Players dissatisfied with level of danger in 4e

[Dragonblade]

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...

You've solved your own problem. Reduce the number of death saves to two or even one.

I also think your group is also over-rationalizing why a monster wouldn't attack a fallen foe.

When I run monsters as a DM I always play it from the monsters perspective. For some monsters it doesn't make sense to keep attacking a fallen foe. This might be true for say goblin soldiers or skirmishers. But if its a green slime or something unintelligent that only wants to eat, then darn straight that monster is going to ignore the other PCs and focus on its tasty meal. Same thing with undead. They don't feel pain per se, so unless those other PCs are really focusing on saving their comrade by fiercely attacking it, its going to start feeding and let the other undead attack the other PCs. Or at least try to drag its meal off somewhere where it can start feeding.

Also any monster that can gain some sort of bonus or sustenance from inflicting a condition or somehow life draining a fallen PC is going to focus on the fallen PC. They don't fight back and they can just keep draining them dry.

Likewise, area attacks can be really nasty when there is a fallen PC on the ground.

 

[Rechan]

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...

I don't know what to tell you about that, man. If that's your attitude, it's... way different than the ones I've encountered.

Because unless you have a healing potion or someone has a healing skill, how exactly is the individual getting "cured" when the monsters are dead? Isn't the encounter "still going" until the person's death saves have been resolved?

And if you have an abundance of healing potions/healing skill, well there's one thing to pull back on.

 

[Storminator]

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.

I play the cleric in Pseudonym's game.

We routinely have PCs die. We ALWAYS have PCs making death saves. We often have 2 PCs at 2 death saves - and one Healing Word left. I'm always running around triggering Second Wind's after all the healing is gone.

Last game our newest PC was 8 hp away from dead. If that mindflayer had recharged his Mind Blast one more time it was a TPK. We have been one recharge away from a TPK 3 times now.

Our DM revealed our basic problem. We play once a month. He comes up with some scenes a day or two after we play. Then he fiddles, refines, comes up with new diabolical combos... for an entire month.

We'll see if lethality goes down as we go up in level. I'm guessing not.

PS

 

[Dragonblade]

I don't know what to tell you about that, man. If that's your attitude, it's... way different than the ones I've encountered.

Because unless you have a healing potion or someone has a healing skill, how exactly is the individual getting "cured" when the monsters are dead? Isn't the encounter "still going" until the person's death saves have been resolved?

And if you have an abundance of healing potions/healing skill, well there's one thing to pull back on.

This also. Unless you are dribbling a healing potion down their throat, or an ally makes their heal check to stabilize, your fallen comrade is going to just keep making death saves every round even if the combat is over until someone heals them, stabilizes them, or they die. Also don't forget that death saves don't reset until after you have taken an extended rest.

You should have around four encounters between extended rests, if you drop and fail a death save in one encounter that still counts as one failed save already on the books if you drop again in a later encounter.

 

[Dragonblade]

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.

Part of this also has to do with PCs getting smarter and using better tactics and combos as they get more comfortable with their PCs and working with the PCs of the other players.

I ran into this issue in my game so I bump up the monster damage in my game by +5 HP per attack per tier. Worked like a charm.

 

[Storminator]

Also don't forget that death saves don't reset until after you have taken an extended rest.

Short rest.

PS

 

[Obryn]

It kinda sounds to me like you're resetting death saves after a PC gets back into the fight. Remember that they don't reset until a short rest. And while 7 rounds may be average, there's better than a 10% chance it'll happen in just 3.

Also, only running 1 encounter per day - even at L+3 - is way too easy. An L+3 should be one of at least four encounters between extended rests. Otherwise, the party's dailies will more or less demolish most opposition. Given a fresh party with no need to conserve resources, I'd agree with your players that the game sounds like a cakewalk and that there's no risk of failure.

I don't think the game's broken; you're just running it on easy mode.

