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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9065677" data-attributes="member: 7035894">I think one thing that 5e had done very successfully is capture the spirit of how AD&D was actually played, including when it comes to character death. As I think most of us have agreed, AD&D as played was usually far less lethal than you might think just by looking at the rules. Of course it varied by table preference, then as now, but I played for years and IME character death was not a lot more common than it is now. I think WotC has been at considerable pains to try build the rules that will more accurately reflect the expected lethality of a Dungeons and Dragons game, which is is extremely low - the game is intended to produced ongoing campaigns and players are expected and encouraged to grow attached to their characters. So it is never going to have a body count like my personal favourite TTRPG, Dread. But Dread is explicitly designed for one-shots.Another thing that keeps being brought up is low HP in AD&D. Again, as actually played these were not as low as you might think, particularly in front-line classes. There was a lot of variance, but I never met anyone who used the straight "roll 3 dice six times and there's your attributes" method of character generation. So in actuality, most characters had pretty good stats, especially in their prime attributes. If you played a fighter, you likely had a constitution bonus to HP, and most folks then as now awarded max HP at level 1. On top of that, monster damage (and HP) were also lower. So an orc, for example, had one hit dice (4.5 HP on average), an AC of 6, and did 1d8 damage - it would be routine to one-shot them even at level 1. By the mid-80s, when we had added UA rules, it was normal for a level 1 fighter with weapon specialization to easily and safely be able to take on a half dozen orc-level opponents.As Snarf points out, most of the extra lethality (in theory) came from a great many insta-gibb effects written into the game, not from combat. But one thing we haven't touched on as much is the prevalence of having hirelings and, at higher levels, followers with the adventuring party, and these were typically used as cannon fodder, opening doors and the like. AD&D was definitely lethal for those guys! There were also various conventions like the ubiquitous (and ridiculous) 10' pole that every party carried. Most of that is gone from 5e, unless you count familiars and various summoned companions which are often used to serve a similar function.</blockquote>

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