Post/Author/DateTime	Post
VenginSyrenn 10-08-04, 11:39 PM	Does anyone think that death from massive damage should be fine tuned. I'm not sure how many people deal with this rule, but it seems kind of important to me. Should medium creatures that take 50 points of damage from a single attack make a save or die? It might depend on the situation or the type of character, but I think it might be to much. It would definately hurt classes with poor Fortitude saves. I was thinking of implimenting a variant rule: any creature that takes 50 points of damage from a single attack can make a Fortitude save or go into shock. Going into shock would basically take away the actions of the character but still leave them alive with a chance to survive later. My thinking is that a single attack that does that much damage is a traumatic experience. The body itself may go into shock instead of just dying. I think it is situational. A fighter that has 150 hp and has his arm cut off by a critical hit doing 50 points of damage has more chance to go into shock than lose his life (immediately anyway). The whole point of the death by massive damage is to create realism, but how many hitpoints do you have in real life? A gunshot wound may take 50 hitpoints off your life and not be close to killing you, but you could go into shock. Another question I have is how you deal with major accidents? Say a dragon (gargantuan or colossal) falls on top of a character. I don't think the chance of survival is very good. It would be like having a fully loaded dump truck land on you. I'm not sure what kind of check you could make other than a Reflex save to get out of the way. If you fail, you would probably die. Any comments are welcome.
White_Fox 10-09-04, 05:37 AM	Have you checked out Unearthed Arcana? Not only does it provide a set of alternate rules for massive damage, it offers up a whole whack of other nifty stuff as well. Definitely one of the better books I've bought.
Black Jack Davey 10-10-04, 12:52 AM	I don't really understand you problem with the massive damage rules. I think that they work just fine. I don't think they're meant to 'hurt' classes with low fort saves, but that seems real and fair to me.
Bardicstorm 10-13-04, 07:31 PM	I made my own death from massive damage house rules as I found that by the time 50 points of damage won't kill a character outright, a DC 15 fort save was too simple to make. Further, an epic character can virtually always make the save, ignoring the fact that to someone with 200 or more hit points (for really epic or well rolled fighters) 50 points of damage isn't all that massive. My system does make massive damage much more deadly, but also takes into account character level. Generally I ignore massive damage for characters under 5th level since to them, all damage is usually massive damage. For characters above 5th level I require a fortitude save with a DC of 10 + the character level if any single attack does (4*CL)+4 or more damage. (this equals 80% of a fighters average HP). This helps those with poor fort saves only in that such an amount of damage is likely to kill any character with a d4 or d6 for HD automatically anyway. I'll put in a small chart to show the damage required, the Fort DC, and the minimum d20 rolls to pass the fort save for both a good fort and a bad fort (chart starts at level 5 and goes to level 20..): LVL | DMG DC | Good Fort | Bad Fort ----+--------+-----------+--------- 05 | 24 15 | 11 | 14 06 | 28 16 | 11 | 14 07 | 32 17 | 12 | 15 08 | 36 18 | 12 | 16 09 | 40 19 | 13 | 16 10 | 44 20 | 13 | 17 11 | 48 21 | 14 | 18 12 | 52 22 | 14 | 18 13 | 56 23 | 15 | 19 14 | 60 24 | 15 | 20 15 | 64 25 | 16 | 20 16 | 66 26 | 16 | 21 17 | 70 27 | 17 | 22 18 | 74 28 | 17 | 22 19 | 78 29 | 18 | 23 20 | 82 30 | 18 | 24 As can be plainly seen surviving a massive damage blow with my system for those with a bad fortification save bonus is all but impossible without fort save enhancement bonuses. This is reflective both of the sheer amount of damage from a single attack and of the fact that while it may represent 80% of a fighters HP, it represents virtually all of a rogue or arcane casters HP. One must keep in mind that with this system, surviving massive damage is much harder at higher levels, but it also represents a much greater amount of damage, all which must come from a single attack. As an example.. if a 20th level fighter with 150 hp gets caught in an ancient red dragon's breath weapon, and fails his reflex save, taking an average of 110 points of damage, one should think that the save DC to avoid death should be a bit more difficult than 15. With the core rules, such a fighter would only need to roll a 3 or higher on his save, whereas with my system that same fighter would need to roll an 18 or higher. It seems to work well enough for my group. I'm not sure if I've explained it clearly or not, but if you like it, use it. If not, well, don't.
