Scrying The 4e Crystal Ball - Death In 4e Revealed

Andy Collins recently posted an article on Dungeons & Dragons Insider regarding death, dying, and how 4e will be dealing with this sticky part of playing the game. I have to confess, I have a slightly different take on death in D&D than Mr. Collins and the development team, but then again, I've always quite liked sticky situations.

While I disagree with some of the development teams perspective, I do agree with many of the changes, and I have to give them kudos on this particular article. At a time when Wizards of the Coast needs to be getting excitement for the game going, they included a crucial piece in this article: a Try it Now! sidebar (well, I assume that gray box at the bottom would be a sidebar, if the layout of the DDI actually in any way resembled the layout for a magazine) that lets you incorporate some of the new rules in your current 3.5 game.

A few highlights:

2) Characters die when their negative hit point total reaches -10 or one-quarter of their full normal hit points, whichever is a larger value.
This is less than a 4th Edition character would have, but each monster attack is dealing a smaller fraction of the character’s total hit points, so it should be reasonable. If it feels too small, increase it to one-third full normal hit points and try again.

3) If you’re dying at the end of your turn, roll 1d20.
Lower than 10: You get worse. If you get this result three times before you are healed or stabilized (as per the Heal skill), you die.
10-19: No change.
20: You get better! You wake up with hit points equal to one-quarter your full normal hit points.

Read the full article here. (Again, this is the printer friendly version, so it should be readable without logging in, at least until they fix that "feature")

[via Dungeons & Dragons Insider]