Why does epic level play entail treating death as a "speed bump"?

[Dausuul]

Yep. The same exact way you would play such a game in 3e, 2e or 1e: remove spells and effects that raise people from the dead.

In 1E, 2E, and most especially 3E, that broke the game at mid- to high levels. High-level play in the older editions was so absurdly deadly, thanks to the profusion of save-or-die effects, that resurrection was a necessary component. You had to either stick to lower-level play or make extensive house rules to avoid constant PC turnover.

While 4E seems to be moving away from that level of carnage, the existence of "once a day, when you die" effects makes me worry that resurrection will still be hardwired into the system at high levels.

I can imagine Epic D&D play with easy raising, and I can imagine Epic D&D play with no easing raising. Why did WOTC choose the former rather than the latter?

You could even allow "raising" at non-epic levels, but reinstate "no raising" for Epic (for example, if you are killed by a god or being of a certain divine status/power you stay dead forever barring another god intervention/quest).

My guess is the designers figured players will be very attached to characters who've reached epic levels, so it should be very hard to off such a character permanently. While I agree to some extent, I wish they'd devised a better system for it; the E6 "death flag" system is a lot better than resurrection magic IMO.

 

[Kishin]

Why did WOTC choose the former rather than the latter?

Because, as was said earlier in the thread, death as a speedbump has pretty much been part of standard D&D for pretty much its entire existence? Particularly at higher levels.

 

[two]

That's also absurdly easy to answer. Because that's how epic play is, in 3E; and in turn, that's a logical result arising from how resurrection is a canonical feature of the game.

Yes, that's how it was in 3E, and that's how it was done in the past. Version 4 has changed the way many things had been done before (static hit points, etc.). Why didn't they change this as well?

Because it was this way in the past isn't an answer.

Because it was this way in the past and they liked it that way...OK.

 

[deathdonut]

As an offtopic: did anyone ever find the followup articles to that first one?

 

[two]

The specific question I was adressing was: "Will it be possible to play this type of game in 4e?"

Yes, this was asked, true. The major point of the initial post, as I understand it, was "why is version 4 going to embrace this "easy recovery from death" paradigm instead of going somewhere else which is more in line with my interests/literature/etc."

So, my bad, you answered a sub-question. The answer to the big question is, I guess, there simply wasn't any pressure to change Epic play in this manner from consumers. Or from designers. Or from other concerns, like "speed of play" etc.

 

[DandD]

Perhaps you've got the Phoenix Auto-Ressurection Power, or you can easily battle the Hellhound Cerberus in the Shadowlands and so get away, because you're just that uber. Or you're under the patronage of a god that has infused you with its divine essence to make you an unkillable avatar of himself, only then finding the everlasting embrace of death after you've fullfilled your destiny.
Perhaps it turned out that you're a Time-Lord of Galifrey.

 

[robertliguori]

"Didn't happen" is distinctly different from "Couldn't happen". One of the classic examples of epic (in the D&D4.0 sense) heroes, Hercules, demonstrated in his twelfth labor exactly what the relationship between epic heroes and the immutable separation of of life and death should be. Especially in 3.5, where the paradigm is such that high-level characters can warp reality in literally arbitrary ways, why should death and mortality be any different?

Or, to take another tack, myth and stories aren't told with dice. In the media you mention, there was no chance of characters dying at any point other than where the author intended. In D&D, if you introduce narrative-style powers without narrative checks, you'll get a lot of death, and if you explicitly make death permanent and final in all cases, a lot of characters you won't want to die will end up doing so.

I can't imagine that it will be impossible to tell a different kind of story; simply remove all references to souls and resurrection, and have death be it for every sentient being in the cosmos. But without a strong check on random, uncontrollable events, that universe will get mighty bloody very quickly.

 

[hong]

I just banned death in my last game. Worked out quite well!

 

[theredrobedwizard]

More burden removed from the Cleric; characters come back from the dead by fighting back against the currents of the River of Death or whatever.

They went the way they went on this choice because it's more fun. If I've played a character from level 1 to 26 then you died to some random encounter, I'd be super-pissed. Your character doesn't *have* to come back from the dead, but they probably would because of some sense of duty or honor or greed or fear. Whatever the reason, if you're nigh unto demigodhood, you *should* be able to cheat death on a nearly daily basis.

-TRRW

 

[deathdonut]

Perhaps you've got the Phoenix Auto-Ressurection Power

This seems to be the rumor. I've heard that the epic utility powers allow you to come back from death and actually gain an advantage from doing so. This might be a daily resource, but I suspect the limitation is probably going to be something else. Maybe GM subjective like the raise dead spell.