The way death in The Fallen: Between the Darkness and the Light is most likely going to be different than the death systems you may have used in other campaigns.  It is modeled after the way I ended up treating death towards the end of the first campaign. The general system is the same as the original campaign; when you are knocked down below zero hitpoints (and above -10 hitpoints), you fall unconscious and begin to bleed.  You have a chance of automatically recovering (a chance which is improved if you have higher constitution) back up to one hitpoint, or at any point before you reach -10, you can be healed by a companion.  The difference comes in what happens when you reach -10 hitpoints and are considered 'incapacitated'. 

In general, I prefer to think of combat on a party basis, rather than an individual basis.  To that end, a single party member getting knocked below -10 hitpoints is not a significant problem.  As long as the party wins the fight and is capable of rudimentary healing, the fallen party member will be brought back to life with one hitpoint.  What is considered as 'winning the fight' is determined only by the DM. 

It is possible, after being brought back to life, that the character will suffer a temporary injury.  This can be an injury to the arm, reducing the character's Attack rating, or an injury to the leg, lowering their dexterity.  It has yet to be determined if this will be scripted in, handled by the DM, or some combination thereof - although the third choice is the most likely one.  Expect for length and reason for incapacitation to factor into the potential for and severity of the injury.

The big problem comes if the entire party is incapacitated.  At this point, one of several things will happen.  Depending on the importance of the battle being fought at the time, it is possible that the campaign, at least in its current incarnation, will be over.  Certain failures cannot be recovered from.  For a less-important battle, the least severe punishment will be failure of the mission.  A more severe punishment could be failure of the mission and the death of a character.  The severity of the punishment is left to the DM's discretion.

Although this system may seem overly-generous, this hybrid approach of scripting and DM input is designed to allow for some amount of player and DM error without resulting in the premature end of the campaign.  Hopefully, it will result in longer-living characters, for which death will be a far more serious and dramatic occurrence.  This system may be modified based on player input and actual implementation.

 

Last Update: 5/10/04