Lethality: I don't know what I want

[GMforPowergamers]

Lethality: I don't know what I want, but I know what I don't want... and I dont want what I have now (4e), or what I had before (2e and 3e).



OK, maybe it just is something D&D can't do, but I want to try.

I started runinng in 2e, and when I ran people always loved my games. I was known fro great stories, and pulling my punches. MY Villians always left the PCs down but not out, my monsters always missed, then were killed on there next shot... and there was a reason people liked it. Becuse we still had DMs makeing us roll 1st level hp, and DMs useing 0 is dead instead of -10. Infact one sadistic DM (no we don't play with him anymore) ruled that my friend Kurt's wizard was still born, becuse he had a -1 con mod, and rolled a 1 on his d4...

I had the occasional death, especialy when I would call "22 damage" just to see the players eyes go wide... "I only had 9 hp left...that right to dead"

In 3e we alwasy started at level 2 or 3, and hp added up more, we had even expanded the 'deaths door' rules to be you die at -10, - con, or -level witch ever is higher....


By the time 4e rolled around I was no longer pulling punches as much, and I averaged 2-3 deaths per campaign. I had even in 3e ran a game where a PC go the chosen of mystra templet, chose wish as his 9th level spell, so I made it a point to kill PCs left and right, makeing him use said spell like ability to raise them... I had 2 PCs competing for most deaths...it was fun.

Then we played through the Mods that came out H1-E3, and I did not pull any punches... and PCs started calling 4e easy. In 4e I have played through entire campaigns in witch we can count the PCs who have been droped to 0 or lower on 1 hand, and none of them were in any danager of death.

I play in a 4e game right now once per month where our Dragon born fighter has some cold axe magic item, he gets bonus to hit and bonus cold damage when bloodied, and he had a hombrew artafact that gives him a cool attack power when bloodied... and he never gets to use it. Why you may ask, well we have a cleric that is healing amped, and 3 strikers that throw but tons of damage (my assasin being one of them), it is a rare thing for one of us to get bloodied, but staying that was never happens.
My assasin in that game went a whole level (from 7-8) without spending a healing surge...not one, becuse at no point did I have enough damage to do so and it be worth it. Now maybe that is a bad example, we are heavy optimized (volyka assasin, dragonborn fighter, shifter cleric (with a full blade), elf bow ranger, hafling dagger master, and a half orc slayer)




So here is the thing. I want to have 4 types of fights.

1) Gimmie fights. When you roll intitative even if your dice go bad this is going to be easy.

2) Avrage fights. You know it wont be a cake walk, but you also know that as long as your luck isn't terrable you are coeming out of this fight only a little worse for wear, but a few resources down... if You get really lucky rolls this may feel like a gimmie.

3) hard fight. You know going in you need good tactics and a little luck. It is a fair fight, you can win it, but you could also lose, and lose bad if things go wrong. Even with great luck, and the crit gods smileing on you, these should never feel like a gimmie.

4) Danate must die... This fight should be doable, but almost not. It should look like there is no way short of great luck, or skill for you to ever all walk out ok... If a PC dies in this fight everyone knows he went out epic...and if things go to far off track this is a TPK waiting to happen.

then I want the system to be able to turn those 4 types of fights into a dial of 10... so we can experance the full spectrum.


My problme is RAW (and RAI as far as I know) Ad&D 2e was ment to start off at 4, then work it's way to 3. D&D 3e always felt like it depedned on the class you played, but then 4e feels like the defualt is 1 and 2, and maybe a 3 every now and then...but never a 4.


So what do I not want... well I don't want PCs having 1d4+3-1d12+4 hp at first level and 1 orc with a great axe swinging a d12+3... I don't want my wizard at level 2 with 8hp fearing a kobold spear that does 1d10 damage...

I also don't want a 3rd level wizard with 35hp, to only die if he drops below -17, or fails 3 saves in a row.

I don't want a race to SoD spells, where my heart ripper, or finger of death ends the encounter, in less there wizard goes first, and finger of deaths me.

I want inbetween, less lethal then 3e, and more then 4e. I don't know how though.

I like spells and powers that can bring the instant death, but I don't want them to be instant. I had a thread argueing about SoDs in 4e and I suggested multy moding them so that they could fit... I remember I had a slay living target bloodied enemies, do damage, then stun (save ends) fail save and die...

 

[Stormonu]

I'm not quite sure what I want as far as lethality either.

As a casual DM/player, I'm not interested in every combat being a knock-down, drag-out brawl where the PCs emerge from the fight with a bloody stump of a fist dribbling a few hit points.

