Which edition had more PC Deaths

[Pickaxe]

IME, 3e is far more deadly. I didn't play much 2e but played a lot of 1e, albeit with the same group for the most part.

The main reason I think 3e is more deadly is that HP are about the same but damage is greater. In 1e, you needed 16 Str just to get +1 to damage (and +0 to hit). Orcs and other humanoids had standard weapon damage with little in the way of Str modifiers; in 3e, orcs carry greataxes or falchions and have a racial bonus to their Strength scores. Sneak attack is easier to do and does more damage at higher levels than the X4 or so that you got from backstabbing, and more humanoid races can have classes and therefore have sneak attack.

Iconic monsters like dragons and giants are much more powerful. Yes, 1e had save-or-die events, but it also had a saving throw chart that eventually made things like poison inconsequential at high levels.

We also played without miniatures, so there were no AoO to deter party spellcasters.

My recollection of a typical 1e encounter is that the melee types would wade into the fray, and, if they took significant damage (which usually took a good number of rounds), they waded out and got a heal from the cleric. In 3e, there's a greater chance you'll take serious damage in a given round, so losing just about any HP is not trivial and reason enough to get healed up immediately.

3e rules also just seem to provide for challenging encounters where you may get into a situation that's hard to get out of; it may not be "save or die", but once things start going south, they go south real fast. In 1e, it always seemed that the rules didn't empower the DM enough and he had to bend them (or create new ones) in order to challenge the party. Party's might walk into a tough situation, but it wasn't that tough to walk right back out of it and regroup.

Anyway, that may reflect more of how we played 1e than it does the general 1e experience, but that's the difference I've seen.

--Axe

 

[Mouseferatu]

They make players more cautious and generally provide a more tension filled experience.

IME, you can create that tension, and that caution, just fine without save-or-die, as long as you include "save-or-something-really-nasty-happens" effects. Major Con damage, for instance, is just as feared as "insta-death," among my group.

 

[Severion]

I'm currently running a B/X edition campaign and the death rate is pretty high, the players are 50% juvinile (the other half being thier moms). To have each player lose 3 charecters in one session is fairly common, we make jokes about it and give them roman numerals after thier names. As to previous experiences i'd have to say i have found it easier to kill off PC's in earlier editions than the current one, at least while trying to keep things fair and balanced.

 

[Wik]

Well, I voted for 3e, but it has nothing to do with the rules, really.

When we played 2e, I was strongly into the "official line" at the time, being something of a story-teller GM that wasn't much of a dungeon fan. My adventures were great plots and whathaveyou, and I honestly felt that if a PC died, it was because *I* was doing something wrong.

While I did kill off PCs, it was pretty rare (if I really thought about it, I think I could count the number of 2e deaths I caused on one hand).

In 3e/3.5e, my style changed a bit (partially because I was getting older, and partially because I'm meaner now). I'm currently running STAP, and one of the rules I adopted was a "let the dice fall where they may". It's definately made our games more lethal.

But, since I wasn't really following the rules in 2e, and I am now in 3e, I don't think you can say that the added deaths in 3e are in any way due to mechanical reasons.

 

[Odhanan]

I've seen much more PCs deaths in 1st ed. than any other edition combined. I think it has more to do with DMing styles than rules, to be frank.

 

[jdrakeh]

AD&D 1e, IME, because 1e revelled in (and encouraged) arbitrary character demise. I really do not miss that at all. I don't think that 3e is less deadly, I think that it simply makes death more relevant (it isn't completely arbitrary and capricious, so it carries more weight when it happens).

 

[Ealli]

Lumping 1st and 2nd edition together absolutely skews the results.

Third Edition has been far more deadly than second edition ever was, so on that basis, I have to give my vote to the 3rd edition line. I do not believe we ever had a character death in second edition, but I've personally lost two characters in third and been the DM in games where ever player had to replace a character twice.

Funny story about OD&D. Way back in the Red Box set assaulting Bargle's castle, we would start the adventure with 3 characters each because the kobolds at the gate achieved TPK against the first two normal sized parties which attempted to root them out.