D&D 4E Is character death acceptable in 4e? If so, how often?

[Eric Finley]

KarinsDad, you're picking a fight, and using "my way is the only way" arguments. It's clear that everyone else in this thread sees your approach as, at best, one of several optional ways to play. We don't argue with its validity, we argue with its necessity. You need to agree to disagree and move on.

Particularly because it has completely threadjacked this thread.

Back to the OP's question... I think it's much less a question of whether character death is acceptable in "fourth edition". That bracket is simply too broad. The answer, as ever, is to use whichever is more fun for your group. Some groups are more biased toward having a challenge to pit themselves against, and the vicarious excitement and so forth. They'll appreciate everything else more, with the possibility of death understood to be present. Other groups contain a lot of the kind of player who invests a great deal of themselves in their characters, in which case character death is a worrying thing and a bummer, to be avoided. Clearly it's a DM judgment call which is true of their group - or, in fact, of each individual player.

Our current game has another perspective on it. We're playing "troupe style" - everyone has a PC, and we take turns being the DM. When a PC dies during an adventure, especially if the resources to bring them back aren't handy (their first PC death happened at 2nd level), that's an excellent excuse for the dead PC's player to step up and take their turn DMing for a while. Nice and tidy. So I would go so far as to say that in many ways our game would benefit from a rough average of one dead PC at all times. (Of course there are other ways to do it - I'll be taking my own PC hostage this evening, for example - but it's not a bad first approximation.)

 

[Nail]

Back to the OP's question... I think it's much less a question of whether character death is acceptable in "fourth edition". That bracket is simply too broad. The answer, as ever, is to use whichever is more fun for your group.

...and even that might be too broad. That is to say "Who gets to define what's most fun for the group?"

In our group, I think the DM has a different perspective on this than us players do.

 

[Stalker0]

Back to the OP's question... I think it's much less a question of whether character death is acceptable in "fourth edition". That bracket is simply too broad. The answer, as ever, is to use whichever is more fun for your group.

I think this ultimately boils down to not if death is acceptable, its at what challenge level does death become a possibility, one the DM can plan for.

To put in a few extreme examples. If my party is facing a group of monsters 20 levels lower than them, then barring some absolute insanely idiotic moves (like jumping into a volcano for fun idiotic) than my party should have absolutely no fear of death in that encounter imo. On the flip side, if I decided as a GM that my party is going to face a group of monsters 20 levels higher than my party, then unless my party runs, or has the baddest ass McGuffin, or a plan so ingeinous that only Sherlock Holmes would have thought of it....then I expect them to TPK.


Those ranges are easy to do The question becomes what happens at the normal ranges. For example, should there be any really possibility of death in a standard encounter? Encounter +1...+2, etc? When should the possibility of death start to be a factor. Ultimately any answer is fine, the question becomes can the system deliver consistent enough results that the DM has certain reliable expectations when he designs encounters as to what will be easy and what will be deadly.

As a DM I don't want my players near death and sweating bullets on encounters that are supposed to be easy, and I don't want them tearing through the really hard encounters without any fear of death.

 

[kilpatds]

Back to the OP's question... I think it's much less a question of whether character death is acceptable in "fourth edition". That bracket is simply too broad. The answer, as ever, is to use whichever is more fun for your group.

If I may, I think the thread was spawned when I suggested to the OP that a battle he thought the PCs won handily (after all, no one died) was a near TPK.

I think the issue here has more to do with figuring out how to make a fight hard enough that a PC or two might drop and die, but the party will still win. Since 4e seems to make that hard, is this something a DM who wants to run a difficult game should strive for? Or is it still "gritty" enough for the PCs to feel that they are on the verge of a TPK, but never have anyone die?

 

[javcs]

It seems to me that 4th has made actually dying at once a whole lot harder and a lot easier.

In 3.x, character death was easiest at low levels when nobody had much HP and at higher levels when save or dies occurred with regularity and when damage per hit would hit the massive damage threshold more regularly.

