[RPG] Death Saves, Dying, and Actions

That's a good question. (And I agree with your off-the cuff ruling, as any decision made quickly is better than one that disrupts the flow of the game.)

Let's start with some definitions:

Temporary hit points

Not Real Hit Points: Temporary hit points aren’t real hit points. They’re a layer of insulation that attacks have to get through before they start doing damage to you. Don’t add temporary hit points to your current hit points (if your current hit points are 0, you still have 0 when you receive temporary hit points). Keep track of them as a separate pool of hit points.

Dying

Dying: When your hit points drop to 0 or fewer, you fall unconscious and are dying. Any additional damage you take continues to reduce your current hit point total until your character dies.

Healing the Dying

Regain Hit Points: When you are dying and receive healing, you go to 0 hit points and then regain hit points from the healing effect. If the healing effect requires you to spend a healing surge but you have none left, you are restored to 1 hit point.

Thus, because temporary hit points do not count as "healing" the character who was dying would remain at 0 hit points, unconscious, and should continue to make death saving throws. However the temporary hit points would protect against subsequent Coup De Graces and other DM agression.

Make Heal ^DDI checks.

Even if a character has no healing surges left, any other character can try a Heal check (DC15) to Stabilize him. If successful, no further death saves need to be made.

If they do have a healing surge left, it is a mere DC10 to allow them to use their Second Wind ^DDI.

Both of these checks are very makeable for even 1st level characters and should be attempted whenever there isn't immediate danger to the conscious character in my opinion.

Spread Healing Responsibilities Around

If this is occurring during combat, your group may want to ensure that most characters are able to heal others. I feel that nearly all non-striker characters should have some form of healing available. It is better to restore a dying comrade to fighting strength than to inflict damage upon the enemy.

• Potions: very cheap at the low end.
• Multiclass: every character should be able to find a suitable leader class to multiclass into
• Healing skill: Being trained in Healing can turn a difficult check into an easy one at low levels. By mid-levels you should be able to retrain out of this.
• Specific powers: A lot of classes can heal other with at least one power
• Magic items: Some allow you to heal nearby characters
  • Lifeforce Amulet ^DDI