It won't be hard to put insta kill back into the game, will it?

[Korgoth]

Or a very nice shiny gemstone which turns out to be really the Phylactery of a Lich that got destroyed just recently by a foul experiment gone wrong (he'll get better, of course), and the heroes having no clue what they're into when they explored the remains of the wizard tower where said Lich "lived" in secrecy.

You found it in an evil wizard's tower and decided to keep it but didn't cast Legend Lore on it? Fine, but don't look surprised when skeletor bushwhacks you.

Of all the old school modules I own, I can only think of two that contain liches: Tomb of Horrors, in which you get what's coming to you if you decide to go into it in the first place, and D1, which you can easily avoid unless you're curious or greedy, etc.

And yes, I think some effects should bypass hit points. Even Mightythew the Barbarian should be on his toes when he's in the dungeon. It's not like the surface world... it's a Bad Place (tm). It's the Underworld. It's the Congo of Mr. Kurtz. It's Nam. It's deadly and it takes you by surprise.

 

[Psion]

Can't anyone desperate for these sorts of effects just make statements like, (as a DM, that is) "Ok, Roll under your dex or you die horribly" or, "You see the Lich, he raises his hand, and you all die."

The sort of effect I want is not at all represented by that. So I guess the short answer is no.

If character death is appropriate and called for, then just kill the character.

But that's just the thing. The cases in which character death is unequivocally called for are few and far between. Like falling in lava. ("But he has +1 armor!" )

Situations in which there is not outright death, but risk of death, are more compelling.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret here, because I know that it's eluding a lot of you here: I really don't want to slaughter a character a game, and I almost never want a TPK.

What I do want is for the players to think it can happen. That makes for a tense and exciting game.

No need for elaborate mechanics, that's what rule 0 is for.

Actually, yeah, you sort of do. Not elaborate, but character death is a significant enough event that it's ill served by a simple hand wave. Many of the complaints I am hearing are around the bodak. A worse example was the old school catoblepas. AFAIAC, those were stupid ways to deploy a death effect.

No, I think that the topic deserves a lot of effect if it is going to deliver the positive effect I want out of a game instead of the negative effect that so many of you have come to know and hate.