The ethics of ... death

[Ahnehnois]

I realize that a more apt example for D&D might have been George RR Martin. He certainly doesn't think his main characters deserve a fair warning before they die!

Yes. Please accept that I just prefer lower lethality in my games, and balanced encounters, that it's an informed choice, and that that style of D&D was, is and will continue to be a valid option for many groups now and in the future.

Of course. I've run games where I simply did not want the PCs to die (though, oddly enough, I threw a bodak at them once; don't know what I would have done if they had failed a save). To me "PC's can't die" and "PC's can't die without having a fair chance at survival" are both valid styles. I just don't think they should be mandatory; a good set of rules allows for wide variation on basic tenents of the game like this.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I would hope most people who play 3e (or derivatives) would understand that CR/EL and "rules" of that ilk shouldn't exist, and would not object to DMs who ignore them.

I like to point out when people say this the simple fact that in Living Greyhawk, it was passed down as a mandate from WOTC that ALL encounters MUST fit the EL guidelines for appropriate encounters. NO encounters above APL+4 were allowed to be used. The average of the encounters in an adventure had to add up to APL+2(which meant that if there were 3 encounters, one had to be APL=EL, one was APL+2 and one was APL+4).

It was pointed out to us that WOTC(and the Circle, who were in charge of the campaign) saw the point of D&D as heroic characters fighting enemies who were reasonably defeatable. That's the reason the EL guidelines were put in the book.

I understand that some people feel the game should be more deadly and therefore don't like the EL rules. Some even go as far as to somehow they were a mistake and no one meant to put them in the book in the first place. This simply isn't the case.

But the key thing to remember is that, above all, those rules are meant to help the DM estimate the difficulty of an encounter because so many DMs complained that in 2e they'd use a monster and when they ran it without cheating, it would kill off all the characters...when they didn't want that to happen. There was no real way of knowing which monsters would kill all the PCs or not. So, they added one. Realistically, there is no RULE that says you need to use appropriate encounters. Instead there is simply a game designed to have a 100% chance of killing everyone if you don't follow them. DMs who don't follow them are simply saying to their players that they want them all to die.

At least, in theory. I'm the first to admit that WOTC did a very poor job creating CRs for monsters. They also kept giving more and more powerful options to the players. This meant that at various points in 3.5e's lifespan, you could easily take a CR 15 creature and throw it up against 10th level characters and watch the PCs win without much of a problem.

And if the estimates aren't correct, it pretty much removes the entire point of the EL/CR system and makes it useless.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

To me "PC's can't die" and "PC's can't die without having a fair chance at survival" are both valid styles. I just don't think they should be mandatory; a good set of rules allows for wide variation on basic tenents of the game like this.

I had an idea in another thread that might just work for this. I thought it might be nice if SoD effects instead had 3 levels of success:
1. Failure
2. Partial Effect
3. Full Effect

The idea being something like Flesh to Stone doing damage to someone if they failed a save, but turned them completely to stone if they rolled a 1 on their save. Or maybe making SoD effects have "to hit" rolls where if you roll a 20, you crit and successfully kill the target.

Then, there could be optional rules to allow each DM to set a level of lethality in there games. Maybe in "more lethal" games, a 16 through 20 on the attack roll causes the target to die and an extremely lethal game makes every attack roll that hits immediately lethal.

 

[Guest 85555]

Of course. I've run games where I simply did not want the PCs to die (though, oddly enough, I threw a bodak at them once; don't know what I would have done if they had failed a save). To me "PC's can't die" and "PC's can't die without having a fair chance at survival" are both valid styles. I just don't think they should be mandatory; a good set of rules allows for wide variation on basic tenents of the game like this.

I agree with this. There are different approaches to lethality and character death, and every group I have been in seems to have a slightly different take. i think one thing they should do in Next is acknowledge this as a key playstyle decision and provide tools to scale. personally I favor having more PC death on the table, and more random carnage (to me a night that ends in a spectacular TPK or where the leader of the party gets killed and the party has to retreat and acknowledge the threat is too great for them to handle, can be more exciting than victory). But that isn't for everyone. People have different taste, trying to make your taste on this front objectively the best way to do it, has never worked. I have never once seen a one size fits all when it comes to this particular issue.

 

[Ahnehnois]

But the key thing to remember is that, above all, those rules are meant to help the DM estimate the difficulty of an encounter

I think it does more to confuse and mislead DMs than help them, regardless of intent. You seem to agree...

At least, in theory. I'm the first to admit that WOTC did a very poor job creating CRs for monsters. They also kept giving more and more powerful options to the players. This meant that at various points in 3.5e's lifespan, you could easily take a CR 15 creature and throw it up against 10th level characters and watch the PCs win without much of a problem.

