D&D 4E How have PCs died in your 4e games?

[talarei07]

6 pcs total

i killed 4 in one encounter in The Scouring of Gate Pass )they got trapped in a choke point and the 5th pc ran when 3 were down and the 4th was surrounded)

i lost one of my characters blocking a door so the others could flee.
and we had a rogue get butchered by a shadar-kai

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

It really is dependent on four basic factors:

1) How well the PCs are designed (this is generally corollary to "which splat books are allowed").

2) How well the PCs are designed to work together as a specific team.

3) How well the players tactically (and to a lesser extent, strategically) play the PCs.

4) PC level. It's easier to kill lower level PCs than higher level ones due to limitations on number of PC options.

I would add a 5th (or more, if you feel the need to break it up): the DM. This includes: how challenging the encounters are (XP budget); whether he/she tweaks monsters to make them tougher or creates encounters with nasty synergies and/or terrain (so, non XP budget toughness); how tactical the GM is; how nasty the DM is (non-fudging, letting players spot dangers, coup-de-gras, focus fire); and length of the encounter day.

Now, my PCs are pretty week on your criteria, but I'm pretty weak on my DM criteria... so with 2.5 leaders in 4 PCs, its been pretty easy for them. That said, with MM3 I've kicked things up a notch, and have come pretty close to running them out of surges in 4 N+2 encounters, something I have never done before.

 

[KarinsDad]

I would add a 5th (or more, if you feel the need to break it up): the DM. This includes: how challenging the encounters are (XP budget); whether he/she tweaks monsters to make them tougher or creates encounters with nasty synergies and/or terrain (so, non XP budget toughness); how tactical the GM is; how nasty the DM is (non-fudging, letting players spot dangers, coup-de-gras, focus fire); and length of the encounter day.

Now, my PCs are pretty week on your criteria, but I'm pretty weak on my DM criteria... so with 2.5 leaders in 4 PCs, its been pretty easy for them. That said, with MM3 I've kicked things up a notch, and have come pretty close to running them out of surges in 4 N+2 encounters, something I have never done before.

The reason I didn't add DM nastiness to the equation is because I think that I am a DM who is pretty tough and the PCs still do not fall unconscious too ofent and never die.

For example, I don't fudge dice rolls (I roll in front of the players), I don't fudge which PC to attack, and two thirds or more of my encounter are N+2 or higher. Most of my encounters have some type of hindering or damaging terrain. And I play my monsters as dangerous as I can make them (for example, I used a Hydra on Sunday that was marked by the Fighter, so would attack the Fighter with one head and some other easier to hit PC with the other heads, I didn't do this in the first melee round for the Hydra, but once the Hydra couldn't really hit the Fighter, it went off in search of easier prey).

I don't use PC Passive Perception for hidden stuff (players have to explicitly look around). My theory is that if it is hidden, then one cannot spot it unless explicitly looking for it. And I don't give out Monster Knowledge checks for free (mostly because I don't think to do so and in most fights, my players don't remember to do so either).

Overall from a push over to rat bastard DM rating of 1 to 10, I'd give myself a 7 or 8. The only nice thing I tend to do that I can think of is that I don't typically use a Coup De Grace on a downed PC (I have on occasion, but it requires specific circumstances like a reoccuring villain or something), then again, the PCs are rarely down.

The problem is one of splat books IMO. As more time goes on, the PCs get more and more capable and their synergies get more and more powerful.

The monsters stay the same. Sure, the DM can go out of his way to find specific monster synergies that work well together, but that's harder to do day in and day out than it is for the players to find a good combo once and retrain into it.

