What's up with Chaosiums site?

[The Last Conformist]

Originally Posted by Jason Durall

a) the official new BRP character sheet is now downloadable.

The "DEAD (-___)" part above the hitpoints seems to suggest dying at a certain number of negative HP, like in D&D or GURPS. Is that the case?

[NickMiddleton]

Originally Posted by The Last Conformist

The "DEAD (-___)" part above the hitpoints seems to suggest dying at a certain number of negative HP, like in D&D or GURPS. Is that the case?

Not exactly.

BRP 0 defines a condition "Fatal Wound" - where the character receives an injury that does them more hit points damage than they currently have hit points"

Fatal wounds obviously lead to death, though they may be averted with the successful application of immediate medical assistance. If you fatally-wounded character receives medical attention (through First Aid, Medicine, a power, an item, or some other means of hit point restoration) in th eround he or she recieved the fatal wound or the round immediately after, and his or her hit points are brought up to 1 or more, your character has almost died, but will survive that particular injury.

So, in theory, a character could go to -157 hit points, and if some how a companion character could administer 158 points of healing in the round on which the fatal wound occurred and the immediately following round, the character would survive - which, given eth necessary power level of any campaign in which 158 points of healing over two rounds is even possible, doesn't seem unreasonable.

In a "normal" level campaign with First Aid, a character5 might make it back from going as far as -5, but it's not likely, and any more severe is irretrievable.

I've used variants of the D&D "dying rule", where a fatally wounded character loses a further hit point per round until -CON, at which point they are beyond treatment - it depends on the genre and setting.

Cheers,

Nick

[The Last Conformist]

Thank you. That's essentially the same as the rule in CoC or SB5, as might be expected. I do wonder what the "(-___)" bit is then for.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

I've used variants of the D&D "dying rule", where a fatally wounded character loses a further hit point per round until -CON, at which point they are beyond treatment - it depends on the genre and setting.

And I use it all the time. Coupled with reduced HPs, it makes a neat "Major Wound" level at 0hp. Scares the players wonderfully, too!
(Trad. fantasy genre, btw).

Originally Posted by The Last Conformist

I do wonder what the "(-___)" bit is then for.

Trying to tempt me into using it, I guess. But no, having all possible hp/pp/etc numbers is just too silly...

[Jason Durall]

Originally Posted by The Last Conformist

I do wonder what the "(-___)" bit is then for.

As noted, if you need to note the amount of HP below 0 for the short period of time a character can be below 0 HP and be viable, then it's there for that.

I think it also might have ramifications for some powers (like regeneration), but don't have my book handy and can't recall which.