D&D 4E 4e How Should PCs be allowed to Die (Cinematically or Like Everyone Else)?

[BlackMoria]

In real life, people die ignoble and meaningless deaths. So it should be the same in the D&D game.

I don't believe that it is good to bend over backwards to ensure that PCs die a 'good' death.

Even a completely unheroic death can be memorable and more importantly, a good teaching point, if the death is due to poor decision making, poor tactics or downright player hubris.

Deaths due to lousy die rolls can be mitigated without formalizing some mechanic in 4E to ensure a 'meaningful' death. This can be accomplished by using action points, hero points or good ol' DM die fudging.

Making rules to save characters from the owning player's own idiocy or hubris does a disservice by allowing such behaviors to continue.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I for one am really excited about 4e's Player's Handbook II: The Complete Book of Heart Attacks

 

[gizmo33]

In real life, people die ignoble and meaningless deaths. So it should be the same in the D&D game.

Making rules to save characters from the owning player's own idiocy or hubris does a disservice by allowing such behaviors to continue.

The first and second quote are somewhat contradictory IMO. In real life bad things happen to people that do smart things, and good things happen to people that do stupid things. Because of luck there's not always a correlation between someone making the "right" decision and success. Also, it's somewhat presumptuous of the DM to assume he always knows what the "smart" thing is to do. There are often times when I observe someone doing something stupid - either in real life or DnD - and it works out for them in the end. Bottom line: I find it most respectful of my players to get out of the business of judging whether or not they are being stupid and just roll the dice and judge the events.

 

[Fobok]

Even a completely unheroic death can be memorable and more importantly, a good teaching point, if the death is due to poor decision making, poor tactics or downright player hubris.

Deaths due to lousy die rolls can be mitigated without formalizing some mechanic in 4E to ensure a 'meaningful' death. This can be accomplished by using action points, hero points or good ol' DM die fudging.

But that's just it. The only thing I've seen anybody complain about as far as dying is the lousy die rolls. (And even then, a lousy die roll at the beginning of a battle specifically.)

I do think that save-or-die spells should go except for maybe one or two. Beyond that, a well-designed action point system should be all that's needed to keep the fun flowing while keeping a feeling of risk.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I don't mind hero's in D&D dying meaningless deaths, if everyone died meaningful deaths then well, they wouldn't be meaningful.

Remathilis's post pretty much sums up the basis of the argument pretty well.

Though I would say 'assassination while sleeping' can be acceptable. Such as if PCs fail to set up a nightly watch or bother to even cast an alarm spell while spending the night in the Forest of Doom or what have you. But that's more death through player inaction.

I think the occaisonal death through dice (luck, what have you) should occur and set backs through poor rolling should occur. Cause otherwise the dice don't matter and the element of randomness is out of the game.
I favor action point systems to reduce the occurence of it but it should still happen.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

IMO monsters, spells and effects that produce a save-or-die situation for the PCs aren't scary. Not in the horror, action or adventure sense. They're a real pain, that your tough as titanium nails dwarf might roll a 1 and that's it, no chance to do anything about it. Situations where something bad happens and the PCs start to worry - so, say, someone is paralysed, or starts rapidly losing HP, or is left vulnerable, gives them a scary situation. Do they try to protect/dispel/save that PC, or should they concentrate on the source of the problem. The former could jeopardise another PC whilst the source attacks again, the latter is a risk that might eliminate the danger. Those sort of fights are great fun, because if the source has AC a billion or unlimited HP, whereas the PC can be cured trivially, then the players can only blame themselves if they do the stupid thing.

So I don't really want save-or-die, I want save-or-OMG-We'd-Better-Do-Something. I don't want to gamble with my character's life, giving them a 5% chance of death every tought fight, I want to gamble with my character's life by making tough combat decisions and resource use. I want some say in whether I did enough to avoid my death. Not to mention that Christmas Tree Syndrome is heavily influenced by trying to find ways to avoid those 5% chances, through immunities and contingencies and such.

Oh and I'll add that you shouldn't have to know the spell list inside out to set up all the contingencies against possible attacks/deaths. It's a fantasy game and as much as possible should be done so that the players can think 'Hm, how might the BBEG try to stop us.. traps, sure, poisoned lures, yup, but teleporting in a fully buffed party of assassins with nothing but save-or-die spells queued up, that's just unfair!' Because it is unfair - I hate that the minute you hit 9th level, suddenly everything in the world is dimensionally locked, nowhere can be scryed and every night you go to sleep you need to ward yourself a million ways to prevent assassination.

 

[Grog]

In real life, people die ignoble and meaningless deaths. So it should be the same in the D&D game.

D&D isn't intended to model real life. It's intended to model heroic fantasy. There's a big difference.

 

[gizmo33]

D&D isn't intended to model real life. It's intended to model heroic fantasy. There's a big difference.

What makes the actions of the hero "extraordinary" is that the expectations of real life are the base. If you have a game system where the only possibilities are "extraordinary" possibilities, then those become less extraordinary because your frame of reference is no longer real life. If no one can die from a kobold's crossbow bolt, then the action scene where the hero dodges a dozen such bolts to save the princess doesn't have much zing in the game system (other than what you invest in it with a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief, ie. suspension of your knowledge of the probable results of the game system which in this example is the rule that your hero cannot be killed by kobold crossbow bolts)

 

[WayneLigon]

Here is a question I NEVER in a million years thought I would be posting in a Dungeons and Dragons, heroic fantasy RPing forum such as this.

Why? As a lot of other games have evolved away from the 'you die just like a pissant peseant' model, so eventually will D&D.

Characters in stories do what they do because they are written that way, there are no dice involved when R.A. Salvatore writes the cool final battle between Drizzt and the BBEG of the novel. There were no dice involved when Conan battled the manifestation of Set.

No, but there are ways to do things so that PC's aren't killed by the stupid background characters, or the environment, or just random stuff. That's the kind of stuff that happens to The Help. Wound levels, fate points, mook or minion rules, etc; all these can be the thing that sets the heroes apart from the schmucks.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Death from HP Damage: Yes
Death from Traps (Non-Save-or-Die): Yes
Death from Drowning: Yes
Death from Being Eaten: Yes
Death from Slow Effect (slowly turning to stone, etc): Yes
Death from Pre-Arranged Plot Development: Yes
Death from Save-or-Die: No