Dragon Editorial: Fearless

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The massive damage rules ensure a "save or die" DC 15 at least once a round at higher levels. 5% of those are auto-failed.

Thaumaturge.

Oh yeah, I forgot that one...

 

[ThirdWizard]

Actually, the problem here is that you had no way of determining what was down the hole without committing yourself to encountering it. Nothing about Save or Die effects as near as I can tell.

Ah, but the paradigm that "one bad decision won't kill you" is very important to this play style. Interesting choices should have interesting consequences, even if those consequences turn out to be deadly themselves, the initial decision won't lead to an inevitable death. It might lead to a second decision that could lead to your death, but you won't go from everything being okay to dead with one choice.

This relates directly to the article in that the choice to jump the track probably won't lead to death itself. It might lead to a situation where death becomes much more likely, but it shouldn't itself lead to imminent, inescapable, death.

On the topic of a 4th level group beating a 11th level solo monster, note that with the 1/2 level progression, the base number is just a +3 difference (+2 for level 4 versus +5 for level 11, as I supposed it will be reounded down)

One thing I'd like to point out at this point (and I agree with you) is for everyone to keep in mind that since 3e goes to level 20 and 4e goes to level 30, a group of 4th level PCs in 4e beating an 11th level encounter is roughly equivalent to a group of 3rd level PCs in 3e beating a level 7 encounter. Very difficult, but not unheard of.

 

[Roman]

True that! The D&D session before last, I killed one PC with the Bodak's gaze attack (he rolled a natural 1 on the saving throw roll...). It actually proved to be one of the best sessions I ever ran. The party was lucky that there was a major monastic temple in the relative vicinity located on holy ground in the Sky Mountains. In my campaign, resurrection can only be cast in major temples and on major holy sites of the given religion and the party had to race to the temple in the mountains to revive their fallen friend and naturally had to face many obstacles on the way, gradually wearing them down. The tension and sense of urgency were great and tingled with the right kind of desperation as the party was running lower and lower on resources. I loved it and so did my players, as they confirmed post-facto!

Resurrection also has a number of other 'features', such affecting the character mechanically depending on the deity that was petitioned for the resurrection - for example the fighter was resurrected by Ariran, the god of the sky, and as a result he cannot voluntarily hold his breath and deny himself air (the element that gave him a second chance at life), but that is for another discussion.

I should note that I do not mean to imply with the above that I am some ardent supporter of the save or die mechanic, though I do feel that it may be necessary in some instances to capture the flavor of some iconic effects/abilities (it should not have 1 as automatic failure in that case though), such as turning one's enemy into a harmless frog (baleful polymorph).

 

[Arnwyn]

A nice article, I guess... too bad it had little to do with 4e. I've been playing that way over multiple editions, now, so I didn't see anything relevant in the article.

Still waiting to see details.

 

[SSquirrel]

Of course not. However, you're not having to rely on as limited a set of resources. This is especially important when the resources are put into control of each of the characters (rather than in the hands of one or two characters..see "cleric." )

Just to toss in a MMO related tale, many times in groups w/people you don't know, you may have at least one person completely unaware of how to fight the monsters and not pull aggro from the tank. Which means they get creamed repeatedly and many times get other monster's attention, killing the entire party. When someone gets killed being stupid several times, the general policy I have seen is that the person is either kicked from the group or the healer justs stops healing them, usually paired w/warnings that are intended to help guide their damage dealing. Most people clue in pretty quickly what needs done, but some never learn.

If someone was doing stupid stuff all the time and kept getting seriously injured and I was one of the party healers, I would tell the guy to work on improving his Heal skill b/c until he started thinking about what he was doing a bit more, he wouldn't get any heals from me

 

[Xethreau]

I like the change, both from a DM and a player standpoint.

One, as a DM, I do not have to be so scared of throwing fun/heroic/outside the box things at my players. Also, I don't have to sit through all their "OMG, I have to inspect this" crap. As it was said earlier in this thread, PC's are crazy paranoid.

As a player, this change makes a lot of sense to me. It seems to me that characters are more likely to do heroic things because the rules are simpler. Also, the things that traps do in 4e make a lot more sense to me than the 3e ones (yes, I am 18, and I did grow up playing Pokemon, Golden Sun, Final Fantasy, and Fire Emblem). I am intrigued that 4th level characters can make the jumps (literal and otherwise) they mentioned in the article, but honestly, if you take a heroic class (and you are not just some bumpkin pigfarmer), then this is how it should be (no offense to IRL pigfarmers, I really like the bacon you make for me.)

