D&D 4E 4E respawning?

[Oni]

From the few playtest articles at epic levels that I've been able to find, the people do seem to indicate that death is a more common occurance at those levels. However the party is able to deal with these events on the fly in such a way that it doesn't "seem like death". An example is the archmage ability you posted.

I thought about this as weird too, then I realized I was much more comfortable with it if I thought of it as: "Once per day, if you would otherwise die...do x" Epic heros on the verge of death, but instead of dying they get a massive second wind and go apes**t on whatever it is they are fighting. Sounds a lot cooler than "When you die...do x," no?

I like this take on things.

 

[Stalker0]

I say, that kind of adventuring should be in the mix somewhere.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of epic adventuring, but there are people who are, and they should have a piece of the pie too. I'm fine with 1-20 meaning "death is hard" and the last third means its a "minor inconvenience", provided that the first 1-20 provide me enough breadth for good adventuring.

 

[Eldorian]

Nope. It never appealed to me.

You complain about 4e seeming like WoW at high level, even when the mechanic you're complaining about also happened in epic 3e, and in 3e it wasn't like WoW? Seriously, stop complaining just to complain. Hell, the mechanic you're complaining about isn't even respawning. It's more like when a shaman reincarnates or someone uses a warlock's soulstone. If you must whine about MMOs, at least pick one where this mechanic is common, like in City of Heroes, where several classes get an "upon death" power, things like "rise of the phoenix."

I was hoping 4E would fix epicness. I guess I'll have to see it in play to be certain...

I think turning into an arcane ghost upon death is pretty epic. If killing giants with your bare hands and rising from the dead on a daily basis aren't your style, don't play high level DnD. I'll be happy if 4e handles high levels in a way that actually makes them playable, myself. I want to be able to do those over the top things in some games, but I don't want the rest of the mechanics to suck because the game doesn't scale, and 4e seems to be fixing the scaling.

 

[N0Man]

This might be crazy talk, but didn't the idea bringing heroes back from the dead exist in pen and paper D&D long before there was such a thing as an MMRPG?

Why... didn't this exist in myths and legends even before Pen and Paper RPGs?

Why is it that people keep stereotyping every little feature that vaguely exists in MMRPGs as being ripped off from them, even if the MMRPGs ripped off pen and paper, or other pre-existing media???

 

[malraux]

I say, that kind of adventuring should be in the mix somewhere.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of epic adventuring, but there are people who are, and they should have a piece of the pie too. I'm fine with 1-20 meaning "death is hard" and the last third means its a "minor inconvenience", provided that the first 1-20 provide me enough breadth for good adventuring.

I endorse this. I think there's a lot more validity in including a crazy super power tier of play than there is to including a 0-levelish tier. It's probably not for me, but its an important element of the game. And having a system to close out the campaign works a lot better than "guys, there just aren't any monsters left to fight" ending.

 

[Pale Jackal]

I endorse this. I think there's a lot more validity in including a crazy super power tier of play than there is to including a 0-levelish tier. It's probably not for me, but its an important element of the game. And having a system to close out the campaign works a lot better than "guys, there just aren't any monsters left to fight" ending.

A good post. I probably won't be playing in the epic-tier since I prefer 'grittier' (ideally without Raise Dead, Teleport, etc.) games... but given the proclivity of death and resurrection in high level D&D, I think they should embrace it. Not to mention they're going for "all fights are tough" rather than "this fight uses X of your resources" approach which I also think is a good idea. (When I played WoW, for about 4 months, I was always disappointed about how instances focused on intelligent pulling, rather than fighting tough battles where you might actually die.)

I know one doesn't like to pay for content they're not going to use, but it's always easier to say: "There are no "upon death" abilities" rather than "Time for me to make an "upon death" ability."

Ultimately, I think it's a good design decision, even though you (and probably myself) might not actually use the abilities.

 

[Belorin]

This might be crazy talk, but didn't the idea bringing heroes back from the dead exist in pen and paper D&D long before there was such a thing as an MMRPG?

Why... didn't this exist in myths and legends even before Pen and Paper RPGs?

Why is it that people keep stereotyping every little feature that vaguely exists in MMRPGs as being ripped off from them, even if the MMRPGs ripped off pen and paper, or other pre-existing media???

Nope, it's been around as long as D&D has. I've got a 13th level male half-elf rogue who got reincarnated as a female halfling and is still a rogue after losing a level for the reincarnation.
Gotta love the druid reincarnation table.

Bel

 

[Terramotus]

Have people played high level D&D?

This is a game with fortune fate and revivify, people. Where dying is a matter of course at high levels, and being brought back is an equally mundane feature. If anything, this is more interesting than those spells above.

Agree 100%. IIRC in the last battle my long-running FR game the fighter died like 3 times. In one fight. Kelemvor had to install a revolving door for that guy.

I've DMed a campaign from level 1 to level 20. Those non-core spells you mention never saw any use in my campaign. Yes, characters died. Yes, they got resurrected. But I made sure that their deaths were not seen as insignificant or trivial. In fact, I revolved a good part of my campaign around the death of the entire party and their destiny-fulfilling rebirth.

Making death too cheap = bad.

I dunno. I don't know how you avoid making death cheap when save or die spells are being flung around all over the place. To avoid that I would have had to use the kid gloves with the enemies, which I certainly wasn't going to do. It's not a glorious death when you die for the dozenth time and you have to sit around twiddling your thumbs while the rest of the party tries to get to a point where they can bring you back.

 

[Sammael]

Several comments:

1. There are counters to save-or-die spells - abjurations, counterspells, illusions, etc.
2. High-level characters in 3.x had insanely high saving throws (I think the party cleric had Will +40 or thereabout at 20th level, party rogue had Ref +40, and so on... I don't think anyone had less than +20 on any single save)
3. Because of (2) above, I rarely used save or die spells past 15th level, because when I did use them, they were a waste of actions. There were so many spells that were so much more worthwhile...
4. If a high-level enemy used a save-or-die spell and failed, the entire party would jump on him the next round to make sure he wouldn't try again.
5. Having said that, I did have a few deaths related to save or die spells, but the last was (IIRC) around level 11 or so.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I don't think death will be meaningless in Epic, since just in the one quick power blurb it shows numerous ways for characters to bite the dust:

What I am concerned about is more of the text you are quoting, such as:

Once per day, when you die

As if to say, "You are probably going to be dying at least once per day, and here is a magic spell for when you do."

And I'm not saying 3E or previous editions never had "easy access rezzing" available. I am saying, "I was hoping 4E would not continue this route."