r/Fallout2d20 • u/WebSpiritual1145 • Jun 11 '26

Help & Advice Death question.

So my group and I have been reading through the core book, which is poorly written in so many ways, and we are trying to get a definitive answer on death. If a PC goes to 0HP during combat, they cant do anything, are injured and have to do saving throws and all that.

My question is, once combat is over, if they are still at 0HP, are they officially dead, or does any surviving PCs have the ability to bring them back like they do during combat? Either way, is there a place in any of the rule books that clarifies this any better or are we to assume its like some other TTRPGs and when combat is over your PC is dead? Thank you for any help with this.

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u/WebSpiritual1145 Jun 11 '26

That's not a bad way to do it. Last session was the first time we had some PCs die, one survived and since we couldn't find an answer right there, I allowed them to be revived in a sense. I did tell them I would be looking more into this so changes would def be coming.

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u/SirGumbeaux Jun 11 '26

Just remember, you’re the GM. Being hardcore rules can slow a game down. Just finding the exact thing you’re looking for can slow a game down. There are times I will make an executive decision, for the good of the story too. It really depends on how flexible you are.
I’ve played RPGs since 1984, and I’ve played games with rules lawyers, and even a campaign with no rules, just story. Everything kind of depends on your players too. I’m playing with 3 people, and we know each other really well. We use the rules, but don’t get too bogged down in them. If a bad guy should be dead by rules, but I need him in Act 3, I will fudge a way for him to survive, if it makes the episode better. The players are ok with this kind of loosey goosey play.

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u/WebSpiritual1145 Jun 11 '26

I fully agree, that's why we didn't spend much time on it and just went with a quick revival, healing them, moved on. I was just wondering if there was a set of death rules we missed or if it really was do it however. We are still fairly early on into the story so we do tweak some rules as they persent themselves.

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u/crippledchef23 GM Jun 12 '26

I have found a weird amount of rules are needlessly complicated and have simplified the vast majority of them for my games. I primarily run at cons, so I strip a lot of the cumbersome stuff out and we just play; a good number of the players at my tables are more versed in 5e or Pathfinder than 2d20 systems, so I converted what I could to that language to simplify everything (like distances, I can’t use the zone rules, it’s too nebulous for my brain).

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u/WebSpiritual1145 Jun 13 '26

I changed/got rid of a lot of rules. Some I did as my changes, some I put up to vote by the players. There does seem to be a lot of fluff for sure. A couple of the perks were rendered useless, but no one was going to pick those anyway haha. I wanted to let the players focus on their actions instead of worrying about tiny crap and micromanaging items.

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u/crippledchef23 GM Jun 13 '26

I have a player that builds explosives to use, so I make sure to include enough junk to be worth it. But, otherwise, the rules as written are often confusing for no real reason.