Killed lately?

[dungeon blaster]

Below, I've listed a few things that tend to make older versions of D&D more deadly:

1) Poisons were often save or die, and there were LOTS of poison traps in modules.

2) Many modules had traps or effects that did not allow a save.

3) There was no CR system so a DM was forced to rely on his/her experience to know what encounters were too deadly.

4) Characters had lower ability scores in general, and even moderately high ability scores didn't give bonuses.

 

[loki44]

Below, I've listed a few things that tend to make older versions of D&D more deadly:

All excellent points. You've reminded me of my original thought actually.....
older games always seemed more "black and white" to me than their modern counterparts. 3.5 seems to "grey" areas that OD&D placed in stark terms, including differences among races, classes and even death.

 

[tarchon]

3.0 seems to have had about the normal mortality rate when I was playing.

 

[EricNoah]

Got beheaded a couple of sessions ago, thankyouverymuch.

Both of my characters in long-running campaigns have gotten whacked a couple of times each.

 

[loki44]

Got beheaded a couple of sessions ago, thankyouverymuch.

So, would you chalk that up to stupidity, bad luck or something else?

 

[Bryan898]

I can kinda see your point. I personally blame it on the CR system and the notion that everything has to be balanced. I've read old adventures with an encounter way above the parties abilities just thrown into a room. Nowdays, it almost seems like the PCs EXPECT everything to be within their power. Putting a doorway that's really a sphere of annihilation would probably cause an outcry within the group.

Then again, I tend to still do stuff like this, and average a PC death at least every 2-3 sessions. This is just the idea I get from reading about other party's exploits/ experiences.

 

[Razz0putin]

gakked a player in my last session but it was the finale of the module so the timing was right. however I've modified the rules much by adding character points and a wound vitality system which is good because the players forgot about the hero points in that battle and they sure could've used them better

 

[demiurge1138]

In my Planescape game, we've had three sessions and two deaths. The first was stupidity-caused (don't go running after a canoloth by yourself). The second was poor luck (critical hits from a pick tend to hurt. a lot).

Despite the fact that neither of them were exactly my fault, I am going to be careful, especially since it's only a five-person party that used to be sixth. My mindset hasn't gotten around their decreased skills quite yet.

Demiurge out.

 

[Thanee]

While it might be a bit less lethal, D&D 3rd/3.5 is still quite lethal and I think there have been more character deaths than in previous editions (mostly AD&D 2nd w/o PO) in our games.

Bye
Thanee

 

[arscott]

I've played a lot of 2e AD&D, and I own a few Moldovay Adventures from B/A D&D.

2e was pretty much akin to 3e rules-wise, but the miserably complex 2e rule set led to a lot of fast-and-loose interpretations that cut down a bit on player deaths. It was a lot easier for the DM to arbitrarily declare sucess than to look through five supplements of contradictory info to determine the proper means of adjudication.

B/Ad&d is friggin deadly, though. Every third page there's a save or die trap. Of course, it took two minutes to roll up a new character, so death was a bit more acceptable.