Lethality: I don't know what I want

[tuxgeo]

Over 700 hours DMing in 4e, and on average, a character is down every single fight rolling death saves, and on average, a character dies every 3rd or 4th level. More than 7 or 8 TPK's. And my monsters all have -15% hit points and since MM3 damage guidelines, I rarely go above n+2 fiights, and that's only for the big bad boss end of adventure fights. It is quite possible to challenge and kill players in 4e, although I will admit that a specialized healer cleric makes it more difficult, especially at paragon and epic levels.

maybe its just my players who suck.

It isn't your players who suck. Fourth edition can be lethal to PCs.
There were numerous reports in 2008 about TPKs against Irontooth in Keep on the Shadowfell.

I ran 4 PCs through the 4E Essentials Red Box: TPK in the Wizard's Laboratory. (The PCs used bad tactics.)

A new party of 5 PCs, going through KotS with added encounters from WotC to give more XP, had a scary encounter with Hobgoblin Slavers as the PCs were making their way toward the Keep for the first time:
5 of 5 perception checks were abysmal, allowing the slavers total surprise; the Subcommander and the 2 Soldiers each hit the unarmored human sorceress in the surprise round, dropping her below 0; the unarmored dwarf wizard dropped twice, once in Round 1 and again in Round 2; the party survived only by spending 5 of 5 Action Points and 4 of 5 Dailies. The sorceress missed her first death saving throw, and only acted in one round, using her Action Point to cast Burning Spray twice because she was adjacent to enemies and didn't want to provoke OAs, so she never had a good chance to cast her Daily.
(The dwarf wizard went from 8 healing surges remaining before that fight to 3 healing surges remaining after their next short rest, to get back to full; and that's with two leaders in the party.)
And that was with the last 2 surviving hobgoblins running away and vowing revenge, thus cutting the fight short before the PCs suffered even more.

Yes, 4E can be lethal--and a challenge even when no PCs die.

 

[Tymophil]

That is certainly a big part of lethalness or lack thereof, but not all of it. There's a huge difference between, for example, "the fight was borderline TPK, a real challenge, but we pulled it out in the end and everyone was fine," versus, "the fight was a borderline TPK, a real challenge, but we mostly pulled it out in the end and Joe will get better after the high priest gets him sedated."

Both of those groups want to also have the possibility of moving the challenge up or down with the scenario designs, but what that means inside the particulars of a given challenge is different in how it plays out.

I think you can have both outcomes with the current edition. I routinely suck healing surges out from my poor PCs with adverse ground (underwater passages, heavy snow, necrotic environment, etc.). On one occasion, the wizard of the group faced all encounters with zero healing surge (he wandered a lot in icy water before the player got it that it was bad for the health of his character...).

And, when I want a PC to be shaken, this PC is shaken. All it takes if a little sickness, or ongoing "damage" of another kind. It's all part of the scenario. It doen't even needs a house-rule. The next scenario may display the same effect, or another one. It all depends on my imagination, and what my players seemed to react to.

My firm belief is that D&D5 must encourage this kind of diversity by showing examples in published scenarios, rather that giving lots of rules in the rulebooks, or even lots of devices encouraging to be imaginative. Nothing is better than a good encounter to illustrate a point or an advice.

Unfortunately, TSR and WotC never seemed very good with adventures... I firmy think that the first batch of adventures will do more to set the mood than any kind of rule. If they are awesome, then D&D5 will succeed, if they are sos-so, or as terrible as they used to be, then people will tear apart around moot points of the system.

 

[SlyDoubt]

You TPKd your group in a beginner adventure designed to introduce people to the game.

wow.

 

[Wormwood]

You TPKd your group in a beginner adventure designed to introduce people to the game.

wow.

To be fair, my wizard died during my second session ever (lol 1d4 hp) *and* the DM made me leave his house afterward!

I still stuck around for the next 33 years.

(and this is coming from a DM who hasn't had a character die without player consent inover a decade)

 

[ferratus]

I've killed 5 players in my D&D 4e game in the three years it has been out.

Most of those deaths were in the 1st year, as my PC's got used to working as a team. With 3e and previous you generally were "allied individuals" rather than a cohesive unit, and with 4e you weren't really allowed to do that. You had to fight as a group or you died.

Now that they've figured out the secrets of 4e's tactical gameplay, most of the serious threats wash over them. NPC's and henchmen tend to drop, because they aren't part of the core group but PC's tend to withstand most things I throw at them.

I'm not as frustrated as I was with 3e where I followed the RAW and allowed them to collect the magic items the rules said they were entitled to. At about 13th level they were pretty much untouchable between the ability score boosters and resistance spells. By level 20 they were walking over CR 46 creatures with nary a care in the world.

 

[Tehnai]

My house-rule in old-school games, when it comes to death, was "If you reach 0 HP, you are on the verge of death. You are unconscious, if someone stabs you with a bit of stick, you are gone".

I'm not one to pull my punches, and would, occasionally, finish off one of my players (specifically if the other PCs didn't take any steps to distract the orc getting ready to stab our poor sap). What does suck, though, is when death comes out of nowhere.

Best example that comes to mind was in a 3.5 game in which I was a player, a friend of mine played an archer (of the fighter variety). We were exploring a maze, while at level... oh I dunno, 4-6) and met up with a minotaur, who won initiative, landed a crit on the archer with a large greataxe and dealt something like 75 damage on mister "27 hp". That was sort of lame.

Additionally, I don't think the solution to that problem is making resurrection spells more accessible.

All that to say, I want, nay, need some lethality in my game, but it needs to not feel gratuitous.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I've killed 5 players in my D&D 4e game in the three years it has been out.

Do the authorities know?





I know, but it never gets old, does it?

 

[SlyDoubt]

You TPKd your group in a beginner adventure designed to introduce people to the game.

wow.

Hard to quote you since you left it as xp.

I understand that but generally as a DM you need to DM appropriate to the level of the people you're playing with. If you're playing with less experienced players, there's no need to punish everything they do and kill them. It doesn't encourage anyone.

You save that kind of lethality for when the players feel like they know what they're doing and can control their own fate.

But, if you guys were just doing a run through for fun and were all experienced players then that's pretty funny.