Mind Rogue 10-13-04, 08:02 PM	The 50 hp limit is really way too high to every be used until around 9th level, which is when things can start to be able to possibly deal massive damage (a 9d6 fireball can deal 54 points of damage). d20 Modern uses a more realistic massive damage equals your constitution score, but this has the very high possiblity of frying somebody when you start dealling with x3 critical weapons, d6/level spells and power attack. Constitution + level will at least make it scale up a bit while still making the massive damage rule applicable. Like what bardicstorm did, the fortitude save should scale a bit. However, the DC should be based on the damage dealt, not the character's level. Otherwise, an 8th level character who takes 48 points of damage might have a higher chance of surviving than a 12th, depending on where their current Hps were at the time. A save DC of 10 + 1/10 points of damage dealt gives the same result as in the book, but bumping it up to +1 per 5 points is probably more likely to be failed.
Bardicstorm 10-13-04, 11:56 PM	A save DC of 10 + 1/10 points of damage dealt gives the same result as in the book, but bumping it up to +1 per 5 points is probably more likely to be failed. That's a good thought.. I was looking for a better formula for my DC's especially since at higher levels my characters will virtually almost always fail. 10 + 1/10th damage is a little low in my opinion for a save DC.. At higher levels this still makes for a save that is too easy to beat. Maybe 10+1/5th damage or 10+1/4th damage. I'll run some numbers tomorrow and see what that gives for DC's. Setting the massive damage levels at con+level is pretty low.. at 20th level, even with a con of 20, you're looking at 40 points of damage to require a save or die from a character with possibly up to or exceeding 200 HP. My version is sort of an overly complicated formula, but with more reasonable save DC's you could easily just say 75% of HP's worth of damage in a single attack requires a save. Ultimately it all comes down to what you want your players chances of survival to be. ::EDIT:: I checked the 10+1/4th damage numbers for DC and they are almost identical to my chart. 1/5th is a little better, maybe a middle ground between 1/10th and 1/5th. More to come tomorrow.
Mind Rogue 10-14-04, 12:45 AM	Maybe if you take half of your current Hp in a single blow, you are at risk from death from massive damage. Although this tends to really stink for the 1st level characters, whom everyblow is half their hp. You could then try adding your con score to that. It makes it so 1st level characters never need to worry about it (since their con scores exceed their Hp) and it doesn't really become an issue for a while. This also gives reason to heal the fighter early at higher levels. Even if he has 100 hp normally, then he takes two or three hits for 20 to 25 each, the next one puts him at severe risk of death from massive damage if he only has 30 hp left, since his opponents might be able to deal him 15 +16 (or whatever his Con is) damage in one blow, and a second one will definitely do the trick. I think 10 + 1/5 damage is a reasonable DC. It doesn't escalate too terribly fast, but it is enough to more or less keep pace with the character's fort saves. At fifth level, a wizard can do 5d6 damage (average 17) with a fireball. If this is against some frail elf, the save DC is going to be 13. A fighter will have at least a 60% chance of saving, and a wizard a 40% chance. At 10th level, the damage increases to 35, raising the save DC up to 17. The fighter will have at least a 50% chance of surviving, if he needs to check at all, and the wizard has a 30% chance of survival. None of this includes bonuses to fortitude saves from a high constitution, gear they might be carrying, or spells in effect on their person. For instance, a lot of adventurers have constitution scores of 14-15, for a +2 bonus, and many carry a cloak of +1 resistance. Together, these raise one's odds of survival by 15%. Actually, maybe these percentages are too high (they do seem to massacre the 10th level wizard), but a DC of 13 is pretty easy to make at 10th level, even for a wizard (his base save bonus gives him a 50/50 shot at making it, and the afformentioned high Con and cloak bring it up to 65%.) For a fighter with these bonuses, death only happens 10% of the time, which probably won't be very often, since he has, on average, 80 hp and an initial massive damage threshold of 55.
