Death and Dying

Speaking of house rules, I've made a bit of a mess of applying one for death and dying rules in "The Eberron Code" - roughly half of two different house rules are in place, applied rather intermittently. Still, it seems to work okay. The house rule deals with the subject of death and dying, which is an area in which my thinking has gone back and forward more than a few times.

The truth is, I'm not really a fan of 3e's -10 hit points death threshold. The problems are two-fold:

Firstly, at anything above very low level the buffer is sufficiently small that it doesn't really provide any great protection against death - characters are pretty likely to just blow through it and go from "okay" to "dead outright" in a single blow. Secondly, in cases where the buffer does apply, it tends to provide far too much comfort - if a character is at -6, the Cleric knows that he has three full rounds to get over there to provide healing.

The 4e model is, at least in places, somewhat better. Here, there's a "three strikes and you're out" rule - characters have to make a Death Save every round, and after they've failed three they die. However, character's don't die from damage until a much lower threshold, so they're very unlikely to be killed outright. Actually, this latter is the one thing I don't care for about the 4e model - I think it's an unnecessary complication.

So, the house rules:

Characters at any positive number of hit points operate as they do currently. Characters cannot be reduced to fewer than 0 hit points.

A character reduced to 0 hit points is dead. The character drops prone, and drops anything held in his hands. However, the character is only quite dead - in fact, he may not even be unconscious!

Each round on his turn, a character who is quite dead must make a death save. Roll d20 - on a roll of less than 1 - 9, the character slips into unconsciousness and becomes mostly dead. On a roll of 10 - 19, nothing happens. And on a roll of 20, the character becomes stable, and need make no further saves.

A character who takes further damage while quite dead must make an additional, immediate death save, as above - even if he was previously stabilised.

A character who is quite dead may take free actions normally. Alternately, he can take a single action (standard, move, or swift) on his turn; however, after he has done so he must make an additional, immediate death save - even if he was previously stabilised.

A character who is quite dead can benefit from healing as normal - whether from a spell, magic item, or application of the Heal skill. Such a character starts from 0 hit points, so any amount of healing will return him to a positive value.

A character who is mostly dead is unconscious and may take no actions of any sort. Such a character does not need to make further death saves, but is also beyond immediate help.

If a character who is mostly dead receives powerful healing (that is, any single effect that would normally restore him to 50% of his normal total or more), he is instead restored to 1 hit point. Likewise, the application of the revivification spell can restore the character to 1 hit point. Any lesser magical healing, or an application of the first aid use of the Heal skill, leaves the character stable; thereafter, a full month of long-term care will restore the character to 1 hit point.

If the character is not stabilised within 5 minutes of the end of combat, the character becomes completely dead.

A character who is stable remains at his previous status - whether that is quite dead or mostly dead, but is not at risk of getting worse. Such a character does not need to make death saves each round. However, if a character who is stable suffers damage, or if he takes action then he immediately returns to his previous status.

Most save-or-die effects immediately reduce the character to 0 hit points, and leave them mostly dead. Likewise, a successful coup de grace leaves the victim at 0 hit points and mostly dead. The death knell spell applies to a character who is quite dead or mostly dead, and leaves them completely dead. The disintegrate spell, and any other spell that specifies that it destroys the body, renders a victim completely dead.