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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9536880" data-attributes="member: 6790260">No version of D&D I've ever played permits such things outside of pretty clear cheese scenarios, where you've cobbled together stuff from seven different rules supplements via at least three dodgy rules interpretations. Even in those cases, if it can be done at all, it's a one-off. As DM, unless something is explicitly a one-shot effect, I generally would not give the a-okay on that.On the other hand, I will always let the dice fall where they may (I always roll in public*), and if it just so happens that the BBEG rolled a nat 1 on initiative, every PC went first, and just got really, really lucky? That's not a one-shot, that's a five-shot (or whatever) that happened to be just barely enough damage. And, on the gripping hand, this is a thing you can do to BBEGs too--indeed, it's easier to do with BBEGs, because they often have a bigger-scope villain above them, like an evil god, or their secret leader, or whatever, who can be the source of this death-defying effect. That then produces the new adventure/story direction, "How do we take away this power, or learn to benefit from it ourselves?"And, again, just because I am saying that random, permanent, irrevocable death isn't on the table, doesn't mean that some kind of death is now off the table. It isn't. Even with a random death! There will just be some way to reverse it, or it will get better on its own (perhaps after a suitably juicy moment of revelation or character development). So even if a random orc does in fact get lucky and kill you in Podunk Nowhere on Some Random Tuesday, that doesn't mean the character is automatically just...saved, no reason, no explanation. They may still get iced! Or they may not, if I have something else prepared to address that in a way that warrants not actually having the character die.So, I guess the answer is "I try to avoid having things that could be total one-shot deaths for most NPCs" (excluding mooks/minions/etc., of course), and I am in fact okay with this potentially applying to enemies as well. As a sort of very very soft example, my players are (among many other things) trying to track down a black dragon who is running a mafia-style gang in their city, aiming to eventually take the whole thing over as its dragon "hoard." The party had captured an underling, and his total confidence under interrogation meant they realized he knew he was going to get rescued. Instead of stopping the prison break, they used magic, alchemy, wine, and some other things to help trigger the break exactly when they wanted it to happen, in a way that would allow them to track the criminal they'd caught. Unfortunately, it turns out that the alchemist they worked with...reports to higher-ups within the gang. So they got their subversion subverted.The gang boss they were hoping to capture was only there as a projection, not as his actual person, so they weren't able to capture him. This is a case where, because of the PCs' actions, they genuinely completely flubbed the critical goal of their effort. They still got somewhere, because the gang had to lose that hideout and make it look like it was still mostly active, meaning they lost a lot of product (=mostly drugs and stolen goods), numerous guards, and a couple low-level functionaries to make the place look active. But the PCs failed at their top-level goal, because it made sense that this alchemist (that I know works for the gang, even though the party hasn't figured it out yet) would warn his superiors. And, naturally, they would then make sure that the one truly valuable target was out of harm's way, but in a way that would keep suspicion at zero until the ruse was finally revealed.*This does mean I have to handle certain rolls, such as Perception (or the DW equivalent, the ridiculously-named Discern Realities), slightly differently compared to how other DMs would. Because the players can see the result, they know not to fully trust what they hear if you lie to them, so you have to use different tracks. DW's system allows me a clean out. I haven't settled on a specific method or set of methods yet for more D&D-like things. If it isn't a total, abject failure, I'll probably give what I would call a "threatening" answer--the PC knows something is bad/wrong/whatever, but doesn't know what/where/etc.</blockquote>

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