Dragon 368 - Death Matters (But Never Happens)

[Nebulous]

Personally, I have a hard time running monsters to their best ability. I have a real reluctance to really go after characters and try and kill them - I think I'm slightly afraid of what might happen if I kill someone's character.

I have this reluctance as well, but i think that a DM that really wants (wants?) to kill a PC can do it. It will probably take some planning, targeting a weakness that you know a PC has, and then trying to simultaneously hamper his allies from helping. We had one character die in the Irontooth encounter, but i have had them drop to negative several times, and don't think it would be that hard to engineer a tough fight without ending in a TPK.

I don't think the 4e system is at fault here quite as much as you do. Sure, PC's can get back up again - but you have to remember that monster tactics are in your hands. If you want to play smart - do so! Have the monsters fall back, pick up reinforcements, run for help, get behind cover and so on.

Also - make sure you go over the rules for healing surges, check that your players have the right amount and that they're using them correctly. Characters certainly don't have an 'infinite' number, and it may be that they're getting the rules long, which continues the problem.

I haven't even started to use coup de grace against fallen PCs, but this is a highly reasonable tactic, although players will likely hate you for it.

"Why...exactly...did those three bugbears stab my unconscious body? There are bigger threats around!"

I do agree that there are a CRAPLOAD of healing surges, and i'm sure that sometimes people get the math wrong. That's one aspect of the game that was much easier to monitor in 1st, 2nd, 3rd edition, how much healing the characters how. Now, that's all in their hands. Sure, i can try to keep tabs on it, but the DM has plenty to worry about already.

 

[ValhallaGH]

My first four sessions all ended with a TPK.

I was running normal adventures for (slightly) smaller parties. Players often made major tactical mistakes.

PCs die in 4E. If they don't in your games then a) they're good players, b) they're lucky with die rolls, c) you're taking it easy on them.
If none of those three seem true then c) is true and you just don't realize it.

 

[the Jester]

Remember, you get 3 failed death checks per encounter, not per time you drop below 0 hp.

This is a huge factor, and we've been doing it wrong all this time.

I bet there'd have been another death or two imc by now if I'd been using this rule correctly. But que sera sera. I'm still actually quite pleased with the dying rules- you have a chance to save your pal when he's down, but you better get on it!

 

[Mengu]

When people are hit by AoE's and aura's while they are down, or they fall unconscious inside a trap or zone that keeps dealing damage, they can die from going negative bloodied, especially at low to mid heroic levels.

Also someone who runs out of healing surges, may be difficult to save without a paladin.

Otherwise, the combat has to come close to a TPK, for one person to fail enough death saves to die before they can be rescued. In a 6-man party death will be a lot rarer than in a 4-man party, because there is always someone available to help the dying. Immobilizing, dazing, and stunning effects can make it difficult to help the dying.

 

[Walking Dad]

My character died vs Irontooth (KoTSF).

Just my expirience.

 

[WalterKovacs]

I have not had a PC death in the game that I've DM'ed, but I've definitely put some PCs to the ground anyway. They've run out of surges for the day during encounters, they've EASILY run out of non-healing potion ways to heal [with a tactical warlord and no divine characters in the party ... there are the second winds, 2 words and a couple other warlord powers].

In the game I play in, the DM is a bit more tactical [and the party is a bit less cohesive] and we've had some "divine interventions" to avoid characters dying mid-combat because of multiple death saves. A stabilization check is a standard action. That's taking a turn NOT attacking the monster to stabilize your friend. That means you are giving the monster an extra turn to kill the rest of the party. At lower levels, that 15 isn't necessarily a given, [not every member of the party will have good wisdom and train in heal]. If you fail the save, that's another attack you give up, etc. And there was a bit of "get up, make an attack, get hit, go back down" going on in those fights as well. Of course, it was, again, only a warlord, so now that the party is adding some extra PCs, a cleric is joining the party which will hopefully help things out.

In general, the threat isn't always death ... but using up more surges than you need to might lead to the threat of death later in the day [assuming the DM doesn't let you just take an extended rest whenever].

As for the "if you are at 0, you can just use up 4 surges]. If you aren't a defender, and 4 surges is a LOT of your surges. Presumably, you would have used some surges before you dropped to 0, so you may use up nearly a full day of surges as a result, not to mention didn't act for a portion of the fight. It may not be death, but it was making that encounter harder on the rest of the party, and the resources you used up for yourself [and perhaps the rest of the party had to use as a result] would at LEAST shorten the adventuring day if nothing else ... and could come back to bite you later in the day.

 

[James McMurray]

Death is just one source of drama in the game. If it isn't a factor, replace it with consequences that matter to the players. Just because you can stop and take an extended rest doesn't mean the rest of the world stops as well. The things you're trying to do may not get done if you take too long, and you have to watch out for enemy patrols when you're resting or you'll find yourself waking up to a spear in your back.

My character died vs Irontooth (KoTSF).

Just my expirience.

Irontooth and his friends took out our entire party because we let one of the kobolds outside escape and when we went in we were fighting him and a gazillion of his allies.

We've also had people die to wraiths, a flesh golem backed by a swarm of undead and a trap, a purple worm, and a few other things I can't recall offhand.

We've got a pretty tactical bunch though, so no matter who is running the game they're a match for the rest of the party as far as combat strategy goes. I can definitely see a tactically minded group of players walking all over combats if their GM is a more story-oriented guy.

 

[Obryn]

Huh. Well, all I can say is that death in my campaign has been fairly common so far. It's been an ever-present threat in every fairly complex battle. We even have a healing-centric cleric in the group.

* Healing surges are not that easy to use in the middle of a fight. Unless your party has a lot of Leaders (or people multiclassed into Leaders), each character gets to spend one and it takes a standard action. Then, the Leaders can trigger two more, each. Past that, you're looking at healing potions... which are useful, yeah, but hardly overpowered.

* Smart monsters will focus their fire on bringing down the bloodiest PC - or the one who's doing the most damage. Or the healer. Because of this, my players fear hobgoblins.

* Remember that a successful death save does not get you out of the Dying condition unless it's a 20. If you succeed your death save, it just means you don't die more this round.

* You get 3 failed death saves per encounter. Not per time you drop.

(These last two notes have made combat in my own game deadlier than it was in 3e.)


As for halving healing surges... I'd probably recommend against it. I understand what you're going for, but it will drastically shorten the adventuring day. You can only use so many per combat, so you wouldn't be making each individual fight more difficult - you'd just be encouraging them to run out and hole up after each battle. If that's your intended goal - go for it! But I don't think it will help your goal of making each fight tougher.

-O

 

[Mercule]

I don't have enough 4e experience to say first hand, but it certainly seems like death is not that far away.

My personal preferrence would have been to have death be an exceptional event, but remove raise dead and the like completely. At the least, delay them for one whole tier (17th level instead of 7th -- or whatever).

It isn't "Oh death, where art thou?" It's "Oh death, where is thy sting?"

 

[darkadelphia]

I'm DMing a game that just got to 7th level. I killed a character in the very first session (a cleric who got isolated from the party, unusual circumstances). I TPK'd the party in a fight versus a gelatinous cube and two spider swarms around level 5. At level 6, the Cleric got killed in a situation where the Defender got isolated across the room and skirmishers were able to surround him.

Death still happens. If the PCs are better tacticians than the DM, yeah, 4e characters are too hardy to just be knocked down by the monsters going toe to toe. However, if the DM is ready to take advantage of tactical errors, then encounters can get pretty tough.

Personally, I'm more concerned that I'm killing my players too often, but YMMV.