Survival Chance

[scottenkainen]

Hi all,

I have long struggled to understand the survival chance tied to Constitution. It is not clearly linked to resurrection and other specific spells like in AD&D, but ""how well the character can withstand being paralyzed, turned to stone, etc." And recently, I have been wondering about that "etc." part and how far it goes. Would the following interpretation be reasonable?

Further, Constitution will determine your chance of surviving a special attack (your Referee will know when a monster has a special attack). Survival just means the special attack is not an automatic kill once a saving throw has been missed; normal combat and loss of hit points could still mean death for the character (see Saving Throws and Hit Points separately). This chance of survival is equal to 10% for every point of Constitution above 3, up to automatic survival at 13+.

This would essentially give all monsters with special abilities a chance to assassinate "weak" characters. Too tough? Too unintended?

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[Finarvyn]

My thought is this: someone tries to turn you into stone and you fail your save. Then another spell tries to turn you back. You still have to make a system shock roll to see if you can survive becoming flesh again.

I think that this is all the rule was intended to be.

[scottenkainen]

Then what does the specific reference to paralysis (p. 10) mean? Is this a system shock check to survive ghoul paralysis and Hold Person spells?

[Porphyre]

If a normal person is injected a potent paralyzing or hypnotic drug like a curare or propofol, there is good chances that he might die of respiratory failure or cardiac arrest, so it's not too far fetch to ask for a Constitution check in a similar situation

[talysman]

I see it as surviving extended adversity, such being chipped or damaged or eroded while turned to stone, not getting all your organs back in the right place when polymorphing, or respiratory failure/cardiac arrest from extended paralysis as porphyre77 describes. (Side note: I treat ghoul paralysis as being paralyzed with fear and thus not the same thing.) Similarly, a dead body might have decayed too much to be able to survive when brought back to life, so I use an adversity/survival roll to see if the body is intact.

I've thought about extending the roll to falls from a great height, but I think I have a better, more idiosyncratic way of handling those falls.

I actually wrote up a blog post about using 2d6 roll under Con instead of percentile dice, in connection with an adversity table that functions sort of like a death and dismemberment table. But then I noticed some funky things in the mechanics I came up with, so I put the post on hold while I think about what needs changing.

[Finarvyn]

Jul 22, 2013 22:38:50 GMT -6 scottenkainen said:

Then what does the specific reference to paralysis (p. 10) mean? Is this a system shock check to survive ghoul paralysis and Hold Person spells?

Yes, and no.

Paralysis is a physical condition where the body is exposed to a high level of stress as you strain to move but cannot. I think this is an approprite use of the system shock roll.

Hold Person spells are more like hypnosis and are mental issues. While I suppose you might define some sort of a "sanity" roll (similar to system shock but based on INT, perhaps) I would rule that it's not an approprite system shock example.