Players dissatisfied with level of danger in 4e
- Thread starter SWAT
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I ran that fight yesterday!
7 PCs level 3-4 vs EL 7 (for 5 PC encounter), only they didn't rest after the last fight - they heard gnolls chanting and thought they were opening a portal, not calling Grell for his dinner! So I nearly TPK'd them - again. A player didn't like having his stunned, grabbed PC dropped into the well and said it should have had to make a STR check vs Fort, same as if he wasn't stunned. The author's intent seemed clear; I compromised and said it could only move stunned PCs 1 square, more than that required a STR roll, and grells have poor STR. His PC was on the lip of the well so he went in, but it helped the other PCs survive - just.I dunno, I must be a killer DM - 6 PC kills in 10 sessions of 4e so far, 1 raised + 5 permanent. The OP's situation is pretty alien to me. I like that 4e cuts down on randompointless death a bit, but PCs still die and TPKs seem even more likely than in prior editions as PCs are very reluctant to leave their dying-but-alive friends to flee.
The only actual deaths I've seen so far, running both LFR and home games since day 1 (minus a few months last year), were in one session of LFR. The party was mostly level 1 running 3-4 bracket (by request), and one of the encounters was with level 5-6 creatures, including a leader with "badass AOE when bloodied" (the AOE took out most of the party, and the survivors finished off the remaining PC with a lucky crit on a high damage melee hit). Even then, it wasn't a TPK because the remaining few monsters fled (per module instructions), and only 2 of the 4 PCs actually bled out.
Only other time I came close was running a slightly modified beholder in a paragon game. Some of the PCs had the petrification ticker on them when the beholder went down, and wound up getting stoned because I made them continue with saves after the encounter ended... (but the survivors just teleported back to town and got them fixed up). I say "modified" because I ran the fight with completely randomized eye beams (since if you run the creature as written, the creature can choose to completely shut down a given PC with the sleep ray, which leads to the trivial "sleep the healer, disintegrate the tank" strategy).
In general, I'd say the threat-level situation is "working as intended" and a result of certain design decisions (e.g. PC death is bad because "it leaves people sitting at the table with nothing to do", one-shot kills are bad, the fights have to be long enough for "tactics to develop", etc.). I agree that lower-HP/higher-damage monsters help the situation somewhat, but I disagree that three-saves-to-bleed-out is substantially different from the negative-10-death's-door rules. (I don't have monsters coup-de-grace PCs that are already supposedly "mortally wounded", though, so that may be why.)
Only other time I came close was running a slightly modified beholder in a paragon game. Some of the PCs had the petrification ticker on them when the beholder went down, and wound up getting stoned because I made them continue with saves after the encounter ended... (but the survivors just teleported back to town and got them fixed up). I say "modified" because I ran the fight with completely randomized eye beams (since if you run the creature as written, the creature can choose to completely shut down a given PC with the sleep ray, which leads to the trivial "sleep the healer, disintegrate the tank" strategy).
In general, I'd say the threat-level situation is "working as intended" and a result of certain design decisions (e.g. PC death is bad because "it leaves people sitting at the table with nothing to do", one-shot kills are bad, the fights have to be long enough for "tactics to develop", etc.). I agree that lower-HP/higher-damage monsters help the situation somewhat, but I disagree that three-saves-to-bleed-out is substantially different from the negative-10-death's-door rules. (I don't have monsters coup-de-grace PCs that are already supposedly "mortally wounded", though, so that may be why.)
Pseudonym
Ivan Alias
Funny enough, we were talking about these sorts of threads before our session on Sunday. It amazes me when I read threads about how D&D combat isn't lethal enough or statements to that effect. We've just hit 7th level, and we've had five characters die, two from failed death saves, three from getting to their negative bloodied value.
We've had several near TPKs due to smart monsters and bad dice. I guess it depends upon the group, but in my experience 4E is anything but a cakewalk.
We've had several near TPKs due to smart monsters and bad dice. I guess it depends upon the group, but in my experience 4E is anything but a cakewalk.
Fanaelialae
Legend
Considering that the players actually want increased lethality, you could always decrease the number of failed death saves required to two or even one.
I like the following ideas:
Raising monster damage while reducing hp. When I want to scare my players, I throw them up against monsters with half hp and double damage (berserkers). I use it sparingly, but it's never failed to get their attention!
Separating the party during combat can be extremely effective. One of the hardest battles I ever had in 4e was a two pronged raid against a caravan we were escorting.
Ongoing damage has nearly been the death of my characters several times. It's especially effective if you use different types (one ongoing acid and another fire) as these effectively stack (except for untyped, which doesn't stack with anything else).
