Dragon Editorial: Fearless

[Brother MacLaren]

I'm glad it works for you, but I just can't be that kind and gentle as a DM, and I refuse to use kid gloves on my PCs. So I've mostly taken death out of my game. That way, there's no real way for the PCs to escape their suffering and torture, and when they fail, they have to live with the repercussions of their failures.

If the reprecussions of failure are worse than death, do you allow your PCs to sacrifice themselves heroically to prevent failure? There are myriad ways to do this depending on the situation, and there are many cases where my PCs would rather die than let the BBEG get away or triumph, or where they would give their lives to protect family, clan, or kingdom. It's not that I want to throw away my PCs... but I usually play pretty heroic and driven PCs who would lay down their lives for a good cause if need be.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Hehe.



What?

 

[shilsen]

If the reprecussions of failure are worse than death, do you allow your PCs to sacrifice themselves heroically to prevent failure? There are myriad ways to do this depending on the situation, and there are many cases where my PCs would rather die than let the BBEG get away or triumph, or where they would give their lives to protect family, clan, or kingdom. It's not that I want to throw away my PCs... but I usually play pretty heroic and driven PCs who would lay down their lives for a good cause if need be.

Oh, sure - they can sacrifice themselves heroically to prevent failure if they want. That's mostly in theory, however, since they haven't yet actually managed to do so. In most of the dire situations they've experienced, they've had to suck it up and survive. Anyway, I kinda prefer it that way. Dying for a cause is really easy and requires no particular effort. Living for a cause? Now that takes some serious effort and heroism.

 

[DarkKestral]

Dying for a cause is really easy and requires no particular effort. Living for a cause? Now that takes some serious effort and heroism.

I like the way Robert Jordan put it in the Wheel of Time books. While they started dragging after a while, sometimes he had some nice material.

"Death is lighter than a feather, but duty is heavier than a mountain."

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Dying for a cause is really easy and requires no particular effort.

Well, the dying part is easy, but actually finding a way to do it so that it makes a difference can be tricky, epic, and cinematic. My druid may be doing this next session... 2 PCs dead, 3 plus a cohort remaining, immensely difficult fight. Of my druid's 10 remaining tactics to try, 2 are near-certain death for when all else has failed. Retreat is a possibility, but would only be used if it seemed that the death gambit wouldn't defeat the opponent.

So death+success > fleeing > death+failure.

 

[Wormwood]

I'm pleasantly surprised to find that I'm not the only DM who had hit points refresh between encounters.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm pleasantly surprised to find that I'm not the only DM who had hit points refresh between encounters.

We do it also. We call the mechanic "Wand of Cure Light Wounds".

Okay, so maybe it isn't exactly an house rule the way we do it. But it's rare for anyone to enter combat not at 100 % hit points. (And it's also rare for combats not to bring some of the melee combatants close to zero, either - and that's with us playing the Paizo Adventure Paths most of the time.)

 

[jtrowell]

I am currently running a campaign where I started making some change imported from Star Wars Saga and what I think will be in 4th edition.

I will not write about all of the change I did, but one of them was about the healing powers :

if they use the version that now works at will or per encounter, they cannont heal more than half their max hit points (the equivalent of a bloodied state).

If they want to heal more than that they must use their power points (per day ressource)

So with this rule, if they have time to rest a few minutes after a battle, they are sure to go back to at least 50% their hit points.

More than that, and they have to sacrifice a few precious power points (with my variant system, they only get half the normal total, in exchange of being able to use some weaker version of some powers free of charge at will or per encounter)

This has 2 major advantages :

- they always start a fight at least with 1/2 HP, so they are less tempted to do the 15 minutes workday, while still trying not to get hurt too much (if they could heal fully without expending something, they would propably be tempted to go nova more)

- with weak version of some powers useable at will or per encounter without expending power points, even easy fights become more fun for the player, as they can still do some damage without worrying of 'wasting' ressources.

The 14th level wilder being able to use a free 4d10 mind thrust (or 8d10 with a wild surge) once or twice per encounter (I use a recharge system inspired by Tome of Battle, the wilder using something not unlike the crusader random recharge) for 0 psi points (unless he try a wild surge and overload) is not broken for his level, but it's still better than using a crossbow.

 

[Wormwood]

We do it also. We call the mechanic "Wand of Cure Light Wounds".

In all seriousness, that's how it started for my group!

The PCs were going through healing wands like PEZ dispensers, which motivated me to eliminate "speed bump" attrition encounters and focus on fewer but tougher encounters. This in turn inspired us to tinker with per/encounter abilities and self healing and all kinds of weird stuff that is strangely echoed in 4e.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I like the way Robert Jordan put it in the Wheel of Time books. While they started dragging after a while, sometimes he had some nice material.

"Death is lighter than a feather, but duty is heavier than a mountain."

That's either an allusion to, or direct plagiarism from, Go Rin No Sho (Book of Five Rings). "Death is a feather, duty is a mountain."

(Given what I think about Jordan, I submit that it's the latter.)