The lifetimes of metastable states in kinetic Ising ferromagnets are studied by droplet theory and Monte Carlo simulation, in order to determine their dependences on applied field and system size. For a wide range of fields, the dominant field dependence is universal for local dynamics and has the form of an exponential in the inverse field, modified by universal and nonuniversal multiplicative power-law prefactors. Quantitative droplet-theory predictions for these dependences are numerically verified, and small deviations from the predictions are shown to depend nonuniversally on the details of the dynamics. We identify four distinct field intervals in which the field dependence and statistical properties of the lifetimes are markedly different. The field marking the crossover between the weak-field regime, in which the decay is dominated by a single droplet, and the intermediate-field regime, in which it is dominated by a finite density of droplets, vanishes logarithmically with system size. As a consequence the slow decay characteristic of the former regime may be observable in systems that are macroscopic as far as their equilibrium properties are concerned.

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