Which one do you prefer your character suffer? Death vs Rust Monster vs Level Drain

[fanboy2000]

I chose death.

Why? Two reasons:

1. It's more heroic. It's more heroic to die in battle than it is to have a rust monster gnaw on your sword, shield, or armor. It's definitely more heroic than getting your level drained.

2. It's more interesting. After losing your stuff, your character is gimped until you get more stuff. With death, you can either make a new character (always fun) or munch on the pizza until the party gets around to raise your PC.

 

[Lanefan]

2. It's more interesting. After losing your stuff, your character is gimped until you get more stuff. With death, you can either make a new character (always fun) or munch on the pizza until the party gets around to raise your PC.

Of course, the bigger hazard here is the rest of 'em will make you go *get* the pizza...

Lanefan

 

[Emirikol]

Meh, characters is just characters. We can make dozens and personalities and backgrounds are pretty easy to come up with. I think I can honestly say then that I LIKE swapping characters. If I had my druthers, I'd be playing the NPC's every week

jh

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I chose death.

Why? Two reasons:

1. It's more heroic. It's more heroic to die in battle than it is to have a rust monster gnaw on your sword, shield, or armor. It's definitely more heroic than getting your level drained.

2. It's more interesting. After losing your stuff, your character is gimped until you get more stuff. With death, you can either make a new character (always fun) or munch on the pizza until the party gets around to raise your PC.

Nonsense. Heroism is defined by deed, not gear. Take away Excaliber and King Arthur is still a hero of legend. Your character is not gimped by losing a sword.

 

[Hussar]

I'll go with the Rust Monster thanks.

After the MU has finished beating it to death with a stick, we reach into the portable hole/bag of holding, pull out the spare weapons/armor that we carry around for just this occassion and move on. Heck, you lose equipment all the bloody time in pre-3e D&D. These are the editions where falling into a 10 foot pit caused you to make saving throws for your equipment.

 

[fanboy2000]

Nonsense. Heroism is defined by deed, not gear.

And what deed is more heroic than dying in battle!?

Take away Exca;iber and King Arthur is still a hero of legend.

Of course he his. But when he and the Knights of the Round Table get together, they laugh about the fight with the rust monster. Lancelot in particular likes to poke fun at the look on King Arthur's face when he saw his old sword (the one before Excaliber) crumble away. For some reason, that fight never makes into any of the tales bards tell of King Arthur's exploits. Bards seem to prefer things like the quest for the holy grail. Go figure.

Your character is not gimped by losing a sword.

Says you, that was a +3 Sunblade!

Of course, the bigger hazard here is the rest of 'em will make you go *get* the pizza...

Hey, no guts, no glory!

 

[Dausuul]

Your character is not gimped by losing a sword.

That depends entirely on what level you are, how powerful the sword was, and what sort of things you're fighting. Losing a +5 sword could quite easily gimp a character within the context of the game - in the sense that the character is now pathetic compared to his/her comrades, and unable to fight effectively against the foes they face.

I agree you don't cease to be heroic, but heroism is a matter of roleplay; gimping is a matter of dice and numbers, and -5 to hit and damage are some pretty harsh numbers.

 

[Ariosto]

the sense that the character is now pathetic compared to his/her comrades

A number of factors have gone into getting us into this situation.

There's "bonus inflation". There simply were not any +4 or +5 items in the original set. A pretty obvious point is that a magic weapon (or one favored in Weapon Mastery or the like) makes a figure different from another of its level; counting on something so individually frangible to make characters equal is an intrinsically poor design.

That very design on the part of players is a more basic problem, one that successive designers have addressed by accommodation. It is fundamentally at odds with the original D&D concept, which was designed to produce inequality in outcomes as dictated by luck and skill. I can only wonder how people otherwise make sense of (much less rationalize keeping track of) experience points.

There are quite sensible reasons to undertake such a game, but the enterprise of replacing D&D with a more suitable rules set took big steps forward with 4e because of the designers' readiness to get rid of "sacred cows". Neither level drain nor treasure-destroying rust monster -- nor even death, except as temporary inconvenience -- seems to serve a purpose, because the purposes have changed.

Maybe with 5e, we'll see magic swords, etc., removed at least from the category of +x bonuses (as those are essentially entitlements and parts of "character concept" and a scheme of balance now). Versatility in ways to do things is more popularly risked, I think, than raw fighting power. Either as an alternative or in conjunction, there could be rules to ensure that treasures are not lost (unless perhaps suitable replacements turn up in timely fashion).

As 3e and 4e have already shown, one can give the "level drainers" less distressing powers. The "nerfed" rust monster seems just too silly to me, but YMMV. Eventually, people who find death by misfortune unacceptable must simply take death out of the realm of fortune. However things average out, expecting the "unexpected" to manifest randomly is the point of rolling dice!

 

[JRRNeiklot]

That depends entirely on what level you are, how powerful the sword was, and what sort of things you're fighting. Losing a +5 sword could quite easily gimp a character within the context of the game - in the sense that the character is now pathetic compared to his/her comrades, and unable to fight effectively against the foes they face.

I agree you don't cease to be heroic, but heroism is a matter of roleplay; gimping is a matter of dice and numbers, and -5 to hit and damage are some pretty harsh numbers.

In 3e, perhaps. Pre 3e there were no assumptions that you had any sort of a magic weapon for an encounter. You might have a +5 sword or you might have a stick. You are no more gimped by losing the sword than a first level character is by not starting with a holy avenger.

 

[AllisterH]

In 3e, perhaps. Pre 3e there were no assumptions that you had any sort of a magic weapon for an encounter. You might have a +5 sword or you might have a stick. You are no more gimped by losing the sword than a first level character is by not starting with a holy avenger.

Which is kind of why many people would rather take death than lose the gear since, if the rust monster ate that Holy Sword, you might as well create a new character since you can't get back to the state you were pre-battle.

I voted for death simply because of how easy it was to create a character and especially for a fighter, it was easy to become effective with the excess gear a party would give you even if you were a few levels behind.

Level drain was just plain annoying