Tuesday night is our groups game night. They were in the sewers of Deepfall trying to discover the mystery of who or what tried to break through the sealed magical door to Odyssious’ Wizard Tower. Odyssious called on the party to investigate this after he had successfully defended the door which had completly drained him. The party was headed back to the tower, somewhat battered and running out of resources, as they approached the last interesection with just another hundred feet or so to get back to the magic door. With loud footsteps a massive rat ogre abomination came around the corner, lead in massive chains by six ratmen and a Corvinian priest. This was obviously the creature that had almost broken through the door, and was on the way to try it again. The party attacked with ranged weapons all trained on the abomination, this hurt it and enraged it, yanking the chains from the ratmen’s hands. It turned to face it’s attackers. The Corvinian priest began chanting up a spell in the ratmen’s language. Mark, the gnome fighter rushed up and leaped at the abomination with his bastard sword, (Scoring a natural 20) felling the abomination into the sewer, but then one of the ratmen fired his crossbow at Mark, (also scoring a natural 20) reducing Mark to zero hit points. Mark had to roll on the Death and Dismemberment charts (Our own house rules for reaching zero hit points) He rolled a 5 and only had two rounds to be saved, and only heal spells or potions would save him. Unfortunately, the Corvinian priest cast a ratmen spell, Caustic Mist, which enveloped the all the party members in the front, immobilizing them for three rounds. None of the remaing party could enter the caustic mist, so Mark died before anyone could reach him. He died after killing the abomination (which was epic and heroic) only to be felled by a ratmen’s crossbow bolt.
Here is a link to my Death and Dismemberment charts. The original inspiration was from the Dungeoncraft YouTube channel. His chart in the episode #171 video “Why D&D Charaters need to die” was what I based my chart off of. I am a dungeon master that plays old school, and I believe that reaching zero hit points should mean death, the game is best when there is a real threat of death. That said, I am also a softy, and I hate to see characters die. These charts still give the characters a chance to survive, but there could be consequences. I always roll my dice out in the open for the players to see, so there is no fudging dice in our game. We implemented the Death and Dismemberment charts to lessen the blow of death, but it can still be brutal. Now my players are as scared of rolling on these charts as they are of reaching zero hit points.
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