WotC Death and Dying article

[Crissa]

RC, that's dumb.

Why should the DM need the monster's entry every time he wants to use it? Because it has a unique mechanic replicated nowhere else?

'Your DM can make shit up'? Yes, I know he can. Dumbass.

-Crissa

Unique abilities are great. Unique mechanics are not. Unique entries are not. No indexing sucks. We don't need unique mechanics for a humanoid to hold a hostage. We don't need more 'the DM has to make shit up'.

[RandomCasualty]

1202285464[/unixtime]]

Why should the DM need the monster's entry every time he wants to use it? Because it has a unique mechanic replicated nowhere else?

Because in addition to abilities, there's also a stat block. And unless your DM is blessed with a photographic memory, he's probably not going to remember 4 defenses, possibly several attack bonuses/methods, a movement rate and 6 ability scores.

So yeah, you're going to need some notes to run a monster regardless.

[Crissa]

Every DM I've played with has memorized the stat blocks of the monsters he's using.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1202285708[/unixtime]]Every DM I've played with has memorized the stat blocks of the monsters he's using.

Well wow. I guess your DMs are geniuses... Seriously. That's fucking hard. Especially when you've got 2 or 3 monster types in the battle. In 2nd edition is wasn't that hard, because you had so few numbers to memorize. But 3.5 damn, it's crazy shit to be able to rote memory the numeric stat block of even one monster, let alone several in an encounter or enough that you'd meet in an entire adventure.

If they're that smart, then I find it hard to believe that they can't memorize an ability description too. I can memorize most ability descriptions, but memorizing a series of numbers is a real bitch. Out of all the times I've run ogres, I still can't say for sure any of their stats. I can't tell you the attack bonus, the AC, the strength... pretty much nothing. I can give a general estimate but that's about it.

[Aycarus]

1202285708[/unixtime]]Every DM I've played with has memorized the stat blocks of the monsters he's using.

I used to make reference cards with all the relevant information on them for each monster the party was going to face. Damn time consuming.

I, for one, welcome our compact information block overlords.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

As a DM if you run a monster for more than 2 rounds you have most of the important stuff down pat. If you plan before hand for 2 rounds of combat you can have it memorized.

When you can't plan, notecards.

Sidenote: do you know how many SPELLS most good DMs have memorized? I'll give you a clue: it's more than monsters.

Other sidenote: bugbears can show up in the same campaign multiple times with no ill effects, you don't even have to plan for them the second time .

[Judging__Eagle]

Sorry, I will still read the 2nd and 3rd page, but I thought that I had to throw this in as an alternate to the "three strikes and you're out" rule.

I'm using # instead of an actual number, since this is part of the order of checking to see if you're still bleeding like a stuck pig or not.

#) In your next round that you are still in negative hit points. Roll a d20, you take damage equal to 11 minus the dice roll that you made. this damage represents your body bleeding out as it tries to clot up its wounds. If you roll an 15+ you stabilize and do not take damage from bleeding out.

#+1) Upon reaching stabilization, roll a d20. If you roll a 20 on this dice roll, you can make a fortitude save equal to your hit dice+10. If you succeed you regain consciousness and have 1/10th of your total hit points back. If you fail to roll a 20 after stabilizing you can roll again in your next round and the checked for number becomes 19+; lowering every subsequent round (18+ in the third round that you until you regain consciousness and so on). If you fail the fortitude save to regain consciousness, the DC goes down by one every following round.

#+2) If you are injured again while stabilized, you lose your stabilized state and continue to bleed out in your next round.

So...we're seeing a Dungeon Siege effect here.

Eventually; everyone gets up, as long as not everyone is down.

Also, 'dying' can still be very fucking bad if you roll poorly; two 5's in a row mean you've lost an other 12 hp. A 1 drops you an other 10 hp. So people will want to go save their buddies that are bleeding, b/c they could very well still die in a round or two.

Getting up means pretty much that. You got up. It doesn't mean that people will drop and then try for the '20' lottery and hope to get more HP than they had before they got hit and knocked down.

Sure, ten percent of your total hit points is nothing to sneeze at, since it means that you're up and alive, but you will probably be in a sorry shape and will want to lick your wounds. Not go charge into a fight and tank a room full of monsters.

I like this rule, I'll have to start tossing monsters that deal spell damage at my PCs; shit like scorching ray or acid rays and such. Nothing with saves, since they can make them.

[Judging__Eagle]

1202285708[/unixtime]]Every DM I've played with has memorized the stat blocks of the monsters he's using.

-Crissa

Screw that noise.

I don't even know what monsters the PCs will face more than 99% of the time and reading the MM seems to be the height of boring for me.

Doesn't really help me as a DM though. The encounters that the PCs do however, have themes.

So it doesn't feel like the encounters are strung together at random (A gaggle of Nightmares outside a city in Hades, a Hamatula sheriff, a Cleric Unicorn chained and sold as a slave by a bunch of Imps, a Nalfeshnee Mayor, a bunch of rampaging Hell Cats in the market, a half-broken Retriever, and a fiendish pyro-hydra for one string of encounters in Hades). The individual encounters are usually not pre-selected, I just try to stick to a theme, evil outsiders, undead, scaled creatures.

[JonSetanta]

You had a market in Hades? What kind? How did the vendors/traders keep Yugoloths from stomping in and taking everything?
That's a good theme for monsters in such a setting, though.

[cthulhu]

I use reference cards, then do 'themed' adventures so I need less reference cards.

[Ravengm]

This is stupid. Plain and simple.

Sure, it's nice to have the "I don't go from healthy and fighting to dead in one shot", but the revival methods are dumb. If your HP max is 100, then going from -48 to 25 on a 5% chance is stupidly good. The monster that does about 17 damage on average has to hammer away at a corpse for two rounds just to put the character back under again, not to mention getting him back to the point of death. And this is all because of a reflexive roll, not even an action.

Furthermore, the "fail three times and you die" mechanic is dumb too. Make a random range of health to lose each turn in the negatives, scaled by your death cap (for example, 1d2 points of damage for -10, 1d4 points of damage for -15, etc.).

It's things like this that are forcing me to explore other systems for roleplaying.