The bleeding rules are a little odd and make no sense. DC 90 and DC 75?

Why not just a base DC in the range of 30 or 20 with a CON modifier? CON should count for something, perhaps even the Toughness feat can help boost your roll by one. Yet a pure chance roll essentially just strikes me as odd, a sickly CON 8 Rogue shouldn't have the same chance of surviving a lethal blow as a healthy CON 18 dwarf fighter.

I hate to say it but I agree with the current system. The way it works is that 'luck' could play into whether a character lives or dies from a fatal blow. Biologically speaking, no amount of constitution or will power can make it so that your blood clots faster. Magic can help, as could herbs, but will power (unless you're a healing sorcerer) alone can't do it.

And even though con gives the character more life longevity (by way of more hit points), it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that a blade or talon just punctured your lung, spleen and heart. Unless you're a troll and can regenerate and close those wounds damn fast, you're a deadman.

djspectre I hate to say it but I agree with the current system. The way it works is that 'luck' could play into whether a character lives or dies from a fatal blow. Biologically speaking, no amount of constitution or will power can make it so that your blood clots faster. Magic can help, as could herbs, but will power (unless you're a healing sorcerer) alone can't do it.

And even though con gives the character more life longevity (by way of more hit points), it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that a blade or talon just punctured your lung, spleen and heart. Unless you're a troll and can regenerate and close those wounds damn fast, you're a deadman.

Actually, being healthier (more CON) means you're less likely to die if your lung is punctured. This is also why old people and children are more likely to die from flu, wounds, various illnesses, accidents etc than full grown healthy adults.

Trolls regenerate partially because they have phenomenally huge CON scores.

I think the "your wounds stop bleeding and you begin to recover" wording is simply a generalization. I like to think of it as, you "avoid going into shock and you slowly begin to regain consciousness."

I, too, would agree that CON could play a role, for numerous reasons. Someone in good physical shape can handle traumatic wounds better. Just ask your local E.R. physician.

It probably shouldn't be a large bonus. Perhaps just as simple as subtracting their CON bonus from the roll needed (i.e. a CON of 16 would mean rolls needed would be 87 to stop bleeding and 72 to recover.)

The higher Con is already taken into account though, thats why they have the HP bonus.

It's harder to put higher Con characters in a state where they can go into shock and bleed to death.

PnP DnD uses a simple % roll too, 10% to stop bleeding and getting stabilised. But there is a skill called Stabilise Self, which is CON based and can be rolled for stabilisation instead of the %, altough it is written only in an accessory book.

The higher Con is already taken into account though, thats why they have the HP bonus.

It's harder to put higher Con characters in a state where they can go into shock and bleed to death.

The first sentence above is not the way I view it when it comes to the negative range, but, then, it's more or less a matter of opinion. The second sentence we both agree on.

I see the positive hit points and negative hit points as 2 different animals. The first is the ability to take the hits before losing consciousness, the second is a struggle not to die from the traumatic wounds that put you there.

CON affects hit points, but hit points are not only based on CON. For instance, they take into account level and class. For the most part, I see hit points as the stamina to endure the exhaustion and pain -- to press on regardless.

The negative range, however, is fixed... 10 rounds, end of story, it treats everyone the same. I think someone with a higher CON might hold on a little longer, or have a better chance of surviving traumatic wounds, just as they have a better chance of not losing consciousness because of them.

Let's take an example of someone losing a hand. Your average person would likely pass out right away. However, an athlete or soldier may be able to continue functioning. If the athlete/soldier continues fighting, perhaps another blow, in combination with the grievous wound, is too much, and they, too, lose consciousness. Now, both unconscious, neither can take action to remedy the situation. The athlete/soldier's body is more likely to endure that state without dying/going into shock/etc.

Just my humble view.

Sorry for the confusion around this point.

The d100 vs DC 90 roll is related to the standard 10% chance to stabilize from the d20 SRD.

d20 SRD ... At the end of each round (starting with the round in which the character dropped below 0 hit points), the character rolls d% to see whether she becomes stable. She has a 10% chance to become stable. If she does not, she loses 1 hit point. If a dying character reaches -10 hit points, she is dead.

This can be changed pretty easily, though.

I think it is working as intended and that we are generally satisfied with this system.

There's a pretty cool feat in D20 Modern. Not sure what it's called, but we called it the 'Boromir' feat. Essentially, you don't lose consciousness at -1. You still have to roll to stabilise, and you still lost 1 point per round if you don't, but you can keep going until you fall over dead at -10, and get that one last shot in - or fumble desperately for a healing potion, of course.

