Ahwe Yahzhe
First Post
Design & Development: Death Matters
(article)
Dragon 368 - Death Matters - Wizards Community
From discussion above on the Boards-Formerly-Known-As-Gleemax:
What a crock. Dying is completely nerfed. The single biggest problem with 4th Edition, above all else, is that characters NEVER die. My first campaign has been running for 18 sessions now, using primarily the published H-series adventures with a LOT of combat, as is the focus of this edition. Granted, I've got pretty smart players who have absorbed the new rules possibly better than their DM, and who fight very well as a team. They've been both incredibly lucky and unlucky in some battles, so I've seen that variability. That said, the only character death that has occurred so far was at the climactic battle in Shadowkeep Fell. And the only reason two characters died in that battle was the encounter's unique feature that said any PC that goes through this portal dies. (Basically, a save-or-die situation against being pulled through the portal.)
Other than that, I've found that the Death & Dying rules are broken, and barring an actual TPK, as long as one character is not dying at the end of a battle, the whole party will be just fine.
Why? Several reasons, all by very intentional design. Because of copious healing surges and other effects, characters rarely go into a "dying" condition. They are frequently bloodied, sometime bobbing in and out of that condition multiple times in a single fight. This adds some tension and flavor, but little more mechanical significance than the old "full-up fighting at 1hp" of all previous editions. As long as the PC is in the fight, a resourceful player will find a way to bestow that healing surge on himself or his buddy.
But suppose a PC does hit 0 hp or lower? (Thanks for getting rid of the "twilight zone" mechanics of 0 hp, by the way.) No problem- dying is just another ongoing effect, with extra chances to save. Another player will just withstand an opportunity attack or two while he stabilizes or heals the fallen. A DC15 Heal check to stabilize is simple, or divine powers that grant +4 and the like on a static 10-or-better save roll until somebody else can get to him. And that's assuming he isn't outright healed to 1/4 hit points and back in the fight with a minor action like Lay on Hands.
Death from massive damage? I have yet to see a "dying" character come even close to 1/4 negative hit points from any attack or ongoing effect, let alone negative Bloodied- it's really a rule with no practical application.
Finally, when the encounter is over, just take as much time as you need to stabilize any remaining "dying" characters. From there, it's a simple matter to allow a stabilized character to spend 4 healing surges and be at 100% health. No problem. And if somehow a character managed to burn through their endless supply of surges for the day, they can hunker down until the 12-hour ticker expires for an extended rest. Then they get all their hit points back AND their surges, not to mention their dailies. Even in a monster-infested labyrinth (H2) where checks bring up a random encounter or two when the party does try to wait out the clock, this is rarely an issue, because that character, nearly dead just minutes or hours ago, is still in the fight with at least 1/2 hit points against mooks.
So, if one player survives an apocalyptic encounter, the whole party can be stabilized from "dying" as they drop, and five minutes later, the whole party is ready to fight again at full strength, with slight dents in their healing surge pools. (And yes, I've seen something like this happen in my game, only with two of six players standing at the end of an encounter.)
What does this mean? Nobody in the party cannot die, unless the DM decides to TPK them by trapping them in an encounter several levels above their own, or by ganging up on one PC and ensuring the coup-de-grace occurs. (And by "several levels," I mean 5 levels or more higher- my group's standard encounter is pretty much 0-to-3 levels above their own.) Fun fights, but everyone knows their character isn't really going to die, even when the evil DM ramps up the encounter by a level or two by adding an extra this-or-that.
Thanks to immortal characters, the drama is drained out of my game. Combat is fun, but never scary. Minions will be hacked through, brutes worn down, and not all controller and lurker powers are rechargeable. We're back to a PC-DM arms race at worst. At best the party fondly reminiscing about the two heroic characters that died at 3rd level several months ago (again, thanks to the save-or-die encounter feature,) more than the latest group of monsters they utterly dismantled last encounter.
