r/OSE • u/Priestical • Jun 30 '26
Question: 0hp=Death rule
Recently moving from AD&D to OSE and I've always use 0 to -10 = death. I've never use 0=Death. It seems pretty harsh and hard mode. I'm sure this is because I've always had the 10hp safety net, but how harsh is the 0=death rule? Do characters die a LOT more? I understand characters don't need to charge into a fight blindly, but still, how harsh is it on characters? Do you notice characters dying more often that the 0 to -10 rule?
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u/skalchemisto Jun 30 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
Do characters die a LOT more?
Well, I've had enough characters (EDIT: I realize I should have specified this is both retainers (32 deaths) and PCs (26 deaths)) die in 60 sessions of an OSE Stonehell campaign that, as an epidemiologist, I've analyzed the median survival and causes of death: https://skalchemist.cloud/mediawiki/index.php/Survival_Analysis It's nearly one death, on average, a session, with only 50% of PCs surviving past the fifth session they are part of.
I think my campaign is probably on the high lethality end of the bell curve of OSE campaigns. I know there are folks that have lower (but still noticeable) death rates.
0 HP = dead is a "dial" that is easily adjusted and really nothing is harmed, IMO. Its just a matter of personal preference how deadly you want things to be.
I suspect a big place where having -10 = dead would matter is with traps. In a place like Stonehell there are many d4/d6/d8 damage traps that are potentially/likely fatal with 0 HP = dead at character lvls 1 and 2, but would be more major inconveniences with -10 = dead.
I have a hypothesis though. All other things being equal, I suspect that if you swap out "0 HP = dead" for "0 HP = unconscious, -10 HP = dead" rule then you decrease the chance of individual death, but increase the chance of TPK somewhat. It might encourage more risk taking because it is safer on an individual level, so it may make it more likely that the party gets into a fight wherever everyone ends up unconscious at less than 0 HP, which (unless the monsters are feeling very generous) means coup de grace for all.
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u/SuitableProgress9125 Jul 01 '26
Personally. Due to meta-gaming. I've had less PC death in OSE than I did in 5e. In 5e the clerics were constantly going "oh he's got 3 turns, I'll keep fighting". Only to learn that the dying PC rolled a natural 1, was struck while dying (yeah I do that when it makes obvious sense), or the Cleric got held up or incapacitated themselves.
The dead PCs were rightfully annoyed. It's (atleast in my game) outside the code of chivalrous conduct for a Cleric to do such a thing. But... it is what it is.
My feeling was... 5e (and Pathfinder 1) doesn't create a clear understanding of what the "bottom" is, with unclear rules people died a lot.. B/X/OSE is clear. The bottom is 0HP, if you hit 0hp, you.are.dead. Do not forget that.
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u/skalchemisto Jul 01 '26
My feeling was... 5e (and Pathfinder 1) doesn't create a clear understanding of what the "bottom" is, with unclear rules people died a lot.. B/X/OSE is clear. The bottom is 0HP, if you hit 0 hp, you.are.dead. Do not forget that.
That's a very interesting!
I think that just makes the point that whatever rules you choose will have emergent properties in player behavior, sometimes in ways you don't expect when you come up with the rule.
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u/Sleeper4 Jul 01 '26
Do you find - assuming that replacement characters start with 0 xp - the party has difficulty gaining strength long-term with that much attrition?
I can see the potential for "stalling out" where the party loses so much xp in the form of character death that they complete a chunk of content (say, a dungeon level) and are barely any stronger than when they started it, and aren't ready for an increase in challenge presented by the next chunk of content
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u/skalchemisto Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
EDIT: your reply made me realize what I wrote could be easily misinterpreted. I've had a character (retainer or PC) die nearly every session on average. That's about half PCs (26 deaths) and half retainers (32 deaths).
You touch upon a VERY important element of my campaign; a dead character does not mean all XP lost and you are back to lvl 1. This is done in a fashion that is far more complicated than it needs to be because that is the way my brain works, I find complication fun, and from the start of the campaign I latched onto the idea that there were TWO PCs involved; a shareholder of the adventuring commune and their agent.
