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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8687553" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>This is a false dichotomy.</p><p></p><p>Death is not the only serious consequence players may have to deal with. The problem is not whether there is sufficient risk, or fear, of death. The problem is that you have players <em>who don't care about anything other than whether their characters are alive</em>.</p><p></p><p>I don't use random, permanent, irrevocable death in my game. Period. It hasn't been an issue because my players play very, very cautiously (despite the fact that I <em>told</em> them about my "I won't take your character away" policy during Session 0), but if anyone's character ever DID die, that would only be the end for that character <em>if</em> the player wished it to be so. If not, there are all sorts of stories I can tell, all sorts of places I can go. There will be <em>consequences</em>. Some of those consequences may be permanent or irrevocable. The world does not stop just because one of you or one of your friends bit the dust. But <em>you can still come back</em>. You may have to try to fix a world that is much more broken than the world you remember before your death. You may grieve allies who were lost while you couldn't save them. You may find that your powers or equipment or knowledge have fallen into enemy hands, and something Really Bad happened as a result. But <em>your character's story</em> doesn't end just because some numbers on a screen put your character out of the action.</p><p></p><p>If you have players who care about your game's contents enough that survival is NOT the only thing they care about, you don't have to use death as the end of the line. There's a whole world of other things to care about out there.</p><p></p><p>I won't--ever--"bail them out anyway." The consequences of their actions belong to them. And, importantly, I won't let my good will be exploited; if it's clear the players are <em>relying</em> on the ability to always come back to life, yeah, I'm not gonna put up with that. That's exploitative. I don't tolerate exploitative behavior. But so long as the players engage in good faith, they can trust that I won't yank their character away from them. That trust <em>enables</em> them to actually do creative, interesting, dramatic things. Without that trust, half the events of our campaign could never have occurred. Most of the coolest moments would have been impossible, or at least would have been dramatically less interesting. (I say "most" because there were a few very early moments my players were super excited about that can't be attributed to this; but from about the 6-month mark on, it's been extremely significant.)</p><p></p><p>Death is not the only consequence--and most other consequences are much more interesting. Way too many people forget or deny this fact, much to the hobby's detriment.</p><p></p><p></p><p>But healing isn't <em>the only thing Clerics are designed for</em>.</p><p></p><p>That's my point. Healing is one tool in the Cleric's toolbox. That toolbox is full (IMO, overstuffed) with <em>other</em> cool and useful things the Cleric can do. Even for Clerics who specifically choose to hyperspecialize in healing or damage, they'll always have the expansive Cleric spell list, and even Life Clerics get spells that aren't strictly about restoring HP (<em>bless, lesser restoration, guardian of faith, raise dead</em>) as always-prepped spells. Admittedly, some of those are still healing-adjacent (<em>lesser restoration</em> in particular), but overall there's <em>stuff</em> you can do that doesn't require the party to specifically fail first.</p><p></p><p>Fighter, explicitly by design, doesn't do that. Like, the developers were straight-up explicit to us that that's what the Fighter is designed for. It is not designed for doing anything <em>other than</em> fighting. Subclasses naturally make this more complicated, but even the Eldritch Knight, the Fighter specifically about nicking spells from the Wizard, has dramatically curtailed access to any spells that aren't specifically abjuration or evocation...aka the two spell schools <em>most specifically about fighting</em> (defense and explosions.) To be specific, you can learn a grand total of 4 non-cantrip spells that aren't abjuration or evocation.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I mean, it's still pretty clearly a factor. If you limit other forms of progression (defenses and accuracy) and distance yourself from horizontal progression (multiclassing is optional and there's very minimal resources for horizontal progression), then you only really have survivability as a metric of advancement. That, plus the incredibly uninspired monster design, is what leads to so many big fat bags of HP with no other mechanics, and to player characters who become difficult to kill without throwing very powerful opponents at them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8687553, member: 6790260"] This is a false dichotomy. Death is not the only serious consequence players may have to deal with. The problem is not whether there is sufficient risk, or fear, of death. The problem is that you have players [I]who don't care about anything other than whether their characters are alive[/I]. I don't use random, permanent, irrevocable death in my game. Period. It hasn't been an issue because my players play very, very cautiously (despite the fact that I [I]told[/I] them about my "I won't take your character away" policy during Session 0), but if anyone's character ever DID die, that would only be the end for that character [I]if[/I] the player wished it to be so. If not, there are all sorts of stories I can tell, all sorts of places I can go. There will be [I]consequences[/I]. Some of those consequences may be permanent or irrevocable. The world does not stop just because one of you or one of your friends bit the dust. But [I]you can still come back[/I]. You may have to try to fix a world that is much more broken than the world you remember before your death. You may grieve allies who were lost while you couldn't save them. You may find that your powers or equipment or knowledge have fallen into enemy hands, and something Really Bad happened as a result. But [I]your character's story[/I] doesn't end just because some numbers on a screen put your character out of the action. If you have players who care about your game's contents enough that survival is NOT the only thing they care about, you don't have to use death as the end of the line. There's a whole world of other things to care about out there. I won't--ever--"bail them out anyway." The consequences of their actions belong to them. And, importantly, I won't let my good will be exploited; if it's clear the players are [I]relying[/I] on the ability to always come back to life, yeah, I'm not gonna put up with that. That's exploitative. I don't tolerate exploitative behavior. But so long as the players engage in good faith, they can trust that I won't yank their character away from them. That trust [I]enables[/I] them to actually do creative, interesting, dramatic things. Without that trust, half the events of our campaign could never have occurred. Most of the coolest moments would have been impossible, or at least would have been dramatically less interesting. (I say "most" because there were a few very early moments my players were super excited about that can't be attributed to this; but from about the 6-month mark on, it's been extremely significant.) Death is not the only consequence--and most other consequences are much more interesting. Way too many people forget or deny this fact, much to the hobby's detriment. But healing isn't [I]the only thing Clerics are designed for[/I]. That's my point. Healing is one tool in the Cleric's toolbox. That toolbox is full (IMO, overstuffed) with [I]other[/I] cool and useful things the Cleric can do. Even for Clerics who specifically choose to hyperspecialize in healing or damage, they'll always have the expansive Cleric spell list, and even Life Clerics get spells that aren't strictly about restoring HP ([I]bless, lesser restoration, guardian of faith, raise dead[/I]) as always-prepped spells. Admittedly, some of those are still healing-adjacent ([I]lesser restoration[/I] in particular), but overall there's [I]stuff[/I] you can do that doesn't require the party to specifically fail first. Fighter, explicitly by design, doesn't do that. Like, the developers were straight-up explicit to us that that's what the Fighter is designed for. It is not designed for doing anything [I]other than[/I] fighting. Subclasses naturally make this more complicated, but even the Eldritch Knight, the Fighter specifically about nicking spells from the Wizard, has dramatically curtailed access to any spells that aren't specifically abjuration or evocation...aka the two spell schools [I]most specifically about fighting[/I] (defense and explosions.) To be specific, you can learn a grand total of 4 non-cantrip spells that aren't abjuration or evocation. I mean, it's still pretty clearly a factor. If you limit other forms of progression (defenses and accuracy) and distance yourself from horizontal progression (multiclassing is optional and there's very minimal resources for horizontal progression), then you only really have survivability as a metric of advancement. That, plus the incredibly uninspired monster design, is what leads to so many big fat bags of HP with no other mechanics, and to player characters who become difficult to kill without throwing very powerful opponents at them. [/QUOTE]
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