In 4th, it's a lot harder to die at low levels because you, in general, have more HP than in 3.x (leaders are 7+ Con score +5*level, defenders are 9+ Con score +6*level, strikers are 7+Con score +5*level, and controllers are 6+ Con score +4*level). The HP gap is most pronounced at lower levels, and will start slipping the other way for non-controllers and some strikers at higher levels, especially for more HP-optimized builds in 3.x. The HP differential is further slanted in favor of 4th due to dying at negative bloodied, and that's not an easy number to get to.
Coup de Grace is basically useless for an instant killshot - since you have to exceed the target's bloodied value in damage - which means that you generally can't expect a creature to easily finish off a dropped creature in one round any more.
Massive Damage and Save or Dies have basically been removed.
However, there is, relatively speaking a lot less in-combat healing available at higher level when compared to 3.x, and relatively speaking more in combat healing available at lower levels when compared to 3.x.
Out of combat healing has been increased, relatively speaking at low levels, and decreased at high levels, since the number of healing surges one has available increases slowly.
In 3.x player attack, damage output, ac, and (good) saves progressed at a comparatively similar rate to that of level-appropriate monsters or even exceeded that progression, based on build. However, in 4th, it seems that player attack, defenses, and to an extent damage output doesn't increase at a comparatively similar rate as that of monsters.

To get back to the point - death from sheer HP damage is vastly tougher in 4th. However, once you hit negatives, unless you get healed, death isn't far away, since bonuses to saving throws are scarce and generally only +1s.

Now, some of these changes are, imo, good, and others not so much.

I don't think I'd mind overmuch if poor choices and bad luck in combination could viably kill a PC at an at or near level encounter, and one of the two dropped at PC. The further above level you go, the easier it should be for one or more PCs to go down and stay down. As you go further below level, it should mainly be excess bad luck and gross stupidity putting a PC down and keeping them down.

IMO, death should always be a possibility - especially if leveled characters aren't supposed to literally be everywhere - otherwise (a) the world would be overflowing with PC-quality NPCs, and (b) there's no real reason for there to be poor quality/low-level NPCs requiring the services of 1st and otherwise low level PC groups - they could just round up a group of drinking buddies/friends and handle the problem on their own.

 

[The Human Target]

Hmm, let's see. In my Wednesday night game, I'm playing through the H series of modules (and theoretically the P and E series once we reach the appropriate levels). We've had one complete TPK with no one escaping once, with I don't know how many everyone-but-one-or-two-Ks. I'd reckon close to a dozen, and that isn't a stretch at all.

I've personally died 7 or 8 times (we're in Pyramid of Shadows, having started over at our first complete and total TPK). I've come in with a new character after dying the last week and died again multiple times, sometimes in the very first combat with my brand new character! There's a reason I generally bring more than one character to the game, and why I advise most of the other players to do the same. Generally stupid tactics or blatant CdGs are completely uninvolved here; honestly I don't think anyone has ever been CdG'd, and most of the time if we're left bleeding after the fight we've been stabilized and captured rather than killed. And yet the death toll stands equal with the other two great meat grinders this group has played ... the Shackled City and Age of Worms APs.

On Thursday nights I am currently DMing a group through SoW. So far we're almost finished with the second module, and while no one has died in this one (yet) the first one was a veritable bloodbath. Admittedly though, in this case it was more bad tactics than anything else. The poor druid, though, really didn't do anything too stupid, other than thinking he could fight two needlefang drake swarms (the swarms were pretty clear on the fact that he, indeed, could not).

Edit: As a side note, no one has managed to get resurrected even once in either of my games, even though we were of appropriate level for a little while before the TPK in the Wednesday night one. I kinda think resurrection would be more common in earlier editions ...

If I wanted to die that much, I'd just play Halo 3 online.

 

[DrSpunj]

If I may, I think the thread was spawned when I suggested to the OP that a battle he thought the PCs won handily (after all, no one died) was a near TPK.

I think the issue here has more to do with figuring out how to make a fight hard enough that a PC or two might drop and die, but the party will still win. Since 4e seems to make that hard, is this something a DM who wants to run a difficult game should strive for? Or is it still "gritty" enough for the PCs to feel that they are on the verge of a TPK, but never have anyone die?

Just to help steer things back on track, this is very much the direction I was hoping discussion would take us (and it has to a degree). I apologize if my initial post was not very clear in this regard. Thanks!

 

[jbear]

I've only had one PC death in the 2 4e capaigns I run. The first was in KotS where I threw in a Kobold Rat Master from Dungeon magazine to the second ambush encounter. I had several players missing from the normal campaign. KotS was on my shelf collecting dust so I whipped it out with some pregens and we played. It was the final battle of the night, and I doubted we would ever play it again, so Ithought I'd turn up the heat. The aura was brutal for lv1 PC's. 3 pc's were down before they took out the ratmaster. They still had a dragon shield (bloodied) and the caster and the artillery up (unscathed). The bard was bloodied and out of healing. Suddenly my NPC Barbarian rolled a 20 and was back in the fight! Not before my wife's sorcerer rolled strike 3... The bard went down but the barbarian and the warlock downed the last 3 kobolds and reached the other 2 PC's and stabilsed them before they struck out (both on their 3rd strike). Very fun exciting stuff. We have actually played twice more at the players request, to my surprise.

