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The "everyone at full fighting ability at 1 hp" conundrum
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7833198" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>In fairness, this has more or less been true since the days of 0e: once you get to a certain level, things are generally tilted in the party's favour assuming a competent DM who reads and follows the game's designed intent.</p><p></p><p>The difference lies in how severe the tilt is, and at what level it tends to manifest, and how.</p><p></p><p>In 1e it's not until about 3rd-4th level that things tend to start really favouring the party - and note I said the party; individual characters are always at risk. At 9th when you start seeing Raise Dead in the field, death becomes much less of a concern (though you still have to make that resurrection survival roll; and you'd come back down a Con point). Also, long-term attrition was in play - a party had to manage its resources wisely, and those resources included hit points and cures.</p><p></p><p>In 3e, if a DM followed the CR-EL guidelines carefully, the party was favoured right from level 1 on up; though again just the party as a whole was favoured, individual characters were again always at risk. Attrition was still a thing, but revival from death was made automatic (no res. survival roll) and with a reduced penalty.</p><p></p><p>In 4e the tilt was also there right from the start, assuming again that the guidelines were followed, but here came a difference: individual characters weren't at nearly as much risk as before. From all I've seen here, 4e parties tended to rise and fall as a unit; probably an effect of the much-greater availability of in-combat healing. Long-term resource management largely went away due to full overnight recovery. Revival from death still automatic but all penalizing after-effects are gone.</p><p></p><p>5e has mostly followed the 4e model in this respect; but added Revivify - a low-level, zero-cost revival-from-death spell that made death even less likely to be permanent.</p><p></p><p>Some say an "easy" low- or no-death game is more fun. Personally, I'd probably enjoy the hell out of it for the first half-dozen sessions and then find it incredibly boring, knowing I was almost invulnerable.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7833198, member: 29398"] In fairness, this has more or less been true since the days of 0e: once you get to a certain level, things are generally tilted in the party's favour assuming a competent DM who reads and follows the game's designed intent. The difference lies in how severe the tilt is, and at what level it tends to manifest, and how. In 1e it's not until about 3rd-4th level that things tend to start really favouring the party - and note I said the party; individual characters are always at risk. At 9th when you start seeing Raise Dead in the field, death becomes much less of a concern (though you still have to make that resurrection survival roll; and you'd come back down a Con point). Also, long-term attrition was in play - a party had to manage its resources wisely, and those resources included hit points and cures. In 3e, if a DM followed the CR-EL guidelines carefully, the party was favoured right from level 1 on up; though again just the party as a whole was favoured, individual characters were again always at risk. Attrition was still a thing, but revival from death was made automatic (no res. survival roll) and with a reduced penalty. In 4e the tilt was also there right from the start, assuming again that the guidelines were followed, but here came a difference: individual characters weren't at nearly as much risk as before. From all I've seen here, 4e parties tended to rise and fall as a unit; probably an effect of the much-greater availability of in-combat healing. Long-term resource management largely went away due to full overnight recovery. Revival from death still automatic but all penalizing after-effects are gone. 5e has mostly followed the 4e model in this respect; but added Revivify - a low-level, zero-cost revival-from-death spell that made death even less likely to be permanent. Some say an "easy" low- or no-death game is more fun. Personally, I'd probably enjoy the hell out of it for the first half-dozen sessions and then find it incredibly boring, knowing I was almost invulnerable. [/QUOTE]
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