The main gripe I, or I think, anyone can really have about this server, is that at times, the death penalty is entirely too harsh. That's the answer I have tended to come up with in any case, but looking back, maybe it's not so much the truth. The real issue, as I see it now, is that it is so easy to die. One single mistake or misclick can kill you. Choosing to heal your partner out of OOC niceness, or entirely IC benevolence can trigger a half dozen AOO's and end up with you dying instead. It's the sort of thing that, as it stands, can ONLY be learned the hard way. Other times, the enemy just gets a lucky critical for a ridiculous amount of damage and instantly kills the character. This is paramount to throwing a Phantasmal Killer at a PC, and then when they die, just saying 'whoops, it happens sometimes' - which is pretty much the current attitude on critical hit deaths. Some people aren't naturally good at questing, and constantly dying in order to learn is extremely frustrating - especially when it actually interferes with the character, which in some cases, it does. Contrary to popular belief, occasionally it may require a character to be a certain level to carry out their goals, even if it's just casting a certain spell or having a certain skill at a certain point or just being a proper badass.

So here's my proposal, and I can think of several other ways in which it might work better, but this is the basic idea I'd come up with. Pretty much any of the details can do with being changed though, really.

Instead of characters dying when reaching -10 HP, they should die at -30. Instead of bleeding out 1 HP at a time, they should bleed out -3 HP at a time.

Essentially the character will bleed out at the same rate as he would normally. He'll just bleed out -more often-.

It's sacrificing a bit of realism for the sake of fun, but sometimes you have to do that, right?

If the character is going to die from the enemies standing over him, he's going to die anyway, but this instead gives healers a chance to notice that the character they would have been watching (had their OOC attention not drifted for a split second to something else), can still help the bleeder. Although given this system, the healer may have to expend a bit extra resources for the sake of helping the person, I think it makes plenty of sense to be that way. By this system, bringing a person back from the bring of death would require a greater expenditure of energy to save the life. Using Medicinal Herbs to save the person's life would still be an option, but instead would require a -greatly- increased DC, probably based on how many HP the bleeder -doesn't- have.

It's not how the system works in PnP, no. But in PnP, the player has time to think. In NWN, a round is six seconds. And in the heat of the moment, it's hard to decide if you should, run, turn invisible, heal, or drink that buff potion, and so when you're -dead- the next moment, it can be a royal pain.

Refinements, criticisms, etc are welcomed. If you shoot it down, I'd prefer a bit more than 'the death system is fine as it is' as a reason, because quite frankly, I don't believe it is, and I'm sure others don't either.

bitchbitchbitchbitchBitchbitchBITCH amirite?

The system does seem fine though. Death is harsh, it is nasty, you should be afraid to die.

I'd like to hear what the positive benefit of making it much more difficult to die will be. As I see it, death is just going to happen and you will learn to handle the game and survive as time goes. In the OC, you don't even get a -10.

The way you propose it, it doesn't seem like you're increasing anyone's chance to heal you before you bleed to death; just increasing the amount of damage needed to kill you.

Think about how that affects PvP. You're increasing someone's HP essentially by 30% even at the HIGH levels.

Kotenku Instead of characters dying when reaching -10 HP, they should die at -30. Instead of bleeding out 1 HP at a time, they should bleed out -3 HP at a time.

I'd think the positive benefit of making it more difficult to die would be obvious. Dying is not fun. Also not fun is to be sitting in combat and surviving fairly well, only to suddenly be loading the fugue screen. The scenario where you don't even realize how you died until you go back after the fact and look at the combat logs.

Essentially what I was proposing was exactly what you pointed out. Just increasing the amount of damage needed to kill you. As it is now, more often than not, you'll die to the enemies. It's rare to bleed to death as it is, instead, the idea is that you'll bleed to death more often. Your healer will actually be able to realize that you're bleeding to death, and get to you, instead of just being surprised to find out that you went from full health in the QA to being full health in the Fugue.

As far as PvP goes, I'm not sure I see the issue. If it's a group versus a group, healing the downed comrade is still going to be hard, and probably not a high priority.