And if the estimates aren't correct, it pretty much removes the entire point of the EL/CR system and makes it useless.

However, I think that the estimates aren't correct because the game experience is not standardized enough to make those kinds of estimates. Different party makeups and player choices, different in-game situations, different houserules and assumptions, there are so many things that can affect how a party of four Level X characters will interact with a CR Y monster than in my opinion the CR is useless.

That may because so many DMs complained that in 2e they'd use a monster and when they ran it without cheating, it would kill off all the characters...when they didn't want that to happen. There was no real way of knowing which monsters would kill all the PCs or not.

It's a lot easier to tell how dangerous monsters are now that attack bonuses and AC and saves and such work the same way. If you're using an SoD, it's very easy to know what the chance of failure is. If you're using conventional attacks, it's easier to calculate the likelihood of hits.

That said, if anyone did make that complaint, I still think it's BS. It's not the game designers job to control the PC mortality rate. Rules don't kill PCs, DMs do.

Realistically, there is no RULE that says you need to use appropriate encounters.

Okay so far...

Instead there is simply a game designed to have a 100% chance of killing everyone if you don't follow them. DMs who don't follow them are simply saying to their players that they want them all to die.

Wait, what? That's just absurd. The base encounter is four against one, so easy that it's barely worth rolling dice. A CR 5 creature that meets a party of level 5 characters should run for its life.

Deviating from that ludicrous baseline doesn't say anything other than that the DM is doing his job and deciding for himself what creatures are out there and how they behave. It certainly doesn't suggest that all the PCs are about to die.

I don't use CRs/ELs, but if I did calculate them, I'm quite sure that most of my encounters are above what the XP charts even consider...and I haven't killed a PC in at least fifteen sessions (probably more like twenty). I routinely place a party of three PCs against three NPCs of equal or higher level than them, or one NPC five or six levels higher, or a monster with a CR five or ten higher than their level; and that's before I trick these encounters out with customized statistics, equipment, allies, and situational factors. Then again, I also run an occasional one below level as a gag or to break up tension. What I don't do is follow or even refer to the guidelines.

I like to point out when people say this the simple fact that in Living Greyhawk, it was passed down as a mandate from WOTC that ALL encounters MUST fit the EL guidelines for appropriate encounters.

Organized play is kind of its own animal, and the considerations are different. I think it's safe to say that anything that I or anyone else says about DMing does not apply to that situation. I personally don't much care what the rules of Living Greyhawk are/were (or what it is at all).

It was pointed out to us that WOTC(and the Circle, who were in charge of the campaign) saw the point of D&D as heroic characters fighting enemies who were reasonably defeatable. That's the reason the EL guidelines were put in the book.

Can't say I ever saw that as being the point of D&D. In fact, I find that statement contradictory. To me, the definition of "heroic" does not include slaughtering helpless opponents or accomplishing tasks that do not involve meaningful risks.

I understand that some people feel the game should be more deadly and therefore don't like the EL rules.

Those are separate considerations. I don't use CRs/ELs/XP, but my campaigns range from bloodbaths to PC victory parades. The point is that the CR/EL system is designed to replace a part of the DM's job (deciding what challenges the characters should face), but I don't think that aspect of DMing can be adequately replaced, and I don't see any reason to try.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I had an idea in another thread that might just work for this. I thought it might be nice if SoD effects instead had 3 levels of success:
1. Failure
2. Partial Effect
3. Full Effect

The idea being something like Flesh to Stone doing damage to someone if they failed a save, but turned them completely to stone if they rolled a 1 on their save. Or maybe making SoD effects have "to hit" rolls where if you roll a 20, you crit and successfully kill the target.

Then, there could be optional rules to allow each DM to set a level of lethality in there games. Maybe in "more lethal" games, a 16 through 20 on the attack roll causes the target to die and an extremely lethal game makes every attack roll that hits immediately lethal.

I support that kind of approach; more granularity than simple pass/fail is definitely feasible.

I also think that the magic chapter should have a section under spells with the "Death" descriptor (or equivalent) that says that such spells may kill a character, reduce his hp to a certain value (say, -1), or simply knock him out of the battle (as some D&D-based computer games do when characters "die").

 

[Jester David]

Yep, that's a good way of setting the discussion, although you made it sound like this one extreme would be unplayable, since you rhetorically asked what would be the reason to play in that way

All the extremes are less playable.

Right now I'm playing in a game where I cannot die. The GM will not let me die. "Heroic self-sacrifice? Not on my watch!"
This doesn't sit well with me as I like to "play boldly" doing risky things that might be cool if they succeed or dangerous if the fail. But as I cannot die the risk is not there, and thus the rewards for success are lessened.
At the same time, if you die regularly and cannot get attached to your character, death has no meaning and your successes seem short term and transitory.

