Talk:Death's Door
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I only bring this up because I've always had a problem with the -10 HP not scaling with levels, so once you have a guy over level 8 who gets to enough HP to potentially go into Death's Door, things are so lethal that the chance he will actually spend any time in the state between "Dying" and "Dead" are very small. Should this be mitigated with a house rule, or should we not bother? -Slitherrr
- It scales by giving you lots of hit points per level. I'll be happy to take some of your hit points from the positive side and put them in the negatives. -gm
- Yeah, I understand, I've just always had problems with the trope of "Perfect condition perfect condition perfect condition DEAD" that HP suggests. Rolemaster had a much cooler system. -Slitherrr
- Oh yeah... RM would be great! I'm always rolling an attack and thinking to myself "man, this attack would be so much better if it required 3 table lookups!" ;) --Msallen 15:02, 14 January 2010 (EST)
- PS. I see what you are saying about the "Death's Door" problem from a math perspective, although personally I love player death so I'm not invested in a fix.
- Yeah, I've never really liked the whole "You're perfect until you are unconscious" idea, either, but RPG design is nothing if not a tug-of-war between "mimicking reality" and "being intuitive and fun." I tend to come down on the side of the later, but that's by no means a universal truth of gaming. -gm
- Well, in this case, its more about how easy it is to be unconscious at low levels, but how hard it is at high levels. At level 1 most classes have more hp below 0 as above it, and damage is much lower. At level 20, however, a fighter has 150+ hp, so only 7% are below 0. Since attacks do a lot more damage at 20 (say... 35 for a fireball) you are far more likely to just pass through "unconscious" straight to dead. Er go, higher levels are much more fatal. "You are fine until you are dead".
- Though, OTOH, the creatures you fight at low levels (kobolds and goblins) would be much - in "reality" - be more likely to knock you out rather than straight out kill you in a fight, anyway, as opposed to something you'd be fighting at a high level, like a titan or a dragon. -gm
- Well, in this case, its more about how easy it is to be unconscious at low levels, but how hard it is at high levels. At level 1 most classes have more hp below 0 as above it, and damage is much lower. At level 20, however, a fighter has 150+ hp, so only 7% are below 0. Since attacks do a lot more damage at 20 (say... 35 for a fireball) you are far more likely to just pass through "unconscious" straight to dead. Er go, higher levels are much more fatal. "You are fine until you are dead".
- Yeah, I've never really liked the whole "You're perfect until you are unconscious" idea, either, but RPG design is nothing if not a tug-of-war between "mimicking reality" and "being intuitive and fun." I tend to come down on the side of the later, but that's by no means a universal truth of gaming. -gm
- Yeah, I understand, I've just always had problems with the trope of "Perfect condition perfect condition perfect condition DEAD" that HP suggests. Rolemaster had a much cooler system. -Slitherrr
It's worth pointing out that gm has already stated that Resurrection is a rarity in this world, so this becomes a bigger issue than your standard D&D campaign. -Slitherrr
- Lethality is a feature, not a bug. :)
