D&D 4E Is character death acceptable in 4e? If so, how often?

[IanB]

Character death so far in our 4e play has been much rarer than in prior editions, where death was a near-constant.

I find the odd 'you almost never lose just one character' thing a little hard to get used to, but I think in practice it works out pretty well. Nobody likes to be that guy who dies in the first fight and has to wait for the rest of the players to finish the adventure before he gets to have his guy raised or can make a new character to introduce.

 

[Lancelot]

Experience from my games has been a curve. Character death used to be extremely common until my players figured out some of the tricks to staying alive. Now, it has diminished to the point that a character dying in a session is unusual.

Some stats...

• Campaign #1: Approx 24 (5-hour) sessions with 12 fatalities, including two TPKs.
• Campaign #2: Approx 16 sessions with 8 fatalities, including one TPK.
• Campaign #3 (current): 16 sessions with 6 fatalities - but only 2 fatalities in the last 8 sessions.
• Campaign #4 (current): 16 sessions with 4 fatalities - but only 1 fatality in the last 13 sessions.
• Campaign #5 (current): 3 sessions, no fatalities.

Raise dead is almost non-existent in my campaigns. It might very rarely be found on a ritual scroll or cast by an NPC, but it is otherwise unavailable. Can't learn it, can't buy it.

Monsters sometimes coup de grace in my campaigns, if warranted by the tactical position and the monster type. A dragon or a goblin usually won't coup - it'd rather take down the other threats. However, a demon or an undead (particularly things like ghouls, or creatures that have flavor text that states they revel in annihilation and killing) will often coup a fallen foe. My players know this, expect it, and don't complain about it - it's part of our social contract. By the same token, however, I only use coups sparingly. If they're fighting 4 demons and one of the PCs drops, the demon who dropped the PC *might* use their next round to attempt a coup... but all the other demons will keep battling other targets.

My experience is that approximately 10% of our PC deaths are due to an "outright kill" - the PC is reduced to "negative bloodied" in one round through sheer bad luck. Maybe they're low on hit points, and they get critted by two brutes in the same round. This generally only happens in the low heroic tier.

About 30% of our PC deaths are due to TPKs. About 20% of our PC deaths are due to coups, as noted above. And the final 40% of PC deaths are due to one character "bleeding out" while the others are desperately engaged in a battle. This is the segment which has seem the most reduction in recent months (used to be 60%+; is now probably less than 20%).

So what has so dramatically reduced the rate of PC death in my campaigns over time? Two things...

1. The players used to wait until a downed PC had accumulated "two death boxes" before panicking about getting them back on their feet. It seemed like better strategy to stay fighting until they were nearly dead, because taking down the enemy was more important. Unfortunately, it took them many PC deaths to figure out the flaws in this plan. If they get locked down or simply fail their Heal check in that critical round when they need to "kick up" their fallen ally, there will be trouble. Also, waiting until a fallen PC has two death boxes means that, even if they get them back into the fight, there is a high probability that they could be killed by a single death save if they get knocked down again. Nowadays, the players generally leap on a fallen friend the moment he goes down... even if it costs them some short-term advantage against the enemy.
2. We realized the power of using a Heal check to give an ally an additional saving throw. Nowadays, it's not uncommon for one of them to use a standard action to try and remove conditions or ongoing damage from one of their allies... even if it costs them their own chance to attack. For example, the whole party gets dazed - it's probable that the first character in the initiative order (say, a defender) will use his sole standard action to trigger the next character's saving throw - giving him a chance to not be dazed before the start of his turn. This has increased their survival chances by a huge margin.

 

[kilpatds]

So what do people think? Or what have people experienced in their games?

I don't think PC death should be common, but with Raise Dead an 8th? level ritual it's not something that is likely to ruin most games if it occurs rarely and, IMO, appropriately when the party is faced with really bad luck with the dice or very poor party tactics. With either one I think the danger of a PC dying should be at least a distinct possibility. With both I think a TPK should be a distinct possibility.

I think this is fundamentally one of the issues with 4th... It's very hard to kill a PC without a TPK.

