How do you deal with instant death?

[Ridley's Cohort]

This is actually not such a problem for the Fighter. A 13th level Fighter PC could easily have a +16 Fort save and only a very rare NPC Cleric is going to do better than DC 22 at that level. A 13th level Raging Dwarven Fighter/Barbarian could have a Fort save of +23 against a instant kill spell. The front line meatshields are not good targets for death effects; the results are too unreliable.

This analysis is not much comfort to the Wizard and Rogue, though.

I think the solution is a combination of:
(1) PCs need to aggressively & methodically boost their saves once their level hits the teens, especially in the Fort and Will department.
(2) PCs need to be aware of instant death effects, and what measures help against them, e.g. Death Ward.
(3) DMs should try to drop hints when instant death effects are likely to appear. This is important both so that PCs take available precautions and that a sudden death does not seem dramatically arbitrary.
(4) The DM and players should understand that higher level play in vanilla D&D involves the occasional instant death. That is what Resurrections are for, and it is not a big deal if the bad luck is spread around. If you are uncomfortable with that, you probably should make rule adjustments.
(5) Suck it up. In any tough fight there is ~5% likelihood of something mortally bad happening to a PC. That might be a critical hit. That might be a failed save.
(5) Create a feat that allows the reroll of one save per day.

 

[ivocaliban]

I suppose I already replied to this in another thread: Do we coddle new Players? However, as I'm not sure about linking while logged in I'm simply going to paste it here (forgive me if this goes against the unwritten law):

I suppose I'm a coddler, but I have my reasons for it. I personally feel that the idea of D&D is to have fun and to tell a story. When you think of most books and movies, they wouldn't be very interesting if the lead characters died in chapter three or the first act. Sure you can just roll up another character, but stories don't generally work if you're killing the lead and reintroducing someone else every fifty pages. Furthermore, I feel that merciless DMs breed players who only go by the numbers (i.e. powergamers) which leads to a very narrow vein of gaming.

Recently my coddling has a more obvious purpose in that I only have one PC. If that PC bites it...then the game is over. This doesn't mean that the player uses his character with reckless abandon, because if he did then I'd have no problem with letting him die. However, you could say that Pelor's watching over him and that random events aren't going to kill him outright. Some may say it treads on realism, but so do the vast majority of fantasy novels. In other words, either Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser were powergamers or they had a powerful deity looking after them (in this case Fritz Leiber). I tend to prefer the latter.

 

[Henry]

As you can see, he requires at least a 17 base Wis. That's not common except in high-power campaigns.

It is if that NPC Cleric is casting 7th level spells! Admittedly, he could still have a 17 or higher through virtue of magic items, but the DC on a destruction is still 20 for a 17 WIS caster - meaning a 65% success for the fighter assumed above.

Now mind you, I don't mind save or die stuff - it's part of the game - but it's not a situation exclusive to high-powered campaigns. In truth, it's not that far off from a medium-powered one.

 

[Thanee]

A 13th level fighter should have more Fort save than +13.

But yeah, those instant death spells can be pretty ugly if they come in bulks.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Darkness]

It is if that NPC Cleric is casting 7th level spells!

I'm talking about 17 at 1st level, not 17 including raises from level. See math above.

 

[Darkness]

A 13th level fighter should have more Fort save than +13.

Yeah.

Conservative estimate: +8 base +4 Con +3 resistance = +15

 

[ivocaliban]

Yeah.

Conservative estimate: +8 base +4 Con +3 resistance = +15

I agree on everything except perhaps the +4 Con. With the traditional character creation system and assuming the Fighter is Human, a +4 Con isn't likely unless that is the stat you chose to focus on. I suppose an Amulet of Health could always fix that matter, but there's quite a few other items that one might want in that slot. Of course, if it's a high magic campaign where you can purchase these things easily, that's another matter altogether.

Either way, it depends on the style of Fighter. I suppose what concerns me is that this is a conservative estimate. Whereas in my campaign that would be a slightly above average figure.

 

[Thanee]

Hmm... at 13th level I'd say an amulet of health +4 and a cloak of resistance +4 would be fairly reasonable for a fighter.

The cloak more to boost the Will save, tho.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Psychic Warrior]

This is one of the main reasons I don't like D&D at high levels. Yeah, the cleric is okay. What about hitting the wizard with a DC 26Fort save? Or doing the same to the fighter with a Dominate? And I should be doing that - only problem isn't that its hard for the PCs to overcome, its virtually impossible. Combine that with the near uselessness of the 0 to -9 safety net when you are dealing out 30-50 points at a whack, and you start mowing through characters. Your choices are to metagame your villains and have them not do what makes sense, kill characters off by the handful, destroying countless building plots and such, or allow cheap and easy Resurrection, which for me kills verisimilitude.

Don't like it much at all.

If you are taking out Ressurrection then maybe death spells should go to? D&D was made with certain things taken for granted - one being that PCs would be able to have access to all the spells in the PHB. Taking away one (especially something powerful as Resurrection) without any thought to the consequences can lead to problems.

As for the -1 to -9 buffer have you seen the alternative rules for dying in Unearthed Arcana? Basically noone drops below 0 and those reduced to 0 have to make a Fort save (DC 10 +2 per 10 points of damage dealt). Success means the character is concious but disabled failure means the character is unconcious and dying. A dying character must make a Fort save (DC 10 +1 per turn after the first) every round or die. If they make a successful save they continue making saves. if they succeed by 5 or more they stabilze more than 10 they become concious but disabled. I could see using that for high level games maybe.

 

[Henry]

I'm talking about 17 at 1st level, not 17 including raises from level. See math above.

Oh, I know, but I also mentioned that even if he had a 17-20 WIS at 13th level, he'd still be pretty close to that DC 24 even still. In fact, with spell focus, etc. he'd still be around DC 20-22. The fighter though, as mentioned would have higher than a +13 likely; the chance of instant death is still around 25 to 35% - which is still enough to "bite the big one" every four fights or so involving your stereotypical evil high priest.