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

[pemerton]

a story needs dramatic tension to even be a story. Predestination is not a story. Creating a story where the PCs cannot lose is as much a railroad as taking the decisions out of their hand. No chance of failure and/or death means there is no consequences for the choices they make, and therefore not much of a story. There is no point in them making choices if the choices are meaningless.

Losing characters is not fun. So is going through something that has a predetermined outcome. If I already know what is going to happen, that my character will win no matter what I do, then how is it fun. I beat it, yay, so what, it was never in question.

There are ways of "losing" that do not amount to character death. I don't know whether 4e will play up those aspects more strongly than earlier editions of D&D do, but some of the released information suggests that they might (eg social challenges, Action Points as a core mechanic).

 

[Balgus]

My Dm uses:
50+ damage in one hit
fort save for massive damage
fort save for insta death...

Or what i like is triple crit = insta death... (third has to be 20)

 

[howandwhy99]

Play with the standard rules.
Save vs. Poison = death. In most cases anyways.
Disintegration = death
Finger of Death = death
Wish = death. Don't be so sure about whom though.
Symbol of Death = death
Deathknell = death
Implosion = death
0 hp = death

And plenty of other spells cause inst-death. Will they really be removing all these from the game? I doubt it.

 

[Seeten]

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."

Why the need to add them back in piecemeal? If you want to kill characters, why not just up and do it? I don't get all the cloak and dagger %25 chance to outright die this round, %33 chance to die next round stuff, and why you'd want to play a game thats entirely luck based.

If character death is appropriate and called for, then just kill the character. No need for elaborate mechanics, thats what rule 0 is for.

 

[Remathilis]

If character death is appropriate and called for, then just kill the character. No need for elaborate mechanics, thats what rule 0 is for.

That would be followed by rule 0.5: Me walking out the door and finding a new DM.

 

[howandwhy99]

That would be followed by rule 0.5: Me walking out the door and finding a new DM.

That's the new paradigm; one where the players have anything at all to do with the GM's character (the world rules).

 

[hong]

That would be followed by rule 0.5: Me walking out the door and finding a new DM.

Presumably, "appropriate" will be decided taking into account the feelings and opinions of people around the table, as opposed to being a unilateral DM thing.

 

[Korgoth]

Are people really confused about what kind of mechanic "save or die" really is? It isn't arbitrary, or just an opportunity for the DM to kill characters with a die roll instead of fiat. It's the result of a number of decisions that culminate in a crucial roll.

In the WWII miniatures game Flames of War, once your company loses over half of its platoons you have to make a Company Morale test to keep fighting. If you blow the roll (usually a 4+ on 1d6, so a 50% chance) your remaining men withdraw and you lose. It is essentially a save-or-die situation... but there was a lot leading up to that die roll. If things had gone differently, you might not be making that roll at all.

It's basically the same in D&D. You sometimes have to make a save-or-die roll because of a decision that you, the player, have made. Sometimes it is because of a bad decision (or series of them), but sometimes it is because of a good but risky decision, or merely a risky "win or lose big" decision. It's pretty rare that a catoblepas walks up to you in the middle of town and gazes you. It's more likely that you're "saving vs. catoblepas" because you decided to enter the Death Swamp. Well, what did you expect? They don't call it the Death Swamp because of the humidity. That's the regular swamp. The Death Swamp has stuff in it that kills you, hence the name.

Likewise, remember how the lich used a save-or-die spell on you? Well, do you also remember that you attacked a lich? Most of this stuff turns out to be pretty self-explanatory.

 

[DandD]

The Death Swamp has stuff in it that kills you, hence the name.

And do any of the stuff in "The Death Swamp" necessarily need the ability to instant-kill you with abilities that bypass your hitpoints in the first place if you fail your save roll?

Likewise, remember how the lich used a save-or-die spell on you? Well, do you also remember that you attacked a lich? Most of this stuff turns out to be pretty self-explanatory.

Yes, I remember that a Lich might very well first attack you even without any provocation or having met him at all, because it might want something from you, like your corpse to turn into a mighty undead warlord to serve his ever-swelling armies (and you might be just the first conscript of his future mighty hordes of darkness-unvolunterily), or your heroic soul to offer to the Dark Gods for unmeasurable powers, or one mighty magical item that it does need. 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.
It can and does happen, at least for some gaming tables.

 

[Gloombunny]

Likewise, remember how the lich used a save-or-die spell on you? Well, do you also remember that you attacked a lich? Most of this stuff turns out to be pretty self-explanatory.

What the heck kind of game are you playing where the players get a guidebook explaining the hazards in every locale, and can decide at leisure where to go have adventures?