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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7242183" data-attributes="member: 71699">Heh. That was for illustrative purposes and it has prompted the intuition I hoped. We likely share a feeling that a 1:1000 chance of dying is too low / feels too easy.But the maths proves that over the number of encounters that characters will face, even a 1:100 chance of dying is going to kill most of them. I believe that points toward the role of revival magic - Gentle Repose, Revivify, Raise Dead, Reincarnate, Resurrection, True Resurrection. In another thread, I asked DMs their experience with death revival and many related very few deaths, and very few or no revivals. I take no issue with that - of course - but in my opinion the mechanics of D&D point in an entirely different direction: a greater chance of death, and a greater chance of revival.I would argue that a) In order that encounters feel challenging and tense, the risk of death (or other great loss) must be palpable, and b) The lethality ratio that equates with "palpable" will be great enough that characters are certain to die over the expected number of encountersc) Therefore, something needs to bring them back again - a revival ratioFormulae1-(1-lethality)^encounters = death chance1-(1-lethality*(1-revival chance))^encounters = permanent death chanceI may post up a table later showing the implications (for varying lethality and revival assumptions) in terms of how many characters need to be created in order to have one survive across each tier boundary. It is possible to pick tuning values for lethality and revival that match our world assumptions for density of character class equivalent individuals at each tier.I found that the following lethality and revival assumptions worked quite wellDeadly encounter = 1:10 chance of death (of 10 characters going into a deadly encounter, 1 dies)Hard encounter = 1:100 chance of deathEasy-Medium = attritional (no chance of death when considered separately)Revival per tierTier 1 = 1:5 (of 5 characters that die, 4 are permanent)Tier 2 = 2:5Tier 3 = 3:5Tier 4 = 4:5The scaling revival likelihood does two things: 1) maps quite well to a world assumption that however many individuals are tier 1, there are an order of magnitude fewer per tier upward. About half being assumed to retire, and all but one of the rest die.2) appropriately acknowledges the greater work and narrative significance invested into a higher tier character</blockquote>

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