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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7932697" data-attributes="member: 29398">At the extreme, yes; but before that extreme is reached there's all kinds of ways to sway the RNG results toward what you want.What I don't want is the random factor removed entirely.  The difference between dying on a 2 or only dying on a 1 is IMO massively less than the difference between dying on a 1 and not being able to die at all.Well, you kind of did, in that you didn't want to see the PCs going back to their patron and saying in effect "Hey, we just can't do this".The same use they've always been - they're the threat the PCs don't want to face.  Analgous to the weapon you never have to fire.Doesn't have to be something that cancels it entirely; even improving the odds would help.  Or, something that generates bright light which Ghouls tend to avoid.  Or something that boosts a Cleric's turn ability (or at the extreme, provide a Cleric if the party ain't got one!).In 1e they're not completely immune; they have something like 90% resistance - way better IMO, as it means nothing's guaranteed.In part - wait for it - realism.Combat as sport isn't realistic or believable in a world where things really are out to eat you (and if they're not really out to eat you, what's the point?).  Thus, combat is war; and in war people die or have all sorts of other bad things happen to them.  This isn't a problem in and of itself.The problem arises at the table level; and here I'd rather bend the table to accommodate the fiction rather than bend the fiction to accommodate the table.Don't get me wrong, that all happens too, and we enjoy it.  But it's always against a background of friendships may be fleeting (particularly at low levels), and set to the larger background of the party narrative which invariably outlasts that of any individual character.  It's also against a background of slow but steady character turnover (not always due to character death) and - sometimes - player turnover.My go-to analogy is a sports team: the team as a whole invariably outlasts any one of its players.  Some players play for the team for 20 years and are hailed as stars; others play just a few games at some point and are never seen again.Same holds true of a long-term party or campaign.  Some PCs last for ages and become, during their run, the backbone of the party; others last for maybe one combat at some point and are never seen again.I don't run hard AP-style games where the characters that start it are expected to finish it.</blockquote>

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