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

[Lonely Tylenol]

Not at all. It is either okay for a character to die, or it is not. If it is okay for a character to die, then "I'm attached to the character" isn't the real reason that "SoD is teh suck".

As you suggest above.

The suggestion is actually, "I'm attached to the character, and therefore I don't want it to be killed arbitrarily and without any ability on my part to respond to the lethal threat."

But you seem intent on misrepresenting the position, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Mallus]

Admittedly, that was me making embellishments for my own amusement.

No worries.

On the subject of the paradigm shift in player expectations, I'm not entirely sold on it, mainly because it doesn't line up with my anecdotal evidence... but if it is a widespread phenomenon, perhaps it's related to the 'graying' on the D&D community. Gamers having less time for fewer campaigns would neatly explain the desire for '24/7' death-immune heroes that level rapidly, to boot.

It's not the result of designing D&D for ADHD kids weaned on console games, it's the result of designing it for white collar soccer dads, who make up a sizable chunk of the player base.

 

[Raven Crowking]

If the majority of players wanted save-or-die effects, there might be a better argument for the first situation, but that does not appear to be the case, evidenced in part by the way that they're removing them from the game.

It could also be that the "player feedback" is listening to a vocal minority. I don't believe that, simply because people complain about X, that removing X from the game is necessarily an improvement. I think that the average person does very little thinking about why they have a problem with X. Sometimes the problem with X is just a symptom of Y, and it is Y that needs to be addressed to make a better game.

IMHO, of course, SoD effects fall into this category. Y would then be the steep power curve of 3e, combined with the core assumption of a 4-character party and the extensive time it makes to create a character. I personally feel that making the power curve less steep (another thing 4e intends to do) is a better solution than removing SoD effects.

YMMV.

RC

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

It could also be that the "player feedback" is listening to a vocal minority.

I'm not sold on the idea that our anecdotal reckoning is a more reliable gauge of player sentiment than actual market research, which I presume that any company comprised of sane individuals would perform before undertaking a major change to their flagship product.

I don't believe that, simply because people complain about X, that removing X from the game is necessarily an improvement. I think that the average person does very little thinking about why they have a problem with X. Sometimes the problem with X is just a symptom of Y, and it is Y that needs to be addressed to make a better game.

IMHO, of course, SoD effects fall into this category. Y would then be the steep power curve of 3e, combined with the core assumption of a 4-character party and the extensive time it makes to create a character. I personally feel that making the power curve less steep (another thing 4e intends to do) is a better solution than removing SoD effects.

I'm not seeing a solution here to the problems posed above. You still have Shilsen's "pointless avatar replacement" problem, and Jhulae's "I'm not interested in pointless avatar replacement" problem. Rolling up a new character all the time because the game is arbitrarily lethal might be fine for Diaglo (Mister 3d6 six times in order), but I think that even he knows that he's an outlier.

And given that your personal campaign style seems to be that players are heavily penalized for character death, your suggestion seems at odds with your preferences. Flattening the power curve and simplifying character generation, actually seems to play against that style, because it reduces the penalty for death. It's easier to bounce back if a nth level character is more similar to an n+5th level character, compared to the current situation. So death becomes more trivial, not less, and save-or-die becomes more pointless.

Also, quick generation of characters who have, on average, reduced lifespans takes the burden off the players (who no longer have to toil to generate characters) and puts it on the DM (who must integrate more new characters into his story).

 

[Cadfan]

The power curve has nothing to do with it. The effect is an all or nothing effect, adjustable only in terms of save DC.

Power curve has the following effects on save-or-die.

1) The DC has to be set correctly to match the expected character level and saving throw. While this does encompass power curve issues, the way its done does not. Begin by deciding what chance of success you want the spell to have against a high fortitude character, reference your game designer chart of expected saving throws at any given level, and create a new chart of benchmarks for save-or-die.
2) The availability of countermeasures changes by level. If the attack spell "BANG! You're Dead!" is at 5th level spell, you decide whether the ward spell "No, You Missed!" is a 4th or 6th. The problem is, the more save or die spells you have, the less likely the players will ever have the particular ward spell ready at the right time.
3) The ability to come back from the dead is more common at high levels. Raise Dead functions as a repair spell for spells that kill you.

That's... pretty much it. Those are the only level-relevant things that affect save-or-die. I know you can spin out scenarios in which other level-relevant things might matter (higher level characters will kill a given enemy faster and will be exposed to save-or-die from them for fewer rounds), but nothing else relevant to the save-or-die aspect of the monster itself.

Now, the DC thing doesn't really count for me as a power level issue. If the problem with save-or-die was that the saving throws were set too high, we could rebalance them in about 10 seconds. I don't think it helps though. I think I'd find a monster with a 5% chance of killing me outright per round even more annoying than a monster who can do it with a 40% chance, since dying to the first one will feel even more petty than the second. And while there may be a perfect point which optimizes the playability of save-or-die effects, they'll still be save-or-die effects with all the things about them that bug me and my players.