Like most arguments, the solution is the middle ground: a compromise. The default should be moderate survivability with the real risk of death if unlucky, foolish, or sloppy. Monsters with the chance to be more lethal if they're lucky but on average just bringing a risk of injury. But the option to use more deadly monsters 'n' spells to change the dynamic when necessary for tension, a reminder or morality, or a just increasing the risk.
After all, no one is going to force you to include SoD or SoS monsters in your game. Even if using a published module unless they're the main villain on the cover you can swap it out for a different monster.

Now, if you're a player and you keep running into SoD monsters, traps, and spells with an extremely high mortality rate, your problem isn't with the game, it's with the GM. Which means it doesn't matter what the game says, because the GM can always add SoD effects to the game.

(Admittedly, the big exception is Organized Play. OP modules cannot be changed, so SoD effects remain. But I'm hesitant to make changes to an entire game based on the non-representational play style that is OP. It's easier to just regulate the use of SoD in OP modules.)

 

[Li Shenron]

All the extremes are less playable.

Well, I disagree with that The extremes are perhaps less likely to be accepted by players, on average, but they are not really inherently less playable IMHO. Your example of your DM works with you, but I can only deduct that you don't like playing that way so it's less playable for you.

A compromise is of course a safe choice for publishing, it's the best for a large-base brand such as D&D, but even that is not the only choice (a more extreme game can be published successfully, it's just very unlikely to attract a fan base larger than small).

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I think it does more to confuse and mislead DMs than help them, regardless of intent. You seem to agree...

Only because it doesn't work. If it performed its stated goal well enough it would be excellent.

However, I think that the estimates aren't correct because the game experience is not standardized enough to make those kinds of estimates. Different party makeups and player choices, different in-game situations, different houserules and assumptions, there are so many things that can affect how a party of four Level X characters will interact with a CR Y monster than in my opinion the CR is useless.

This is correct. Which is precisely why I don't like 3.5e anymore. I don't like so much unpredictability.

It's a lot easier to tell how dangerous monsters are now that attack bonuses and AC and saves and such work the same way. If you're using an SoD, it's very easy to know what the chance of failure is. If you're using conventional attacks, it's easier to calculate the likelihood of hits.

Here's where I have to disagree immensely. In 2e, when ACs when from 10 to -10 and went down to no lower than -2 or -3 the vast majority of the time, it was extremely easy to predict how often enemies with one or two attacks could hit your PCs and vice versa. You knew that with a THAC0 of 16, someone with Full Plate and Shield would get hit 25% of the time and someone with AC 10 would get hit 75% of the time and that was your range.

In 3.5e, characters could have nearly any number as their AC. Their ACs could also change dramatically based on the current buffs up on the party and the actions they took in combat. Same thing with Hitpoints and Saving Throws. Also, the same thing applies to monster stats.

You could have a 30 hitdice creature whose AC was -2 in 3.5e. Who wins that battle? No idea. The PCs have a good chance of killing it outright if they go first because they'll all hit. Then again, the monster likely has a lot of hitpoints and bonuses to hit. Which might not matter if that same creature had a 3 strength. And it might completely murder them if it has a 40 strength. That's assuming the PCs attack its AC and don't try to use spells that target its Reflex. In which case, it might have bonuses so high they can't possibly hit.

There's so much unpredictability in the numbers that there's no way to make an accurate estimate of anything. Which is precisely why CR failed as a mechanic.

That said, if anyone did make that complaint, I still think it's BS. It's not the game designers job to control the PC mortality rate. Rules don't kill PCs, DMs do.

That's true. But say I only give you the names of monsters that I've made up and you've never seen before. Monster A and Monster B. Which one will kill the PCs and which one will be a cake walk for them? That's why we need a mechanic that says "Monster A is 100% likely to kill a group of 5 level 4 PCs, 80% likely to kill level 5 PCs, 50% likely to kill level 6 PCs, 30% likely to kill level 7 PCs, etc". Then, as a DM you can look at a monster and easily say "Alright, my PCs are level 6 and I want this battle to be fairly hard. This monster seems appropriate. It's a toss up as to whether someone will die.

Wait, what? That's just absurd. The base encounter is four against one, so easy that it's barely worth rolling dice. A CR 5 creature that meets a party of level 5 characters should run for its life.

I didn't write the system. I'm just repeating what the system says. A CR 5 creature is designed to take 20% of the resources from a group of four level 5 PCs. That means 20% of their spells, hitpoints, magic items, etc. So, they might just use 2 or 3 spells to defeat the monster without taking damage or they might use no spells and each take 20% of their hp in damage.

They are supposed to be easily defeatable. In fact, the idea is that you can fight 5 such monsters a day before you need to rest for the night.