If you're willing to work at it, I know of three good approaches

• To take out the leader, you want a moderate to easy encounter with some alpha strike ability (Skirmishers or Lurkers). Have everyone alpha strike the target. Once he/she dies, the rest of the party then is facing a moderately hard encounter that's blown all their bullets, and should be able to win even without a leader.
• Stun lock the leader(s), then alpha strike the target. Once the leader recovers the battle will procede like normal.
• CDG like mad. Bad guys provoke OAs and combat challenge to run over to the downed PC to CDG him/her.

The problem with all of these approaches is that they can be DM vs. PC, not encounter vs. PC. Another way to raise encounter difficulty a little more gracefully is the 2nd wave approach. Combine a 2nd wave with some alpha strike capability, and you might have a more organic battle that ends in PC deaths without the TPK, but you'll also have a grindy battle that takes a LOT of rounds.

To go into a bit more detail, the only time I came close to killing a PC (did kill him, but handwaved it away since it was still early in the module) was a battle with a number of skirmishers. They had to charge first, and then had an encounter close burst 1 that did a lot of damage... due to handy positioning (and that no one in the party recognized a threat, and I didn't mention it to them) 3 of these baddies charged the mage. And when they all went boom the next round, he dropped straight to negative bloodied.

That's it. The two TPKs were both late in the battle when the leader was out of heals. Everyone had surges left, but had no access to them, and then the PCs just started dropping. Once there's no access to surges, luck plays a bigger role. If a couple of PCs drop before the monsters do, the monsters get a large action advantage and the rest of the PCs will drop quickly.

PCs and monsters are imbalanced. PCs put out a LOT of damage relative to their hit points, and have a lot fewer hit points than monsters. Monsters have a lot more hit points, but do much less damage. But PCs have surges. And since they start healing at 0, surges can heal a lot. The real measure of a PCs health is his surge count. And the real resource PCs manage is ACCESS to their surges. If they don't have a massive action advantage by the time they've run out of access to surges, the battle will go very badly.

 

[DrSpunj]

Overall, I agree that the fight either is on the border of TPK land or is firmly in OK land. The only exception would be is the DM has monsters regularly Coup-de-grace PCs that are down; he's going to see lots more individual deaths.

Thanks for the comments!

You hit on part of why Nail & I have been discussing this. The party has been charged with finding out what happened to a lost caravan and tracked a couple of the wagons to a Hobgoblin cave. So far they've mainly fought disorganized goblins, various beasts and several varieties of undead who have all focused on any healthy living PC rather than CDG anyone dying.

A couple sessions ago they were trying to cross a river in a forest as the Ranger was tracking the wagon trails (not terribly difficult with Perception rolls generally in the high 20s ). Said Ranger rather boldly skipped across the log bridging the river and battle was joined when 2 Hobgoblin Archers, 2 Hobgoblin Soldiers and 3 Dire Wolves burst out of the trees in ambush. The Defenders and Leaders had some difficulty getting over there to save the Ranger's leather covered hide but she made it out safely within a round or two.

Unfortunately for the party their placement on that bank of the river allowed the hobgobs and wolves to gang up on the Swordmage & Fighter. The Swordmage fell dying 6 times but before I could have one of the Soldiers CDG he was healed each time. The party was victorious but after the battle I made a point of telling the players that the hobgoblins were much more systematic and regimented during combat than any foe they'd faced so far, and that in future battles most any Hobgoblin given the chance would likely try and CDG a downed PC.

Similarly there are some beasts which are described in the MM as likely to just try and drag off a dying PC for a meal rather than stay and fight the rest of the party. If the beast can drag a dying PC away from the battle a bit then I think a CDG would make sense as it starts to eat the PC for dinner.

Those are the only situations so far in my campaign that I think CDG will likely be used, so I don't think it'll happen regularly but I would guess I'll have a few opportunities as they continue to battle the hobgoblins in this cave.

