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

[Aust Diamondew]

Random, quick death combined with resurrection that's only an annoyance is definitely the worst of both worlds in my book. All you've done is instead of nerfing death magic, you've actually nerfed DEATH ITSELF! This kind of stuff is most "video-gamey" piece of the whole game: "Don't worry about Bob and Ray dying, we've got a coupon to the Church on a two for one resurrection special!"

Also, as others have noted, removing save or die does not in any way, shape or form remove death from the game.

This sums up my position.
Save or die effects necessitate ressurection magic, which isn't something that should be in the game as a regular occurence available to many characters of sufficient level (every cleric level 9+ for instance).

 

[Raven Crowking]

You know that metal can be "softened" by heating and then 'regenerate' itself when it cools, right?

Yes, but the rust monster doesn't use a heat metal effect. That might be an interesting varient, however....not only does it bite holes in your armour, but it gives you third-degree burns at the same time......

 

[allenw]

You know that metal can be "softened" by heating and then 'regenerate' itself when it cools, right?

However, if you do that to (for example) a sword, it's going to tend to be a lot less useful afterwards, both because it'll be structurally weaker and because it'll probably have changed shape while it was softened.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So the DM is a jackass for using an appropriately CR-ed creature straight out of the Monster Manual? Doesn't that raise a big warning flag that there's a problem with the system?

Not necessarily the SoD system though. It could indicate a problem with the monster creation system, and/or the CR system.

Well, if 4E will feature less character death, that's a good thing IMO, because in 3.X, PCs start dropping like flies after level 12 or so thanks to the rapid proliferation of save-or-die spells and effects. If death (and resurrection) is less common in 4E, great.

It could also be that the designers realized that characters at this level have a huge amount of divinatory magic available to them, and thus should be able to approach a problem with a plan of action. AFAICT, the biggest problem with high-level adventures is that they are designed assuming that the players will not use their resources to their best advantage and devise a plan of action accordingly.

 

[Raven Crowking]

However, if you do that to (for example) a sword, it's going to tend to be a lot less useful afterwards, both because it'll be structurally weaker and because it'll probably have changed shape while it was softened.

Also true.

We'll have to call it the "heat metal monster" instead of the "rust monster" though. It destroys your equipment while keeping you nice and toasty warm.....

 

[Raven Crowking]

Save or die effects necessitate ressurection magic

Just as an aside, this isn't necessarily true, and it is certainly no more true that saying "a chance of death necessitates ressurection magic".

 

[Cadfan]

Not necessarily the SoD system though. It could indicate a problem with the monster creation system, and/or the CR system.

Well, it could indicate those things, but I think we can reason through which one it does indicate. And I think its safe to say that what we're going to find is that save-or-die does not play well with the entire concept of "game balance" and therefore the CR system unless you accept resurrection magic as freely available, and demote "dead" to a status effect.

In a system with freely accessible resurrection magic, all you need to do to balance a monster with a save-or-die ability is to make sure that its CR is such that it will be encountered primarily by characters who can afford to remedy the damage it does, ie, get resurrected.* That's easy enough.

Take away access to resurrection, and suddenly "save-or-die" becomes equivalent to "save-or-this-character-permanently-goes away." I don't think you can "balance" that. At what level is it appropriate for a character to encounter something which, regardless of character action or inaction, gives that character a 25% chance of being permanently destroyed?

No level at all. There's nothing a level gives you that makes encountering that 25% chance more or less appropriate. The only thing a level can do for you is increase that chance or decrease it.

Its a problem inherent to all or nothing type effects. The only tools the game currently has for handling these particular all or nothing effects is to increase or decrease the chance of them occurring, and to provide counter magic that negates them entirely.

*I put this asterisk in to note that spells like "Death Ward" become available at earlier levels than resurrection. I do not feel that these provide an adequate protection, simply because characters, not being omniscient, do not always know when they will encounter death magic.

 

[shilsen]

Yes, but the rust monster doesn't use a heat metal effect. That might be an interesting varient, however....not only does it bite holes in your armour, but it gives you third-degree burns at the same time......

Just pointing out that what you described can happen in reality, let alone within the crazy parameters of the D&D game world.

 

[StarFyre]

but

According to that, since players can always take a character with them that has died, they can always pay for true resurrect, raise dead, etc if they have cash or weeks later once they do....there is no risk in instant death since anyone can be brought back if the players go to get money in the campaign world.

Thus, only TPKs actually mean anything.

Sanjay

 

[Grog]

It could also be that the designers realized that characters at this level have a huge amount of divinatory magic available to them, and thus should be able to approach a problem with a plan of action. AFAICT, the biggest problem with high-level adventures is that they are designed assuming that the players will not use their resources to their best advantage and devise a plan of action accordingly.

But this isn't a solution, for a couple of reasons. First, as has been pointed out, at high levels, mooks start throwing save-or-die effects. Like I said, when encountered by a 17th level party, a 13th level cleric is supposed to be a mook who they can take down with ease. But that mook can throw a save-or-die that has a 1 in 3 chance (or thereabouts) of instantly killing a PC. So, unless the PCs are going to start casting divination spells before they open every single door in the dungeon (which would slow the game down to a crawl), divination spells aren't a reliable way to anticipate when they'll be faced with save-or-die effects.

And second, at high levels, many enemies the PCs will face will have access to exactly the same divination spells that they have. So if the PCs use divination magic to find out that the evil wizard they're going up against likes to use save-or-die spells, there's no reason that the wizard can't use divination magic to find out that the PCs will be arriving at his lair with Death Wards up, and either use Disjunction or whatever to get rid of them, or simply go somewhere else and wait for them to wear off, then return and start killing PCs once they're no longer protected. Again, it's not a reliable defense.