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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 1479184" data-attributes="member: 114">As a DM I find I have to work hard to not kill PCs off (I even have a houserule that when you reach or pass -10hp you get to make a level check with a DC of your "total" -ve hit points to just stabilise at -10 and not actually die. Without that houserule the original horrifying number of party deaths would have never abated!).Am I a killer DM? Are the PCs silly? Neither of these. It basically comes down to mechanics.Firstly, 3e+ has higher scaling of damage than ever before. High level fights turn out huge amounts of damage and high level characters are just as likely to be killed in an 8 round battle as their 1st/2nd level incarnations.This is mostly because of the design decision that damage and offense increases faster than defense.Secondly, my players all come from 1e backgrounds - where high level characters *knew* they could hang in there for 10-15 rounds before things got hairy and they had to think of bailing out... there has been an underlying perception on the part of all of us that high level characters are tougher than low level characters. The problem is that with the scaling of challenges available now in D&D, this isn't true. Sure, compared with their lower level incarnations they are tougher, and a single unclassed orc or ogre isn't a big deal when they reach 10th level... but the barbed devil could kill them as quickly at 10th level as the orc could at 1st.I think that these two factors contribute hugely to the ease with which PCs can get killed in 3e+ D&D (and personally I abhor the built in "counter" to this which is cheapy raise deads... too much like a video game for my liking).Just my observations.Cheers</blockquote>

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