The Mathematics of Survivability

[KarinsDad]

KarinsDad - did you catch the discussion a while back where we talked about the insta-kill spells and such? (the over-prevalence of magic, etc.) Was it called "How to stop the powerwizard"?

Actually, I rarely read on any of the boards except the DND Rules one. So no, I did not read it.

We touched upon quite a few of your points, and unless you have Resurrections as a common thing in your campaign, which James McMurray has in spades, than I think this is a problem in higher-level campaigns, as well.

Very important point: this is only IF (big if there) you play your villains as smart and they don't secretly want to die.

I think Resurrections should be rare. In our campaign that went from level 3 to level 9, we have had 3 player deaths, one of whom was raised.

But, each time that occurred, there were unusual circumstances that resulted in the deaths:

1) The players taking on creatures that were beyond their ability (and they knew it) and not waiting for the Dwarf (who was extremely slow in armor) to catch up when they started the battle. In their defense, they were trying to save some halflings that were getting attacked. That's what good characters do some times: make sacrifices for the good of all.

2) A Rogue who tried to sneak attack a Giant (who had a Bull Strength spell on him) and after he got criticaled, nobody being able to get to him in time to save him.

3) A bad decision in a teleporting portal where the party got split up, hence, the 3 out of 5 members were not powerful enough (or lucky enough maybe) to take on an encounter.

But, even in the worse encounters, the party has never had 2 deaths in one encounter. Ever.

I do not see this happening at higher level though. For example, just at 8th level, they fought a 12th level Sorcerer who had Stoneskin, Minor Globe of Invulnerability, and was casting Empowered Heightened Lightning Bolts for an average of 50 points of damage. Fortunately for the party, he never caught more than two of them in the blast at a time. However, he did manage to roll 63 points on one of the blasts. And, in a group of 6 characters with 40 to 70 hit points, that’s a significant portion of a characters hit points if the saving throw is missed.

But, even if they were 12th level, two such blasts from the exact same Sorcerer could easily kill one or more characters if they failed two back to back saves. Two such Sorcerers against the party of 6 same level PCs could easily, with bad die rolls from the players, result in TPK or near TPK, even though the PCs are the same level and outnumber them 3 to 1.

Frankly, I’m a bit concerned that even with a fairly common encounter with spells, I could easily decimate the party without really trying unless I play the NPCs as real stooges. Granted, some of my players are really sharp, but bad die rolls can ruin the best of plans.

 

[pogre]

Kill or be Killed

My group has found at the higher levels encounters have turned into "we kill them all quickly or somebody is taking the dirt nap". Tonight for the first time two PCs were killed in one encounter - a nasty wizard villain.

My problem is that some of the characters are falling behind because they have died twice, while other PCs have not died at all. The level gap is starting to become annoying.

I have been considering changing how I award XP by giving players CR divided by PC Level Divided by number of PCs - as opposed to using average party level.

It still does not cover the problem of the higher lethality of 15th level +.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I certainly noticed that back in the old days of D&D high level characters became very hard to kill quickly - typically needed 3+ to save against most things in many cases.

I suppose that one of the design goals of 3e was to give high level characters something like the same feel of risk that low level characters get, and that is where the scaling saving throws come from ? Just guessing.

As a DM I find that even though the party are now average 8th level it is still frighteningly easy to accidentally kill someone. I personally dislike quicky raise deads (smacks of computer game respawning to me!). I like to play in games that I could imagine as a novel, and easy comebacks from death competes against my "suspension of disbelief".

Frankly, I'm not sure how I'm going to run things at high level to give my PC's a chance of surviving... I have a house rule (borrowed from Star Wars d20) that when a hero reaches -10 hp he gets to make a Fort ST (DC is the total amount he is below 0) to be crippled and dying rather than dead. This has saved at least 6 character lives so far, although 2 have still failed the fort saves and died (one rogue, one cleric). I imagine that this might see more future use, and I may look at ways of extending it in some against the "save or die" spells, even though I can't think of any sane way of doing so just at the moment

Cheers

 

[Numion]

My first high-level campaign had this problem. High-level enemies tended to kill lots of PCs with instadeath spells. The current campaign (16-19 level PCs) isn't that way. The characters are incredibly difficult to kill. Saves are high, but more importantly they've started to use protective magics. Death Wards and Scarabs of Protection are quite common. The party cleric has more shields up than the friggin' Starship Enterprise.

To my surprise high-level gaming is pretty balanced. The party wizard doesn't rule the day, though his spells are potent (high DCs). Usually the enemies can easily match that, or they've got some SR. Advanced creatures (I use them a lot) get easily ridiculously high saves.

