Death and Dying: Annoying new subsystem reduces fun.

[Rechan]

This is the second time that you've responded to a post of mine in such a snarky manner. All I did was ask a question, based on your post and the rules as I perceived them.

What? That was snarky to you? I just responded to your question based on your response and how I preceive the rules.

Once again, as I said to last time we got into it: if you have a specific beef let's take it to e-mail.

The hell?

No, I don't have a "beef", and I see no reason to take anything to email.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

It has? So, you've played with these rules or seen them in action and have empirical evidence that it, in fact, is?

Because what you're looking at is the rules on paper. Sort've like how when everyone looked at 3rd edition for the first time, Monks were CLEARLY overpowered, and everyone was just going to take their first level in Rogue for all those skill points.

And that's how it turned out, exactly like it looked on paper. Right?

If they roll 1-10 three times in a row, they die. Period. That's an easy way to be killed, right there.

Meanwhile, in the playtests, we've had dead PCs. But I thought they were really hard to kill?

It was the way you responded to my post Rechan.

If you'd responded without the snark (which I've bolded) I could see those as straight answers to the question I posed. You however chose to go the condescending route, which is what I'm calling you on.

I don't know you from adam and I've posted questions here before and gotten answers from people without them being snide and snarky, even when we disagreed. But this is the second time that you've responded to me the way that you have. If we were meeting in person and you responded to me like that I'd be confronting you the same exact way.

EDIT: Also you have no way of knowing if I am or have been a playtester, even if I were I couldnt tell you so. Also I can levy the same charge against you: you have no way of knowing (other than what the WOTC designers have selectively posted) whether my assumption is correct or not. You dont know if out of all of the groups that have playtested the game so far if the majority them have found the new rules more or less lethal.

All I did was ask you how you came by the assumption that YOU made. It wasnt an attack. I made a certain assumption about the rules as I read them and you made a different set of assumptions. I wanted to know how you came by yours, if you'd have asked me the same question I would have responded with a lot more respect than you did to mine.

 

[Rechan]

Okay, Shin, you're welcome to your interpretation, but I just don't see that as snark.

 

[Dausuul]

Perhaps, and this is not a slam against this part of the new system, but IMHO being really hard to kill is just as "unrealistic" as having the revolving door of death. It should be noted that I dont really mind RAISE DEAD spells in my game, because these things usually come with a cost. Not to mention the difficulty of finding, much less meeting with a Cleric of high enough level to cast such a spell. Then there's the problem of convincing the Cleric to cast the spell on said PC. I'd think that for something like that the Cleric would have to commune with is deity to see if thats such a good idea and even if the Cleric is allowed to cast the spell there's still the small matter of procuring the 5,000gp in diamond dust (IIRC) that's needed to cast the spell.

Realism be damned. I'm not concerned with "realism" in a game that's got mind flayers and wizards who stop time. What I'm concerned with is a) internal consistency, and b) a fun and exciting game.

For a), I find spells that bring back the dead to be a serious internal-consistency issue for most game worlds. One could certainly design a consistent world containing resurrection magic per the 3E rules, but it would be a very, very different place--a place where the wealthy simply didn't die until old age took them off, a place where people coming back from death was a regular occurrence. Even taking into account the bit about how the soul must want to return... seems like keeping well-connected villains dead would be all but impossible. What soul would want to stay in the Nine Hells, or the Abyss?

For b), I think it makes the game much less fun if death can be reliably reversed. Character death should be very rare, but when it happens, it should be serious business. That increases the tension, and it allows PCs to make heroic last stands and die glorious deaths which wouldn't be possible otherwise. It also means that threats to important NPCs have meaning. If there's a plot afoot to poison the king, the quest to uncover it takes on a lot more urgency when the party cleric can't just requisition a diamond from the treasury and bring him back to life.

 

[The Little Raven]

But these new rules in no way make things more "realistic" it basically just turns the PC's into Warner Brother's cartoon characters in terms of being able to survive the worst kind of beatings.

Or an action-movie or fantasy movie hero. Boromir, who is "riddled with arrows" before he falls. Inigo Montoya, who is flat-out dying when he finally confronts the six-fingered man, but pulls himself out of it through sheer force of will (and some creative wound-staunching). The Game, who was actually shot directly in the heart, went into a coma and lived to come out of it a couple years later. Bullet Tooth Tony was shot six times (in one sitting) and was still alive enough to gut the shooter.

We've plenty of examples of this happening without having to resort to cartoons.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Realism be damned. I'm not concerned with "realism" in a game that's got mind flayers and wizards who stop time. What I'm concerned with is a) internal consistency, and b) a fun and exciting game.

For a), I find spells that bring back the dead to be a serious internal-consistency issue for most game worlds. One could certainly design a consistent world containing resurrection magic per the 3E rules, but it would be a very, very different place--a place where the wealthy simply didn't die until old age took them off, a place where people coming back from death was a regular occurrence. Even taking into account the bit about how the soul must want to return... seems like keeping well-connected villains dead would be all but impossible. What soul would want to stay in the Nine Hells, or the Abyss?

Yeah, but usually the person isnt coming back to life under thier own power, theyre relying on an outside agency to bring them back. In the case of the wealthy, the people who would gain custody of such wealth might be less inclined to bring back the person who died. For example: if Lord Acton just died and left his wealth to his nephew, why would his nephew (unless he's unbelieveably loyal) think to raise his uncle and possibly give up his new found wealth? There are about a million ways to make resurrection magic work in a fantasy world. If it's not your thing, I get that, but it can work where it doesn't seem like a revolving door of rich dead (oh no! wait he's not type folks) .

b), I think it makes the game much less fun if death can be reliably reversed. Character death should be very rare, but when it happens, it should be serious business. That increases the tension, and it allows PCs to make heroic last stands and die glorious deaths which wouldn't be possible otherwise. It also means that threats to important NPCs have meaning. If there's a plot afoot to poison the king, the quest to uncover it takes on a lot more urgency when the party cleric can't just requisition a diamond from the treasury and bring him back to life.

I see your point here, but once again the devil is in the details. There are simple ways to thwart the use of a raise dead spell being used on a subject. A magical poison that would raise the victim as an undead is one way to do the trick and I'm sure any DM or PC familiar with the system can come up with much more. All I'm saying is that there are ways within the parameters of each person's individual game to make it work. Or you can just get rid of it altogether.

 

[Soel]

I wonder how coup de grace works now, or if its even still around...

I like the change, but I would still like coup de grace to be do-able.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I wonder how coup de grace works now, or if its even still around...

I like the change, but I would still like coup de grace to be do-able.

I'd be very surprised if they made major changes to it. The new dying rules are about getting knocked down and slowly bleeding out while coup de grace is all about finishing off an opponent who is already helpless or down. The two rules serve different purposes.

 

[JoeGKushner]

This kicks ass.

And I'm implementing their suggestions into my 3rd ed game now. (Much like I did with Toughness.)

Stuff that actuall SCALES with the characters is useful. Some static, bogus number like -10 that works better for mages 1-10th level than it does fighters 1-5 simply sucks.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

What I really wonder is, will the villain be able to threaten the party with a coup de grace on an incapacitated ally to force them to capitulate? Or will he have to hack at said ally till he is at -60 and dead?

Now, that's a really good question.

Ken