Nail mentioned brutal honesty sometimes coming into conflict with sense of immersion. In the hobgoblin case I wanted to be clear with my players that the hobgoblins seem to follow a different set of priorities in battles compared to other foes they've fought so far. At 4th level I figure that's something the PCs would know after facing the hobgoblins in battle, so I thought it important information to give the players, too. I'm hoping/expecting that in future battles with the hobgoblins that helping a dying PC will become a much higher priority for the party than it would it most other battles where, to date, I've only seen them concerned when a PC has failed 2 death saves already (which hasn't happened in 14 session so far) or is taking ongoing damage repeatedly).

Thanks

 

[KidSnide]

For the most part, PCs are basically ok at the end of an encounter, or it is a TPK. Rarely does one see a single PC die without the others unless it was due to the Leader being out of heals and the downed PC was taking ongoing damage or some such. Typically, some unusual circumstances have to be occurring for just one (or two or three) PCs to die.

I find that this depends a lot of how you run the game. I've defeated by PCs twice (at the beginning and end of H1, respectively). Irontooth wrecked the party, but could only hunt down and kill one of the PCs once the survivors decided to flee. Kalarel's victory was different because the PCs had no line of retreat, so I had him kill (and animate) two of the characters and sell the rest to the slavers in H2.

In general, I think games a more satisfying when a party defeat means something other than the end of the campaign. Everyone at my table has put years into the campaign, so nobody wants to see it end. My players can tolerate heroic risk (and believe that I will impose consequences to taking that risk) because they know that a total failure on their part does not result in the end of the story.

-KS

 

[Particle_Man]

Hmmm . . . what if you make PCs into Minions? they get to be 4 levels higher than recommended for the opponents they face, but the PCs each only have 1 hit point.

So I can play a 5th level avenger in a 1st level adventure, but only have 1 hp.

 

[blargney the second]

The real measure of a PCs health is his surge count. And the real resource PCs manage is ACCESS to their surges. If they don't have a massive action advantage by the time they've run out of access to surges, the battle will go very badly.

Very true! Our party has two leaders, so it takes them a loooong time to run out of surge activators. Those minor action healing powers give double activation advantage - the leader doesn't have to waste a standard action, and the downed PC gets his full allotment of actions if he's not unconscious.
-blarg

 

[Stalker0]

I don't think death is too infrequent, at least by paragon. Not sure how epic works out, but then again the point of epic seems to be death doesn't matter, but death can lead to failure, and failure at epic levels can end the world.

First off, I always remind people that the 3 death save rule applies PER ENCOUNTER not PER UNCONSCIOUS. To me that rule became a lot nastier once my group realized that.

Second is I was able to drop party members more easily when I learned to use elite and solo AP at the right time. I never use them right away, always save them for when the party is weak and helpless.

And those new MM2 solos can help....I had a 14th level razor hydra do 110 damage and ongoing 45 (yes 45) damage to one character. Though may not be the best example, that player actually lived

 

[Nail]

I'm hoping/expecting that in future battles with the hobgoblins that helping a dying PC will become a much higher priority for the party than it would it most other battles where, to date, I've only seen them concerned when a PC has failed 2 death saves already ...

Hmmmm.

Here's that "DM perception" thing again.

In DrSpunj's excellent game, when a PC goes down no other player says "Gee, we don't have to worry about the downed PC, 'cuz he has a few death saves yet to make". Not one person around that table. No one. Dying PCs are already a "high priority"! Perhaps our DM is confusing our reassuring words ("Don't worry, bud. You'll be fine.") as us being unconcerned?

Instead, we work to bring the downed PC up as quickly as possible. Since we're all locked down in combat, this might take a round or two. Fortunately, one of our two leaders is pretty darn good at getting PCs back up.

I don't see that MO changing as we fight hobgoblins which CdG. We're still going to be locked down in combat. Someone is still going to drop. And we're still going to try to heal him/her as soon as possible. Let's be clear: being down is all kinds of bad, whether there's a CdG danger or not. Anyone that says otherwise has a misperception or two.

 

[Gyromancer]

...

First off, I always remind people that the 3 death save rule applies PER ENCOUNTER not PER UNCONSCIOUS. To me that rule became a lot nastier once my group realized that.
...

Dude-- the 3 death save rule is per DAY!