Although, often a CR5 creature failed to use ANY resources from four level 5 PCs...which is precisely why I say the system failed.

Deviating from that ludicrous baseline doesn't say anything other than that the DM is doing his job and deciding for himself what creatures are out there and how they behave. It certainly doesn't suggest that all the PCs are about to die.

Once again, if the designers did their job properly, it WOULD mean that. If it was a valid estimate(and even if it's an invalid estimate...it is often better than no estimate at all), then a monster of CR15 should basically have a 95% chance of wiping out four adventurers of level 10.

As it is, you can often use monsters of CR15 or 16 against 10th level adventurers without worrying so much. Against PCs built using only the PHB, it might be closer to the correct estimate.

The system especially falls apart when you use multiples of the same monsters. It's estimates become worse and worse the more enemies there are.

I don't use CRs/ELs, but if I did calculate them, I'm quite sure that most of my encounters are above what the XP charts even consider...and I haven't killed a PC in at least fifteen sessions (probably more like twenty). I routinely place a party of three PCs against three NPCs of equal or higher level than them, or one NPC five or six levels higher, or a monster with a CR five or ten higher than their level; and that's before I trick these encounters out with customized statistics, equipment, allies, and situational factors.

Yeah, NPCs were the worst estimates out of anything in the system. A NPC Wizard of level 15 was supposed to be a CR15 encounter. That was NEVER the case. A CR 15 monster often had double this NPCs hit points and damage per round.

Organized play is kind of its own animal, and the considerations are different. I think it's safe to say that anything that I or anyone else says about DMing does not apply to that situation. I personally don't much care what the rules of Living Greyhawk are/were (or what it is at all).

I'm just stating that there were definitely people at WOTC who believed that the EL/CR system was in fact a rule. They made us use the rule explicitly because they wanted Living Greyhawk to be a campaign that felt like "baseline" D&D. Which means the rules as designed.

My point wasn't that you should care what Living Greyhawk did. My point was that the rules were definitely printed to be used and followed. The XP chart didn't even let you give out XP if you used encounters that much higher than the recommended guidelines since they assumed no one would be insane enough to try it.

As always, you can play whatever you want. The rules don't need to be followed. But they WERE rules.

Can't say I ever saw that as being the point of D&D. In fact, I find that statement contradictory. To me, the definition of "heroic" does not include slaughtering helpless opponents or accomplishing tasks that do not involve meaningful risks.

There were meaningful risks. I played a LOT of Living Greyhawk over 3 years. I've seen probably at least 30 or 40 PC deaths during that time. That was following the EL/CR guidelines. Most of the time APL+4 encounters are extremely tough. That's in addition to things like Bodak encounters that killed 3 people in one battle.

Authors of adventures quickly realized which monsters were overpowered for their CR and used those monsters. They realized tricks for making monsters tougher by doing things like adding templates that added too much for their CR increase. Plus tricks like adding one level of Warrior(which doesn't add anything to the CR of the monster, but does give them a feat and some hitpoints).

Those are separate considerations. I don't use CRs/ELs/XP, but my campaigns range from bloodbaths to PC victory parades. The point is that the CR/EL system is designed to replace a part of the DM's job (deciding what challenges the characters should face), but I don't think that aspect of DMing can be adequately replaced, and I don't see any reason to try.

It's not trying to replace it. It's trying to enhance it. At least, I consider it an enhancement.

If it's part of my job to pour over monster statistics with copies of the PCs in my hands comparing their Reflex saves to the DCs of the monsters while simultaneously figuring our the number of rounds a monster can survive on average based on probability and likely tactics the PCs will use in order to find appropriate monsters to use....well, I'm happy to have someone else do that work for me.

I'd prefer my job be much easier. I'd like to look in a book 2 minutes before the game starts, find a monster of the correct level/CR/whatever and say alright, this should be a fun fight with some danger, and say "Let's do this".

 

[Doug McCrae]

I didn't write the system. I'm just repeating what the system says. A CR 5 creature is designed to take 20% of the resources from a group of four level 5 PCs. That means 20% of their spells, hitpoints, magic items, etc. So, they might just use 2 or 3 spells to defeat the monster without taking damage or they might use no spells and each take 20% of their hp in damage.

They are supposed to be easily defeatable. In fact, the idea is that you can fight 5 such monsters a day before you need to rest for the night.

Although, often a CR5 creature failed to use ANY resources from four level 5 PCs...which is precisely why I say the system failed.

One issue with 3e's CR system is that PC builds and tactics are far superior in 2013 to those in 2000. The CR system is most likely correct for a PHB-only game where the cleric uses most of his spells for healing, the druid doesn't have natural spell, the wizard is a blaster, and the fighter takes weapon focus and specialization.