Update DDO to 4th ed Dying rules immediately

[Angelus_dead]

The upcoming 4th edition of D&D will feature improved rules for a wounded character becoming incapacitated before dying. There are numerous good reasons for that, which the authors have explained in an article (You might need a subscription to read that) The key advantage of the new system is that it scales up as the character advances (instead of merely scaling down as the enemy advances). The authors have published easy rules to add the new dying system into a 3.5 edition D&D game. DDO should implement that change as soon as possible.

Here are the new rules

• When reduced to under 1 hp, you fall down but are still alive if your negative hps are less than 25% of your normal hp total.
• Every 10 seconds, roll a stabilization d20 check:
  01-10: You bleed. If this happens three times, you die.
  11-19: You lay there.
  20: You make a heroic recovery effort, and immediately stand up with 25% of your normal hp total.
• Any healing spell cast on you brings you to 0 hp for free, then adds the healing. (Thus casting CLW on a barb at -93 will bring him to 7 hp, not -86 hp)
• Auto-stabilizing with the Diehard feat or the Warforged race prevents the negative effect of rolling 1-10 on the stabilization check.

Adaptation Notes

• Due to the higher hitpoints of DDO characters, it would be reasonable to bring the hp threshold down from 25% to 12.5% or even 10%. (Consider that DDO barbs get 12/level instead of 6.5/level average)
• Due to the real time nature of DDO, I suggest that the interval between stabilization checks be reduced to 3 seconds if a character is stabilized. That way, a stable character needs to wait only an average of 60 seconds to stand up, not the 3 minutes it would take otherwise.
• I also suggest that Heal checks to save an incap character be given two DCs. The normal, higher DC will restore the victim to 1 hp, while the lower DC will stablize him and prevent death, but not get him immediately back in action.
• The Diehard feat would be more fun if, instead of providing auto-stabilization, it instead doubled the amount of negative hitpoints you could survive. (That would make the feat less useful for soloing, but much much more useful for parties, and also give it relevance to Warforged)

Gameplay notes

• The change to the negative hp threshold will make it more likely a high-level character survives an enemy attack and can be rescued by something less drastic than a Raise Dead spell, increasing the sense of cooperation and teamwork.
• The increased hp threshold will make the Diehard feat much less worthless.
• The chance to roll a natural 20 will make it more exciting to "play" an incapacitated character, as you'll eagerly anticipate each new chance to amazingly recover.
• A typical 300 hp level 16 character would be incap when between 0 and -75 hp using the 25% threshold, or 0 to -37 hp using the 12.5% threshold. Because the chance to recover doesn't depend on how far negative you are, no incap character will face a longer delay than any other.

[Spectralist]

I like it.

[sirgog]

I like it too, although it increases significantly the chance of death when soloing at low level (being dropped to -1hp is something you are fairly likely to survive solo at the moment, under this system you have a roughly 25% chance of living compared to the current roughly 44%).

Another option is to do the following:

Death occurs at negative 20% of HP (or -10 for characters with 49 or less HP).
Stabilisation rolls are a % chance that scales with your Constitution (instead of 10%, just make it 15% for Con 15 etc). On a failure, players take 2 damage not 1 (due to the larger Death's Door, this is roughly equal to the current system at the levels that it matters)
Heal checks DC 15 stabilise a fallen friend, DC 25 gets them up with 1 HP, DC 40 gets them up with 25% HP (can only be used on the incapped).
Heal checks (DC 30) should also restore 1 point of stat damage when someone is incapped due to Str damage or similar.

[Ducky]

Here I am advocating that all hp totals should be slashed to miniscule levels and you want to make staying alive even easier. Boo

[Tenkari_Rozahas]

nice, but if they start adding specific 4e stuff people will start complaining that everything's not 4e and then they would have to revamp the entire game to convert everything to 4e just because people are afraid to die because it will cost them money instead of XP.

[MysticTheurge]

There are a lot of 4E rules that I'd love to see incorporated, but most of them would require a major overhaul of the game.

This one though seems like it could be pretty seamlessly integrated into DDO as is.

[Pellegro]

I just *barely* read the linked article to get the flavor of it, but it seems based on the premise that for higher level chars in a P&P game, death is a really really big deal. They wanted to extend out the period so that you don't necessarily die quite so often.

I guess I'm wondering .... is the same driving force present in an MMO where Rez scrolls can be bought at a vendor? Especially where death has no permanent effect.

Not sure, but it seems like the new rules may just push death off, and instead change a substantial portion of what would now be rezzes (with their somewhat substantial resource investment, plus debuff) into simple CLW wand whips.

Would that be good for the game?

[Invalid_86]

Here are the new rules
[list][*]When reduced to under 1 hp, you fall down but are still alive if your negative hps are less than 25% of your normal hp total.

I don't think this would work so well with our bloated hit point totals. A 300 hp DDO character would have to be reduced to -75hp to be outright killed?