Also, just because someone can survive does not mean they come out unscathed. I am sure that if the characters had failed the Dungeneering check to jump the chasm (interesting....), they would have taken damage equivalent to "breaking some bones," or if the characters had been any less tacticle in taking on the 11th level solo creature, one or all of them might have died.

Again, I really like this change. My friend, who is the tutor of the newbie players, always talks about how one always has to be super careful, or else their character will get screwed over. In my opinion, this is metagaming, and not in an OK way. If a character is a paranoid crazy, well then alright, but if your character is brave, tactile, a coward, stupid-brave, or spends all day in ladida-land, then you should be able to play your character like that. Penalties are ok, things like damage or an interesting circumstance, but characters should not get screwed over just for not thinking that the brick wall is sure to be trapped.

 

[Lizard]

What were the alternative games out there then?

Adventures in Fantasy
Age of Chivalry
Bifrost
Boot Hill
Bunnies and Burrows
Chivalry and Sorcery
Empire of the Petal Throne
En Garde
Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo
Gamma World
High Fantasy
John Carter, Warlord of Mars
Knights of the Round Table
Legacy
Metamorphosis Alpha: Fantastic Role-Playing Game
Monsters! Monsters!
Once Upon a Time in the West
Realm of Yolmi
RuneQuest
Simian Combat
Space Quest
Star Patrol
Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier
Starfaring
Starships and Spacemen
Superhero 2044
The Complete Warlock
The Fantasy Trip
The Infinity System
Traveller
Tunnels and Trolls
Uuhraah!
What Price Glory?!

Since you asked....

Several were already in their second edition.

(Edited for readability)

 

[Lizard]

Let me use this to address a slightly different concern -- is 4e any different at level 30 than at level 1?

By this I mean:
Level 1, assumed +1 bonus, DC for an 'untrained' task=10.
Level 30, assumed +15 bonus, DC for an 'untrained' task=25.

If the game scaled so that, basically, you have roughly the same odds of accomplishing a task of the same difficulty? And is task difficulty based on YOUR level, not the difficulty of the task? It's been implied that DCs are set by level, not circumstance, so a fighter trying to hang on to a minecart has a DC 10 check if the party is average first level, a DC 15 check if the party is average 10th level, and so on. Is that how it really works?

I may be misreading it -- it may be the DMG says "Hanging on to a mine cart is a DC 20 task, so be careful asking parties of less than 10th level to try it".

 

[Plane Sailing]

OT, but Just to prove what an oldster I am, I've bolded the ones that I used to play...

Adventures in Fantasy
Age of Chivalry
Bifrost
Boot Hill
Bunnies and Burrows
Chaosium (is this separate from the game company?)
Chivalry and Sorcery
Empire of the Petal Throne
En Garde
Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo
Gamma World
High Fantasy
John Carter, Warlord of Mars
Knights of the Round Table
Legacy
Metamorphosis Alpha: Fantastic Role-Playing Game
Monsters! Monsters!
Once Upon a Time in the West
Realm of Yolmi
RuneQuest
Simian Combat
Space Quest
Star Patrol
Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier
Starfaring
Starships and Spacemen
Superhero 2044
The Complete Warlock
The Fantasy Trip
The Infinity System
Traveller
Tunnels and Trolls
Uuhraah!
What Price Glory?!

Great list there, BTW. You could also include (off the top of my head)

Dragonquest (SPI)
Villains and Vigilantes

 

[Lizard]

Great list there, BTW. You could also include (off the top of my head)

Dragonquest (SPI)
Villains and Vigilantes

1980 and 1979, respectively.

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/encyclopedia/

(Lest anyone thing I knew that off the top of my head)

I originally had just named 6 or 7 I knew for sure were out when I first picked up the dice, then decided for a more authoritative list than my own fading memories, because I know *someone* here would have said something like "Hah! That game out in 1979, not 1978! Liar! You lie! Any more LIES, LIAR? Everyone see how Lizard LIES to prove his point?"

I heart the net, I really do...