It had enough pre-reqs that it probably wouldn't be available before level 6 or so anyway - you needed Endurance, Toughness and 15+ Con at least, I think.

Just thought I'd mention it.

For the record, in D&D this is called "Diehard"

Its only prerequisite is Endurance.

However I don't think we can add feats. And even if we could, there would be much better ones to create then this.

Just my two cents.

One house rule my group plays with that I like, but I don't think it can be worked into NWN, is that you get to go into the negatives an amount equal to your first level hit points.

ie. 10 HP at first level you can go to -10 16 HP at first level you can go to -16

Of course it has a downside for some classes as they end up being less than -10, or you can say that you can only improve from -10.

These feats described simply bother me. The suggestion Oroborous made might not be so aweful if we eimply adjusted it only so that the con bonus can be applied to the 10% stabalization chance. Keep in mind for many cases we arent suggesting when some pansy in gym class passes out from exhaustion. In D&D we're talking about combat. In many cases you aren't just unconscious, you're likely suffering bleeding from many painful lacerations, broken bones, acidic or thermal burns and in many cases things which most of us should be lucky enough to never have to experience ever. The adrenaline in your body has already been released during the fight. You're out because your body has nothing left to give.

Many times this isn't always the case, but in just as many it's very much so. Falling to a hook horror or unmberhulk usually involves wounds which IRL you would never wake up from. A vegetative state is an ugly possibility.

As it is, a 10% chance per 6 seconds to stabilize is about what you'd have from taking a solid punch to the face even without bleeding or a sword sticking out of your side or having all your hair and a few layers of skin burned away by a fire spell. Though given a 60 maximum life expectancy to live from bleeding is a bit extreme. Unless this is resulting from decapitation...

I'd see no problem with the argument that con should have it's role in swaying that 10% chance though.

CON doesn't help your blood clot, CON gives you more HP to make you live longer before your guts are slowly creeping across the floor in a final desperate grasp at freedom.

Constitution would in fact have an effect on your body's ability to quickly raise or lower your blood pressure as appropriate, thereby increasing it's capability of clotting blood. It also has an effect on whether or not your body would go into shock from sustaining substantial amounts of damage, which is a huge contributer to blood loss related death. Constituion also has an effect on how much blood your body holds in reserve to allow for longer periods of time without oxygen or during blood loss. It could be said that constitution might reflect a lower body fat ratio, in which case serious wounds are significantly less deep (muscle and internal organs are closer to the skin surface) which leaves less to clot.

I could go on and on, but the question would come down to whether all these contributing factors should be able to reflect a mere 2% benefit for people who are considered in good shape. or as much as a 4% benefit for the healthiest men alive today.

This at least, if not obviously more reasonable than to say that being healthy helps to make you live longer before your guts are slowly creeping across the floor in a final desperate grasp at freedom.

It does in Dungeons and Dragons.

Then please institute the DC 15 heal check that any ally can utilize to stabilize the character automatically without the use of herbs; etc.

The equivalent of tearing clothes to make tourniquets, and other battlefield solutions.

Vendayan, though some of your logic applies to the chronic slow bleeds encoutnered in minor and or small injuries (puncture, for example), they do not apply to coagulation in the acute trauma setting. The two main factors in acute trauma critical care in reducing mortality associated with severe injury are 1) time to treat, and 2) mechanism of injury.

Some of your physiology is valid, but not correctly applied. If you want PM me and I can reference you up to date trauma studies and texts which discuss this more in depth than is needed here. Or anywhere else for that matter.

In the game setting you can not apply all the variables to a roll such as this. In real life you get counter regulatory effects to stabalization in multiple injury traumas that make it very difficult for the body to self regulate (cushing reflex for one, seen in many MVA injuries in which the head is involved). I could go on and on, but won't. In end, you just can't apply physiology to this roll, and as it stands gives everyone a last chance to save a character beyond what the normal game mechanics allow. Also, you could get travelling companions that will turn to tap you with a rod of cure minor wounds until you stand back up. That works better.

Edited to add: Oro, is that a flat DC15 check in PnP, or is that modified while in a combat setting? I don't have my references at hand to look it up.

I looked it up, its a flat check no modifier.

I'd originally looked it up thinking I could prove the flat 90% chance to be wrong so I could say it was stupid and that you guys suck rotten eggs. Sadly, I'm stupid and my mouth tastes like moldy sulfur right now.

However, I did find out about the flat 15% check to stabilize your dying friends automatically. You can't perform the check on yourself for obvious reasons.