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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6486502" data-attributes="member: 22424">I'm broadly of the view that PCs should die for one of two causes: poor choices on the part of the player, or "outrageous fortune".The first of these is pretty clear - if the PCs rush in when they really should take a rest first, or they don't make appropriate preparations, or they take on that dragon at 1st level, or they refuse to flee when they should, or similar, then I'll have no hesitation in killing one or more PCs.The second of these is more of a wild-card: I want a game where characters can and do die unexpected deaths, and where even long-standing and indeed cherished PCs can die simply because that's what the dice dictate. But I don't want that to be too common. So, to give an example, because 5e has a crit on a natural 20 (and thus 5% of all attacks), I don't want a single crit from a "level-appropriate" threat to be enough to one-shot a PC. But if the dice really turn against a character, then I have no problem with him dying. Indeed, perhaps the best balance I've found there is "three strikes and you're out" - one bad roll shouldn't kill a character, but a crit, followed my max damage, followed by a second crit probably should.In practice, I would like to see that lead to two to three character deaths in a campaign from "outrageous fortune" (more in the event of bad play, of course).IMO, the frequency of a TPK should really depend on how the remaining PCs respond when the first PC dies. If they promptly realise they're over-matched and seek to retreat, my preference is to allow them to do so. If they fight on, though, then the gloves are off - if the dice don't fall their way, they're done.It has been a long time since I've had a TPK. (Well, excluding my first session of "Lost Mine", but that only had 2 PCs, so doesn't really count.)My preference here is that it should be very costly - to the extent that the player will almost always just prefer to create a new character instead.However D&D has tended towards the opposite, at least once you get to mid-high levels. That being the case, I think I'd actually be inclined to play a different game entirely if I wanted both that cap on resurrection and that power-level in use.'fraid I can't answer this one - to date I've only managed two sessions of 5e. I'll need several more sessions before I even know whether the default settings suit, never mind have any thoughts on how to 'fix' them. <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=":)" /></blockquote>

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