In one on one PvP (with FD mode), the opponent reaching negatives might be changed to work as Subdualing does, in that he takes a significant AC penalty.

But I suppose the point is moot now, considering.

On the off chance this was possible, I don't think it adds anything positive. In fact I think it works against your intentions.

Frank is hit to -13, he bleeds for 3, (-16) You try to heal him with a cure minor, you heal 4, (-12) He bleeds for 3, (-15) etc... Meaning you will have to heal them another 12 to 13 times to get them out of the negatives if all you have is a cure minor rod.

Your suggestion means it takes more damage to kill someone outright. However it doesn't keep them alive any longer and it would make healing them very expensive and even more prone to mass barrages of AOOs. I'm not sure if they continue to bleed to death after your hit them with healing. However, even if they don't continue to bleed, thats allot of healing needed to get someone back on their feet. (5-7 uses of cure minor)

Cure minor being the most widely used way to stop someone from dieing -during- combat.

The death system is fine as it is.

Your solution would actually make it worse. Stastically, look at how much damage someone typically dies by. Then look at how much more damage someone would have to heal, while enemies are still pounding, for a PC to get back up. This suggestion would only further obfuscate and frustrate the already relatively-meaningless bleeding time.

Ultimately, the best solution is not to get knocked to bleeding in the first place. Plenty of people know how to play the game well. Learn to do it too, or you'll always keep dying, no matter what small tidbits are thrown your way.

Leave the death system be. It's harsh, and it works. As far as a critical hit killing you, I might point out that that is its reason for being!

Crit=more damage=stronger possibility it will kill your arse!

Arkov

Kotenku Instead of characters dying when reaching -10 HP, they should die at -30. Instead of bleeding out 1 HP at a time, they should bleed out -3 HP at a time.

I just checked, and it looks like -10 is hard-coded into the NWN game engine. I may be wrong, but I don't think it's possible to implement this.

I believe it is. It's usually stated in the OnDying script in 'Module Properties'. I am toying with a solution for a private semi-PW I'm on, where the PC bleeds to 15 + (2*CON modifier). This allows the other characters to fight off the goblin horde/pigeon force who ambushed them, before they tend to the injured.

I don't see a problem with it relating to PvP, quite the contrary, in fact. This allows the dying person to say a few dying phrases, before he fades away/the other person chops his head off. I honestly believe this will actually add to roleplay, seing as the player will get to emote spasms, cry for help etc. My favourite deaths has been the ones where someone bleeded out.

I might be wrong here, but can't medkits stop the bleeding?

LoQi I believe it is. It's usually stated in the OnDying script in 'Module Properties'. I am toying with a solution for a private semi-PW I'm on, where the PC bleeds to 15 + (2*CON modifier). This allows the other characters to fight off the goblin horde/pigeon force who ambushed them, before they tend to the injured.

For your issue, why not just make them bleed slower? That is entirely controllable via scripting.

LoQi I might be wrong here, but can't medkits stop the bleeding?

I believe that we are very happy with our death system, and that's it's as balanced as possible consideration the vast differences from player to player.

Kotenku, I agree that death is harsh here. I hated it at first, and when my level 8 dies and has no chance for a TR, it takes a lot of personal will power to not scream outloud, bite the bullet, and eat a 1/3 xp shot (and at least 1 level with it).

This is a complete shock to players new to EfU who did what I did - got used to the concept of respawning that the OC used: loose 10% of xp, some gold and impossible to lose a level from xp loss.

Personally, its the AI on some of the enemies that drives me nuts. Sometimes they attack you after you're 0 hp or lower. Other times they dont. Sometimes you can recover from 0hp and stand up and walk away and the monster standing on your head doesn't even notice.

I'd like to see the 'corpse beating' done away with for sentient villains. Things like zombies, bugs and animals of course aren't smart enough to stop mauling a body after it's stopped moving, but things like Orogs will likely run to attack the person who's still standing, not beat on a corpse continually while in a fight. So in short: I agree that it's too easy to die, but in real life if I was fighting an army of goblins with only about 7 people, I'm sure the odds of survival are against me. The fact that NPC's can crit PC's is a big factor also.

