Mechanics of Death aka How have you died?

[UltimaGabe]

My group's first 4e campaign is going to be ending in a week or so (at 12th level- it's been going on weekly for about six months). There have only been two PC deaths the entire campaign, although there have been many, many, MANY close calls (just the last battle, for example, TWO PCs were in negatives and had failed two death saves before a party member was able to jam a potion down their throat). Both of the deaths were in the same battle, actually, and they both contributed to the story quite a bit.

An enemy warlock with a group of orcs had gotten us in a chokepoint we had encountered in a previous adventure. We were walking down a hallway, where there was a door right on the other side of a pit trap- so the Ranger and Warlord were back a ways on one end of the pit, and the two defenders were right up facing the door. Once the door was opened, there was a flood of orcs (which we couldn't get past because of how small the doorway was, and the fact that there were five or six of them all covering the entryway. Meanwhile, the Warlock on the far end of the room was free to blast us defenders all he wanted. The Warlord was mostly ineffective, due to the fact he's a melee character, and the Ranger wasn't able to do much damage to the Warlock because of the fact that he could easily move out of sight every other turn (and the turns he was in view, he had concealment).

By the time we had managed to get most of the orcs out of the way, the Warlord went down (on the other side of the pit). I, the Fighter, having the best Heal skill, decided that assuming I could jump over the pit (which was easy, I had to roll a 3 or 4 to make it) it would be best for me to stabilize the Warlord, since he was close to running out of death saves. Well, I rolled a 1 on my athletics check, fell and took some damage. I climbed back up, stabilized the warlord, and got back to the fray, but by the time I got there the Paladin had already gone down.

The Ranger took out the last of the orcs, and I charged the Warlock (hoping to lock him down with my Combat challenge). He took my hits, and kept blasting. It got down to a point where one more hit would kill either of us- I attacked him, and missed. He attacked me, and critted me in the face with an Eldritch Blast. I was at 1 or 2 hit points, and his hit did enough damage to bring me exactly to negative bloodied.

Meanwhile, the Paladin failed all of his death saves. The Warlock, before teleporting away (as the Ranger was about to kill him) took one final shot at the downed Warlord, and thankfully rolled a natural 1 (or else the Warlord would have been toast). And he was gone, both defenders dead, a leader unconscious, and a striker left to carry everyone back to town.

 

[MarkB]

When in the area of multiple Auras from multiple creatures, do you combine the damage? Lets use Needlefang Drake swarms and Hell Hounds as two examples. This is one area where I think many groups play differently and I think is worth discussion.

This isn't a playstyle issue, it's addressed directly in the MM glossary, under Auras (p280). Aura damage of the same type doesn't stack, unless it says it does in the monster's description.

This doesn't help against needlefang drake swarms, though - their aura effects trigger attacks from each of them individually, so being in multiple auras simultaneously can really hurt.

 

[Caliber]

This isn't a playstyle issue, it's addressed directly in the MM glossary, under Auras (p280). Aura damage of the same type doesn't stack, unless it says it does in the monster's description.

This doesn't help against needlefang drake swarms, though - their aura effects trigger attacks from each of them individually, so being in multiple auras simultaneously can really hurt.

This, pretty much. Note that Chillborn Zombies specifically have a stacking aura, making them incredibly nasty if you have just a few together. I'll get to a few comments in a second but I just remember another really good single death.

Low level Invoker - huge giant combat, dozens of enemies (largely minions) killed, a runner got away and alerted some heavy hitters who show up as the party is finishing off the first group. All healers tapped out, everyone fairly banged up, so they run. The new guys have at-will Slowing attacks, rush forward and Slow a few PCs. Invoker hangs back to let others get away, but because of being Slowed can't escape and is cut down.

Anyway, in our games when death starts showing up, I think we're in one of two conditions. Someone has been focus fired on and all healing resources have been expended (Leader heals, second winds, what have you) and we just CAN'T keep the guy up. It's rare, and hasn't happened in a while, but it's ugly when it does. Once they drop only stabilizing them is an option, which poses lots of difficulties (especially if there aren't too many Heal trained characters).

The other side is when damage is heavily distributed throughout the group, whether through large AoEs, terrain effects, auras, or just fast Skirmishers dancing on the back ranks spines. Again, all healing resources are spent and inevitably someone drops down once no one is able to bring them up again. It's times like this when Slow, Immobilize, or Daze really hurts, when the Leader can't make it over in time, or can't make the stabilize check.

At higher levels I can see how it might be hard to exhaust all of a group's healing resources, especially if you have more than one Leader, but even up to 8th or so, I don't find that a group's healing in combat goes very far.

 

[Markn]

This isn't a playstyle issue, it's addressed directly in the MM glossary, under Auras (p280). Aura damage of the same type doesn't stack, unless it says it does in the monster's description.

This doesn't help against needlefang drake swarms, though - their aura effects trigger attacks from each of them individually, so being in multiple auras simultaneously can really hurt.

Agreed, 100%. But I'm not so sure everyone realizes this. I theorize that SOME groups stack the auras. Its partly why I asked specifically about the Needlefangs and hell hounds as they work differently. I could be wrong, but in reading threads over the past year and half I get the distinct impression that some groups stack the damage when they shouldn't be.

Caliber - We haven't used the Chillborn Zombie and after you brought it up, I checked out its aura. Its certainly interesting that their aura does stack. Methinks, I'm going to have to use it soon!

