Injury, Death and Dying

Go back to the Epic Path page.

Health

Temporary Hit Points

Certain effects give a character temporary hit points. These hit points are in addition to the character's current hit point total and any damage taken by the character is subtracted from these hit points first. Any damage in excess of a character's temporary hit points is applied to his current hit points as normal. If the effect that grants the temporary hit points ends or is dispelled, any remaining temporary hit points go away. The damage they sustained is not transferred to the character's current hit points.

When temporary hit points are lost, they cannot be restored as real hit points can be, even by magic.

While temporary hit points may have a duration lasting minutes or even hours, this is only in preparation of combat. Once an initiative roll is made (and combat begins), all temporary hit points currently applied or applied during the fight have their duration reduced to the end of combat (when the initiative order is dismissed) or until they are removed through damage, whichever is sooner.

Injury, Death and Dying

Injury and Death

There are four states of critical injury:

Disabled

Occurs at exactly 0 hit points. You gain the Staggered condition and can only take a single move or standard action each turn (but not both, nor can you take full-round actions). You can take move actions without further injuring yourself, but if you perform any standard action (or any other strenuous action) you take 1 point of damage after completing the act. Unless your activity increased your hit points, you are now at –1 hit points and dying.

Dying

Occurs at any negative hit point total. You gain the Unconscious condition and can take no actions. You take 1 point of damage at the start of each of your turns, and may roll a CON check to see if you stabilize. The DC of the stabilize check is 10 + your negative hit point total. If you succeed on the roll, you cease losing hit points each round, but remain unconscious. If you reach a negative hit point total of your CON stat (not stat mod) plus your level, you die. Most NPC's die when their hit points go below zero, but some NPC's only die when they reach negative their CON value. NPC's cannot stabilize without some special ability such as regeneration or assistance from an ally.

Dead

When your character's hit points reach a negative total of your CON stat value plus your level, he dies. A character can also die from taking ability damage or suffering an ability drain that reduces his Constitution score to 0 (see Special Abilities). Regular healing spells have no effect on dead characters. Only certain types of powerful magic, such as raise dead and resurrection, can restore life to a dead character.

Stabilized

Can occur at any hit point value of 0 or less. A stabilized character is no longer dying. A stabilized character with negative hit points is still unconscious and cannot take any actions. A stabilized character at 0 hit points has the Disabled condition (see above). The stabilized condition can be achieved via a a successful CON check when dying, a First Aid check (Heal skill with DC 15), or via magical healing. See "Stabilizing the Dying" for more details.

Stabilizing the Dying

First Aid can be performed on a dying character by making a Heal check (DC 15). If the check succeeds, the character's hit points are restored to 0, regardless of whatever total they previously sustained. The character replaces the 'dying' status with the 'stabilized' status, regains consciousness and has the 'disabled' status as well. The character is at no further risk of dying until they take additional damage that reduces them below 0 hit points. Note that first aid checks can be performed even if a character has stabilized via a CON check.

If magical healing (e.g. a spell, scroll, potion, etc.) is used on a dying character instead of First Aid, damage is restored from whatever negative value the character is currently at, but the character replaces the 'dying' status with the 'stabilized' status. While less efficient than performing First Aid first, magical healing is a dice-free way to stop a character from losing 1 hit point per round and potentially bleeding out.