Death and Dying

As is with real life, death is a very traumatic ordeal, especially for any player who is unfortunate enough to play a character who  tragically dies during an adventure. After all, for most  roleplaying participants, a piece of   themselves are invested in their character’s story, growth, and history. It goes without saying, but it’ll be said anyway: GMs should approach this subject thoughtfully and carefully with their   players, and allow for processing time if necessary as players are walked through Death Saving Rolls. SURGE! does not offer standardly, out of the box, a way to resurrect players, so GMs will need to decide if it makes sense to the world they have created if any means of resurrection is possible. If standard rules are followed, death of a Player Character is permanent.

Death Saving Rolls

Unless otherwise specified, when a creature is reduced to 0 HP, their character is on the verge of death. There are two stages of Death Saving Rolls: Conscious and Unconscious. Succeeding a Death Saving Roll does not mean your character is safe; it still requires medical intervention. A player’s rolls are only hoping to delay permanent death long enough that another character will come to their aid in time.

  Conscious Death Saving Rolls

The Conscious stage of Death Saving Rolls means that the character is semi-conscious, aware of its surroundings, but unable to take actions, move, or speak. The player will choose to make either a Strength or a Survival roll, attempting to succeed at an Easy DR challenge. Success allows the character to stay in the Conscious stage of Death Saving Rolls for another turn, but each subsequent turn the DR increases by one difficulty. The first failure results in the character transitioning to the second stage, Unconscious Death Saving Rolls.

  Unconscious Death Saving Rolls

Much like the first stage, the choice of  Strength or a Survival rolls are made, attempting to succeed at an Easy DR challenge. Once again, similar to Conscious Death Saving Rolls, each success delays death progression by another turn but each subsequent turn increases the DR by one difficulty. On the first failure during the second phase of Death Saving Rolls, the character dies permanently.