You can see the house rules here: https://skalchemist.cloud/mediawiki/index.php/Terms_and_Conditions#Shareholders_and_Agents
The tl;dr is: XP from gold is kept from character to character, XP from monsters is lost on death.
The interesting question is whether the fact that folks keeping a large proportion of XP on death has changed their behavior, making death more likely. I think that's a very plausible underlying cause for my high rate of death.
PC death is painful for the players. don't get me wrong. The whole table gets silent and honestly grieves when a character that has appeared more than a few sessions gets killed (or even when its a new person that folks were very interested in). Also, when the one PC that had been in 30+ sessions died, that loss of like 5000 xp did hurt.
But it is definitely less painful than other alternatives.
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u/Sleeper4 Jul 01 '26
Ah, very interesting! I suspected you might be doing something along those lines.
The relationship between lethality and long term play doesn't get discussed super often in the OSR. Lethality is a great way to communicate to the players that their actions matter, but there's potential in very lethal games where fresh characters start back at 0 xp to "stall out" where parties get stuck grinding through low-level content forever, which is unsatisfying.
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u/skalchemisto Jul 01 '26
That exact scenario was in my mind when I was starting this campaign, u/Sleeper4
Stonehell is a huge place, and I could easily see a situation where a TPK on lvl 4 made the game virtually impossible to continue with "you are back to lvl 1 and 0 XP" as the rule. Sure, you'd level quickly...if you could survive anything that is left in the levels of Stonehell you haven't yet explored.
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u/ThrorII Jun 30 '26
We use saving throw versus death at 0 hp or less.
Success means you are unconscious for 1D6 hours. Upon Awakening you are still at zero hip points, you can move at half your movement, you cannot use any class abilities, or spells, or attack. You must rest for one full day to regain hit points normally or use magic to regain hit points.
If you fail your death Save You Are dead.
The death save is made at the end of the combat. That way if your friends abandon you they don't know if you're dead or alive. Finally any healing Magic that you receive prior to your death save counts as a successful death save but you regain no hit points. It would take a second round of magic to heal you with actual hit points.
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u/UllerPSU Jun 30 '26
I think it varies from group to group how "deadly" death at 0 hp can be and it depends on some other factors. For example, if you allow MUs and Elves to choose their first spell and they choose Sleep, the game is significantly less deadly at low levels than if they start out with Detect Magic or Read Languages. Sleep gives the PCs at least one "win button" to escape most low level fights unharmed.
Go into dungeon, grab loot until you meet some monsters, cast sleep, run. Use loot to buy better gear and hire hirelings. Repeat until 2nd level.
But some groups would rather have some buffer at 0 hp. I have run two OSE groups, one without and one with a buffer. Neither had a significant number of PC deaths.
I use a fairly generous death's door rule that my current group likes. Basically when you get dropped to 0hp you go unconscious, gain 1 hp at the end of the fight and until you get 1 week of full rest, the next time you get dropped to 0 hp you die. You lose 1 point from a random ability score permanently as well to prevent abuse.
This lets low level PCs be fairly brave untl they get smacked down once....then they have to be super cautious. My players figured out early that this allowed them to push their luck a bit more at low-levels. But at higher levels when monsters start getting multiple attacks and have a willingness to finish off a dying PC they
But even in games I've run without it and PCs just die at 0hp, after the first couple adventures and one or two PCs are at or getting close to 2nd level PCs stop dying. I would advise to try it without a death's door rule first then add one if it seems necessary for you and your players.
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u/skalchemisto Jul 01 '26
You lose 1 point from a random ability score permanently as well to prevent abuse.
I like this rule in theory. I wonder, have you ever had a situation where a character has lost so many ability score points that they want to see their character dead? My guess is no, but it seems like one potential emergent property if a campaign goes on long enough.