Bardicstorm 10-14-04, 01:53 PM	Personally i think using half your current hp, even if you add your con, is still too low an amount for massive damage. It means that arcane casters and rogues would be making massive damage saves much earlier and much more often than fighters. If you include the fact that their fort saves are worse, they will die much more often than an equal leveled fighter or cleric. This may be ok for your campaign, but seems overly harsh to me. Think of it this way, a 10th level sorcerer with no constitution bonus will have 22 average HP. It is likely that every single attack at that level will do more than 11 damage, requiring a fort save every single attack. Even if the save is a low DC (like 10) said sorcerer (with no mods to fort save) will statistically die 35% of the time, or once every 3 attacks (provided the sorcerer is healed fully in between). By using 80% of a fighters standard average HP (ie, no con bonus), those with bad fort saves are saved from having to make a multitude of saves due to the fact that the damage will likely kill them outright anyway. Further, those with good constitution bonus, and thus better fort saves, will be more inline with a fighters average hp, and thus be required to make a save. The only place it collapses is for warriors with great constitution bonuses whereas 80% of a fighters average HP would only amount to around half of the warriors HPs. This is I think acceptable however since such warriors would make the saves much more often. This 80% also makes death from massive damage more dramatic throughout the levels since the required damage is that much greater. Basically it means things like high level fireballs, dragon breath, great falls, huge crushing damage, etc. are what make a fort or die save necessary, as opposed to just getting whacked on by a fighter with a good roll. To me this is more inline with fantasy gaming and the fact that the PCs are supposed to be heroes. However, I think you are right and a DC of 10 + 1/5th damage done is a better formula for the save DCs.
Philusion 10-15-04, 07:25 AM	I use the following in my campaign, and it has worked well. I would suggest each GM customize it best for their own campaign though, as I'm sure a low magic/low power campaign vs. a high magic/high powered game would give significant differences. Massive Damage: If your character ever receives a single blow that deals damage greater than 50% of his total maximum HP + Constitution score, the character must make a Fortitude save (DC 15), provided the blow itself doesn’t put him below 0 HP. If this saving throw fails, the character will be automatically reduced to 0 hit points. I've considered to not only add the Constitution score, but also the modifier as well, but I really don't see it as necessary. I'm still not content with the Fortitude save, as high level characters will have virtually no chance of failure, but my campaign hasn't reached that high as of yet. The DC 10 + certain % of damage isn't too appealing to me, as I don't feel like grabbing a calculator in mid-game. If anyone sees any gaps or flaws though, feel free to critique. :teach: - Phil Edit: Looks like this idea was already taken...maybe I should read every post rather than merely skim them next time. :D
EvilDuck 10-15-04, 07:44 AM	Anyone else here think the DC for death by massive damage is too low? It's really only that harmful at the first few levels, then it turns into a 5% chance to die. I think the DC should vary according to the amount of damage actually dealt.
Bardicstorm 10-15-04, 02:34 PM	Philusion, How do any sorcerers/wizards in your campaign not have to roll a save with virtually every attack? Even with 50% + constitution score, a 10th level sorcerer with a 10 constitution will require said roll every time they take roughly 20 damage. At 10th level, most traps/opponents/spells can do this much damage consitantly. Unless of course those casters/rogues in your campaign have abnormally high constitution scores or you don't really challenge them with opponents that can significantly hurt them. This can make players of such classes feel as if their characters are being unfairly tested. They are already penalized for their classes by tiny amounts of hit points, but when they run up against death from massive damage from virtually every blow, they will feel set upon. Especially since these are the very classes more likely to fail such saves. However, I do see some mitigation here in that they don't die, merely drop to 0 hp. Furthermore, if you use a set amount of damage based on level, you don't actually have to keep a calculator handy to calculate a DC of 10 +1/5 damage dealt, you can simply keep a small chart. Personally the 80% of standard fighter average HP I use may be too high for anyone else. That's understandable. I prefer that the massive damage rules only come into play when the damage is truly massive. Further, I prefer to set it in such a way that low HD characters with low constituion don't get as affected by such (in that the damage setting I use will kill them anyway).
