Goodman Games

pg.93 states that recovering the body results in a permanent injury of -1 to strength, agility, or stamina. Does this stack with the -1 Stamina for Bleeding out?

I am not sure of the intent here, but the text reads quite clearly that "bleeding out" and "recovering the body" are two separate exceptions to the rule that a character dies at 0 hit points.

Also, even more specifically, the text states "Anyone who is saved from bleeding out suffers..." Note that the underlined portion indicates that anyone not saved from bleeding out, such as someone who was thought to be dead until their body was recovered, is exempt from the statement being made.

+1d

I fully endorse TND's reading of this rule.

I don't like TND and RC interpretation (though it is the most natural reading of the text) because it becomes not necessarily obvious that you want to save your buddy who's bleeding out. This is problematic to me. I don't think there should be any situation where a character would *want* the party to ignore his sucking chest wound, saying something like "nah, don't worry about it. My Stamina's low and I don't want it to take another hit. Plus I'm a thief so succeeding in my luck check to recover the body is basically guaranteed." It should *always* be worse to bleed out.

I thought theives were unkillable for this very reason but after a session of allowing this we now don't allow theives (or anyone) to burn luck to see if they are actually alive. It certainly solves several issues by ruling this. So thief with luck 14 has to roll under 14 to see if he is alive, can't burn 7 to gurantee he is alive.

Woe to any minmaxing player who speaks out loud like this in my campaign! They would find themselves tied up black and blue with a 4th edition Players Handbook inserted where the sun doesn't shine!

I got a chuckle out of this... and I fully agree. I mostly just think a character should be in worse shape if they bleed out than if they are saved from bleeding out.

I do too but if I can make the rule lighter for a character that I like to keep going, I as a DM like it. When we were kids, a party member chased down a giant spider that he wanted xp for so our GM had Lolth "mark" him. Needless to say the drow were always around looking for him.

Of course if I am being a bit of a jerk I can rule two stat decreases. I get in my moods sometimes, no wonder I can't find any players.

I think it's pretty obvious that if the party stands around "watching" Cadmus the thief BLEED OUT.... then he's DEAD, DEAD, DEAD..... NO recover the body roll for you. DEAD. Sure they can "recover" his corpse for burial back in town, or to chop up as monster bait. But he's DEAD.

However, if Cadmus fell during combat, or in a pit, or off a cliff, or got buried in a rockslide, or etc, etc. And the Party or a single Party member spends effort to find his body THEN you roll for Recovering the BODY. You can burn LUCK if you have any left (but you probably already used it all trying NOT to die to begin with) and see if you get a 2nd chance at life with your 1hp and your gimped up body! Hence old Jed, used to be a pretty good archer till that Troll ate his arm!

The Stat losses represent the injury everyone "thought" had killed you.

SEE page 93, First sentence is clear as day.

Recovering the body: If the body of a dead ally can be recovered, there is a chance the ally may not be truly killed.

The underlined part is important. It doesn't say if you wait around "metagaming" while your ally bleeds out till death, then get a bonus roll to live!!!


Bleeding OUT is not worse because everyone stepped UP to save you as quickly as possible. The -1 to Stamina is because your buddies just pulled you back from Death's door! And you have Battle scars to prove how tough you are! You stayed alive 2 rounds after that Lance went through you! AWESOME!

Permanent STAT loss, is only permanent until you QUEST to change it! More incentive to continue playing you character.

I just wrote an eloquent view and then lost it as it said I needed to log in (I had) Grrr...

Summary:
I worried about stat loss but discovered that clerics have access to Restore Vitality so its not all doom and gloom.

We don't allow luck burn now to survive recover the body - each to their own. This means you don't want to chance it and just take the Stamina hit - not that there should be a choice.

DCC RPG in some ways is comparable to a game of Call of Cthulhu (CoC) where you are destined for a downward spiral. Rather than many recent editions of DnD where the PC rewards are stat gains, feat gains, magical item hoards, and eventual membership to the demigod club. In DCC RPG rewards are "I'm alive, I have 4 limbs (albeit all badly scarred), and my sword isn't broken - how cool is that?". In fact it is balanced nicely in that warriors/thieves who need physical stats are most likely to loose them over time. Clerics and Wizards are more likely to be out of favour with their gods or corrupt the more they do their job of casting spells.

and Cthulhu is definitely neutral, its just those that worship him are most likely insane crazies

Thanks for that!

Love it!