Is 4th edition getting soft? - edited for friendly content :)

[Nifft]

I think it's fortunate that Liberals are, well, liberal. Try implicitly insulting more radical folks and see how civil your thread stays!

Cheers, -- N

 

[Baby Samurai]

It just so happens that my group being the lovely collection of mature people it is, we all decided not to use save or die spells (DM or players) at the beginning of our current campaign (started two years ago).

Even save or suck (hideous laughter etc) are modified.

 

[Doug McCrae]

This is a bit of a tangent but it seems strange to have crits but not save-or-dies. And just as strange in 1e to have save-or-dies but no crits. Gary's argument against crits, which I think was pretty sound, is that they increase luck and reduce the importance of player skill. But surely the same is true of save-or-dies, except more so?

 

[RangerWickett]

Man, 2e was way too Bull-Moose. I just hope 4e is more Constitutionalist. The GM is not God. There is a separation of church and state, people!

 

[Baby Samurai]

This is a bit of a tangent but it seems strange to have crits but not save-or-dies.

Why, they are completely different – critical hits just equal greater damage, save or die just equal you rolled like crap so you die.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Why, they are completely different

Not if the crit does enough damage to kill you. There's no functional difference between 'your max hit points+10' damage and a death effect.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Honestly its a "good for the goose, good for the gander" type thing. Your BBEG wont get railed by a Save or Die effect the first round of combat either.

The odds are against the PC's in the long run anyways. The more battles you have, the shorter PC life expectancy.

Also, we havent seen how resurrection magic works. Since the Shadowfell is an actual place, maybe pulling someone back from the dark realms is harder than chunking some diamond dust and a mid level spell at the problem. Stands to reason then that they would want death a little less common and random.

I am somewhat concerned about crit breath weapons though...

 

[Riley]

Do you think 4th edition is going to take the game into a realm where the rules are way to soft on the players and too hard on the creatures?

Eliminating save-or-die is a good thing. Liberal is a good thing. They have nothing else in common.

As for eliminating save-or-die making the rules "soft," umm, no. There are many better, more dramatic ways to die a heroic death. "Oh, you rolled a 5? You fall down dead" is just plain old lame.

Go ahead and put the players in situations that may kill a player now and again, but make them memorable, not arbitrary.

 

[Baby Samurai]

1.) Not if the crit does enough damage to kill you.


2.) There's no functional difference between 'your max hit points+10' damage and a death effect.

1.) Damage is damage…


2.) That brings up the wonderful fact that they are dropping that -10 dying rule malarkey.

 

[Doug McCrae]

A max damage crit from a 1st level orc does 24 damage. This is enough to drop all but the toughest 1st level PCs to -10hp instantly. If the orc had a greataxe instead of a falchion, a max damage crit would do 48 damage which would even instakill a 2nd level dwarf barbarian with max Con.

Effectively this is exactly the same as save-or-die but with the rolls to hit, confirm crit and damage replacing the saving throw. In both cases a PC can go from perfectly fine to dead immediately without a chance to do anything about it, like run away. And this is the important part because both crits and save-or-dies make player decision making irrelevant, reducing the impact of skill.

Thus Gary's argument against crits in the 1e DMG applies just as much, in fact more so, to save-or-dies.

My point isn't that you shouldn't have crits and SoDs. I happen to like them as they add drama and unpredictability, which I think is worth more than the loss of player skill. BUT I'm saying it doesn't make sense to have one and not the other. You should have both crits and SoDs or neither.

However immediate actions change all of this because they bring player decision making back into the equation. The 4e Second Wind power restores hit points so it would work against crits but not SoDs. This would be a good reason to have the former but not the latter.