Changing death

[Rick7475]

I think that the death count down should be changed. In party fights when someone goes down, often it is not noticed by other members too engaged in combat. In a party last night we had 2 powerful clerics who certainly would have noticed someone went down right beside them, but when they did notice and tried to get ahealing spell off it was too late. In 5e it was changed for this very reason, you get death saves.

So I propose that upon a blow that takes you below 0, you are automatically put to 0. Then you start your negative hit point countdown. Everytime you are about to lose a HP in the negatives, you get a con save DC 10. If you fail, you lose the HP. If you save, you don't go down. This continues until -10 then you die. This will give you more time to get noticed.

If you take a hit that puts your below 0 that is double your con, you automatically die

I am going to try and experiment with the scripts to see how this will work.

This way, if you are solo, it doesn't matter, but in a party it gives time for healing.

[valn99]

It's true that on table top, you just CAN'T miss it when a party member goes down!
In NWN, with a round taking a few seconds (6?), instead of several minutes, it is easy to miss it when someone goes down.
I've often noticed only after the PC ends up in the morgue and then it's too late.

Does our script still allow a lucky PC to auto stabilize?

[Rick7475]

I think the stabilization is still there, but one more thing about dying solo. When you are near an NPC, say a guard or a merchant, you should have a much better chance of stabilization. That is not to say that everyone carries healing potions, but you should have help. I mean, if they can stand around and watch you die, and then loot your corpse, they should instead bring you back and not loot your corpse. I know Ayergo has been looking for where that script is, but we should definitely replace it with rendering aid. Perhaps an NPC healing wisdom check, and if pass, you get put to 1 hp, but with conditions, like slowed.

[gonz.0]

How enlightened; trying to find a way to keep characters from dying due to mechanics where the DM would rule otherwise in a game... astounding. I approve, I have had issues of lag or desync cause me to lose a character or nearly enough time to say, bravo.

[Galadorn]

Please keep the chance that PCs /do/ possibly stabilize though... the DC 10 to "not lose a point in the negatives" is cool, but, when solo-ing, we need that possible although very low chance to actually stabilize when alone!

How about scripting up a nice script that forces my animal summoning creatures to administer first aid too, k -thanks - bai

[ImStrokerAce]

How about scripting up a nice script that forces my animal summoning creatures to administer first aid too, k -thanks - bai

You've clearly been summoning the wrong type of bears; Try Summon Care Bear.

[oldgrayrogue]

I think BG in NWN2 had an "auto pause" script, that paused the game whenever a party member hit neg HP. The pause had a count down (I think) which was meant to give other party members a heads up and time to target the KOd PC with healing.

As far as soloing, I would really like a similar "auto pause" any time a PC is hit with damage that would drop them to neg HP. I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to drink a healing or invis potion to only have my PC die because I click too slow.

These changes would simulate turn based PnP when you never run out of time to make the attempt to escape death.

[Arianna]

I think BG in NWN2 had an "auto pause" script, that paused the game whenever a party member hit neg HP. The pause had a count down (I think) which was meant to give other party members a heads up and time to target the KOd PC with healing.

As far as soloing, I would really like a similar "auto pause" any time a PC is hit with damage that would drop them to neg HP. I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to drink a healing or invis potion to only have my PC die because I click too slow.

These changes would simulate turn based PnP when you never run out of time to make the attempt to escape death.

NWN2 servers/game has a auto pause ONLY when a DM is on I believe. Basically its a notice and lets the DM go see whats going on . . . to see if a healing spell was applied before they hit the morgue etc

If your hit, and drop to negatives because of that hit, you cannot drink a potion in the act of dropping . . . your already down and not going to be able to take an action to escape death

[oldgrayrogue]

I think BG in NWN2 had an "auto pause" script, that paused the game whenever a party member hit neg HP. The pause had a count down (I think) which was meant to give other party members a heads up and time to target the KOd PC with healing.

As far as soloing, I would really like a similar "auto pause" any time a PC is hit with damage that would drop them to neg HP. I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to drink a healing or invis potion to only have my PC die because I click too slow.

These changes would simulate turn based PnP when you never run out of time to make the attempt to escape death.

NWN2 servers/game has a auto pause ONLY when a DM is on I believe lets the DM go see whats going on . . .

If your hit and drop to negatives because of that hit you cannot drink a potion in the act of dropping

You are correct -- maybe something like if you are dropped to "near death"? I dunno, just sucks when you die because you can't click fast enough.

[Arianna]

You are correct -- maybe something like if you are dropped to "near death"? I dunno, just sucks when you die because you can't click fast enough.

I dunno about you but If my HP drop below a third I am finding some healing fast and try to NEVER let them drop below a quarter of my total . . . its just too easy to get critted right when it will hurt you the most . . . .

[valn99]

Auto pause, with or without DM would be awesome, if it can be done in NWN1.

[oldgrayrogue]

You are correct -- maybe something like if you are dropped to "near death"? I dunno, just sucks when you die because you can't click fast enough.

I dunno about you but If my HP drop below a third I am finding some healing fast and try to NEVER let them drop below a quarter of my total . . . its just too easy to get critted right when it will hurt you the most . . . .

So yesterday I think, my PC (at lvl 3) was hunting rats, albeit solo, and got swarmed by them. In one round he was at less than 50% HP. Consumes two potions, which unfortunately only healed like 5 HP combined. AOOs all around got him down to 3 HP. He ran. Thank the gods for Monk Speed. A pause on that second round would have given time to exercise options.

[ImStrokerAce]

Welcome to the melee glass cannon life! My monk would get beat down by rats as well.

[Arianna]

The whole point of NWN ALFA be it 1 or 2 is to learn to Think fast and go with it like you would in real life . . not hem and haw . . . and go look up the best choice on youtube while you pause the game and look through all your options. You want pause . . . go back and play single player.

[Veilan]

Usually the important part in dying is not the last round that you could have acted in, but the rounds leading up to it - including the very first one, which has the decision to go engage in combat. Adventuring and taking risks is great, but it would lose much of its appeal to me if we mitigated the possibility and severity of unfavourable results even further.

When we log in to ALFA, we are aware we are not at the PnP table, and it should not surprise anyone at this point that an NWN round is 6 seconds long. Both the average and median human reaction time is below 0.3 seconds, it might be worth finding out how long you take to find your hotkey and target time after that and follow the advice given here to not wait until the last possible second in hopes of saving 25gp (we made potions cheaper remember, in hopes that people might actually use them...). If somebody wishes to gamble with that, that's fine - personal choice, really - but I find it fundamentally alright that gambling does not always have to pay off.

The current system is more lenient than we had in our old NWN 1 incarnation, and seems pretty reasonable to me. My own experience is obviously limited, but I have registered character deaths (mostly in NWN 1), and the causes in descending order of frequency were various tech reasons, once the abandoned massive critical rule, and once death magic. ALFA really was the game that taught me to get rid of the potion hoarder mentality mainstream CRPGs encourage.

If it helps to be more proactive, try psychologically treating 0 hp as dead, not -10. It is of course still a matter of choice and preference, but I think gambling with your last few HPs should still have teeth.

An issue I personally experience on occasion and can more easily relate to is awareness - perhaps instead of pausing the game or developing even more stopgaps, we could implement some kind of warning script to fire off messages/sounds/visual cues when you drop below 50%/25%/10%? I know that the screen flashing red has reminded me a fair few times of pressing Light of the Protector, cough...