 

[keterys]

There are certain creatures that are notably better (or worse) than the average for their level. Needlefang Drake Swarms, Ghouls, and Chillborn are all good ways to get low level characters killed, especially in packs since they stack most painfully.

Human Lackeys, on the other hand... not so much.

I am curious how often it's something like 'bloodied skullcleaver crit X', since a lot of creatures just don't have the damage output, even on a crit... but there are a few exceptions

 

[Markn]

Caliber raises some interesting points about running out of healing. I know our group is on the extreme end for being able to heal - a cleric, a warlord, a paladin who multiclassed into Warlord, a wizard who multiclassed into a cleric and the cleric with a strong reportoire of magic items that either boost healing or grant additional healing and everyone carries at least one healing potion for emergencies. We almost never run out of healing options.

For those of you who do run out of healing or even healing surges for that matter. Why do you continue to go to the next encounter? Is it the players choice to continue and you underestimate your resources, is it the DM/story forcing/encouraging the next encounter, was the fight tougher than anticipated by the DM or the players and it burned through all your encounter healing/surges?

I think there could be some valuable lessons learned in these questions!

 

[MarkB]

For those of you who do run out of healing or even healing surges for that matter. Why do you continue to go to the next encounter? Is it the players choice to continue and you underestimate your resources, is it the DM/story forcing/encouraging the next encounter, was the fight tougher than anticipated by the DM or the players and it burned through all your encounter healing/surges?

Sometimes the nature of a scenario will impose a time limit that discourages or even precludes an extended rest. If the sacrifice of the kidnapped princess is due to take place at midnight and the PCs arrive at the evil temple at 10pm, then stopping for six hours just because a particular fight went much worse than anticipated isn't an option - not if they don't want to have to explain to the king why his daughter's not coming home and an evil demon-lord is ravaging his kingdom.

This is especially true in pre-written scenarios. LFR writers are specifically discouraged from providing the option of an extended rest during a scenario, preferring the PCs to manage their resources through the 3-4 encounters typically faced therein. If a fight or two goes badly, that can easily lead to the players entering the climactic combat with PCs who barely have half a dozen healing surges left between them, the front-liners being the worst-off.

Obviously, a DM should try and avoid such situations, but sometimes what seems like a perfectly reasonable series of encounters can turn out to be more difficult than imagined, either because of unusual synergies, teamwork failures by the players, or just a run of bad dice luck. Once that's happened, it's a little tricky to change the pre-established time limit. The other option is to soften the remaining encounter(s), but that can lead to a sense of anticlimax, with the big bad villain being a pushover compared to the guards on the front door.

 

[Rhuarc]

In my RL campaign the group is level 9 at the moment and we had just a single PC death so far, coming from three failed death saves as well.
Was a fight against a higher level solo controller who became pretty nasty (including a power which denied spending healing surges until saved) once bloodied and the rogue was the unlucky one to go down first. My group didn't remember to use the Healing Skill to stabilize a dying character and if the unpleasant power hadn't been part of it, he surely would have survived the fight.
So I agree that PC death is very rare, if not forced by all means by the DM. But that's fine, as we agreed to limit the power of Raise Dead significantly, so most PC death will stay permanent (as it was with the rogue)!

 

[Nebulous]

Just one death so far, with a rogue trying to go toe-to-toe with Irontooth. There have been several times where PCs failed two death saving throws and were teetering at the brink of death, but even that has been uncommon. In general, i'm of the opinion that PC death in 4e is very rare unless there is a streak of really bad luck or the DM has crafted an unfair encounter. With a group that works well together and knows their tactics, and a healer who keeps on top of the healing, 4e parties are lethal killing machines.

In the near future i'm going to try some house rules where some monsters will have -50% hit points and +50% damage. My theory is that the longer slogfests will vanish and combat speed up, with the side effect of monsters not using their Bloodied powers often (or at all) while PCs will drop to negative much faster. I also think it will alleviate some of the "Hey, let's fight this out!" mentallity of 4e where nearly every encounter is expected to end in a fight (in our games anyway) and it might interject some "Uh, let's find a way to avoid this battle."

 

[Caliber]

Caliber raises some interesting points about running out of healing. I know our group is on the extreme end for being able to heal - a cleric, a warlord, a paladin who multiclassed into Warlord, a wizard who multiclassed into a cleric and the cleric with a strong reportoire of magic items that either boost healing or grant additional healing and everyone carries at least one healing potion for emergencies. We almost never run out of healing options.

For those of you who do run out of healing or even healing surges for that matter. Why do you continue to go to the next encounter? Is it the players choice to continue and you underestimate your resources, is it the DM/story forcing/encouraging the next encounter, was the fight tougher than anticipated by the DM or the players and it burned through all your encounter healing/surges?

I think there could be some valuable lessons learned in these questions!

A combination of all three, I would guess. I can think of a few instances where the story more or less dictated that we press on, despite being pretty banged up. Generally those times didn't end well.

Other points either the fight was harder than we anticipated, or we were more hurt than we thought (or some combination of the two). Again though, ts not that we run out of surges, just out of abilities that can trigger them. Perhaps it is because we rarely have had more than one Leader?

A few Cleric Dailies can provide a ton of healing, but resting every time the Cleric spends one of them doesn't sit well with me (and I suppose the rest of my group?)

Still, when we die it is often because those dailies aren't available (I'm thinking of Sacred Circle in particular, which has kept the entire party alive to amazing, perhaps even ridiculous, effect every time it is used).

I wonder how your experience would match with mine if instead of having two Clerics, a Warlord, and a Paladin, you just had, say, a Warlord?