Sunday, August 27, 2006

system shock

I've been thinking of instituting a new houserule. Right now, when PCs die, they lose a level, which is the official rule. But, sometimes a character's death can lead to long delays in the middle of a game. And sometimes, its by accident. I don't go into combat planning that certain people die. Well, most of the time. So, I give you the System Shock check.

System Shock (Ex): When you take lethal damage, reaching -10HP, you do not die automatically. Upon reaching -10hp, you roll a Fortitude save, vs. DC 20. If you make the save, damage that would have brought you to -10 or less instead brings you to -9. If you fail the save, you die from lethal damage.

So, what do you guys think about this?

4 comments:

Degolar said...

Hey, any additional chance to stay alive is a good thing. Realism's important and all, but it's a real bummer to have to spend a couple of hours just observing the game while you wait for your character to come back (weaker).

Hadrian said...

Sounds fair to me. Of course, I never make my fortitude saves anyway. Is that going to apply to any amount of damage? What if the damage done took the PC to -90 or so? Would the new rule still apply?

scott said...

The new rule would still apply. If I had a monster that took someone to -90 in a round, it would just be gratuitous and overpowered. Unless I was swinging at Lummox. That fucker's hard to knock down.

I might have to modify the DC, make it 20 + 1 per 5 damage or something like that, so if you took 100 damage, taking you from 10HP to -90, the save would be 40(20 + 20).

Leelu said...

I like it. Anything that gives us a fighting chance is good by me. :D

And no fair picking on Lummox. :P