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<blockquote data-quote="Mephistopheles" data-source="post: 5227168" data-attributes="member: 4460">While 4E has without a doubt made characters tougher than ever out of the gate I think the mortality rates are still determined largely by the same factors that they always were: the players; the DM; the style of the game.I'm playing in two games driven by story - one at 9th level and the other at 7th - and neither of them have seen a single PC death. There have been a couple of close calls but the DMs usually ease off to keep things rolling.The third game, however, has a more old school feel to it. The DM of this game, currently at 4th-5th level, builds difficult encounters and for the most part has the enemies use their abilities effectively, but pulls punches on occasion. From memory there have been about half-a-dozen PC deaths in that campaign - two of them mine - and a number of close calls. Even though the combats in this campaign are often difficult I'd still say most of the deaths were avoidable and the majority came down to the players making poor choices or taking too long to realise a fight was too difficult for the party.This last point is one subtle way that I feel 4E can be more deadly than previous editions in and of itself. Because just about everything has buckets of hit points and both players and enemies tend to hit more often than not it can take the players too long to realise that their PCs are outmatched - at which point the PCs either go all in and start spamming dailies or attempt to withdraw.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mephistopheles, post: 5227168, member: 4460"] While 4E has without a doubt made characters tougher than ever out of the gate I think the mortality rates are still determined largely by the same factors that they always were: the players; the DM; the style of the game. I'm playing in two games driven by story - one at 9th level and the other at 7th - and neither of them have seen a single PC death. There have been a couple of close calls but the DMs usually ease off to keep things rolling. The third game, however, has a more old school feel to it. The DM of this game, currently at 4th-5th level, builds difficult encounters and for the most part has the enemies use their abilities effectively, but pulls punches on occasion. From memory there have been about half-a-dozen PC deaths in that campaign - two of them mine - and a number of close calls. Even though the combats in this campaign are often difficult I'd still say most of the deaths were avoidable and the majority came down to the players making poor choices or taking too long to realise a fight was too difficult for the party. This last point is one subtle way that I feel 4E can be more deadly than previous editions in and of itself. Because just about everything has buckets of hit points and both players and enemies tend to hit more often than not it can take the players too long to realise that their PCs are outmatched - at which point the PCs either go all in and start spamming dailies or attempt to withdraw. [/QUOTE]

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