Dragon Editorial: Fearless

[Doug McCrae]

In 3.5 I've lost a PC to a phantasmal killer trap and another to circle of death, 4th and 6th level spells respectively. I've died three times from a ragewalker's Induce Blood Frenzy ability. Two of those were the same PC (and the same ragewalker). DC 28 will save = ouch. The ability effectively means only the strongest melee character in the party survives. All three times that wasn't me.

As a DM I've killed a PC with a medusa's petrification as he failed his 'system shock' check to be stone to fleshed. And I caused a TPK with an umber hulk's confusion - everyone failed the save.

I'd say approximately half of all PC deaths are to SoDs or SoSomethingReallyBadHappens. A quarter are to big monsters with improved grab, those are vicious in 3e. The remaining quarter are miscellaneous.

 

[Grog]

To use my trusted movie examples, in 4E Indiana Jones would behave like the original Terminator.

No. In 4E, Indiana Jones behaves just as he does in the movies, and things happen the same way.

In 3E, Indiana Jones dies halfway through the first movie.

 

[Wormwood]

No. In 4E, Indiana Jones behaves just as he does in the movies, and things happen the same way.

In 3E, Indiana Jones dies halfway through the first movie.

I disagree.

1e = Indy dies. Indy's cousin Oklahoma finishes the film.

3e = Indy limps back to the surface, weakened, energy drained, and out of daily uses of his 'punch Nazi' power. The movie is 8 hours long.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I want to feel the game will be *hard*.

It's a mass market game. They want to sell hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of PHBs. They're not making it hard. You make your game hard if you like. It's pretty easy, just increase the power and/or number of monsters relative to the PC's power.

 

[WyzardWhately]

It's a mass market game. They want to sell hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of PHBs. They're not making it hard. You make your game hard if you like. It's pretty easy, just increase the power and/or number of monsters relative to the PC's power.

Sort of like how nothing in a family chain restaurant is going to be genuinely spicy, no matter what lies the little clipart pepper tells me.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don´t care if the game is not deadly... DnD should not be that deadly as it is today... If you want it more deadly, just increase the Monster/Trap Level.

the problem of 3.X is imbalance of attack vs defense, to the point that monsters are easy to kill, but can kill you easy too. Take dire animals as an example (something like Attack +12 (2d6+10), rake, improved grab, but only AC 14).
If you put more durable monsters in a combat, the damage output is much too high.

If you look at the balor, you could actually survive a round or two if you are Level 15. And he is at no risk of beeing killed... actually you can let him appear, threatening the players and he will survive...

In 3.5 I had once a high level Rakshasa sorcerer who wanted to parley... of fear of beeing killed outright he used illusions and invis... and even with precautions he would have had nearly no chance to do any damage if he didn´t act first and killed all of them...

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Oh I get it, and yeah I'm done because I do see the uselessness in explaining heroism to cowards. No wonder 4e is going to be the way it is if you're the average playtester.

OK, JLXC, I think you're going a bit overboard here calling out the other people on this thread as 'cowards'.

Actually, this discussion reminds me of one of the early X-Files episodes. Mulder has finally located a UFO witness, who is a scrawny geeky guy who lives in a trailer. At one point Mulder is going off to spy on bad guys and tells the geek to wait behind because it will be dangerous.

At which point the UFO geek deadpans, "it's OK, I didn't spend all those years playing D&D without learning a thing or two about courage".

Ken

 

[Spatula]

er - Travel domain is given as one of the powergamer choices

Erase spell was given as a subpar character choice...

And why would you want clearly subpar character choices to be available in the game? Isn't it somewhat better if all PCs have a range of choices of equivalent value or interest?

I was quoting the relevant section for reference purposes; I understood the author's meaning just fine.

I don't want subpar choices. That doesn't change that there will be subpar choices, despite the game designers' best efforts. To claim otherwise ("Don't get me wrong: I like 3E as much as the next guy, but the unifying math behind the game tended to, well, allow for a range of options, to put it delicately") is either a sign extreme hubris, or of extreme ignorance of how games are played.

 

[Cmarco]

And the action movie garbage bothers me. Is this game still playable if you don't want a two dimensional action-explosion fest?

As it has always been throughout D&D's 30+ year history, the game is what you make of it. My campaigns typically have a lot of dialogue, politics, intrigue, along with healthy doses of action and excitement. Just because combat plays more like an action movie doesn't mean that the whole campaign should be explosions, cool fatality-style kills, and death-defying stunts. It should be there if you want it, and it is.

 

[Lizard]

It's a mass market game. They want to sell hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of PHBs. They're not making it hard. You make your game hard if you like. It's pretty easy, just increase the power and/or number of monsters relative to the PC's power.

They sold hundreds of thousands of copies of 3e. And *millions* of copies of 1e, when you rolled for hit points at first level and were often killed by small weasels.