Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JulesCARV 09-30-06, 10:57 PM	One thing that irks me is that characters in D&D are typically either dead or easily healed by magic. So one idea I had was that at -10 hp, a character isn't necessarily dead (although he could be), but is wounded beyond the point of any healing, cannot move, attack, cast spells, manifest powers, use skills, or anything of the sort. However, he might still be conscious and say things like, "Mailee... *gasp* I was lying... *hack* when I told you I loved you.. I'm *wheeze* sorry. Please forgive... *death*" or similar melodramatic nonsense. Basically, they'd be alive if there was a dramatic reason for them to still be alive, die as soon as their dramatic reason for staying alive disappeared, and in no way be able to help the party, except possibly by disclosing some long held dramatic secret. ("I kept the lich Zartul's phylactery... I did not... destroy it... as I claimed. I wanted to understand... its magic. It is in... my haversack.") A DM would be free to cut off any -10 HP stuff at any time, like cutting off the aforementioned sentence just after "I did not destroy it," having the character die before being able to disclose where it is, if he thinks that's cooler for the party or the campaign.
Rhialto 09-30-06, 11:31 PM	One thing that irks me is that characters in D&D are typically either dead or easily healed by magic. So one idea I had was that at -10 hp, a character isn't necessarily dead (although he could be), but is wounded beyond the point of any healing, cannot move, attack, cast spells, manifest powers, use skills, or anything of the sort. However, he might still be conscious and say things like, "Mailee... *gasp* I was lying... *hack* when I told you I loved you.. I'm *wheeze* sorry. Please forgive... *death*" or similar melodramatic nonsense. Basically, they'd be alive if there was a dramatic reason for them to still be alive, die as soon as their dramatic reason for staying alive disappeared, and in no way be able to help the party, except possibly by disclosing some long held dramatic secret. ("I kept the lich Zartul's phylactery... I did not... destroy it... as I claimed. I wanted to understand... its magic. It is in... my haversack.") A DM would be free to cut off any -10 HP stuff at any time, like cutting off the aforementioned sentence just after "I did not destroy it," having the character die before being able to disclose where it is, if he thinks that's cooler for the party or the campaign. Quoted for Great Truth. :ayyyy!:
The_Levitator 09-30-06, 11:58 PM	We've only had this come up a couple of times, but this is how we handled it. The first time it happened, a character took a critical hit that put him to -12HP. I better mention that we play diceless and we use a relative health system on our maps (green=100%, yellow=75%, orange=50%, red=25% and black= dead, unconscious or otherwise out of action)so players don't know their precise totals in the heat of combat. So I clicked on the ole DM Genie and it came up critical for the player and I looked at him and said, any last words? I was really just kind of half joking as a way to indirectly tell him that he was toast. Then I said, you have 6 seconds (to simlulate a round). He picked up on it right away and went into a horribly overacted (but very fun) short little death speech where he said something to the effect of, "Aryn (the ranger in the group), it was I who killed your hawk. It....was....an accident.......I'm sorry........" It was a great moment for the group because Aryn had been accusing someone else in the party of killing his hawk, and there was a lot of tension in the group (the characters, not the players). It was a great moment and now that's how we decided to handle every kill shot for PC's, partly to add some drama (and bad acting ;) ) and partly to give the death of a PC some closure. I've even done it with NPC's who sometimes give the party some information from their guilt and sense of imminent death, and sometimes they give them false information as their one last way to get at the party for killing them. I don't know how well this approach would work with a typical gaming group where everyone sees all the dice being rolled (although I hear there are still some evil DM's that roll their combat dice behind the screen while forcing the players to roll in front of the group :devil: ) I think what made it fun for us is that everything happens on DM Genie (we save and upload the game logs to our group website, just so everyone knows that we are playing a fair game)and I just narrate the results to the group, and this really helps add to the drama in combat. It's a fun option to give the players a short "death soliloquy" and if the player wanted to ramble on for more than 6 seconds, I wouldn't have a problem with it, as long as we are all having fun! :D