Most lethal character level

[BBrendolfus]

Well a lot of my pc's are dying in the level bracket of 10 to 11. They have good wealth, magic items, strong npc allies and number 5.

They are also a bunch of individuals that seem to roger each other over with selfish combat options

The question is, what levels are you or your characters getting hammered?

(I thought I read Monte or such mention a group of levels that were the most lethal?)

Thoughts?

 

[nsruf]

I suppose if your party doesn't learn to work together, it becomes more lethal the higher they get - assuming that the DM does challenges "by the book". The more options and powers become available, the more thought and effort has to go into preparation and team strategy.

 

[BBrendolfus]

Oh this is proving very true so far.

They dimension door/fly into a poorly scouted encampment and get 'surprised' by extra baddies. It was an ecl14 compared to their average ecl of 10 and I made it pretty obvious, or not enough it seems. I do try to put in a variety of encounters and this was a tough one for sure.

A 'group' teleporting retreat was eventually attempted but only invited fireballs and the teleporter perished.

Seriously, one pc has been level 9 thrice now because he's died twice, it really is breaking up the adventure's continuity.

 

[Velenne]

Based on my experience, I'd agree with the 9-12 level bracket as being the most dangerous.

I'm playing a game where a character dies at least once every 3 sessions. Yes, very deadly.

 

[alsih2o]

my group did a lot of dying at 6-9, maybe we are just fast learners

 

[gfunk]

I have to say levels 1-3.

Just one critical from a Kobold's crossbow or an Orc's greataxe = death.

 

[S'mon]

Certainly in previous editions 10-12 was the death zone - you needed tons of XP to advance, were facing the bigshot bad guys, yet didn't yet have all the spellcasting power you needed. Things got better if you reached 14th or so. Is this still the case? I haven't GM'd over 9th yet.

 

[Zappo]

10-12 IMO is still the death zone. It's where the DM takes the gloves away, but the PCs aren't yet capable of getting out of any situation easily. On top of that, it's where the PCs start getting cocky.

 

[Zappo]

Forgot to add that I've run a converted Dead Gods with 9th-11th level characters, and there have been 16 casualties.

 

[Al]

1st-3rd I'd go with.

Depends on the DM though: some DMs use baby-gloves when dealing with low-level characters. If the DMs are playing by the book, this is the lethal zone. A single critical hit from the ogre, a failed Will save against Sleep or Hold or a coordinated attack by bad guys on one character can easily spell death. And at these levels, there isn't much hope of being raised: even paying to be raised if probably out of the party's wealth bracket.