D&D 4E 4e Cartoon Mickymouse Roleplay - tame !!
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I've never really liked Raise Dead, so my fix to make death more threatening is very simple:
There is no Raise Dead.*
*Except on very steep terms (bargaining with yr deity to revive an ally, paying an assload of gold or being pact-bound).
MortalPlague
Adventurer
This is why I houserule out "Raise Dead" until very high paragon / low epic levels. Even then, it's a nebulous gray area of uncertainty; there's no sure thing that you can come back from the dead.
FireLance
Legend
I see where you are coming from, but I think the current trend is for the basic game to support a more episodic style of play where almost everything "resets" after each adventure.
It's a philosophy that is similar to most other games that we are familiar with. For example, in Chess and Monopoly, each new game starts from a clean slate; barring house rules, the winner of the previous game does not start with an advantage over his opponent(s).
Of course, part of the attraction of D&D and most other RPGs is the element of character growth and development. In order to preserve this element, you cannot have a complete "reset" - the character must be allowed to retain improvements (XP earned, better equipment, etc.) between sessions. Everything else, however, can be assumed to go back to "normal".
To be frank, my own gaming group experimented with this style of play even back in the 3E days. Since we were (and still are!) busy working adults, we could only meet up for game sessions infrequently, sometimes less than once per fortnight. So, we developed house rules for the game that would enable us to focus on what we felt were the key attractions of the game and to downplay all the other elements. We stopped tracking XP and simply instituted a rule that the PCs gained a level between adventures. We stopped tracking treasure and simply used the wealth by level tables to determine how much gear each PC had at the start of each adventure. We ignored all long-term effects and assumed that the PCs managed to recover fully by the start of the next adventure. We adopted a "mission of the day" style format for each adventure instead of having campaign arcs. What we did focus on was fighting monsters and overcoming challenges.
Our style of play might not be for everyone, but we enjoyed it then, and we are still enjoying it now, with 4E. In fact, it seems almost as if the designers had players like us in mind when they were coming up with 4E.
It's a philosophy that is similar to most other games that we are familiar with. For example, in Chess and Monopoly, each new game starts from a clean slate; barring house rules, the winner of the previous game does not start with an advantage over his opponent(s).
Of course, part of the attraction of D&D and most other RPGs is the element of character growth and development. In order to preserve this element, you cannot have a complete "reset" - the character must be allowed to retain improvements (XP earned, better equipment, etc.) between sessions. Everything else, however, can be assumed to go back to "normal".
To be frank, my own gaming group experimented with this style of play even back in the 3E days. Since we were (and still are!) busy working adults, we could only meet up for game sessions infrequently, sometimes less than once per fortnight. So, we developed house rules for the game that would enable us to focus on what we felt were the key attractions of the game and to downplay all the other elements. We stopped tracking XP and simply instituted a rule that the PCs gained a level between adventures. We stopped tracking treasure and simply used the wealth by level tables to determine how much gear each PC had at the start of each adventure. We ignored all long-term effects and assumed that the PCs managed to recover fully by the start of the next adventure. We adopted a "mission of the day" style format for each adventure instead of having campaign arcs. What we did focus on was fighting monsters and overcoming challenges.
Our style of play might not be for everyone, but we enjoyed it then, and we are still enjoying it now, with 4E. In fact, it seems almost as if the designers had players like us in mind when they were coming up with 4E.
vagabundo
Adventurer
I'm sure they could do it. I doubt they will though.
Still with the modular system in 4e it is pretty easy for the campaign to change these defaults.
Raise Dead is easily altered and will fix 99% of the problem. There are magic items and Epic level powers that do something similar, but it is Epic level so I'm not sure if it is not appropriate to have death be a speed bump.
The problem with character death - in the heroic tier esp. - is that it can lead to a cascade TPK. When the feces goes down, it gois down fast. I've see a TPK happen within two rounds of the first player death. So that solves the "death has no consequences" problem right there. Don't kill one PC kill them all.
Still with the modular system in 4e it is pretty easy for the campaign to change these defaults.
Raise Dead is easily altered and will fix 99% of the problem. There are magic items and Epic level powers that do something similar, but it is Epic level so I'm not sure if it is not appropriate to have death be a speed bump.
The problem with character death - in the heroic tier esp. - is that it can lead to a cascade TPK. When the feces goes down, it gois down fast. I've see a TPK happen within two rounds of the first player death. So that solves the "death has no consequences" problem right there. Don't kill one PC kill them all.
ExploderWizard
Hero
In my campaign, rituals above 1st level cannot generally be found for sale. People that know the cure disease ritual are few and far between. The raise dead ritual is known to but a few individuals in the world. This helps makes death and disease a much harsher threat.
Black Knight Irios
Explorer
The question is not about "can" but want the designers an increased threat of death. And I think the intend of 4E was to decrease the threat of death.
In 3.x games, depending on lvl, death was nothing more than a way to spend 25k gold. All penalties of death could be canceled by paying 25k gold. Why even bother with death that much.
The one who died wasn't happy anyway - so why must he lose XP or CON or XYZ? You could go in circles if someone died time and time again always losing levels. There was nothing great about that. The worst thing was that the weak classes (FTR/ROG) would die more easily than those that were powerful (true spellcasters WIZ/CLR/DRD) the higher the lvl was - less fun at the table times 2.
So the question would be, what exactly do you want death to do besides the target being dead? And what would be the awesome gain that that change would promote?
ColonelHardisson
What? Me Worry?
Tell that to my players who had a TPK in their first encounter. All of us had played D&D for around 30 years. I'll take the blame as DM; I thought the much-vaunted hyperpowered 4e PCs could handle a half-dozen giant frogs... :/
Fanaelialae
Legend
I don't see it. My group has had several deaths in our various 4e campaigns. Admittedly, 4e is not as deadly at low levels as earlier editions (where I regularly caught DMs going easy on us to avoid killing too many characters) but it's present nonetheless.
The trick in 4e IME, if you want to kill the PCs, is to do your best to kill PCs. Don't pull your punches. 4e characters are generally resilient enough that they can take it, right up until the players do something stupid or have a string of bad luck. Then someone's likely to die.
As to Raise Dead, that's something that's completely in the DM's hands IMO. If you don't want PCs coming back from the dead, don't give them access to the ritual. Personally though, I've never seen a huge difference between raising a dead character and rolling up a new one. What's the penalty; that I have to write up another background?
Admittedly, you could have the PC start at level 1 (or half the average party level, or lose Con, or whatever), but I've never cared for that method. Punishing death by making it more likely that the player will die again isn't good design IMO. It's basically a "beatings will continue until morale improves" approach as far as I'm concerned.
The trick in 4e IME, if you want to kill the PCs, is to do your best to kill PCs. Don't pull your punches. 4e characters are generally resilient enough that they can take it, right up until the players do something stupid or have a string of bad luck. Then someone's likely to die.
As to Raise Dead, that's something that's completely in the DM's hands IMO. If you don't want PCs coming back from the dead, don't give them access to the ritual. Personally though, I've never seen a huge difference between raising a dead character and rolling up a new one. What's the penalty; that I have to write up another background?
Admittedly, you could have the PC start at level 1 (or half the average party level, or lose Con, or whatever), but I've never cared for that method. Punishing death by making it more likely that the player will die again isn't good design IMO. It's basically a "beatings will continue until morale improves" approach as far as I'm concerned.
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