Zero to Hero!

[Imaro]

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*.

So now you're figuring in the entire (level 6) encounter. Well I don't disagree that the encounter was a party killer, especially since it was outside the guidelines given in the DMG for even a hard fight at level 1.

What I was disagreeing with was that a single goblin, even Irontooth, was tough enough to kill a party of adventurers which is what I thought you were claiming.

 

[mudlock]

I remember my first 4e game (KotS preview, I had the halfling rogue) and, wow!, I did 20-something damage and tossed the enemy 15 feet away and off a cliff! It was amazing! Yes, my in-game power seemed huge by comparison to the "real world" (no 4' tall guy with a knife is going to throw a 200 pound lizard 15') and compared to a 1st level character in earlier editions (no 1st level rogue (or thief) could do that in earlier editions.)

Saying "yeah, but the bad guys have more hitpoints too" is irrelevant to that feeling.

I think it's awesome. I can conceive see how someone might miss the old days of fearing for your character's life at the sight of a house cat, but I don't share it.

That said, if you wanted to simulate that old feeling, knock off a couple multiples of per-level hitpoints and a few points of half-level bonuses, and start at level -2 (any further and the defenders will have _fewer_ hitpoints than the controllers, and that seems wrong.) Take advantage of the opportunity to handle the /other/ thing that character levels track: complexity. Drop class encounter power, daily power, and the feat, and let the players pick those as the gain levels -1, 0, and 1 (not sure what to do for essentials classes...) Focus on players learning their racial and class features.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I've run my players through both ways. And both ways are fun for the start of a campaign.

My 'zero to hero' method for the 3.5 game I had (and I've written about this before, so apologies to those whom I'm repeating info to)... the characters were all young men and women in a village who weren't adventurers. They didn't have any starting equipment... they didn't have a starting amount of gold to buy things... and they didn't have any class abilities whatsover. The first couple of sessions (when they overheard some bad guys planning something and they decided to try and stop it themselves) involved running through town and finding/borrowing/stealing equipment from the various farmers and townsfolk. Which was cool inasmuch as we had players using things like scythes for the first time in forever, because that was the only two-handed weapon they could get their hands on. Then, as the adventure progressed and they began dealing with the badguys, they found/stole more equipment from them, got treasure with which to buy some stuff too (the fighter was quite excited to finally be able to actually buy his first set of metal armor), and slowly but surely as they gained XP, I started feeding them parts of their class abilities to them one at a time.

This right here is what I love! You actually had the fighter excited about being able to buy metal armor, which is standard for most classes.

That sounds like an awesome campaign!

 

[ForeverSlayer]

It was actually proven that Irontooth was more difficult than he should have been.

Now we wiped the floor with him and had no problem, well we also had two rangers at the time, with a paladin, fighter, cleric and a Wizard.

It's a lot more difficult to die in 4th edition when compared to other editions because when the the HP runs out you aren't dead. You have to get to negative your bloodied value or fail three death saves in order to die. No other edition presented this kind of benefit. Back in older editions you had to get to -10 and you were dead.

 

[malraux]

This right here is what I love! You actually had the fighter excited about being able to buy metal armor, which is standard for most classes.

That sounds like an awesome campaign!

Done well, that can be good. IME though, it has always felt like I have to wait a really long time to play the character that I actually want to play.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Done well, that can be good. IME though, it has always felt like I have to wait a really long time to play the character that I actually want to play.

Why are you in such a hurry? I thought the whole point of the game was to enjoy each level and everything that it has to offer, not hurry up and get to the next level.

 

[D'karr]

You have to get to negative your bloodied value or fail three death saves in order to die. No other edition presented this kind of benefit. Back in older editions you had to get to -10 and you were dead.

Seems like you've never experienced the beauty of ongoing damage after falling unconscious.

I've seen more TPKs with 4e in 3 years, than I ever saw in any other edition in over 30 years.

 

[malraux]

Why are you in such a hurry? I thought the whole point of the game was to enjoy each level and everything that it has to offer, not hurry up and get to the next level.

Who said anything about level? I don't care about level, that's just a random number. I more object to stuff like all the fighter types having to ditch all their equipment by level 3 because they needed to get masterwork magic weapons, plate armor, etc. Or the paladin not getting his mount till level 5, the ranger not getting his animal till level 4, etc. Its not the fact that I wanted to get to level 6 that I was ever impatient for, it was the fact that the class defining elements often didn't appear till well after the start.

 

[malraux]

Seems like you've never experienced the beauty of ongoing damage after falling unconscious.

I've seen more TPKs with 4e in 3 years, than I ever saw in any other edition in over 30 years.

I can't say that I've seen more tpks with 4e, but certainly not any less.

 

[Skyscraper]

(Emphasis mine)

Sorry, but you're just wrong in these assessments. PCs have lots of hit points and good defenses, but so do the monsters. A DM can pitch the PCs against overwhelming odds just as much as he could in previous editions. Case in point: Irontooth, a *goblin* in Keep on the Shadowfell, could very well wipe out a 1st- or 2nd-level party all by himself. If the DM plays safe, the game will be safe. But the tools for a deadlier game are there.

I don't think I agree with this. The question is not whether the DM can choose powerful, PC-killing monsters like Irontooth in 4E (who, by the way, is nothing but your typical level 1 goblin); it's whether typical fights allow a high-survivability rate for PCs in 4E vs previous editions, if the DM so wishes.

Personally, I think that 4E allows for the possibility of higher survival rates at low level.

The reason is that the lowest level monsters (level 1) in 4E don't deal enough damage to put a PC unconscious in one shot. Most PCs start with 20+ HPs. Recommended normal damage expressions for level 1 monsters don't do 20+ damage. Thus, it's likely that a PC will remain standing after one attack in 4E.

In 3E and before, however, first level PCs could easily be downed with a single stroke by weak opponents that dealt 1d6, 1d8 or 1d10 damage plus bonuses. With a mage that had 1d4 (+ possible small bonus) hit points, or a rogue that had 1d6 (+ possible small bonus) hit points, chances of going down in one shot was present; chances of going down in one battle was high. 3E alleviated this partly by providing max HPs at level 1, but still, starting out with 6 HPs and meeting a basic orc warrior with a basic long sword was stressful.

So in previous editions, even if the DM didn't want to kill the PCs, it was a bit harder because your basic, run-of-the-mill opponent could well down a PC with a single basic attack.