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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zaruthustran" data-source="post: 3742597" data-attributes="member: 1457">Well, that's just it. You sit down with your friends to play this new game, and bam--with a single hit in the first round of combat, you're out of the game.That's a terrible play experience.Doesn't matter if you're killed by that one hit or not. It's still lame for Johan, Knight of Valaria to get dropped by a single blow. I imagine that 4E will do two specific things to combat this: more HP at first level, and mooks will not be able to crit. Those two changes will let the DM better manage his dramatic flow and tension without being derailed by an unexpected event. For a specific example: I was playing a third level ranger, and we encountered some orcs guarding a mine. Parlay broke down and initiative was rolled. Before my turn came up, an orc shot my character with a natural 20 from a composite longbow (the kind with str bonus). Max damage was rolled, and just like that: character dead. DM didn't want it to happen--these guys were meant to just slow us down, not kill characters. Character death should be dramatic, should be Boromir or Ben Kenobi or Vasquez. -z</blockquote>