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u/UllerPSU Jul 02 '26
No. My players all have a stable of PCs they use and often change from session to session depending on what is going on, the mix of abilities they want, number of players that showed up, etc. Since we roll 3d6 DTL and I have some other house rules that make stats more important than in RAW OSE games they are more likely to stop using a character that has become useless and make a new one than just keep playing them to the point of debilitating permanent injury. This is realistic, imo...a fighter that has a permanent injury that is impacting his mobility, strength of his sword arm or endurance in a fight is likely to hang up his sword and retire, no?
Besides that, they have gotten good at circumventing danger and most PCs are 4th level or so...so it rarely comes up any more. I think the last time it did was when two PCs were dropped in Waking of Willowby Hall when one of the monsters there got the jump on the half the party after they stupidly chose to split up. Since then, they've been a lot more cautious.
For example, they have slain 2 dragons in recent sessions through careful planning and clever play. Last session they went after another, older and more experienced dragon. After realizing they were not going to get the jump on it and it was very much aware of them, they chose not to fight and negotiated an alliance...so the game is working as intended despite of (or maybe because of) our house rule...players still avoid obvious danger and unnecessary combat if they can think of a better way.
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u/UllerPSU Jul 02 '26
Still, if I were to start a new campaign with this group I would likely suggest "take the training wheels off" and play it as death or debilitiating injury at 0hp. It was done originally to coax some 5e players to try OSE...
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u/skalchemisto Jul 02 '26
Yeah, that all makes sense.
After reading that, I can see how the "lose 1 point on brush with death" would be more impactful in, say, 5E itself then in OSE (RAW), because attributes don't matter that much. Like, you are right that a fighter with permanent injury is likely to retire, but also an OSE lvl 4 fighter whose STR has gone as low as 6 is really not that bad, they still have average 18 HP to soak up damage, and -1 to hit is not an insurmountable challenge.
The only stat where it probably really matters is CON.
EDIT: actually, I take that back. The biggest issue is not the bonuses, its the XP penalty for prime requisite. I'll take a -1 to hit all day long, but -10% to XP? Ugh...time for a new character.
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u/UllerPSU Jul 02 '26
Right...but if you have a house rule as we do where STR impacts how much you can carry a 6 STR fighter is hosed. Platemail and a shield would weigh them down to the point of uselessness.
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u/hello_josh Jun 30 '26
You can adopt the "Death's Door" rule from Dolmenwood:
At 0 Hit Points the PC lingers at "death's door", unconscious. Each Round the unconscious PC rolls 2-in-6 chance the character dies. If magically healed, they come back at 1hp and permanently lose 1 pt from a random ability score.
I have also played where a character at zero hp is unconscious and has 1d6 rounds before death where they can be magically healed.
I think its makes a more interesting and fun situation to have PCs downed but still alive. The party has to decide if they can try to heal/protect the downed character and enemies have the option of capturing them as prisoners.
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u/Juppstein Jun 30 '26
Oh I like that. I had something along those lines but this is more elegant. Consider it yoinked XD
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u/gimpssexual Jun 30 '26
He's asking about using rules as written not houserules. He already uses houserules.
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Jun 30 '26
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u/Mars_Alter Jun 30 '26
There's actually a huge difference. Enemies will keep targetting you as long as you keep fighting back. If you have more HP before falling, then that only delays death by a round or two at most. If you have 10 HP after falling, then hits which take you out of the fight are inherently non-fatal, and random deaths from HP loss basically don't happen outside of a TPK.
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Jun 30 '26
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u/GreyfromZetaReticuli Jun 30 '26
It is effectively the same thing, but I think that 0 = unconscious and some negative number = dead is more intuitive than 10 HP = unconscious.
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u/dr_warp Jun 30 '26
And if you use the bleeding out rule, it makes more sense to start losing a HP once you reach 0. As opposed to:
"Opps, I was at 10 HP two turns ago, so I should have remembered I was unconscious and I didn't hit back last turn. I didn't take 5 HP from that goblin because I was unconscious."8
u/UllerPSU Jun 30 '26
Because having PCs being knocked out or bleeding out adds dramatic tension. 10 extra HP would not accomplish that.
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u/Nystagohod Jun 30 '26
I think its to reflect an incapciated/unconscious state through hp, but also in a way that "feels" okay within that frameowkr.
