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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7854010" data-attributes="member: 29398">Your experience with 1e must be vastly different than mine.I track every death in my games by character, source and cause.  Over the last few years the parties I've run have had level ranges anywhere from 4th-8th to 8th-10th, and the most common cause of death by far is still good old-fashioned melee.  Some numbers covering the last 15 adventures I've run, in which there's been 42 deaths, caused by:25 - melee (giants and ice trolls are the main culprits here)2 - fall from great height1 - assassination1 - accidentally squashed underfoot by a huge (party-controlled!) earth elemental------------4 - spell, lightning bolt1 - spell, fireball------------3 - petrified (we count this as a death)2 - death spell (equivalent)1 - failed system shock roll1 - teleport error, into solid rock1 - explosions due to cascading wild magic surgesSo, by my rough count that's 8 deaths by save-or-dies (or equivalents) out of 42; and of the 5 caused by spell I can't recall whether any of the victims would have survived on a made save or not.  Oddly enough, none are by poison: though I use poison quite a lot they've always got someone in the party with Slow and-or Neutralize, or some other means of mitigating it.The previous dozens of adventures (and great many deaths!) give similar findings, though the character levels are lower.A swirling hate hole?Only for those who haven't been told up front that bad things are inevitably gonna happen.The joy lies not in being a hero, but rather in simply surviving to fight another day.  Fight enough days, and maybe heroism will find you...and maybe it won't.</blockquote>

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