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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5234263" data-attributes="member: 2011">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.Like I mentioned earlier, we had a TPK on night one against Irontooth. After a few sessions of the players understanding the game system, a death has never occurred since and an unconscious PC is rare. Not that a death cannot occur, it can. A string of bad dice rolls is inevitable for any group of players. But well designed and played 4E PCs are extremely hard to make unconscious, let alone kill. This, of course, assumes that the DM does not go out of his way to kill the PCs. A Coup De Grace on an unconscious PC can often kill any PC.I have to assume, based on my experience and your shared experience from hundreds of encounters each, that if a DM is killing PCs on occasion, then one or more of #1 through #3 above is not being done well by one or more of the players, or the PCs are low level. I have been in groups where one or two players just don't get it and make the worst possible design or tactical decisions without batting an eye. Either that, or the DM is going out of his way to purposely kill the PCs.As an example from yesterday, the PCs were about to win an encounter. They were hardly touched (Cloak of Courage should definitely be a Daily power instead of an Encounter power, I wish WotC would update that soon) with 5 of the 8 foes killed already in round 3. One player decides to pull out a Daily. Everyone looked at her as if she had grown a third eye. Now at level 17, players can use a few Dailies per encounter because they have so darn many. But to pull one out when the battle is going to be won in about a round and no PCs are bloodied and some PCs are not even wounded yet is just not the brightest strategic decision. That Daily will be a lot more useful in an upcoming encounter than in the current encounter that is about to be over in a round.</blockquote>

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