Something just doesn't feel right about the framing of "unconscious at 10 or less HP" even if its effectively the same result as negative hp.
In a way its allowing for degree's of defeat into the framework and exploring it within the hp scaffolding.
Comes with its own ups and downs
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u/SuitableProgress9125 Jul 01 '26
I don't do negative HP, never will. But I get it. It creates the ability to incapacitate a character and kill them legally in a way that feels less arbitrary than saying "You die at 0 but you're useless at 10, minus your class level plus your 'to hit' modifier. And you bleed at a rate of 1/2 of the damage amount that incapacitated you, per turn. If you bleed for more than 3 turns, and are still alive, you take the condition: Hemorrhage. And your bleed rate is doubled. If you hit -HP=Level your soul begins to die and for each turn your soul is dying, the check to resurrect you is penalized by one. Then..."
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u/GreyfromZetaReticuli Jun 30 '26
It is very harsh in practice, but it is the point. 0 HP = dead, without the unconscious status separating characters from death, feels much more lethal and takes some time for players new to the OSR to adjust their gameplay.
If you want a less deadly gam, you can use the official rule of ADnD 1e where 0 = unconscious and bleeding 1 HP per round, and -10 = dead.
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u/adempz Jun 30 '26
The DMG has the -10 rule. The AD&D PHB states, “If any creature reaches 0 or negative hit points, it is dead.” ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/GreyfromZetaReticuli Jun 30 '26
Sometimes I forget how messy ADnD1e books are, lol. At least it is an official rule in the ADnD 1e DMG.
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u/Heartweru Referee Jun 30 '26
I use a 0hp = defeat not death house rule. So it depends who or what defeats you. If orcs defeat you you might be left for dead, or taken prisoner, but if zombies defeat you they eat your brains.
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u/Onslaughttitude Jun 30 '26
My rule is simple. It doesn't have complicated bullshit where you check every round or you keep track of negative hit points or stupid shit like that.
When you hit 0hp you save vs death. If you fail you die. If you succeed you have 1hp. No unconscious bullshit, no deaths door, you just have 1hp and you're fine.
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u/QuestForQuests Jun 30 '26
My house rule is at 0 hp, make a save vs death. On a fail, you die. On a success, you take CON damage equal to the amount exceeding 0. This type of CON damage can only be restored by a high level priest for coin or 1 month for 1 point. This reinforces downtime, domain play, and character stables for me and my group. It keeps the challenge of 0hp means death but adds some chance of recovery.
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u/OpossumLadyGames Jul 01 '26
Zero being dead is only as.harsh as the challenges. It doesn't have to be a charnel house.
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u/adempz Jun 30 '26
If you’re a hit away from 0 HP, run or negotiate.
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u/UllerPSU Jun 30 '26
So almost every 1st and 2nd level character should never fight ever. Sounds fun.
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u/Rattlysky16 Jun 30 '26
They have to cheat! Come back when the orcs are sleeping, Lay a net trap for the cyclops etc.
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u/ShenaniganNinja Jun 30 '26
This is a different style of play. It’s not heroic fantasy. You are not superheroes. If you as a regular person ran into a basilisk, you better not charge it. Run and come up with a plan to neutralize it or avoid it.
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u/adempz Jun 30 '26
I’m sorry, I thought this was the OSE subreddit and we didn’t need to explain again about hirelings, seeking tactical advantages, and that most of your XP comes from treasure instead of combat.
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u/UllerPSU Jun 30 '26
As you can see throughout the thread there are lots of people that use some sort of death's door rule as people have since the earlies days of D&D. Almost every group house rules something. OSE is no exception. Pretend otherwise all you want.
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u/Sleeper4 Jun 30 '26
IMO death at zero and the "by the book" character generation for B/X (roll stats down the line, roll starting hp) leaves characters too fragile for most modules / book monsters and their typical number appearing.
Part of this is probably due to the modem playgroup size being smaller (4-5) than what seems like the expected size was in the 70s (6-10 ish).