The second scaling effect relevant to save-or-die is a particularly unsatisfying one. Using a Wall of Ice to protect against arrow fire is pretty cool. Using a spell which has no effect whatsoever except to make the enemy's spell not work is not cool. I used the spell names "BANG! You're Dead!" and "No, You Missed!" for a reason. If the save-or-die is the monster's only good attack, and the spell is available, they turn climactic encounters into cake walks. When the monster has other attacks, the spell becomes an annoying ritual who's only real purpose is to use up a PC's spellslots. When the spell ISN'T available, it might as well not exist. I find this to be an unsatisfying, pseudo deus ex machina way of handling matters. And in any case, while it is power curve relevant, in the existing game it isn't very much so. Death Ward is a 4th level spell. Protection from Evil, a similar style spell for dominate attacks, is a 1st level spell. In general, these spells come out ages earlier than the attacks they protect against.

Finally, we come to the 3rd issue, Raise Dead. I don't have anything to say here other than that I don't like turning death into a status effect. I think doing this ruins the one good thing that save-or-die has going for it- the ability to instill terror into the players. And of course there's all the usual wonkiness. You can't Raise someone who was killed by a Death Effect, but you could have used Death Ward, and you can Resurrect them, except they'll lose levels, on, and on, and on.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The power curve has nothing to do with it.

I disagree.

IMHO, the power curve leads directly to how replacement characters are handled.

As Dr. Awkward notes, in both anti-SoD cases, replacement characters are handled as "pointless replacable avatars". This is presumably because the system assumptions include that characters in a group be very similar in power (with a maximum divergence of 1-2 levels difference, with gear based on level). The steepness of the power curve in the reason for this system assumption.

(And, although it is outside the scope of the argument, I would say that the steepness of the power curve is itself symptomatic of other core assumptions that differ between 3e and its predecessors -- particularly designing monsters like PCs, and wanting every level to have a Gee Whizz Golly effect.)

A system with a flatter power curve can more easily penalize death by lowering the level of the player's next character, without throwing the rest of the system off-balance as a result.

It should also be noted that many, many gamers have played in worlds where death occurs (including from SoD effects), but where Raise Dead and its ilk were not a common commodity. The Res Survival roll from 1e, btw, was a method by which returning from the dead was made less of a sure thing...and hence less of a "status effect" than a potential end of the road.

IMHO, of course. YMMV.

RC

 

[Cadfan]

A system with a flatter power curve can more easily penalize death by lowering the level of the player's next character, without throwing the rest of the system off-balance as a result.

I don't see that your argument makes sense. Are you saying that a level penalty of, say, one, is too high for playability under the current system? And if you want a level penalty that's weaker than the current difference between level X and level X-1, isn't your argument undermined by the fact that, at that point, the missing level really isn't a noticeable penalty at all?

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't see that your argument makes sense. Are you saying that a level penalty of, say, one, is too high for playability under the current system? And if you want a level penalty that's weaker than the current difference between level X and level X-1, isn't your argument undermined by the fact that, at that point, the missing level really isn't a noticeable penalty at all?

1e (for example, and IME) was designed to easily allow 1st level replacement characters to be used with even mid-to-high level parties (6th to 14th). And, again IME, while such characters didn't throw the system out of whack, the differences in level were certainly noticeable by the players.

So, no. The point at which players feel the loss of levels, and the degree to which a system can handle them, do not equate. (Well, except possibly in 3e, where, from what I understand, some people have a problem in both regards with a difference of even 1 level.)

RC

 

[Cadfan]

1e (for example, and IME) was designed to easily allow 1st level replacement characters to be used with even mid-to-high level parties (6th to 14th). And, again IME, while such characters didn't throw the system out of whack, the differences in level were certainly noticeable by the players.

That was... not my experience. Hit points mattered, even then.

 

[Raven Crowking]

That was... not my experience. Hit points mattered, even then.

Our experiences were obviously very different, then.

It is difficult to determine exactly what is subjective and what is objective about a ruleset, when what we really have to examine is the interaction of that ruleset with our own reactions to it.

It has been suggested that people's 1e experiences diverge widely. I believe the same to be true of 3e, even if it is not immediately obvious. Why do some groups experience the 15 minute adventuring day problem with 3e while others do not? I would suggest it has as much to do with how the material is approached as the material itself.

The question really boils down to, IMHO, "Given my/my group's approach, what ruleset is going to encourage us to have the type of game experience that we want?" Because that is (potentially) very different for different groups, I argue that a basic ruleset will never meet everyone's needs out of the box. What it can do, though, is provide options and encourage alteration to meet your group's needs.

You don't like SoD effects. They don't meet your group's needs. That's fine.

But it doesn't mean that SoD effects are an objectively flawed mechanic, or that they do not meet other groups' needs. Nor does it mean that the problem is caused by the SoD mechanics themselves; the way the material is approached is at least equally to blame.

I don't like warforged and tieflings. Hard as it may be, I have to accept that they are not objectively bad either. They simply don't form a good match to my approach to the game.

RC