One is the magic number for Bloodthieft

[First Horseman]

Did I do this right, Am I nut's. In the middle of the goblin territory of the The Five Peaks lay in ruins of a party broken a bloody battle between seven adventures and tweenty goblins. After 6 of the seven party members are knocked out and unconcience and twenty goblins later, one character, Arbatos 3rd Rjuirvik Fighter of Andvairias blood tried to save his party. He ended up failing his Heal check to save his dying comrade. Killing him.

But the next person he tried to save, a npc character named Ketti Halloravan was dying slowly. A simple roll of a die became a one. Not knowing quite what to do I ask my player Arbatos to roll that d20. 20. Taking what I know of medival healing, using a knife or dagger was common in healing when removing bad blood. (Plus Ketti was prone, on the ground with negative 3 hit points) With no other choice I depicted roll into bloodthieft. Arbatos in the regents heart.
Arbatos absorbed the minor bloodline of Anduiras for the noble knight.

Now the question I have is did I handle this right as a Dm, What what you've have done diffently if you where in this twisted, humerous.( yes we were all laughing at the situation) experiance?

Let me know
First Horseman :blink:

[irdeggman]

First off, as the DM you are alwyas 'right'. However, you can 'change your mind' later if things didn't settle well with you or if you find other reasons to ejudicate things differently in the future. Never go back and reverse a decision though, only change how it will be handled in the future.


Several things to figure out.

One are you using WotC 3.5 rules? I am assuming that you are in my reply.

Are you using some special 'house rules'? I am assuming that you are not in my reply.

Are you using system other than the core WotC D&D rules? I am assuming you are not in my reply.

First off a 1 on a healing check does not automatically fail character. So the failure did not kill the character, it only failed to stabalize him and thus he died from his injuries.

3.5 PHB, pg 63 “Unlike with attack rolls and saving throws, a natural roll of 20 on the d20 is not an automatic success, and a natural roll of 1 is not an automatic failure."

If using the variant for critical success/failure on pg 34 of the DMG then you missed its application. For a critical failure a natural 1 (that fails) followed by a second roll that fails results in a critical failure. This is what you seemed to be using, although the subsequent roll was a 20 which would normally indicate a success (DC 15 for a first aid check).

Could the 'surviving' character have taken 10 and succeeded? I don't know his modifiers or ranks in Heal. Taking 10 can be done when not distracted or threatened - there is no time period involved, unlike taking 20 which takes 20 times as long.

As far as the bloodtheft issue goes, I don't think I would have run it that way. Here is why - where were the injuries being treated on his body? Were they in his chest, limbs, etc? Most likey they were in his limbs, since that is where most initial melee damage is taken, or in other parts of his torso - not necessarily the chest (i.e., wher his heart is).

I think I'd have used the critical failure rules here (already covered above) and then had a coup de grace applied. If the damage from the automatic critical didn't kill the character then he would have had to made a Fort save to keep from dying immediately. If he had died then the bloodtheft rules would seem to work.

[Benjamin]

I agree with the statement: "you are DM, you are always right".

But to continue...

I like what you did. Adds an interesting twist to the story line. Now the 'healer' has to deal with the guilt of bloodthefting a friend. Not to mention how to tell the rest of the party, when they awaken, that it happened. Talk about a reputation! Can add lots to character development and plot twists.

[First Horseman]

Sorry I cound't reply sooner than today

First to clairfy some things, Irdeggman, I've always used critical failuires and critical success with both combat situations and skill checks. But you are correct that I did miss the part about the critical success and failure and the DMG so I will denfinately look it up.

Secondly, Abrotos could have taken a 10 on that Heal check if he choose to. Sometimes I don't like to give players and option that they should already know.

And Third, Ketti was at neggative 3 when he went down, not to metion a couple combat rounds later without being able to stablelize. By the way you raise an interesting point about wounds taken in combat. I would never thought that most of the wounds a charater could take would be in the arms, legs and some parts of the chest.

Now about that d20 roll. I should have explained earlier that because Arbatos had failed that Heal check, majorly, that d20 was kind of an attack roll. I wasn't quite sure where to lead that situation. I was actually hoping that he would miss but he rolled it. Sorry, my bad! But all probly will change that rule of the Criticals,
Thanks Irdeggman.

As a side note unbeknown it to him, Arbatos did kill a noble of Harlloravan line from Talinie (featured in the Player Secret of Talinie). Ketti was incognito as a body gaurd to a Magician by the name of Rupert. One of the pc actually did wake up to see Arbatos commiting the fateful act. Wait until Arbatos arives in Newelton.

I'll let you know how it all turns out
Thanks
First Horseman

[Hrandal]

Personally I'd be inclined to make this sort of thing dependent on whether the character has ranks in the Heal skill (yeah, I know its supposed to be an untrained skill, but that never sat right with me.) I like to use 1's and 20's, even in skill checks, the system where you roll again to see whether you botch works quite nicely (and discourages people from attempting stupid tasks on the hope of getting a 20.) You decided what the criterion for spectacular success or failure were going to be, and you stuck to it - nothing to be sorry for there.

In a related anecdote;

One of my players decided to try and murder the leader of an encamped army unit. Being a sneaky rogue, he crept into the guy's tent and murdered him while sleeping. Now, the rogue specifically said he was "slitting his throat" with his knife, which becomes important when you know that said commander was blooded...

Sadly, the PC didn't know this, and since he bloodily murdered the captain (without stabbing him through the heart), a huge blast of blood-energy blew the command tent to pieces, and illuminated the rogue nicely for the angry soldiers.

The rogue escaped, only to die at Rhuobhe's hands a few months later. So it goes.