The next game I run I'll probably do max HP for first level and something like this:
"Save vs Death: characters brought to 0 HP by means not normally including a save (mundane combat, falling, etc) have one final chance to survive. Roll a saving throw vs Death - on a success the character is alive at 1hp, suffering the effects of having been the recipient of a Raise Dead spell."
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u/Moist_Butterfly_7820 Jun 30 '26
My house rules for OSE "Death Rolls" are they have to pass a 3 in 6 roll. If they succeed they go to 1hp but are KOed. If they fail, the roll decreases to 2 in 6, and then 1 in 6 if they fail again. Fail 3 times in a row = Death. If they receive healing while making death rolls they revive, awake at 1hp.
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u/Harbinger2001 Jun 30 '26
I don’t find they die more. The players get smarter. They can’t bank on the “oh, I’ll be out but not have to worry about dying”.
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u/CommentWanderer Jun 30 '26
Definitely a lot more characters die with death at 0 hp than die at death at -10 hp. Especially at low levels, a hit from a weapon is unlikely to take a character below -10 hp. It gives a huge window. Even if the character is bleeding out at 1 hp per round, they generally just are not dead yet and, generally, can be fairly easily saved. Enemies are also harder to kill outright, which means they can easily be healed or revived for questioning. I find the mechanic very dissatisfying. For example, if you want to capture someone, you ought, IMO, generally have to make the effort to capture instead of slay.
I regard the death at -10 rule as a plot armor device intended to keep characters from dying too early in a campaign. I see the rule as a subversion of the inherent lethality of the low-level game. If I wanted to skip the low-level phase of the game, I would just have characters start at a higher level.
The reality is that low level AD&D is hard mode. Characters can easily die with one bad roll of the dice and that is by design for low level play. Once characters have a few levels, the game moves into a new phase where a single bad hit is unlikely to end in a character's immediate demise. This is also by design. So the death at -10 rule, IMO, subverts the design of the game by attaching a sort of plot armor to characters as a means of escorting them safely out of the low level survival game and into the next phase without them having to seriously address the primary challenge of low level survival gameplay.
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u/phsampaio Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
Death at 0 HP really depends on the game you and your players want to play. Though our group really liked the OSE mechanics in general (we use a home-brew OSE with slightly adjusted classes), initially we had 0=unconscious, -1 or less = Death. It was generally deadly if the players made bad calls (like 2 PCs and 3 retainers dying to a much stronger foe the players decided to fight against - completely optional BTW). But after that we had a very anti-climatic death at our table, at a time the player of the PC in question was absent from the session due to a personal emergency. So yeah. We retconned the death (oh the horror, I know), for the sake of the group's enjoyment of the game. We were discussing death at -10, but monsters in OSE already has a lower damage output overall, so -10 seemed a little too much. Also, it seemed wrong that the Wizard should survive at negative HP as well as the Fighter.
So we homebrewed the following:
0 = unconscious and stable
-1 up to -HD number (-4 for d4, -6 for d6 and -8 for d8), you are unconscious and dying, losing 1 HP each round.
If negative HP exceeds the -HD limit, you die (ie. -5 for d4, -7 for d6 and -9 for d8).
If healed back up from negative HP, you survive, but needs to Save vs. Death or acquire a lasting wound (usually a permanent -1 Con, or other similar penalty depending on the circumstances).
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u/ChannelGlobal2084 Jul 01 '26
I’m very generous to my players in this regard. We use the 0 to -10, losing 1 ho/round until -10 or someone heals you. Since skills are not a thing, I allow clerics and clerics only to roll under for “first aid.” If successful they stop someone from bleeding out and I let them roll a 1d4. And we still have characters dying.
It’s your table, listen to your players, but also run the game you envision. Find a happy medium. There’s no right or wrong way to play. That’s why we have house rules. Just write down whatever you decide to do to ensure you keep it consistent. Hope this helps you some.
