Zero to Hero!

[Journeymanmage]

One thing about 4th edition that's different is the fact that you start out as a hero. While this is good an all for some people, it's not something for me. Also, the chance to die at low levels is a bit lower when compared to other editions and that's fine if you like that sort of thing but I don't. ...
I think what happens is it gives me more of an appreciation and a sense of fulfillment when I know I have beaten the odds and come out on top. I have played Wizards since 1st edition and whenever I ran out of spells I always had to think outside the box to help out the other party members and make use of what I had left and I really enjoyed that. ...

Understandable. And I agree in general with the sentiment of "working for your rewards / having a challenge".

And as Klaus pointed out, just as the PCs have more hp and good defenses, so do the NPCs.

The "boosted" hps is to get rid of some of the "swinginess" of previous additions.

Also remember as someone pointed out long ago ... (in ref to 1st ed): ~"A 1st level wizard needs to kill 250 kobolds to make it to 2nd level, a kobold only has to hit once to kill the wizard."

 

[Imaro]

A bloodied Irontooth did 1d8+1d10+4 damage to two adjacent enemies with each action, and healed 5hp at the end of his turn. Two hits from his axe could kill pretty much any PC (never mind a crit).

I don't think you are taking into consideration ranged attack powers, action points and the potential of 5 dailies being used all in one round of combat on a single enemy.

 

[MacMathan]

That does not match my experiences. While my character may not be menaced by a single housecat anymore, out first level parties regularly find themselves with their backs against the wall and survival coming down to some wits and a few well timed lucky rolls.

My current character can take maybe 3 hits from the bad guys before he eats dirt and if the rest of the party can't get to him he has may be gone in as little as 3 rounds. I have also had low level characters who are already low on HP get unlucky and get critted so hard into negatives that they just die.

I guess it is all in how you see your character and how tough the DM makes the world around him. In our campaign world we are pretty much of insignificant power at level 1.

 

[Aenghus]

This doesn't appeal to me, but for zero level PCs in 4e it would be possible to have minion PCs, statted up like monsters. You could either go with "down is not dead" and work out some sort of table for death or injury, or just go with "one hit and you are out" and have a stack of replacement minion PCs.

How difficult is difficult enough? The ceiling for survival can be placed arbitrarily high. Minions vs minions would be deadly, vs standard monsters would border on suicidal.

The consequences in terms of player attitude for this sort of game are obvious - simple PCs with a high and arbitrary death rate leads to Roman Numerals PCs eg Fingers XVII

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think it depends where you look how much things have changed. The PC vs Kobold ratio hasn't changed much (and Kobold Quickblades are nasty). What's changed is that 4e has made the gap between trained combatants and untrained much greater. In 3e, a no-magic cage match between a 1st level wizard and a housecat would probably go to the housecat (and the same would happen in 2e). In 4e even if banned from casting spells, the odds are ludicrously in favour of the wizard - the housecat would be statted as a minion. Likewise a town guardsman would be a challenge for a 1st level PC in both 3e and 4e - but an untrained fourteen year old is only going to threaten the 3e character.

 

[Mengu]

Feeling like a hero (or not) is fairly system agnostic. The DM can make PC's feel either way at any given level. I can run a 4e game where level 1's feel like heroes, or level 5's feel like nobodies. I was in a 3e game where we were up to 7th level and still felt like nobodies. In a 3.5 game, I started out 1st level as a prince. In a Rolemaster game, we started out level 1 as heroes of the land. In another Rolemaster game we were level 5, barely out of the orphanage, and so green we needed help with everything, and half the time prevailed through sheer luck or folly.

How heroic you feel is more a matter of game environment portrayed by the DM, than anything else.

 

[Spatula]

One thing about 4th edition that's different is the fact that you start out as a hero.

Eh, as others have mentioned, the monsters are scaled up, too. Relatively, the PCs aren't much better off than they were before. The PCs can just survive more than 1-2 hits, which IMO is an improvement. There's little room for exploration when a single bad roll can kill you.

A level 1 PC in 4e is heroic, but not IMO really a hero yet. If you're a hero at level 1, what are you at level 8? 14? 26? You don't even get your full complement of powers until level 26, I think (the ED utility).

I have played Wizards since 1st edition and whenever I ran out of spells I always had to think outside the box to help out the other party members and make use of what I had left and I really enjoyed that.

If there's one thing I don't miss from previous editions, it's casting my one spell for the day and then throwing darts for the rest of the fight.

If there were two things that I don't miss from previous editions, #2 would be the whiff-fests that are low-level fights, where everyone's attack bonuses are outstripped by their opponents' ACs. Boring and frustrating.

 

[Klaus]

I don't think you are taking into consideration ranged attack powers, action points and the potential of 5 dailies being used all in one round of combat on a single enemy.

The fight with Irontooth happened in an enclosed space with little range (and Irontooth had good mobility, being able to shift every time he was missed). Plus, he came with two kobold dragonshields, AND the party would just have fought its way past over 20 kobolds. Not much in the way of dailies and action points (and surges) remaining.

And this was a Level 3 *goblin*.

 

[malraux]

For my group, Irontooth basically wiped the party once at level 1, nearly wiped the party again at level 2 and managed to escape, and ended up almost killing a character again when he showed up at level 5.

 

[Kinneus]

Another thing I'll mention is that the whole "4e characters at level 1 are much stronger than other editions" concept is not as true as it used to be. I think a large part of this was the increased hit points, coupled with poor MM1 monster design. When you have a ton of hit points and monsters basically tickle you damage-wise, yeah, you're going to feel pretty darn immortal.

But times, they are a-becomin' different. With updated monster math, monsters are actually very scary now. People continue to believe that 4e PCs are indestructible, but things have really changed. I sometimes DM for a group of very casual players. I want to emphasize VERY casual. They regard D&D as a board game with a plot that they can play while getting drunk. One character is seriously named "Rape Clown the Unwieldy" and is basically a walking Michael Jackson joke. A few of the players are a bit more serious, but for the most part, yeah. Very casual.

When we first played, when it was just PHB, MM and DMG, fights were long and grindy, but they were rarely (if ever) seriously threatened, and rarely (if ever) knocked out. This was with casual players, VERY casual players, who do things like use poor (or no) tactics, constantly forget to use their Encounter powers or item powers, and generally waste actions doing things because they think it'll be funny or because they think it'll look cool.

They creamed MM1 monsters. They killed a Young Black Dragon at level 1 without breaking a sweat.

Now, though, things have been updated. And these casual players that barely understand the rules and have horribly built characters are no longer quite the swaggering heroes they used to be. Despite now being level 5, they frequently drop to unconscious. It's a rare fight indeed where I don't at the very least reduce everybody to bloodied. In the last adventure, I "called" the last fight because people had to go. I hand-waved it and said they defeated the BBEG and his coterie of mind-controlled orcs. They walked out firmly believing they would've won, so why not call it? Only I, the DM knew... they were headed for an inevitable TPK (it didn't help that the Longtooth Paladin entered the fight bloodied, refusing all healing, because he wanted to use his racial ability!).

So, yeah. PCs used to be gods. But then the monster's balls dropped. If you don't believe that 4e PCs can feel very much like zeroes, try running a level 1 Dark Sun game some time.