Damage and Death questions

[wizard45]

I'm looking for several clarification on page 93 of the rulebook.

As written, the rules seems to suggest that characters who were bleeding out and failed to be healed in a number of rounds then get the second opportunity of a luck check before being considered dead. Is this the intended interpretation?

Being new to the game, at first glance, it seems that most higher level character will never die. Given a cleric nearby, a sixth level character would have to die by the cleric failing six heal checks, then fail a luck check. Without going into the number details,, the probablitity of dying is very small. Certainly, the character deserves a higher chance of living because they have reached a high level, however, a sixth level character dying would be about 1% chance (given some general assumptions on the attributes of the characters involved), which seems too insignifigant to make death an issue. Also, if the cleric is a high enough level, he may get a second action die for healing, making it even less probable for the character dying. Of course, this is under the assumption that the cleric can reach the character quickly, but this will most likely be the case in most situations.

Also, is this mechanic intended for combat related death only, or even if a character dies from a trap?

Last question: The DC of the luck check is not given. Is this supposed to be set by the judge to an appropriate DC given the situation?

Thank you!

[Raven_Crowking]

I'm looking for several clarification on page 93 of the rulebook.

As written, the rules seems to suggest that characters who were bleeding out and failed to be healed in a number of rounds then get the second opportunity of a luck check before being considered dead. Is this the intended interpretation?

That's it. The DC is roll under your Luck.

But remember that each instance lowers Strength, Agility, or Stamina permanently.

And, as characters go up in level, their Luck tends to go down.

[GnomeBoy]

...And if the Cleric is making a lot of checks before they need to make that "save my friend from dying" check, they probably have some (or a lot) of disapproval accrued, which could make that revival check less-than-certain (to say the least).

If you're assuming everyone in the party is in tip-top shape when one of them drops to the dirt, yeah, it'll be fairly easy to bring that person back from the brink.

But if they are as worn down as the person that just got dropped, it could be more iffy...

Even if they bring the fallen individual back, they may still be amidst a battle that still needs to be resolved of fled from -- or, y'know, there's the next threat they face.

[wizard45]

Thank you both for the responses. Good points all around!

I am certainly looking at a very ideal situation. For those with more experience playing the mechanic, is it more lethal in practice?

Thanks!

[Raven_Crowking]

Don't forget, too, that monsters which make it hard to recover the body - because they pull you into deep mud, or drag you off while their fellows keep fighting - become far more frightening.

[brainszine]

My reading is that you may use Bleeding Out rules if you can access your fallen comrade immediately and Recovering The Body rules if you cannot, but you don't get both.

If you're high level and you have a cleric standing right behind you, yeah, it's hard to die. But you lose -1 Stamina every time, so on average you will only have 9 or 10 such saves to start with, and the more you die and are saved the lower you STA modifier when you level up and get more Hit Points, so dying still sucks. But also, you can only be saved in this manner in regular combat, not when you fall into a lava pit or get eaten, so some deaths are going to be more permanent than others. I mean, if you're killed by hungry wolves and they eat you, there's no chance for Recovering The Body.

A cleric will never be able to save him/herself from Bleeding Out, so the only time the death rules become ridiculous is when you have a party of all clerics. Hmmm, a party of 6 clerics would be pretty much unkillable in DCC. But if you only have a single cleric and that character dies...

I've been considering a house rule for campaign play: If you die and are revived with either method, you remain disabled until the end of the session because your wounds are crippling. You can bring this character back next game but are forced to sit out the remainder of this one.

[Raven_Crowking]

My reading is that you may use Bleeding Out rules if you can access your fallen comrade immediately and Recovering The Body rules if you cannot, but you don't get both.

If you are healed in time, you don't need both. But divine healing isn't always going to work...depends on the roll. The gods may still have favored you; time to roll over the body and find out.