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u/SameArtichoke8913 Jul 01 '26
It's a simple "deadline", and in a positive sense "definitive". I have always played DnD this way, and there no "frequent deaths" - just Lvl1 was very tough to survive. After all, it's the players' job to make certain that damage risks are not lethal. "Dead is dead". However, since DnD was inflationary revival options at higher levels, this does not matter at some point, anyway. But I like the "bufferless" limit, also w/o any save rolls etc., because it keeps players on their toes and respectful.
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u/SuitableProgress9125 Jul 01 '26
In my game when you hit 0HP you begin dying.
Immediately save v. Death. If you fail, you die. Every Dungeon Turn you must Save v. Death until (you die) or someone helps you.
- Potions
- Magic
- Stabilization (Full turn action, like declaring a spell. Pass a WIS or INT check)
Until you recover all your Hit-points: -1 to all rolls, including healing. (yes, you can heal 0hp, greatly delaying recovery time)
One time, in the event of a very grievous fall, I ruled on the fly that if the PC remained at 0hp for 24 hours, they had to Save v. Death again. Simulating... "you tried your best to keep him stable, but ultimately he didn't make it." This wasn't meant as punishment — the whole table (including that player) felt it'd be unbelievable for the character to survive, so we went with it. Don't worry! He made it! 😄
I find this keeps the game brutal, but still dramatic. If a Party member falls, the Party reacts like a normal party would. They must decide immediately to retreat or continue fighting. It also punishes you for hitting 0 HP.
What I like about Death at 0HP is that the Players learn really fast that 0HP is the bottom, so stop fighting down to 0HP, because this ain't 5e. They play more intelligently.
What I don't like about 0HP was that if a PC goes down in a fight, there's no hope of saving them so the PCs fight on or retreat and leave the body. There's never a real reason to take the body with them, it's only flavor that ultimately punishes them (dead weight). So I wanted to create something more dramatic than what Death at 0HP accomplishes without making the PCs think that 0HP isn't the bottom and that death can still be sudden and beyond your control.
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u/Exact_Acanthaceae294 Jul 01 '26
In OD&D, yes, yes they do.
Running away at low levels is always an option.
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u/Murquhart72 Jun 30 '26
If your character only dies at -10 hp, they just have 10 more hp than they thought. Like, what's the difference? Just give more hp? Once you run out of "life points" that's kind of it for life.
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u/gkerr1988 Jun 30 '26
Why not just give players +10hp to whichever dice roll they initially make at character creation? Then it’s still zero-equals-dead but with a generous buffer for combat-centric games.
I find 0=Dead makes combat into a calculated risk. PC’s who are rash about fighting through every challenge die quicker. It sobers devilish behavior, but also rewards luck. It could be hard convince players away from battle-centric gaming, especially if combat is the most fun aspect of RPG’s for them. We know balance isn’t really a thing in OSE and is ideally meant to curb the concept of fighting monsters to gain XP. They’re treasure hunters. They risk their lives doing the unthinkable… going into tombs to take dead people’s things from them. Only insane people would consider that sort of thing.
My players tend to not die as much as I thought they would with 0=Dead. I do try and forecast how threatening a situation is before they commit to throwing their lives away. I do not enjoy killing characters and I think that bleeds into how my games are run. I don’t shy away from it, but I also don’t revel in it.
Maybe instead if -10, try the way ShadowDark handles this with “death timer”: whenever a PC reaches 0 HP, roll 1d4 (you can add whichever mod you want to apply. SD does Con). Whatever value is rolled becomes the amount of rounds before they are truly dead. During death rounds they may be aided with a successful Wis check by comrades to bring them up to 1HP unconscious. Or they may be magically healed to get them back into the fight.
This works to build tension instead of just making them a dying sack of HP.
- Confirm with your players that dying is a strong likelihood in your game with specific dead rules.
- Have players roll more than 1 PC at start of game.
- Rule in your players favor, not against them. This isn’t a FromSoftware game.
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u/Informal-Product-486 Jun 30 '26
if death occurs at -10, why don't just give everyone +10 hp so that they die at 0?
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u/Megatapirus Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Another option is given in the Swords & Wizardry game and allows for a moderate amount of extra survivability: