D&D 4E Odd emergent quality in Epic Level 4E

[thecasualoblivion]

A lot of Epic Destinies in 4E have an ability that brings you back when you die, often stronger than before. I always wondered about the use and utilities of these, since in 4E it takes a lot of work to die. These certainly aren't as usable and reliable as powers that let you recover when reduced to zero hp. I did find an interesting twist though, playing last night, that being that with those sort of powers its often tactically useful to kill your friends.

We were playing the WotC adventure Death's Reach, which involves an item that essentially gives the entire party a "once per day, when you die..." recovery feature. I'm playing a Sorcerer, and our Cleric and only healer falls victim to some bad rolls and is knocked below zero very early in the fight. The only means any of us has to bring her back regular style is a standard action heal check, which sacrifices our attack. It then occurred to me that it would be more useful to just kill her and trigger the Crystal Skull Auto-Resurrect. As a Sorcerer, I moved into position and area bombed her and the two enemies that had just dropped her. I killed her easily, the Crystal Skull immediately resurrected her, and I managed to also hit both enemies.

Needless to say, everybody at the table was shocked and incredibly amused by this turn of events.

A lot of Epic Destinies get a trick like this, and looking at them now it seems to me that the best way to get the most out of these features is to be killed by your friends, as the enemies won't always cooperate.

 

[Nifft]

Now that's what I call truly friendly fire.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Fifth Element]

A lot of Epic Destinies in 4E have an ability that brings you back when you die, often stronger than before. I always wondered about the use and utilities of these, since in 4E it takes a lot of work to die. These certainly aren't as usable and reliable as powers that let you recover when reduced to zero hp. I did find an interesting twist though, playing last night, that being that with those sort of powers its often tactically useful to kill your friends.

I had the same sort of thing happen in a 3E campaign, at less than Epic level (around 16th or so). The cleric in the party had a spell active, the name of which escapes me, which was a contingent heal when reduced to 0 hit points. Rather than waste an action on one of her few remaining cure moderate spells or what have you, she full attacked and volunteered to be in the area of a friendly fireball. The fireball finished her off and the heal triggered to put her back to full hit points.

 

[Skallgrim]

I'd just like to point out as an Evil DM, that these 'emergent properties' are a lot less useful if you aren't relatively confident that there won't be a "second time you die" that day. I would hope that my group would be scared enough of dying from the actual enemies that they would't start up any extra dying for tactical benefit.

On the other hand, what else is a climactic battle for?

 

[darjr]

That's pretty awesome. I dunno what I'll think after the second or more times it happens, but I think, right now, that is cool.

 

[Oompa]

That's pretty awesome. I dunno what I'll think after the second or more times it happens, but I think, right now, that is cool.

Indeed, now it sounds cool but what if this is going to happen daily? I think i would add a rule stating that used more than once on the same target in one week something happens...

But only when they start abusing the item.

 

[Mirtek]

These certainly aren't as usable and reliable as powers that let you recover when reduced to zero hp.

I think the exact opposite: Way to may ED have cheap "reduced to zero hp or fewer" powers instead of real "save me from death powers".

Even more useless if they automatically go off the very first time you're reduced to zero or less hp.

"Yeah, I have a dying threshold of -125 hp, are merely reduced to -7 and my leader buddy has the very next turn with his healing word ready, but alas my ED decided to just save me from death"

 

[Mesh Hong]

Its funny you should mention this because the first sign of this has just happened in my game.

My PCs were level 24 and at the top of Vecna’s secret tower in Pandemonium with the intention of getting a vial of liquid from his scrying font, In my game Vecna has been killed but when they got to the font they found a young teenager necrotically tethered to it out of who emerged 3 remnants of Vecna (undeath, necromancy and secrets).

Now the battle is for a different thread, but during the fight the Paladin (angel of death) surprised everyone by using divine transposition to switch places with the tethered teenager meaning that the Paladin was bound to the font and the teenager was free. Everyone was shocked because no-one knew how to get him free and it was becoming apparent that when the final Remnant of Vecna was destroyed the font might do something nasty, as the two destroyed remnants were sucked back into the font on death and were attacking the tethered person.

This is when the Paladin announced that he was going to kill himself. Surprised looks all round. But then we realised his plan was to use his on death power to explode and appear at the end of the encounter.

Now I like to be fair, and I realised that we were in a precedent setting situation so I ruled that he could coup de grace himself but he couldn’t just die. He was initially a little incredulous that he couldn’t just kill himself but I explained that Epic level characters are hard to kill. They have developed so far from normal people that they are closer to gods than commoners and as such can take an amazing amount of punishment before their mind or body succumbs. I also pointed out that I would never allow an NPC or monster to just kill a PC without a dice roll while they were sleeping, and if he could just kill himself so could anyone else.

Everyone agreed that this was the way to go, (some more readily than others), and the Paladin did himself a lot of damage but not enough to kill himself. But in this case the font took care of that later in the round.

An interesting upshot from this encounter however was that the remaining group finished off the remnants of Vecna, then collected the vial of liquid they were after just managing to Recall out before the whole area exploded in a major release of magical energy.

Then the paladin rematerialised in the shattered and destroyed remains of the tower, somewhere in Pandemonium, with no way of getting himself home and at the mercy of the maddening winds that howl through that plane……..

In conclusion
Friendly fire is a possibility at all tiers of play, it is going to happen on purpose or by accident at some point and the PCs will naturally sort it out one way or another.

Self harm and tactical suicide are probably only going to be encountered in mid to late epic tier play, and a DM is going to have to sort it out one way or another.

Personally I am perfectly happy for my PCs to do anything the players want, the important thing for me is that there are tangible repercussions for their actions and that everyone understands the natural balance of “anything the PCs use can also be used against them”.

I do feel it is worth pointing out that monsters gain “on death” powers a lot sooner than PCs. It is not that surprising to see monsters explode in a burst of necrotic energy when defeated, the Epic destiny powers are really not that much different.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Personally, I imagine even a brief death to very unpleasant -- something most characters would avoid except due to utter necessity. Also, though I don't mind a certain degree of "gamist" thinking, at a certain point I would imagine the Raven Queen showing up for a short conversation. Something like: "I make an exception for those such as you, so long as they do not abuse it. Do not try my patience further."

 

[Amaroq]

Yeah, but doesn't killing an ally permanently bar you from the "good" ending of the game?

Oh, that was Disgaea. Never mind!