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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 39956" data-attributes="member: 259">Last night, I had a similar situation.  A PC under the effect of a suggestion spell went stumbling off into an area of magical darkness, looking for the PC sorceress he was supposed to kill.He bumped into the barbarian and, not knowing who it was, attacked.  Not doing much damage.The barbarian attacked back in the confusion.  And criticaled, with a greataxe.  And, since he was under the effect of several spells and rolled phenomenally well, did 51 points of damage -- 17 more than enough to kill the PC.This was the PC's first session, although the player had spent the last two weeks working up his background.I didn't let the death stick.  Where would be the fun in that?  The player had built all these cool plot hooks and mysteries and stuff into the character background; if I killed the PC off, the player almost certainly wouldn't bother to put all that work into the next character, and I wouldn't have all these cool toys as a DM to play with.Besides, the game is about fun, and that death would have broken the fun, broken the pacing, just generally made it a sucky evening of non-fun.  It wouldn't have been a Greek Tragedy death -- those can be good.  No, it would have been a Quentin Tarantino death with a decidedly non-Tarantino character.If you're playing D&D as primarily a game of tactics, that's one thing.  But if you're trying to build mood, theme, character, and story -- if you're going for a cinematic or epic effect -- then arbitrary death can be a great hindrance.So I fudged, and my players were immediately and universally relieved.  The combat was still exciting; there was still a sense of danger.  Just not danger from stupid arbitrary stuff.Daniel</blockquote>

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