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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GMforPowergamers" data-source="post: 5774138" data-attributes="member: 67338">Lethality: I don't know what I want, but I know what I don't want... and I dont want what I have now (4e), or what I had before (2e and 3e).OK, maybe it just is something D&D can't do, but I want to try. I started runinng in 2e, and when I ran people always loved my games. I was known fro great stories, and pulling my punches. MY Villians always left the PCs down but not out, my monsters always missed, then were killed on there next shot... and there was a reason people liked it. Becuse we still had DMs makeing us roll 1st level hp, and DMs useing 0 is dead instead of -10. Infact one sadistic DM (no we don't play with him anymore) ruled that my friend Kurt's wizard was still born, becuse he had a -1 con mod, and rolled a 1 on his d4...I had the occasional death, especialy when I would call "22 damage" just to see the players eyes go wide... "I only had 9 hp left...that right to dead"In 3e we alwasy started at level 2 or 3, and hp added up more, we had even expanded the 'deaths door' rules to be you die at -10, - con, or -level witch ever is higher....By the time 4e rolled around I was no longer pulling punches as much, and I averaged 2-3 deaths per campaign. I had even in 3e ran a game where a PC go the chosen of mystra templet, chose wish as his 9th level spell, so I made it a point to kill PCs left and right, makeing him use said spell like ability to raise them... I had 2 PCs competing for most deaths...it was fun.Then we played through the Mods that came out H1-E3, and I did not pull any punches... and PCs started calling 4e easy.  In 4e I have played through entire campaigns in witch we can count the PCs who have been droped to 0 or lower on 1 hand, and none of them were in any danager of death.I play in a 4e game right now once per month where our Dragon born fighter has some cold axe magic item, he gets bonus to hit and bonus cold damage when bloodied, and he had a hombrew artafact that gives him a cool attack power when bloodied... and he never gets to use it. Why you may ask, well we have a cleric that is healing amped, and 3 strikers that throw but tons of damage (my assasin being one of them), it is a rare thing for one of us to get bloodied, but staying that was never happens.     My assasin in that game went a whole level (from 7-8) without spending a healing surge...not one, becuse at no point did I have enough damage to do so and it be worth it.   Now maybe that is a bad example, we are heavy optimized (volyka assasin, dragonborn fighter, shifter cleric (with a full blade), elf bow ranger, hafling dagger master, and a half orc slayer)So here is the thing. I want to have 4 types of fights.1) Gimmie fights. When you roll intitative even if your dice go bad this is going to be easy.2) Avrage fights. You know it wont be a cake walk, but you also know that as long as your luck isn't terrable you are coeming out of this fight only a little worse for wear, but a few resources down... if You get really lucky rolls this may feel like a gimmie.3) hard fight. You know going in you need good tactics and a little luck. It is a fair fight, you can win it, but you could also lose, and lose bad if things go wrong. Even with great luck, and the crit gods smileing on you, these should never feel like a gimmie.4) Danate must die... This fight should be doable, but almost not. It should look like there is no way short of great luck, or skill for you to ever all walk out ok... If a PC dies in this fight everyone knows he went out epic...and if things go to far off track this is a TPK waiting to happen.then I want the system to be able to turn those 4 types of fights into a dial of 10... so we can experance the full spectrum.My problme is RAW (and RAI as far as I know) Ad&D 2e was ment to start off at 4, then work it's way to 3. D&D 3e always felt like it depedned on the class you played, but then 4e feels like the defualt is 1 and 2, and maybe a 3 every now and then...but never a 4.So what do I not want... well I don't want PCs having 1d4+3-1d12+4 hp at first level and 1 orc with a great axe swinging a d12+3... I don't want my wizard at level 2 with 8hp fearing a kobold spear that does 1d10 damage...I also don't want a 3rd level wizard with 35hp, to only die if he drops below -17, or fails 3 saves in a row.I don't want a race to SoD spells, where my heart ripper, or finger of death ends the encounter, in less there wizard goes first, and finger of deaths me.I want inbetween, less lethal then 3e, and more then 4e.  I don't know how though.I like spells and powers that can bring the instant death, but I don't want them to be instant. I had a thread argueing about SoDs in 4e and I suggested multy moding them so that they could fit... I remember I had a slay living target bloodied enemies, do damage, then stun (save ends) fail save and die...</blockquote>

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