Death Clock

Overview

The Death Clock implements the DCC death and dying rules for player characters. Enable it through System Settings → Enhanced Combat → Enable death clock for PCs (off by default).

Per the rules, a 1st-level or higher character reduced to 0 hit points collapses and begins bleeding out: they can be healed on the round they dropped or within their level in rounds afterward. Level 0 characters die immediately at 0 hit points.

The clock

When a player character drops to 0 HP they gain the Dying condition carrying the countdown, and the drop is announced in chat. In combat, the tracker shows the rounds remaining next to their name at the end of the action-dice pips, and each round advance burns one round. Only forward round advances count — a judge stepping the tracker back to fix a misclick will not burn (or end) the clock, and starting a combat does not count as an elapsed round.

When the countdown reaches 0, that round is the character's final chance — the badge tooltip says so and a warning is posted to chat. One more round and they die.

Death is applied exactly as if the judge had clicked the combat tracker's skull button: the dead status overlay on the token, and the combatant marked defeated. Un-defeating later works the same way as for the skull button too.

The Dying condition can also be applied manually from the token's right-click status menu — a manually applied clock starts at the character's full (level)-round window.

Saving a character

Healing while bleeding out (raising them above 0 HP before the clock runs out) saves the character — at the price the rules demand: a permanent loss of 1 Stamina and a terrible scar, announced in chat. With the Ability Score Log enabled, the loss is recorded as a "Saved from bleeding out (Stamina)" entry (permanent — the log's Heal button won't restore it), including any knock-on maximum-HP change if the Stamina loss crosses an ability modifier threshold.

Healing a dead character above 0 HP revives them with no penalty — this is the judge's manual override. The dead status and defeated marker are both removed, and the revival is announced.

Recovering the body

Every death announcement carries a judge-only Roll the Body button, implementing the "recovering the body" rule. If an ally reaches the body within an hour (the judge's call), click it to make the dead character's roll-under Luck check — posted as a normal Luck check card:

• Success — they were merely knocked out: they wake with 1 hit point and gain the Groggy condition for the next hour (−4 to all rolls; Groggy is also in the token status menu). The success card then prompts the judge to Roll Ability Loss (1d3): the card shows the rolled die, the chart (1 Strength, 2 Agility, 3 Stamina) with the rolled row highlighted, and the permanent −1 is applied automatically — logged as a "Roll the Body injury" entry.
• Failure — the character is truly dead.

Each card button is single-use, so a double-click can't apply anything twice.

The Death Clock tracker

Open the Death Clock tool from the DCC Tools sidebar tab — the DCC logo near the bottom of the right-hand sidebar tab bar (the tool appears there while the setting is enabled, and the ? beside each tool links to its user guide page).

The tracker lists every character currently bleeding out, with their portrait and rounds remaining — a red 0 marks a final-chance round. Players can look; the controls are judge-only:

• Advance Round — the manual out-of-combat tick: every bleeding-out character loses one round, with the usual final-chance warning and death resolution. Use it when the party is out of initiative but the clock should still run.
• + / − — adjust an individual clock by a round.
• Stabilize (medkit) — stop a clock with no penalty, for when the judge rules the character is out of danger without formal healing.
• Mark as dead (skull) — resolve the clock as death immediately, with the Roll the Body prompt.

The tracker updates live as characters drop, tick, are healed, or die. Clicking a portrait opens that character's sheet.