Goodman Games

The rules for death on p. 93 specify that if you come to the body of a fallen comrad who has officially died (reached 0 HP and failed to be healed for more rounds than their level), they can attempt a Luck save to actually be alive but badly hurt. That's cool; any sword and sorcery campaign should often have this sort of thing happen to its protagonists. But, it seems odd to apply this rule only when player characters are recovering a comrad's body (as seems to be implied). Surely, the character was alive before his friends rolled him over. And, he would have still been alive if an NPC had rolled him over. Or, like aragorn in the Two Towers movie, if his horse had poked him in the eye. So, it seems to me this rule should apply any time a non-0 level character 'dies' in some way that could have been survived (i.e., not including decapitation, boiling in acid, etc.). Thoughts?

I like the thought of a beloved character getting a second chance via the luck roll no matter who or what rolls him over. I would allow this in my game.

Am I correct in thinking the Luck check is just "roll under your luck"? It seems like a character with a high luck could "die" so many times that the physical stat loss eventually kills them before they miss a luck roll. They might wish they were dead at some point, being so scarred... Maybe I just need to kill off some more characters and see how this plays out.

Its your game. You can always "house rule " it. It could be an adventure in itself getting back to safety. Imagine if your character was left for dead in the dungeon, now alone, badly injured, perhaps stripped of his equipment. Now he has to get back.....

Only a friendly can roll the body over. If something other than the party finds the body first, well... dinner time!

yeah, why not 0 level? The rules don't say anything about the Recovery being level limited. Bring back the 0 level dork!

That misses the point of the funnel, which is to winnow down the herd through player choices.

I've also been allowing the bad guys to use "recovering the body". My party has been going through a slightly modified version of Atarin's Delve, and retreated back to their home town after making particularly heavy going of it.
Upon their return, the bandits had swelled in number from what the party believed were left, because the bandits had rolled over a few of their own comrade's bodies.

Recovering the body die rolls, which one do you guys use?

#1 D20 vs. current Luck Stat at time of Death, roll equal to or less and you've been recovered.

#2 Beat a DC21 on a D20 roll plus or minus your current Luck modifier to be recovered.

I ask because I currently use #1 and I allow a "natural 1" to always succeed.

On page 19 the book states: "Characters can make Luck checks to attempt feats that succeed based on Luck alone. The judge will provide the specifics of any attempt, but the attempt is usually resolved by rolling equal to or less than the character's Luck score on a 1d20."

That alone leads me to believe that #1 is the correct way to do this, but somewhere I found #2 also. I can't remember where I got that from. I guess in the long of it this really doesn't matter as I like #1 and that is what we do, but it has been nagging at me and I thought I would see what everyone else is actually "rolling".

Thanks!

I use #1. I don't remember option #2 at all. If you find the page number post it for me please.

I home ruled it to this. Make a only luck modified roll against DC 12.

First of all Players HATE to roll a nat 20 to save there characters and fail.

Second of all I'm a softy and figured a base chance of like 40% was big enough for death to still sting but give the guys a break from time to time.

Third of all Luck in my games seems to hang around the toilet. The players eat tons of badness for this already. Perhaps im a little too miserly with the luck points.

Even with a -2 penalty to the roll it lets them save there character with a 14 or higher. I can live with that.

I was being a grinch with the Luck points at first. But I've made myself aware of when to hand them out. It really seems to equate (for me) to the more Luck you give, the more they spend, the more fun we have.

As far as "recovering the body", that's one of those rules I always forgot at the worst moment. I use the Death/Dying rules I wrote up for DCC now. They only come up every once in a while. They solve a couple of issues I'd had with the default rules while keeping the game pretty doggone lethal. Earlier passes at the rules were a good deal less lethal. The latest rules are a good upgrade.