There are a lot of 4E rules that I'd love to see incorporated, but most of them would require a major overhaul of the game.

This one though seems like it could be pretty seamlessly integrated into DDO as is.

Indeed. If we are going to go 4th edition lets GO 4th edition, not half @$$ it.

[JFeenstra]

I don't think this would work so well with our bloated hit point totals. A 300 hp DDO character would have to be reduced to -75hp to be outright killed?

or in the case of my barb, -171

[Samy]

• When reduced to under 1 hp, you fall down but are still alive if your negative hps are less than 25% of your normal hp total.
• Every 10 seconds, roll a stabilization d20 check:
  01-10: You bleed. If this happens three times, you die.
  11-19: You lay there.
  20: You make a heroic recovery effort, and immediately stand up with 25% of your normal hp total.
• Any healing spell cast on you brings you to 0 hp for free, then adds the healing. (Thus casting CLW on a barb at -93 will bring him to 7 hp, not -86 hp)
• Auto-stabilizing with the Diehard feat or the Warforged race prevents the negative effect of rolling 1-10 on the stabilization check.

So let's say I have Diehard and 80hp max.

I'm wounded down to 8hp.

It actually benefits me to stab myself in the gut with my longsword for 9hp damage *GURK*, fall down, auto-stabilize (Diehard) and then just wait however long it takes for the natural 20, and I stand up with 20hp (more than the 8hp I had).

Man, people are going to start stabbing themselves a lot to heal themselves. Diehard's gonna be a must-have feat, and after each battle, everybody under 25% hp are going to put a longsword through themselves. Seppuku healing for everyone!

[JFeenstra]

So let's say I have Diehard and 80hp max.

I'm wounded down to 8hp.

It actually benefits me to stab myself in the gut with my longsword for 9hp damage *GURK*, fall down, auto-stabilize (Diehard) and then just wait however long it takes for the natural 20, and I stand up with 20hp (more than the 8hp I had).

Man, people are going to start stabbing themselves a lot to heal themselves.

if you auto stabilize you don't get to roll to stabilize and will regen as normal, back to 1hp

[Samy]

So people with Diehard will only get up to 1hp, while people without Diehard will have to roll between dying and getting to 25%hp?

But it said "Auto-stabilizing with the Diehard feat or the Warforged race prevents the negative effect of rolling 1-10 on the stabilization check."

If you're not rolling at all on Diehard, then why would it need to "prevent the negative effect"? To me the wording seems to suggest you're still rolling on Diehard, you just don't suffer the negative effects of 1-10.

[JFeenstra]

if you are already stable, you can not re-stabilize

diehard makes you stabilize automatically on incap, therefore you can not roll

[Samy]

But it says "Auto-stabilizing with the Diehard feat or the Warforged race prevents the negative effect of rolling"

[JFeenstra]

But it says "Auto-stabilizing with the Diehard feat or the Warforged race prevents the negative effect of rolling"

go get incapped with the diehard feat, read your combat log, there's no die rolls for stabilization

[studentx]

Those new 4e rules look excellent for PnP when dieing and being resurrected would/may reduce your abilities drastically. In an MMO environment not so much, not unless death came with the disadvantages it does in PnP.

[Samy]

go get incapped with the diehard feat, read your combat log, there's no die rolls for stabilization

So DDO has already implemented the new rules the original post delineated? I didn't realize that.

[Emili]

or in the case of my barb, -171

Aye it would seem to me it would only allow high HP characters the advantage of having an equivalent to diehard. To make it even less challenging the mob rarely use coup de gras as many a monster or player would in PnP. Obviuously fighting an animal type the animal will start to eat the PC... while an intelligent creature type would opt to make sure the deed is one and done at the end of a battle... we rarely have that here in DDO.

[Lifespawn]

i almost always get finished off when incapped and if a friendly comes in sight of me incap body they kill me first not even with ranged weapon they just slash at me then go after the friendly.

[Angelus_dead]

So let's say I have Diehard and 80hp max.
I'm wounded down to 8hp.
It actually benefits me to stab myself in the gut with my longsword for 9hp damage *GURK*, fall down, auto-stabilize (Diehard) and then just wait however long it takes for the natural 20, and I stand up with 20hp (more than the 8hp I had).

That is completely false.
First, wounding yourself to incap would create a significant chance you'll bleed to death, unless you had spent a feat on Diehard. Spending a feat on some minor amount of slow healing is not valuable.
Second, even if you were guaranteed not to bleed to death, the time it would take for you to recover from incap would be, on average, more than a minute. Taking multiple minutes of doing nothing just to regain twelve hitpoints more than you had is not an effective use of time.

To say "By spending a feat and minutes of time I can get the benefit of two CLW potions which only work if I'm under 25% hitpoints" is not at all overpowered. CLW pots aren't some rare and amazing thing.

Additionally, as already covered in the original post, the DDO version of these rules could easily reduce the 25% level down to 12% or 10% or something.