I welcome any suggestions, because I've already tried everything in the rules, especially game clock management. I need a realistic model that fits the average 4-5 encounters a day the players are hitting. My ideas right now include any or all of the following:
-Alveric
(article)
Dragon 368 - Death Matters - Wizards Community
From discussion above on the Boards-Formerly-Known-As-Gleemax:
What a crock. Dying is completely nerfed. The single biggest problem with 4th Edition, above all else, is that characters NEVER die. My first campaign has been running for 18 sessions now, using primarily the published H-series adventures with a LOT of combat, as is the focus of this edition. Granted, I've got pretty smart players who have absorbed the new rules possibly better than their DM, and who fight very well as a team. They've been both incredibly lucky and unlucky in some battles, so I've seen that variability. That said, the only character death that has occurred so far was at the climactic battle in Shadowkeep Fell. And the only reason two characters died in that battle was the encounter's unique feature that said any PC that goes through this portal dies. (Basically, a save-or-die situation against being pulled through the portal.)
Other than that, I've found that the Death & Dying rules are broken, and barring an actual TPK, as long as one character is not dying at the end of a battle, the whole party will be just fine.
Why? Several reasons, all by very intentional design. Because of copious healing surges and other effects, characters rarely go into a "dying" condition. They are frequently bloodied, sometime bobbing in and out of that condition multiple times in a single fight. This adds some tension and flavor, but little more mechanical significance than the old "full-up fighting at 1hp" of all previous editions. As long as the PC is in the fight, a resourceful player will find a way to bestow that healing surge on himself or his buddy.
But suppose a PC does hit 0 hp or lower? (Thanks for getting rid of the "twilight zone" mechanics of 0 hp, by the way.) No problem- dying is just another ongoing effect, with extra chances to save. Another player will just withstand an opportunity attack or two while he stabilizes or heals the fallen. A DC15 Heal check to stabilize is simple, or divine powers that grant +4 and the like on a static 10-or-better save roll until somebody else can get to him. And that's assuming he isn't outright healed to 1/4 hit points and back in the fight with a minor action like Lay on Hands.
Death from massive damage? I have yet to see a "dying" character come even close to 1/4 negative hit points from any attack or ongoing effect, let alone negative Bloodied- it's really a rule with no practical application.
Finally, when the encounter is over, just take as much time as you need to stabilize any remaining "dying" characters. From there, it's a simple matter to allow a stabilized character to spend 4 healing surges and be at 100% health. No problem. And if somehow a character managed to burn through their endless supply of surges for the day, they can hunker down until the 12-hour ticker expires for an extended rest. Then they get all their hit points back AND their surges, not to mention their dailies. Even in a monster-infested labyrinth (H2) where checks bring up a random encounter or two when the party does try to wait out the clock, this is rarely an issue, because that character, nearly dead just minutes or hours ago, is still in the fight with at least 1/2 hit points against mooks.
So, if one player survives an apocalyptic encounter, the whole party can be stabilized from "dying" as they drop, and five minutes later, the whole party is ready to fight again at full strength, with slight dents in their healing surge pools. (And yes, I've seen something like this happen in my game, only with two of six players standing at the end of an encounter.)
What does this mean? Nobody in the party cannot die, unless the DM decides to TPK them by trapping them in an encounter several levels above their own, or by ganging up on one PC and ensuring the coup-de-grace occurs. (And by "several levels," I mean 5 levels or more higher- my group's standard encounter is pretty much 0-to-3 levels above their own.) Fun fights, but everyone knows their character isn't really going to die, even when the evil DM ramps up the encounter by a level or two by adding an extra this-or-that.
Thanks to immortal characters, the drama is drained out of my game. Combat is fun, but never scary. Minions will be hacked through, brutes worn down, and not all controller and lurker powers are rechargeable. We're back to a PC-DM arms race at worst. At best the party fondly reminiscing about the two heroic characters that died at 3rd level several months ago (again, thanks to the save-or-die encounter feature,) more than the latest group of monsters they utterly dismantled last encounter.
I welcome any suggestions, because I've already tried everything in the rules, especially game clock management. I need a realistic model that fits the average 4-5 encounters a day the players are hitting. My ideas right now include any or all of the following:
- Halving the base number of healing surges (not the constitution bonus surges.)
- Increasing the Heal skill check to Stabilize the Dying from DC15 to DC15 plus character level (This is a "the harder they fall" philosophy that offsets skill progression by level.)
- Limit post-"dying" healing to Bloodied hit points until an extended rest is taken.
- Bring back the negative hit point track- you have to heal out a hole, not jump back into the fight at 1/4 hit points and higher.
- An extended rest does NOT heal all hit points- you have to dig into your new day's allotment of healing surges for that.
- Eliminate Second Winds.
-Alveric
