Which edition had more PC Deaths

[FEADIN]

More killer DM than killer edition, friends of mine killed whole groups in 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition, so did I.

 

[DragonLancer]

In my experience, I found there were more character deaths under 1st and 2nd edition.

More's the question - if you notice a difference, why is there a difference?

Good question. I think because 3.X is geared towards mechanical play and this makes challenges less of a threat than they were twenty years ago.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I, on the other hand, love save or dies as both a player and a dm. I should clarify. I hate failing a save or die, but I love the existence of those in the game. They make players more cautious and generally provide a more tension filled experience.

I'd say pc deaths are more common in 1e, due to the inclusion of save or die effects. Discounting those, probably near the same, though 1e has more npc deaths in droves.

Definitely more in 3e/3.5.

However, I need to add a caveat to that statement. I hate save-or-die effects. I prefer "save or be dying," "save or be badly injured," "save or suffer some other really nasty effect." But I don't want someone to be taken out of play, forced to sit around and watch everyone else having fun, by a single bad roll.

So I've tended to modify save-or-die throughout all the editions--1st, 2nd, and 3rd--and that may have impacted the death toll.

 

[MerricB]

Much more in 3e in my experience... but it depends greatly on the style of the campaign.

When I played 1e, I was mainly playing it in a narrative/story-telling format.

When I play 3e, I either play in a narrative/story-telling format (where PC death is rare), or in a dungeon delve format (where PC death is common).

See my report on White Plume Mountain (1e), where about 6 PC deaths happened in 3 hours...

Cheers!

 

[Erithtotl]

I vote for 3.0/3.5 for this reason.

In old-school D&D there were tons of save-or-die or even 'do something stupid and you die' events. But most of these didn't start coming in until the characters were at least mid-level, and often not until 9th or so. And it was a serious pain to get up to that level in 1st/2nd edition, so much so that they re-engineered the game to provide access to mid/high level play more easily. The highest level I ever made it to legitimately in 2nd edition was like 9.

In 3.0/3.5, there are far fewer save-or-die events, though they are still around. But with the addition of power attacks, rapidly scaling monster damage (due to strength bonuses and large size weapons), levelled monsters and most of all, critical hits, the random chance a character will go down is much higher. In 1st/2nd edition if you were a 4th level fighter you had nothing to fear from that orc with an axe. But in 3rd edition he could crit you, roll well, and deliver 35pts of damage in one blow. Additionally, it's much easier to reach higher levels, making access to nasty high level spells and powers much more likely.

 

[Hussar]

More's the question - if you notice a difference, why is there a difference?

With changing times, most folks have experienced other changes - changing desires, groups, DMs. Pinpointing the root cause (if there is one, instead of just chance), can be very difficult.

I definitely see more PC death in 3e. Mostly because, IMO, combat in 3e is far more lethal than in previous editions. After about 5th level in 1ed or 2e, nothing could really kill you in combat other than something that vastly outpowers you - ie. chucking ancient huge red dragons at 5th level parties.

In 3e, par creatures - the stuff you should be facing at a given level, can possibly drop a PC in a single round. Not with crits or special saves, just through sheer damage. Crits just add an extra edge for the DM.

There's a reason you see lots of Action Point style mechanics floating around now that you never did before - it's a reaction to the very large increase in firepower that the monsters got in 3e.

 

[drothgery]

I'll toss one other theory about why PC death seems more common to me in 3.x. Relatively high-level play is more common, because the game just gets more complex at high levels, it doesn't break down entirely (and because you don't have to chuck the XP charts to get to 15th level in a reasonable amount of time). So you have more 10-15th level characters being played, and hence more opposite numbers with save or die spells.

 

[Ourph]

After about 5th level in 1ed or 2e, nothing could really kill you in combat other than something that vastly outpowers you - ie. chucking ancient huge red dragons at 5th level parties.

I've seen this comment before and it always puzzles me. What about the 1e or 2e rules, as written, makes it so "nothing could really kill you in combat" after 5th level or so? Are you saying there weren't enough effective mid-level monsters in the game? What's the mechanism for this?

 

[Glyfair]

However, I need to add a caveat to that statement. I hate save-or-die effects. I prefer "save or be dying," "save or be badly injured," "save or suffer some other really nasty effect." But I don't want someone to be taken out of play, forced to sit around and watch everyone else having fun, by a single bad roll.

This leads to a possible side issue. Those sort of effects are more common at higher levels. Common wisdom says that higher levels are played more often because D&D is more playable at higher levels in 3E(which isn't the same as "higher levels are very playable"). So, maybe it's more common in some by-the-book campaigns just by virtue of higher levels being okayed more.

Then again, poison was pretty much always save-or-die in earlier editions. Save or die was much more common at low levels.

I can't say because the difference between my early D&D gaming and my current D&D gaming are more shaped by a different style of gameplay. That weighs so much more, that will all the variables I couldn't say.

 

[Glyfair]

There was an old Dragon article (OD&D/1E) where someone had a statistical analysis of PC deaths in their campaign, and it added up to hundreds and hundreds of deaths by different causes. I don't think anyone's going to claim the same thing in a 3E campaign.

That's true, but I'm pretty sure that was an anomaly, even then. The reason this could be done, though, is that character generation was quicker. Character died in the first 15 minutes of the game? The next character was generated and ready to play by the 30 minute mark.