Do the PCs ever die in these playtest reports?

[RigaMortus2]

We've seen a dozen or so playtest reports, and one thing that concerns me, is that not one (that I have seen) has ended in a death of a player or a TPK. Has "the threat of death" just been replaced with something less harsh, like "the threat of damage"? We've seen the PCs "get their butts kicked" but in the end (of the report), they always seem to come out on top.

Everyone (ever player) wants their characters to succeed and survive for as long as possible, but w/o any threat of [permanent] death, combat quickly becomes meaningless.

I'm beginning to get the feeling that the classes and their new abilities are too good. All these play test reports and no PC deaths? C'mon...

 

[Derren]

I think I heard of one player dead but I haven't ead it myself.
Still I also have the impression that death will be much more rare in 4E.

 

[danbuter1]

Maybe the authors are more interested in showing off cool moments, instead of their screw-ups that got them killed.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I've read of at least one death. In that case the PC was returned to life so it wouldn't bollux up the playtest. Which does seem strange, surely he should've stayed dead to test how the system handles this. For example how quickly can a new PC be generated.

 

[Reaper Steve]

I think the playtest reports show that the threat of PC death is very real. But (thankfully) it appears that the threat of random-death has been greatly diminished. If a PC dies in 4E, it's most likely because the player made more than one poor decision and passed up at least one opportunity to prevent his fate.

Given that the playtesters writing these reports are the professionals, I think they don't make many poor decisions with their characters.

 

[helium3]

The tidbits I've gleaned from the D&D Articles makes me think that character death is much more rare and that the player has to knowingly put the character in a situation where there is a high chance of death.

This is good, in my opinion. It makes character deaths more heroic, which is how it should be. Of course, without the spectre of death lurking behind every dice role something else has to change to make the game still a challenge.

My hunch is that character death is still the threat that makes adventure exciting. It's just that now it's "boy we better not screw this up or someone's going to have to sacrifice their character to keep the rest of us alive" rather than "boy I hope the DM didn't accidentally pit us against something that's too powerful."

 

[RigaMortus2]

Maybe the authors are more interested in showing off cool moments, instead of their screw-ups that got them killed.

So you can't have such a thing as a "cool" death???

 

[Irda Ranger]

Eh, whatever. If you want to increase risk of mortal results just start with 1x or 2x HD in HP, instead of 3x (as we are assuming 4E does, per SWSE). That should suck the margin of error out of the system.

 

[DeathMutant]

Perhaps with all the MMOG influence, PC's don't die -- they respawn.

 

[WyzardWhately]

I'm almost sure that one of the earlier ones had some PC death. I know I read about how they usually just say the character is alive again and roll on. Seriously, though, once or twice every twelve combats is probably too often for PCs to die. So, it could still be a substantial risk and not have happened in twelve playtest reports. (I know that's not how statistics work, strictly speaking, but I'm not going to bust out my calculator and analyze the odds for various mortality rates against a timeline of continuing session reports.) But think about it. PCs are supposed to have ten fights a level. Even if you cut that down 7 by handing out a lot of XP through social combat, skill challenges (those still in?), and story awards, you're still looking at around 200 fights in a 1-30 campaign. You kill off a PC even every twenty fights, and you're looking at a strong possibility none of the original PCs make it.

It's an interesting thought, though. How often do you *want* PCs to die? Should we cleave to the tradition where it happens fairly often at level one, and tapers down to kind of plateau around five?

My last question is maybe more philosophical. 4E looks to be even more tactical than 3.x was. The guys I'm going to be playing with are, with one or two exceptions, not on the same plane of aptitude that I am. I'm worried that I might have to dumb down my monster tactics to keep from wasting them all the time. I guess that depends on how meaningful the decisions that monsters have to make in combat are. Well, plus how meaningful the decisions the PCs have to make are. But honestly, these guys don't even flank unless I tell them they should. (I'm just playing at the moment, but I'm going to switch over to running when H1 comes out.)