Philusion 10-15-04, 04:15 PM	Philusion, How do any sorcerers/wizards in your campaign not have to roll a save with virtually every attack? Not many. The party has no magic users right now. heh...the continent they're on at the moment has virtually no low-level anything (without adequate protection anyway) because the jungle and its wildlife are rather ruthless. Then again, if the party had a wizard, I would have changed the house rule accordingly if I saw how unbalanced it was. Even with 50% + constitution score, a 10th level sorcerer with a 10 constitution will require said roll every time they take roughly 20 damage. Good point. So maybe 50% isn't good enough. IMO, 75% would make it easier to figure on the spur of the moment, compared to 80%, unless one had a chart. Obviously, it's still under play-testing, as I'm expecting another player shortly, and when he sees the lack of magic in the party, he'll probably wanna play a magic-user of some sort. Furthermore, if you use a set amount of damage based on level, you don't actually have to keep a calculator handy to calculate a DC of 10 +1/5 damage dealt, you can simply keep a small chart. Would you happen to have a link to a chart like this (unless you're referring to the chart you posted earlier)? - Phil Edit: Or, instead of 75%, why not just add their HD/level & Con score to 50% of their max hps? It says on p.125 of the DMG that a 1st level sorcerer has 5 hit points, and when you cut that in half (and round up) and add their Con score & level, they would need to take appr. 14 points of damage at first level in order for this ruling to apply. By the way, another house rule I have is that you die at negative Con, not -10, unless that's your Con score. A 10th level sorcerer would have (on average) 37 hp. Cut that in half and add their level, 29. Add their Con, 39. That would put them under anyway, so the ruling wouldn't even be necessary in that case. But wouldn't a 10th level sorcerer have some sort of magical augmentation toward their Con, thus improving their hit points? . . . A 20th level sorcerer has an average of 72 hp, and you add 10 Con and 20 points for their level to 50% of that and the character would then need to take 56 points of damage for this rule to apply. This seems like balanced to me, but then again, I may be missing something. Comments?
Cantankerous 10-16-04, 04:30 AM	Let me preface this by saying that while I have more than 27 years as a DM under my belt, I am new to 3E D&D. I'm not sure how useful this might be for todays game, but it might spur some ideas for those of you who are more conversant with it. I present it because I too dislike this arbitrary feeling 50 point number. It doesn't seem to balance the differing classes well. For us criticals didn't create the nasty effects, such as maiming. They were too common in occurence. We used something like todays massive damage checks for that. In 2E I used a scaled version of this. Con/Fitness (now I'd use straight Constitution of course) times a class specific multiplier adjusted for relative level. 1st to 3rd Ftr (.75) Clrc (.67) MU (.40) Thf (.50) at 4th-7th: x2 at 8th-12th: x3 at 13th and up: x4 So, for example, at 1st-3rd levels a Fighter with a 16 Con/Fitness (since that was the stat that related directly to hit points) would need to take 12 points of damage from a single source (like an axe blow crit maybe) to necessitate a save. A 14th level Magic User with a Con/Fitness of 10 would need to take 16 or more pts in a single blow, but since he would have 29 points on average, it fit nicely. Our Fighter from the above example at 14th level, with average rolls, would have 77 hit points and would need to take 48 points in a single go, still very reasonable. The save would be, in that old game, versus Death Magic, nowadays it would be a Fortitude save of course. Yes, that did make for a relatively easy save once you got past median level, but we liked it that way. If he failed the save, he went into shock. Meaning that he could take no active offensive or defensive actions and could move at 1/4 speed at best. The character then made a Wis/Will check and if he failed that he also went unconscious. Since that amount of damage in 2E was almost always caused by critical hits or nasty spells it worked fine there. In the present incarnation of D&D I'm not sure how well it would work today unless the campaign was RP focused instead of power gamer focused. For multi-classed characters it's simply a matter of doing the proper math and applying common sense. For a dwarven 4th level Cleric/4th level Fighter (in the older game we simply used the total exp and compared it to what that would be for the highest leveled class, or players choice if they were equal in