NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5278531" data-attributes="member: 80487">We start to get into playing the game. It is not a problem for those of us who enjoy playing it.Taking precautions is the game. Strategies for managing risk and reward, for minimizing chance factors even though they cannot be eliminated, are where the game is.Save-or-die effects don't make much difference to a 1st-level character -- and the difference may be a lesser chance of getting killed! (In OD&D, a 1st-level cleric has a 25% chance of making two death ray / poison saves in a row, versus an average between 2% and 9%  of surviving two dice of damage.)On the other hand, they become increasingly significant to higher-level characters. A fifth-level lightning bolt simply won't kill a character that has over 30 hit points. IIRC, no monster in the original set hits for more than 18 points per round (barring spells or magic items). An SOD effect, though, might kill 1 in 4 on average.Even with monsters' damage output upped in Supp. I and later editions, there is a very notable qualitative difference! There is a dramatic increase in randomness, and hence of risk -- much riding on a single toss of the dice.Note that this is just the opposite of the effect of higher average hit points with the accumulation of hit dice. Increasing hit points reduce randomness progressively as one plays a character longer.That low-level magic-users die in droves means that replacing a full-fledged wizard is not trivial. Besides the resurrection survival chance, AD&D limits number of times raised to the character's original constitution score.You've spent a year or more building up this character, and there's a risk of losing it altogether, and that's -- according to some folks -- "not scary"??!                      Originally Posted by ProfessorCirno <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/287601-save-die-yea-nay-post5274169.html#post5274169" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/enw/buttons/viewpost.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>  A slow death is drastically scarier then a sudden one.I guess so, and if Grand Guignol is your thing, then suit yourself. As for me, losing the character is quite enough!</blockquote>

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