If you're only doing one encounter a day, the nova potential will make encounters cakewalks. You could require them to reach two milestones in order to gain the benefits of a milestone. For a more organic feel, you might rule that extended rests are only to be had in a comfortable setting, such as an inn or house of healing (though this wouldn't work too well in a city campaign).
A dedicated healer (such as a cleric who focuses on picking up every healing power he can) will noticeably reduce the danger of dying. If you have one of those, talk to the player about it. Substituting damage powers for healing powers will simultaneously reduce the length of fights and increase their lethality. There's no point complaining about reduced lethality if you're playing a PC whose specialty revolves around reducing lethality.
I like the following ideas:
Raising monster damage while reducing hp. When I want to scare my players, I throw them up against monsters with half hp and double damage (berserkers). I use it sparingly, but it's never failed to get their attention!
Separating the party during combat can be extremely effective. One of the hardest battles I ever had in 4e was a two pronged raid against a caravan we were escorting.
Ongoing damage has nearly been the death of my characters several times. It's especially effective if you use different types (one ongoing acid and another fire) as these effectively stack (except for untyped, which doesn't stack with anything else).
If you're only doing one encounter a day, the nova potential will make encounters cakewalks. You could require them to reach two milestones in order to gain the benefits of a milestone. For a more organic feel, you might rule that extended rests are only to be had in a comfortable setting, such as an inn or house of healing (though this wouldn't work too well in a city campaign).
A dedicated healer (such as a cleric who focuses on picking up every healing power he can) will noticeably reduce the danger of dying. If you have one of those, talk to the player about it. Substituting damage powers for healing powers will simultaneously reduce the length of fights and increase their lethality. There's no point complaining about reduced lethality if you're playing a PC whose specialty revolves around reducing lethality.
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
Character deaths happen when:
a) The DM screws up and throws an unwinnable, high damage fight at the PCs and the PCs have to retreat without one of their party members.
b) The PCs screw up. They overextend themselves and push for one more fight in a day (which your PCs never do, because they only fight once per day). They decide that they don't need to worry about someone until they've failed a death save or two. They use the heal to fill themselves past full when their buddy is in a pit of acid.
We've had a party death: we figured that our dragonborn warlord would survive one death save, and then we spent the next few rounds dazed, slowed, in difficult terrain etc etc and thoroughly unable to reach him while he bled out. The fact that we'd already used all the healing dailies available didn't help.
The fact that you're only staging one encounter per day, and that one only at level + 3 means that you're really limiting any possibility for the PCs to screw up. They always have their full complement of dailies to fix any problem that might show up, they always have their full complement of surges to slog through every fight with.
If you insist on having only one fight per day, make that fight a lot harder. I'd suggest increasing the quantity of foes your PCs are fighting. Make sure that additional monsters are brutes, artillery and minions with the occasional leader and controller thrown in and not soldiers (because soldiers just make the game grind).
Be mean. If a creature cannot implement it's favorite tactic, gouge someone who is down instead. If your PCs drop and then stand up again, it's sensible for intelligent monsters to start shoving the unconscious ones off cliffs and into pits, or just laying the boot in.
a) The DM screws up and throws an unwinnable, high damage fight at the PCs and the PCs have to retreat without one of their party members.
b) The PCs screw up. They overextend themselves and push for one more fight in a day (which your PCs never do, because they only fight once per day). They decide that they don't need to worry about someone until they've failed a death save or two. They use the heal to fill themselves past full when their buddy is in a pit of acid.
We've had a party death: we figured that our dragonborn warlord would survive one death save, and then we spent the next few rounds dazed, slowed, in difficult terrain etc etc and thoroughly unable to reach him while he bled out. The fact that we'd already used all the healing dailies available didn't help.
The fact that you're only staging one encounter per day, and that one only at level + 3 means that you're really limiting any possibility for the PCs to screw up. They always have their full complement of dailies to fix any problem that might show up, they always have their full complement of surges to slog through every fight with.
If you insist on having only one fight per day, make that fight a lot harder. I'd suggest increasing the quantity of foes your PCs are fighting. Make sure that additional monsters are brutes, artillery and minions with the occasional leader and controller thrown in and not soldiers (because soldiers just make the game grind).
Be mean. If a creature cannot implement it's favorite tactic, gouge someone who is down instead. If your PCs drop and then stand up again, it's sensible for intelligent monsters to start shoving the unconscious ones off cliffs and into pits, or just laying the boot in.
