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Ever try PC death at 0 hit points?
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<blockquote data-quote="pming" data-source="post: 7492654" data-attributes="member: 45197"><p>Hiya!</p><p></p><p>For 5e? Nope. </p><p></p><p>Why not? PC death isn't even <em>remotely </em>as 'rare' in my games as it seems to be in others. In a nutshell, over the last 4 years (wow...5e's been out that long already?), we haven't had any PC crest more than 7th level. Most PC's don't make it past 3rd or 4th.</p><p></p><p>How? (usually the next question I'm asked). It's really simple: <em>I don't "build" adventures 'for' the PC's.</em> It really does seem to be as simple as that. If I feel like writing/stocking a 3rd-level dungeon for my group I just start mapping. As I do so I think about where this 'dungeon' is. Who built it, why, where, etc. The info about my campaign world and the answeres to those questions is the primary determinant of what "goes into it". So if it ends up being, say, an old mine system taken over by 'scavenging' type monsters (giant ants, spiders, rats, etc), then that's the 'theme' I go with. I will write up interesting areas, traps, tricks and whatnot based on THOSE criteria...I don't care what type of PC's find themselves in that dungeon. If the PC's have no means of defending against poison, for example, well, tough noogies. If there is a trap that would be easily overcome with some particular spell, and nobody in the party has it...tough noogies. If there is a particular monster that will wipe the floor with a party that has no means of ranged attacks....again, tough noogies. Not my problem. I'm just the DM, it's not up to me to fix the PC's problems or provide 'obvious' (or even non-obvious) solutions.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, I found that over the decades, designing stuff for my campaign world this way...more or less "without regard for the PC's capabilities other than the most basic of average-party-level"...my adventures are plenty deadly. They only become less deadly if I'm running a 'newer' adventure module (re: something made for 3.x or later, generally speaking)...because IMNSHO, adventures "nowadays" have been specifically designed to be "a challenge" for the PC's. And that is a HUGE difference from an adventure being designed "to kill unsuspecting adventurers". Give me the latter any day of the week! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>(PS: And yeah, my group prefers it that way. We are all, as a group, proud of "Bearkiller", the Goliath Rage Barbarian who managed to get to 7th level, and the player of Bearkiller even moreso! If getting to 7th level was 'an assumption', that all it would take is time playing, well...kinda sucks all the fun out of it. It would be like watching an Olympic sprinter race a bunch of middle-school kids...not very exciting for the spectators or the Olympic sprinter. Well, unless the sprinter has some EPIC self-esteem issues I guess... <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> ).</p><p></p><p>^_^</p><p></p><p>Paul L. Ming</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pming, post: 7492654, member: 45197"] Hiya! For 5e? Nope. Why not? PC death isn't even [I]remotely [/I]as 'rare' in my games as it seems to be in others. In a nutshell, over the last 4 years (wow...5e's been out that long already?), we haven't had any PC crest more than 7th level. Most PC's don't make it past 3rd or 4th. How? (usually the next question I'm asked). It's really simple: [I]I don't "build" adventures 'for' the PC's.[/I] It really does seem to be as simple as that. If I feel like writing/stocking a 3rd-level dungeon for my group I just start mapping. As I do so I think about where this 'dungeon' is. Who built it, why, where, etc. The info about my campaign world and the answeres to those questions is the primary determinant of what "goes into it". So if it ends up being, say, an old mine system taken over by 'scavenging' type monsters (giant ants, spiders, rats, etc), then that's the 'theme' I go with. I will write up interesting areas, traps, tricks and whatnot based on THOSE criteria...I don't care what type of PC's find themselves in that dungeon. If the PC's have no means of defending against poison, for example, well, tough noogies. If there is a trap that would be easily overcome with some particular spell, and nobody in the party has it...tough noogies. If there is a particular monster that will wipe the floor with a party that has no means of ranged attacks....again, tough noogies. Not my problem. I'm just the DM, it's not up to me to fix the PC's problems or provide 'obvious' (or even non-obvious) solutions. Anyway, I found that over the decades, designing stuff for my campaign world this way...more or less "without regard for the PC's capabilities other than the most basic of average-party-level"...my adventures are plenty deadly. They only become less deadly if I'm running a 'newer' adventure module (re: something made for 3.x or later, generally speaking)...because IMNSHO, adventures "nowadays" have been specifically designed to be "a challenge" for the PC's. And that is a HUGE difference from an adventure being designed "to kill unsuspecting adventurers". Give me the latter any day of the week! :) (PS: And yeah, my group prefers it that way. We are all, as a group, proud of "Bearkiller", the Goliath Rage Barbarian who managed to get to 7th level, and the player of Bearkiller even moreso! If getting to 7th level was 'an assumption', that all it would take is time playing, well...kinda sucks all the fun out of it. It would be like watching an Olympic sprinter race a bunch of middle-school kids...not very exciting for the spectators or the Olympic sprinter. Well, unless the sprinter has some EPIC self-esteem issues I guess... ;) ). ^_^ Paul L. Ming [/QUOTE]
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