 

[eamon]

Overall, PC deaths in 4e are more common than in 3e for us. Quite a bit more common, actually. Partially, this may be due to initial inexperience, but it's still happening. There's a few reasons for that:

• Some battles turn sour - at that point, escape is the only option. However, that's harder to do in 4e. 3.5's dimension door and various escaping long-range teleports are much harder to do, and you need line of sight and can thus be followed more easily. Invisibility (esp enough to really escape) is harder to get and is usually not enough for non-stealthy characters. Summon's and conjurations are rarer (a side-effect of 4e's simplification); thus providing fewer "minions" to distract foes. Special-purpose magic items are often more expensive (higher level) and require daily magic item usages - which a PC often won't have after a hard battle such as those you'd want to escape from.
• When I DM, I warn the players that they can expect the occasional unwinnable battle and should be prepared to scout ahead and/or inform themselves in other ways. Scrying is a bit more limited, particularly tactical short-range stuff; it's also less attractive since it's usually a ritual with significant cost (if you do it every day) and a long casting time. Stealth is riskier since escape is harder.
• Because a few hits by a level-equivalent monster aren't threatening, to remain exciting, fights are often "challenging" and take many rounds and really tax PC (encounter) resources. But if luck, tactics or a DM mistake turn the tide, then all PC are at the edge - as soon as one goes down, the rest is all the more likely to and a (near) TPK happens quickly. So, the number of battles with deaths isn't that different in 4e, but when someone dies, a TPK is more likely in 4e than in 3e - for us anyhow.

As an aside:

[...]And I play my monsters as dangerous as I can make them (for example, I used a Hydra on Sunday that was marked by the Fighter, so would attack the Fighter with one head and some other easier to hit PC with the other heads, I didn't do this in the first melee round for the Hydra, but once the Hydra couldn't really hit the Fighter, it went off in search of easier prey).

A mark is violated when an attack doesn't include the marker. In your example, a hydra using multiple attacks would technically need to include the fighter in each attack or trigger the mark for those attacks in which it doesn't. (IIRC this has been confirmed by CS several times). A single attack would be a single melee, ranged, close or area attack: i.e. an attack with a single damage roll. However, flavor-wise, some monsters' attacks might be a better fit for a close attack but are mechanically listed as several melee attacks (particularly in MM1), so it's not unreasonable to rule 0 this sometimes - but the hydra's pretty clear-cut; it can make several attacks on the same target; it can't necessarily attack all targets in reach - that sounds like quintessentially separate attacks, so the full penalties of being marked should be enforced on each attack that doesn't include the marker. Obviously, the same goes for multi-attacking PC's. (yadda yadda DM's prerogative yadda yadda).

 

[keterys]

Every group I play with lets the 'make a melee attack against three targets' acceptable for marking purposes, so it makes some things easier in that respect. I do wonder how much of WotC thinks one way or another on that ruling, though. I'm pretty sure certain monsters would have been designed differently if they'd been thinking about it that way.

 

[Mand]

As a player, should I grow bored with my current character but don't want to just abandon it and get a new one, does anyone have any tips for arranging my own death while making it look like an accident?

I don't mean the character RPing away his own accidental death, I mean "accidentally" dying through normal combat - something that looks like it wasn't planned.

 

[keterys]

Just retire the character - they can find a love life, get an inn, whatever.

Otherwise - eh, get initiative when enemies are far away, double run then charge someone. Hope they kill you. Provoke OAs whenever convenient. Then choose to autofail death saves - no idea how you're going to stop someone in the party from getting to you within 3 rounds to stabilize you or heal you.

 

[Fridayknight]

As a player, should I grow bored with my current character but don't want to just abandon it and get a new one, does anyone have any tips for arranging my own death while making it look like an accident?

I don't mean the character RPing away his own accidental death, I mean "accidentally" dying through normal combat - something that looks like it wasn't planned.

I feel the urge too, especially with so many characters in the character builder, but it does really only take a little time and imagination to change a stale character to a new one. Say you were a divine char, maybe change the god you worship suddenly.

Anyway, you have probably thought about all this already and as usual if you want to die just do something heroic/stupid. I manage to do it almost every session! GL

 

[Gort]

Just retire the character - they can find a love life, get an inn, whatever.

Otherwise - eh, get initiative when enemies are far away, double run then charge someone. Hope they kill you. Provoke OAs whenever convenient. Then choose to autofail death saves - no idea how you're going to stop someone in the party from getting to you within 3 rounds to stabilize you or heal you.

I'd say start roleplaying him as a fearless berserker - always be at the front of the party, never retreat, but don't autofail death saves. You might want the character dead, but the character probably doesn't want to die.

 

[Mand]

Slightly complicating things is that the character is actually already dead - he's a revenant.