And finally, the mindless attacking of a fallen PC pisses me off more than anything.

i think that the crux of the idea here is to make character more able to survive that final debilitating blow which gives PC's a little reaction time in the thick of battle to heal a downed comrad..

it was mentioned that by increasing the number to -30 would mean a significant boost i HP but triple the bleeding rate means it balances out..

correct me if im wrong but the PnP rules state that a character who is healed 1hp or more when in negative lvls becomes stablized...thus buying the PC's more time to work out how to get him up and active..((or at least concious))..by stableizing your comrad at least he wont continue bleeding if you dont move him.

i can only see this as adding to the server as in effect when you reach negative HP you are subdued anyway and cant fight back... the chance of surviving a critical hit become better...though still leaves you incapacitated (again unable to fight) and adds drama to the PC's trying to help you after the fight..

my two cents.

//edited after i reread it to attempt to clarify some points//

Uh.. If you increase the HP at incapacitated to -30, and then triple the rate of bleeding to balance it out, doesn't that just make it exactly the same as it is now?

But if an enemy attacks you for 20 damage while you're on -3, you'll still live. Sadly, if on -29, you have little hope of being healed back to full life without the staunching script added.

correct me if im wrong but the PnP rules state that a character who is healed 1hp or more when in negative lvls becomes stablized...thus buying the PC's more time to work out how to get him up and active..((or at least concious))..by stableizing your comrad at least he wont continue bleeding if you dont move him.

This seems the most sensible solution to me. Although yesterday I managed to stabilise on -3 and the damn rats kept on attacking until I finally died. That'll teach me to forget I'm not playing a frontliner. :(

But that aside, it gives a bit more chance withouth needing a wand of cure serious or half the charges of a cure minor and 10 rounds of not being able to defend yourself because you're too busy healing the dead guy, just to get them to 1 HP. Particularly if some of the AI figures out that the guy still stabbing all your mates is more dangerous than the one gurgling on the ground.

Yeah, if the AI could be set not to attack beaten down characters if there are others still standing that would help a lot. At least for enemies with some minimal intelligence, as was suggested. I second that fully.

i would say simply increase chance of recovery.

Thomas_Not_very_wise i would say simply increase chance of recovery.

That won't help much, as you rarely bleed, but in most cases die at an instant.

Furthermore, I've done some testing, and found out that Arkov was right. You cannot bleed below -10 HP, as it is hardcoded into the NwN engine. So this suggestion is actually impossible to implement.

The AI sometimes does forget to continue beating up bleeding PCs, it just never happened for me no matter what I do and in a normal scenario I go from full or 1/2 health instantly to -55 HP anyway. Yes, it is too easy to die, and I say that as a player who has perfected her playing technique so much that I virtually only die now when I rely on something that lets me down, like other people or especially, game mechanics, but then I might be just the kind of person that makes i feel like the need to increase difficulty. -_-

Seeing this is hardcoded though, and I'm also pretty sure it is, discussing is kind of moot. I just want you to imagine how frustrating it is when you, for once, only drop to 0 HP instead of a hilariously big(small?) negative number and load the fugue before your character even hit the ground; only to have th AI ignore all other targets and keep shooting you from 2 screens away or so until you can't take it anymore.

I think EfU is too easy, frankly.

The reason people a lot of people die so much is because they :-

1. Go on quests which are obviously going to be undoable with their party composition, but do them anyway

2. Hoard their gold instead of spending them on consumables or equipment. What use is gold to the dead?

3. Do not use their consumables in order to survive. That bulls strength potion may be expensive, but it's better to be alive and have less potions than dead and own a great deal of equipment

The last one is particularly relevant when it comes to DM quests. Sometimes, people seem to forget their twenty bags filled with potions and wands when it comes to their way-harder-than-the-norm encounters.

Okay, so bad things can happen as well - crits from a monster, unlucky saves vs death/paralysis, but the survival rate on the server overall is pretty damn high.

this prompts me to ask: Are monsters and stuff suppost to stop beating you when your down and bleeding, if not, fix the trogs >.>

You think dieing to a crit is so unfortunate. Try getting 2 crits in a row when faced with a skeletal warior.