Blaster mages are even less efficient than the Necromantic or Transmutators who use instakills. Protection from Elements or evasion is a b*tch.

It all boils down to this: on paper it may look bad. In play it works pretty good. IMC, YMMV etc.

 

[Numion]

Remember also that at levels 17+ a characters death isn't 20% of the groups resources. It's less than that. It's a 9th level spell and 5000gp. That in mind the CRs with wizards and instakill spells may work.

I mean that if a party loses a member to a mage of their level, it hasn't fared worse than the 20% loss of resources they were "supposed" to lose. It's all relative.

 

[KarinsDad]

I mean that if a party loses a member to a mage of their level, it hasn't fared worse than the 20% loss of resources they were "supposed" to lose. It's all relative.

That's a fairly morbid point of view.

 

[hong]

As a DM I find that even though the party are now average 8th level it is still frighteningly easy to accidentally kill someone. I personally dislike quicky raise deads (smacks of computer game respawning to me!). I like to play in games that I could imagine as a novel, and easy comebacks from death competes against my "suspension of disbelief".

This strike me as a problem too.

Frankly, I'm not sure how I'm going to run things at high level to give my PC's a chance of surviving... I have a house rule (borrowed from Star Wars d20) that when a hero reaches -10 hp he gets to make a Fort ST (DC is the total amount he is below 0) to be crippled and dying rather than dead. This has saved at least 6 character lives so far, although 2 have still failed the fort saves and died (one rogue, one cleric). I imagine that this might see more future use, and I may look at ways of extending it in some against the "save or die" spells, even though I can't think of any sane way of doing so just at the moment

I made up a feat that lets you convert mind-affecting spells and effects into physical damage, at 1d8 hp per spell level. You could do something similar for effects requiring Fort saves like disintegrate or FOD, but in the opposite direction: maybe instead of killing, it stuns you or knocks you out for 1 round per spell level. Maybe even temporary ability damage, if this seems too wimpy.

One problem I foresee with this is the party wizard complaining about having half their arsenal being crippled.

Other possibilities:

The spell lists for the shaman and wu jen in OA cut out a lot of the save-or-die spells. They don't go all the way, but it's a start.

In general, you could cut out all the instakill spells from spell lists, and to compensate, give spellcasters other benefits: feats or skill points, for example.

Give PCs more hit points. Say 3/4 max HD, or even max HD, so they can better handle things that simply dish out huge gobs of damage.

Give everyone a reroll 1/day like the cleric's Luck domain ability. You could make it into a feat if you want, and in fact there's a feat like this in the Rokugan book (Dancing with the Fortunes).

Play the monsters stupid.

 

[Numion]

That's a fairly morbid point of view.

Absolutely right

It's just that people falsely tend to think that if even one PC should fall to a instakill spell at level 17+ against a foe of their level (CR = avg. party level), that they've somehow lost much more than 20% of their resources, from which also follows (usually) the statement that the CR system quite obviously can't handle Wizards and instant kill spells.

All I'm saying is that the CR system works much better if used within the D&D premises, which include assumptions about the availability of resurrections (plenty), protections against certain spells (plenty) and the standard D&D magic level (which again means quite plentiful magic). People who argue against the system usually haven't tried the system first.

Most DMs limit resurrections and availability of magic items. That leads to problems if they aren't at the same time limiting spells. They just use part of the system, and then complain it isn't working.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I suspect the TPK problem is "mostly" one of unprepared parties.

Ambushes in 3e are very deadly, especially once you factor in Haste.

I think the answer is for the PCs to methodically collect disruption effects and escape items.

What's a disruption effect? Anything that can temporarily break off combat. A mist or fog spell, Web, Sleet Storm, Wall of Stone, Wall of Force, etc.

What's an escape item? Potion of Invisibility, potion of Fly, Dimension Door or Teleport scroll, Quickened Dimension Door scroll, Cape of the Mountebank, etc.

A high level party could easily put at least one disruption and one escape item on every single PC.

If combat starts off on a bad footing, the PCs should consider a temporary retreat to in order to regroup. If the players refuse to plan for the day that the dice turn on them, they will get what they deserve...

IMNSHO, every single person in heavy armor needs to buy a potion of Fly and Invisibility as soon as possible. It isn't cheap, but the Raise Dead is a lot more expensive.

 

[EOL]

I think Ridley brings up a point that I have noticed in many of my campaigns, that being that even experienced players seem very reluctant to flee from a battle, even an ambush that is clearly going against them. It could be just a problem with me being too easy on them or it could be the sense of invicibility players sometimes have, or it could be just that they're dumb in any event sometimes killing off a few players in an ambush is just the kind of thing to let them know that sometimes the cliche of "running away to fight another day" is true.