In the last session of my normal campaign I used the idea of the Thing in the Portal from the final clash with Kalarel in KotSF (such a shame to have that poster map and never use it) for the climactic scene of my PC's final battle with evil snake-men cultists. I reskinned Kalarel (different name, description and poison damage) and tweaked the minions and Undead caster as all of the monsters/sub-bosses they had killed so far sewn back together for the final battle.

It was an epic battle. The PC's actually landed in the magic circle (used to teletransport through the levels of the temple), so I warned them (many times) about the terrible feeling they had about the writhing black portal. Anyone hit by the thing felt sheer terror as it pulled them closer.

Anyway, the point is, they ignored my warnings and hung around there by the Thing. When they finally annoyed the Snakeman Boss enough he teleported in amongst them and brought the Thing even more to life. I decided that the Thing having Reach 5, would take opportunity attacks for movement and distance attacks within his area.
The Barbarian had placed himself right in the mouth of the portal. The snakeman charged him and hit giving him ongoing poison damage, and then with a minor action immobilised him... all I had to do was roll 9 or higher with the thing and with the Slide 1 pull him to instant death! I rolled an 8...

That very player had told me after a gaming session that the only thing my DMing lacked was deadliness. The immobilsation power recharged at the beginning of the snakeman's turn, it hit, so he couldn't budge from the black hole of death...
The Thing rolled a 4...

Incredibly the Immobilisation recharged again (I roll in the open so my players know I'm not cheating). He was stuck there again! The thing rolled a 7!!! Unbelievable. The funny thing was the Snake man kept trying to move back into the circle so the Things Attack would heal him (now in desperate need) but the PC's kept dragging him back put and putting him near the Barbarian, so although immobilised and at death's door literally, he was still dishing out the wallop (especially as he was bloodied and critted with a bloodclaw axe 18+1d12+1d8+1d6... ouch! The boss failed his recharge and the barbarian was loose, free to flee!

How close he had come... before that I hadn't rolled anything under 10 all night. He was very nonchalant about it at the table, but his wife told me that the first thing he said when they got in the car to go home was: 'Oh my God!!! I almost died!!!!!!'
Very exciting, very fun!

I'm glad he didn't die. He'd just personalised all his power cards and bought himself the new Goliath barbarian mini. But if the dice had rolled the other way, he would have died and it would have been devastating but fine, awesome and glorious at the same time.

I think my players appreciate the sense of severe danger that they have felt over the last few sessions, and i'm sure they willl appreciate a breather over the next couple.

 

[KarinsDad]

We had a TPK on the first night with H1 and Irontooth last summer and since then, we have not has a single PC death. In fact, unconsciousness is relatively rare. It tends to only happen in n+4 encounters.

Most of our encounters are n+1 or n+2, and we typically have 1 or 2 n+3 and/or n+4 encounters per level.

I think part of the reasons for low PC death rate are 1) players are more familiar with the rules and how to exploit tactics to their greatest advantage, 2) additional splat books have come out which enable players to have a wider variety of feats and powers to choose from which makes the party more capable overall, 3) 3 strikes and you're out is a long time to get a PC stabilized at a minimum.

I was only DM for a third of the encounters and as a DM, I do not pull punches. The Rogue is out in front too far, she gets gang tackled and taken down if possible. But even as a player, I did not view encounters as that threatening.

 

[DrSpunj]

...and even that might be too broad. That is to say "Who gets to define what's most fun for the group?"

In our group, I think the DM has a different perspective on this than us players do.

Which is pretty obviously something we all need to talk about more openly then. Your statement appears to put you in the role of spokesman for our group, but I'm only aware of a handful of quick comments by 2 or 3 of our 7 players on this subject as everyone is quickly gathering their stuff and heading out to their cars to head home at the end of a session. If you've had other much more in-depth conversations with one or more players along these lines that support the opinions you've put forth then that would me get a better feel for what the group as a whole would find most fun.

I want to point out that while I don't think the DM's fun is more important than anyone else's fun, I do have my own opinion on what I find fun so it may just be that we're dickering over where to draw the line on this and hopefully we're not too far apart. If anyone, players or DM, is expecting something greatly different than everyone else then figuring that out would behoove us all I think.