level, so the above at say, 8,500 exp ea. or 17,000 over all), he'd be the equivalent of 5th lvl character. With a Con/Fitness of 16 and average rolls he would have 28 hit points and would have needed to take 22 of those at once to be considered to have taken massive damage. A tough bugger, but then, a dwarven Ftr/Clr at 4/4 should be. Now, if a character took massive damage the DM might well have something appropriate occur if the character then failed a third save (the serendipity factor kept this from happening alot even to Wizards) against his or her best save numbers. For instance, if our 14th level MU took 19 points of damage from a dead fall trap crushing his left leg (and remember, this represents more than half his total hit points in one blow) and managed to fail all three saves, until he got to someone who could use regeneration on him and had the proper time to heal up, he'd be lamed. All of the above made for great cinematic action. It would be posible to get out of hand, but with all the play test we had with this house rule (it was in place for more than eight years, call it 300+ plus sessions) it never did. One proviso that we had in place was that it also had to represent more than half of your total maximum hit points. This was so that it had to be truely massive damage. This was something to keep in mind for us as we had, in one game, a Wizard character with a 4 (yep four) Con/Fitness who rolled well and at 2nd level had 6 hit points. For him though even 2 (yep, two) points of damage would have been enough for that nasty old massive damage effect. The more than half of your hp in a single shot rule doubled that to 4 and made all the difference in the world with him. At a later point we decided not to even start paying attention to massive damage effects until the characters had hit fourth level or better, the second part of the chart were the base numbers are doubled. Thinking back we did like that the best as characters before fourth level were so much easier to massively damage. Isshia
Bardicstorm 10-16-04, 06:44 AM	Would you happen to have a link to a chart like this (unless you're referring to the chart you posted earlier)? I was refering to my earlier chart. Or, instead of 75%, why not just add their HD/level & Con score to 50% of their max hps? It says on p.125 of the DMG that a 1st level sorcerer has 5 hit points, and when you cut that in half (and round up) and add their Con score & level, they would need to take appr. 14 points of damage at first level in order for this ruling to apply. A first level sorcerer has 5 hp + their constitution mod. They assume a con of 12. For ease, I assume a con of 10 since sorcerers have more important scores (well, unless they want to live). Which also takes into account the stat or save boosting items, ideally yes, sorcerers would have equipment to help out, but if it means losing a slot to an item that may help their casting.. they may not have such. This formula seems to work until you realize that the required hit point damage is almost always going to be more than a characters max hit points. (at level 10 a sorcerer with 10 con and max rolls will have 44 hp, their required massive damage would be 42... keeping in mind they'd have to roll 4's every level.) If that's the case, you could just eliminate massive damage all together. By the way, another house rule I have is that you die at negative Con, not -10, unless that's your Con score. A 10th level sorcerer would have (on average) 37 hp. Cut that in half and add their level, 29. Add their Con, 39. That would put them under anyway, so the ruling wouldn't even be necessary in that case. But wouldn't a 10th level sorcerer have some sort of magical augmentation toward their Con, thus improving their hit points? . . . A 20th level sorcerer has an average of 72 hp, and you add 10 Con and 20 points for their level to 50% of that and the character would then need to take 56 points of damage for this rule to apply. This seems like balanced to me, but then again, I may be missing something. Comments? With your house rules on death, just using the 50% + constitution would balance it enough I think. In my campaign -10 hp is death, so it's a little strict. Keep in mind that a 20th level sorcerer who doesn't find constitution enhancing items, or started with a 4 constitution and only managed to get it to 10 would have an average of 42 HP, not 72. Thus requiring a massive damage of 51 points. This may be fitting as it doesn't penalize those who roll poorly. The formula works well enough for a fighter, but likely would not have to be rolled all that often since a similar 20th level fighter, with a con of 20 would have an average of 205 HP and require a massive damage of 143.
