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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amal Shukup" data-source="post: 2157634" data-attributes="member: 6291">Tis a bit contradictory... Overall, I think 3rd Edition is a bit more lethal overall, but there are wrinkles...1. In 1st/2nd Edition I killed (as a DM) or was killed as a Player all the time - at low levels. Much more rarely at mid/High levels. I think this was representative of the investment players/DMs had to make to get a campaign up to mid/high levels - once there, I think we were very reluctant to kill off PCs and have to start over...One-off high level games - notably a couple of runs at Tomb of Horrors (shudder) - were very, very lethal. But I think that's due to the nature of those one offs (or 'kill fests' as we called them...). Mind you, I'm building a 3rd Edition 'dungeon' that will hopefully be just as lethal: I plan to have each player start play with a stack of characters, and I expect to see a PC death every 15 minutes on average...  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />2. In 3rd Edition, low level is STILL Incredibly lethal. Any CR 1/2 Orc with his Great Axe can drop any 1st level character on any given sunday.  Moreover, because death just 'isn't as bad' at higher levels (new characters have lots of neat options to try, leveling is downright brisk), I think this lethality continues into the mid/high levels. And of course, at higher levels, the 'get out of death cheap' Magic becomes fairly accessible.3. 3rd Edition really helps DMs make much more 'balanced' encounters - and thus avoid having to script the PCs miraculous survival DESPITE having 'rolled' that there were sixteen two-headed trolls and their pet Basilisk in dungeon room 52b... While this should theoretically REDUCE character deaths,  I think that more DMs take advantage of this balance by just letting dice 'fall where they may' - or even roll in the open (which I NEVER did pre 3rd Edition) -  and actually kill more characters...4. 3rd Edition very obviously skews to the Offensive side of the equation: Pretty much any character (given initiative and a lucky roll or two) can 'kill' themselves (a duplicate NPC) in very few rounds. Or vice versa. 5. However, what REALLY impacts the character death rate nowadays is the (optional) Action Point mechanic. SO much easier to make that critical save, stabilize, or drop the incredibly lethal opponent first... As a DM, I love 'em because they help avoid the cruddy 'non-heroic' deaths like pathetically bleeding out on the battlefield, or a failng their save vs some random spell that really shouldn't wipe the PC out but does 'cause the Player rolled a 3 rather than the 4 they needed...A'Mal</blockquote>

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