Eh, I've gotten used to decrements :P Plus I think that method uses less events, depending how it's used. I could experiment though.
By not necessary, do you mean that it's way too many events and there's no way you'll add this, or that 300 events is suitable anyway?
All I know is that at 300, it worked fine. No overflow messages. In fact, the new way I have it die (spawn tons of player soot) is more laggy (albeit in the required event range) than the way it died before :P
Regardless, I'm changing the way it dies. When I'm done with this, it shouldn't cause noticeable lag.