-O

 

[Thanlis]

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...

Not at all. Intelligent monsters are probably aware that clerics and the like can get downed foes back on their feat; it's completely reasonable for them to remove that possibility from the table.

I am a bit confused when you say it's more efficient to just heal people after the fight, though. Surely if one PC is down, it's going to take that much longer to finish off the monsters? If you stand a PC back up, you have one more person fighting on your side. It sort of seems like maybe there's something else going on here, especially since a leader's heal is a minor action. What else were you using those for?

Oh, and the other piece of advice I'd give -- sometimes a monster will drag a downed PC away. That focuses attention wonderfully. It's not a coup de grace, it's a hungry monster saving something to eat later, far away from the nasty PCs.

 

[Skallgrim]

As many people have pointed out, you are running one encounter per day. This is overtly not part of the 4e design. I'm not going to try to talk you out of this, as it is your choice, but I'd like to reiterate at least some of the effects this has.

First, it makes the PCs daily powers much more useful, as they can reasonably expect to be able to use them in each fight. Careful rationing of Dailies, particularly conserving them during easier fights, is a normal part of 4e. Being able to use them each fight is simply going to make the fight much easier.

Healing Surges aren't a limiting factor. A deadly fight in one of my games is one where one or more PCs are low on healing surges, but the party cannot take an extended rest to recover them. If there is consistently only one fight per day, then any party with available healing will probably have tons of ways to get back into the fight.

Death Saves do not reset until you take an Extended Rest (unless I've totally missed that Errata). This means that the guy who goes down in one fight is one step closer to death in the next one. If you only do one Fight per day, then the "Three Strikes" rule almost never shows up.

If, for whatever reason, you've chosen to run a game where Daily powers are effectively Encounter powers, Healing Surges are effectively unlimited, and Death Saves have little consequences, then OF COURSE, Death is not to be feared.

Perhaps, if you cannot be convinced to try multi-encounter days, you might consider extremely high level encounters with waves. I'm talking level +5 or more, but with monsters of the appropriate level (party level-2 to party level+3 monsters) in large numbers. Then you could stagger these monsters, without all of them being encountered at one time (or even in the same room). This will push your PCs a bit harder, as the fight will last MUCH, MUCH longer, so they will be more likely to use up dailies, available healing, AND possibly run into the Three Strikes rule.

On the other hand, since you ALSO seem to feel that your fights last too long at 60+ minutes, this may not be an option. In that case, I think you simply might be playing the wrong game. D&D4e doesn't seem designed to provide single quickly resolved, reasonably deadly combats. You can change a LOT of the stuff to make it have both quick and deadly fights, but at that point, I think you'd be better off either playing another game or developing your own homebrew game. This isn't an insult. Some people prefer different playstyles, but not every game is really intended to suit every play style. Your party's preference sounds, at least to me, a lot more like AD&D (which I also loved, loved, loved). It might be more satisfying to run something like that (or Hackmaster, or GURPS).

I think you COULD modify 4e for that playstyle, but there would need to be a lot of changes, a LOT of rebalancing, and quite a bit of the written rules (feats, powers, etc). would be of minimal use. Who cares if you get extra healing during short rests, for example, if you take an extended rest after each fight? Who cares if your armor gives you extra death saves, if the group never comes close to needing three?

 

[Ourph]

Could it be because we often have only one encounter per day, though it's invariably at (PC levels + 3) or more?

Definitely.

So, what are your experiences with regards to danger and risk of death in 4e?

The first or second encounter after an extended rest is often fun, but not particularly difficult for the PCs. The 3rd and subsequent encounters are often nail biters. If my players chose to only have one encounter between extended rests, the game would become very boring, very quickly.

If your players are wanting a more "heroic" feel, I'm kind of surprised they are choosing to have only one encounter between extended rests. I've never encountered a "heroic" story where the protagonist beats up one bad guy and then goes to bed for the rest of the day.