Scholar & Brutalman
First Post
I think part of the reason for the different experience is the levels you're playing at. In the two campaigns I've seen, the heroic tier was markedly more dangerous for the PCs than paragon. At heroic, it was routine for characters to be making death saves; at paragon, maybe one character has to make one every third battle. I haven't reached epic yet, so I don't know how it plays out.
My guess is that monster damage isn't scaling fast enough. Instead, paragon monsters all seem to get annoying conditions instead, with Immobilize (Save ends) and Daze (save ends) seeming as common as muck.
Primitive Screwhead
First Post
IMO the lethality of 4e depends heavily on number of encounters per day and availabilty of leader/healers. My WoBS game is seriously anti-lethal and have had scenarios where the Ranger waded into the 6th encounter of the day with no dailies, no healing surges, and damn near bloodied.
Of course, he is backed by a Cleric, a Paladin, and a Bard... all of whom swore to keep the ranger from full-filling his death wish. At the players behest.. I tried. Honestly tried to kill of the ranger in a normal combat. I ended up having to cheat a bit by having Aggression {an undead ancient Red Dragon} get the jump on him... and even then Aggression had to spend an action point to take him all the way down before the Cleric could do anything about it.
Flip side, I ran a 1st level game where the same player's character died, failed three saving throws in as many rounds, while the rest of the party was thinking it wasn't that urgent to get to him. The difference? No healer within range.
So, can 4e be lethal and challenging? Absolutely. My goal in each combat is to bloody at least 2 characters and end the day of adventuring with at least one character down to thier last healing surge.
However I think you need 4 to 5 encounters in a day or need to severely cut down on the healing surge availability. Boosting the monster count won't really help out as it adds grind. If you are going to stick to one encounter a day, I would recommend cutting the characters healing surges to 1 + CON mod
Of course, he is backed by a Cleric, a Paladin, and a Bard... all of whom swore to keep the ranger from full-filling his death wish. At the players behest.. I tried. Honestly tried to kill of the ranger in a normal combat. I ended up having to cheat a bit by having Aggression {an undead ancient Red Dragon} get the jump on him... and even then Aggression had to spend an action point to take him all the way down before the Cleric could do anything about it.
Flip side, I ran a 1st level game where the same player's character died, failed three saving throws in as many rounds, while the rest of the party was thinking it wasn't that urgent to get to him. The difference? No healer within range.
So, can 4e be lethal and challenging? Absolutely. My goal in each combat is to bloody at least 2 characters and end the day of adventuring with at least one character down to thier last healing surge.
However I think you need 4 to 5 encounters in a day or need to severely cut down on the healing surge availability. Boosting the monster count won't really help out as it adds grind. If you are going to stick to one encounter a day, I would recommend cutting the characters healing surges to 1 + CON mod
hello, i am a player in the original game and i want to clarify the problem as i see it.
The problem is not that fights are too easy, indeed we drop below zero very often.
The problem is that once you go to zero there is no risk of death... in general players don't feel it is needed to go help your fallen comrade since it is more efficent to deal with the enemy quickly and then tend to your wounded...
sure bad guys can quicken the death with coup de grace and so on but if i was a monster i'd rather take care of the living threats than wasting actions onto uncouscious enemies...
The problem is not that fights are too easy, indeed we drop below zero very often.
The problem is that once you go to zero there is no risk of death... in general players don't feel it is needed to go help your fallen comrade since it is more efficent to deal with the enemy quickly and then tend to your wounded...
sure bad guys can quicken the death with coup de grace and so on but if i was a monster i'd rather take care of the living threats than wasting actions onto uncouscious enemies...
samursus
Explorer
My 2nd level party just had a character get to 2 Death Saves last night. And this was the first encounter of the day, so we had Dailies available.
To the OP, your problem is that your game is missing out on the resource management aspect of the game. Your players have NO reason to hold back using their Dailies (like we did and almost lost 3 characters), and so Level +3 encounters will still be a cake walk.
If you are only doing 1 encounter/session I recommend Level +5 and higher... War of the Burning Sky modules usu those fairly liberally, and with good tactics (or being able to use your Dailies everytime) they CAN be beaten, but are tough fights.
To the OP, your problem is that your game is missing out on the resource management aspect of the game. Your players have NO reason to hold back using their Dailies (like we did and almost lost 3 characters), and so Level +3 encounters will still be a cake walk.
If you are only doing 1 encounter/session I recommend Level +5 and higher... War of the Burning Sky modules usu those fairly liberally, and with good tactics (or being able to use your Dailies everytime) they CAN be beaten, but are tough fights.
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