At the other extreme, I don't want them to dismiss the enemy as "pathetic" or "weak".

I do not like in 4E how it seems characters drop multiple times in the same the combat. But I also don't having to wear through bags of hit points to take enemies down. 3E's (and previous editions) save-or-die effects aren't all that fun if you're the recipient.

3E and 4E had the problem that at the higher levels hit points could be inflated to absurd amounts. Damage to had to scale dramatically as well or it just became a slugfest. Capping hit points for PC's around 10th level was one of the original game's better decisions, and I'd like to see that return.

I think that change would help bring some lethality back to the game while still make characters (and monsters) durable, while also cutting back on number bloat that has to occur to keep up with inflating hp.

I'm leery of instant death effects; I'd like to see such effects follow more along the lines with 4E's "three strikes and your out" approach to such deadly effects (scaled by CR, not a static 10+). Going out on one bad roll can be just bad luck - I've seen it happen several times. Going out because of three generally means you've really run into something nasty.

 

[Layander]

I feel lethality should be high, the risk of death is what makes the game fun, if I know I can't die and my actions do not matter, I don't try, I don't pay attention, I play game boy.
If the GM does not want the game to be lethal,then error on the side of lethality, because you can pull your punches. It's harder to make the game more lethal.
If you want your games to be softcore, tell your players you missed when you really hit like you do, just don't expect me to pay any attention and just roll a d20 on my turn with damage and let you figure out if I hit or not.

 

[Spinachcat]

I want completely unbalanced combats and random, brutal psycho character death. And that's why I love 0e and Warhammer.

As part of 5e's "modularity", I would like to see the DM choose the lethality of the campaign without feeling constrained by the rules.

I was happy with the lethality of 4e, but maybe that's because I really love tactical combat and enjoyed the chess game vs. the PCs.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I like how 4E does death. It is not too likely, but with a bad situation and a few bad rolls, death is present. The three death saves is not a bad mechanic.

 

[Lanefan]

So here is the thing. I want to have 4 types of fights.

1) Gimmie fights.

2) Avrage fights.

3) hard fight.

4) Danate must die ...

There should be a fifth:

5) Run away fights. These are fights where you are obviously outgunned and simply should not engage. If you run away or sneak around or otherwise stay out of battle, you'll be fine. If you decide to engage anyway, you will deservedly die.

At first glance 4e really doesn't go in for this type of encounter. 3e doesn't either on paper, but having run a few of its modules I've found there to be some definite "run away" situations.

Lanefan

 

[Layander]

I can loose chess I can't loose a character in 4e. I do not have to consider tactics in 4e, we all win with out even knowing what's going on. How is that more tactical than having a chance to loose?

 

[Minigiant]

I'd prefer the Hp/Damage ratio to be 3 to 1. The average character starts dying in 3 hits without healing. Tough characters get one more hit. Squishy characters get one less and are begging for healing after the first hit. This way you kind of predict when you will die. After 2 hits, a critical or a powerful spell/attack; a character probably shifting to a defensive strategy. No constant fear like low level 2e/3e's super lethality. But no slugfest of high level 3e/4e.

 

[Hassassin]

I want inbetween, less lethal then 3e, and more then 4e. I don't know how though.

In 3e it depends a lot on the DM.

Especially after 3.5 it seems that people expected every encounter to be CR >= APL. When you mix encounters from APL -4 to APL +2 with rare APL + 4 boss fights, I think you are quite close to the ideal. It is also important that most encounters have multiple lower CR enemies, since otherwise save-or-die effects come to dominate high level play.

Unfortunately, the DM also has to adjust to how optimized the party is. I think that's a bug.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

There should be a fifth:

5) Run away fights. These are fights where you are obviously outgunned and simply should not engage. If you run away or sneak around or otherwise stay out of battle, you'll be fine. If you decide to engage anyway, you will deservedly die.

see I think that is just a level 4 fight... even when a fight looks almost impossible it should not be gurenteed death. If I make all the best tacticle choices, and I roll 7+ on all my D20 rolls and I lose anyway I am pissed.

The worst game I ever played in made us quite becuse of just such an encounter. The DM had this giant attack our town, and told us to run... we decied to cover the rest of the town running... My 3rd level wizard opened up with an attack and missed even though I rolled high, then our optimized avenger with his oath rolled a 20... and the DM said "well what does that hit" and he called some huge number, and the DM said he still missed. so it auto hit but no crit, and the giant had DR and regened... meanwhile the giant could tripple strike and hit me on a nat 3...

after 3 PCs were dead the DM told the 3 remaining PCs they had to run. We never played again.