, no worries. Well they’ve come up with a way to put the scare back into death. When you’re dying there is a chance you can worsen and take another 1hp of damage. “But now my PC with 60hp has 6 times as many rounds to bleed out - whats so scary about that?” you ask. If you continue to worsen you die - instantly! But there is a chance that there is no change in your status - you don’t take any damage. So you sit there at death’s doorstep waiting to see if he’ll claim you next round. And get this, there is even a chance you get better and move back to positive hit points and get up! That’s a hero for you!
Another nice twist is when you’re in negative hit points and you receiving healing magic, that healing magic puts you right into positive hit points. So if you’re into negatives and your cleric heals 7hp, you have 7hp. No more having to fill up that negative void.
So here we have it. I think 4.0 has put the grim back into the reaper and raised the tension during those close calls - without threatening your character with instant death. No one wins that game. Ultimately a dead character will probably feel the same, but these new rules should help make the moments more dramatic.
Try It Now!If you want to try out a version of this system in your current game, try the following house rule. It’s not quite the 4th Edition system, but it should give you an idea of how it’ll feel. 1) At 0 hp or less, you fall unconscious and are dying. 2) Characters die when their negative hit point total reaches -10 or one-quarter of their full normal hit points, whichever is a larger value. 3) If you’re dying at the end of your turn, roll 1d20. 4) If a character with negative hit points receives healing, he returns to 0 hp before any healing is applied. 5) A dying character who’s been stabilized (via the Heal skill) doesn’t roll a d20 at the end of his turn unless he takes more damage. |
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May 30th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
the d20 roll with 10 or lower 3 times and you die is actually pretty cool. It got pretty lame when the players would just let other characters bleed out a bit, then again, i was against unconscious characters yelling out their hitpoint total to the group unless the cleric had deathwatch active. this new system seems to make it harsher when you go negative in that regard, sure you can take much more damage into the negatives but that 3 strikes your out rule makes it nasty. well done 4th, lets see if the rest of your rules hold up though.