Bardicstorm 10-16-04, 07:11 AM	Con/Fitness (now I'd use straight Constitution of course) times a class specific multiplier adjusted for relative level. 1st to 3rd Ftr (.75) Clrc (.67) MU (.40) Thf (.50) at 4th-7th: x2 at 8th-12th: x3 at 13th and up: x4 I like the concept of class specific multiplyers... but are you doing (say for a 6th level mage) Con * 0.4 *2 or just con * 2? I will have to run numbers on this when I get back from WD&D Game Day Events. A 14th level Magic User with a Con/Fitness of 10 would need to take 16 or more pts in a single blow, but since he would have 29 points on average, it fit nicely. Again, how is the magic user not having to make a save at that level every time they manage to get hit? If he failed the save, he went into shock. Meaning that he could take no active offensive or defensive actions and could move at 1/4 speed at best. The character then made a Wis/Will check and if he failed that he also went unconscious. Again, house rules like this change the dynamic of the massive damage house rules. Since that amount of damage in 2E was almost always caused by critical hits or nasty spells it worked fine there. In the present incarnation of D&D I'm not sure how well it would work today unless the campaign was RP focused instead of power gamer focused. I don't actually have my 2E PHB handy, but wouldn't a fighter, with an 18/50 str, a longsword +3 (not unreasonable at lvl 14, or maybe a 2 hander if I'm not recalling correctly), be able to do 16 dmg on a good damage roll? Furthermore, from the 2E Monstrous Manual, even an age category 1 red dragon (a mere baby) could roast the mage into a cinder (ahh, that just gives me a warm tingly sensation). And really, most spells (hmm, 7th level spells? 6th?), which is what the caster is likely to face, should all be doing that much damage easily at that level, or am I way off in my 2E recollection? All of the above made for great cinematic action. It would be posible to get out of hand, but with all the play test we had with this house rule (it was in place for more than eight years, call it 300+ plus sessions) it never did. If it works for you, great. And with the house rules about what happens when a save is failed, it seems well and balanced (mostly, but at least playtesting seems to prove it where my numbers fail. But then, numbers aren't always right). But if you bring it back to instant death when the save is failed... well... This was something to keep in mind for us as we had, in one game, a Wizard character with a 4 (yep four) Con/Fitness who rolled well and at 2nd level had 6 hit points. Wouldn't he have only 2 hp, no matter how well he rolled? I seem to recall that 2E was no different than 3E in that negative con modifiers apply also, with a minimum of 1 hp per level. How can a wizard have 6 hp at 2nd level if their hit dice is 1d4-3 per level? At a later point we decided not to even start paying attention to massive damage effects until the characters had hit fourth level or better, the second part of the chart were the base numbers are doubled. I generally ignore it until 5th myself. Seems too harsh at the early stages. Again, please clarify the formula for level 6 mages.. Con * 0.4 *2 or just con * 2?
Philusion 10-16-04, 07:58 PM	Well, I've decided to use the following (while playtesting, of course). I'm pretty confident that it's balanced toward the character's level & constitution, no matter how extreme, so I'll likely just incorporate it into my campaign for good unless I find an outstanding trait that screams 'broken!'. Massive Damage: If your character ever receives a single blow that deals damage greater than 50% of his total maximum HP + Constitution score + ½ HD (rounded up), the character must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/5 damage dealt), provided the blow itself doesn’t put him below 0 HP. If this saving throw fails, the character will be automatically reduced to 0 hit points. Death & Dying: Your character will die when he or she reaches negative hit points equal to their total Constitution score. From -1 HP to minus their Constitution, the character is unconscious and probably unstable, thus losing 1 hit point per round. Each round their player may roll a 1d100, and if they roll 10 (+Con Mod) or less, the bleeding stops and their condition stabilizes. If they roll above this, they lose 1 hit point and may roll again next round. If they stabilize before they die, they will remain at that number of negative hit points until tended, or until further adverse effects kill them. - Phil