Zero to Hero!

[Neonchameleon]

Let me take a brief moment to list the safety nets:

Second Wind.
Negative bloodied HP value.
3 death saves.
Healing Surges and many class and racial abilities that grant them.
Healing starts at 0 no matter how far down in the negatives you are.
Many classes that grant Temporary Hit Points.
Any class can use the Raise Dead ritual.

In previous editions only certain classes such as the Cleric and Druid could actually heal you. This is not the case anymore.

Let me take a brief moment to list the way a lot of that is an apples to pears comparison.

1: Raise Dead only applies from level 8. This is hardly when you are just starting out. Doesn't apply to zeroes.
2: For PCs with fewer than 20hp, negative bloodied is a tighter condition than -10hp. That would be all first level PCs, average fighters of Con 15 and below at second level, and average wizards of Con 15 and below up to fourth level. For PCs it's tougher as zeroes in 4e because of this.
3: There was no such thing as a death check. That makes it more likely you will die, not less. For all PCs it's tougher because of this.
4: Healing surges limit the amount of healing you can receive in a day. In 3e, once you can afford a wand of CLW you can keep going like the energiser bunny. Although I will grant that at first level this lack of constraints on a 3e PC doesn't apply. So that's one for you.
5: Second Wind is a bad choice. It means you aren't attacking.
6: Starting healing from 0hp. This one is a good point.

And yes, 4e did throw off the dependency on healbots.

 

[Kannon]

I don't understand what supposedly irks you here. So your characters were raised with a Raise Dead ritual or what?

Death still isn't the end I'm afraid. Like I said mentioned above, there is the Raise Dead ritual that any character may posses.

Sorry if I misexplained, too much blood in my caffeine system, I'm afraid.

Specifically, what irked me was the idea that, without death, there is no challenge. There are myriad reasons to win besides dying. And the ways to lose, even if death is transient, are legion.

Also to better explain, the PCs were completely immortal. If they did get "killed", they vanished in a flash of mist and fire, and re-appeared, in a coma, in a watchtower at the edge of Cyre, where they'd take 1d6 days to fully recover. The Mournlands didn't really effect them, so it made a fair enough haven on the edge of it, since no one would really bother them.

The Rapid Healing ritual (A reskinned raise dead ritual, once anyone else was dead, they were gone, and nothing short of a miracle would bring them back.) would bring someone up instantly, bloodied, and with no dailies and one surge.

They never really bothered with the Mournlands and the Lords of Dust, (They later said they always felt it was waaaay out of their depth to do so.), so I never really explained their curious lack of mortality, they just used it to their advantage to regain the leader's birthright in House Orien, and help the scion of House Cannith bring his house back to prominence. (The party was out fixing up a Lightning Rail section when the Mourning happened, and they got caught in it.)

So, very politically motivated players, with some dashing combat and espionage thrown in there. And dealing with the Dreaming Dark. Which also played nicely to the nice-in-public, swords-in-private game style. Fun campaign. Was a bit outclassed with the political and social maneuvering of the PCs. In a fair fight, I'd have lost 10 times over

So the consequences were always more far-reaching than just player mortality. Hiding the lack of death and association with the Mourning was also a bit of fun.

 

[Dumnbunny]

I don't know why people keep forgetting this part: "Death: When you take damage that reduces your current hit points to your bloodied value expressed as a negative number, your character dies."

Urk!

Ok FS, I just re-read the post of yours to which I replied, and you do mention this rule, right in the portion I quoted. That'll teach me to post at 4:30 in the morning.

I still disagree with you in general, but I had to clarify this.

 

[Dumnbunny]

I just have to pick this one out because it irks me just a little. Having just run a long campaign with PCs that were effectively immortal, there are many, many ways to fail besides death.

I agree, and I've played in and run a number of campaigns where the PC were virtually, and sometimes literally, guaranteed not to die. What's needed isn't the threat of death, or even, I would argue, the threat of loss. What's needed is a source of tension.

The threat of loss is a good one, one I've used and experienced in a number of games, and it works quite nicely. In fact, I've seen it be a greater source of tension than the threat of death.

The threat of death can work as a source of tension, or it can be trivial. Where the threat of loss can mean having to deal with the consequences, the threat of death can mean having to roll up a new character. There are plenty of players in the local player pool who, even as they're playing one character, they're thinking up new character ideas. I've quite often seen players welcome character death as it gives them a chance to try out some idea that they've had bouncing around in their heads.

I've quite successfully run games where the PCs had low chance of death and an even lower chance of losing, to the point where PCs were almost guaranteed to succeed at whatever they were trying to do. The source of tension came from deciding how far they were willing to go to succeed.

 

[Pentius]

Let me take a brief moment to list the safety nets:

Second Wind.
Negative bloodied HP value.
3 death saves.
Healing Surges and many class and racial abilities that grant them.
Healing starts at 0 no matter how far down in the negatives you are.
Many classes that grant Temporary Hit Points.
Any class can use the Raise Dead ritual.

In previous editions only certain classes such as the Cleric and Druid could actually heal you. This is not the case anymore.

Okay, that is a decent list of the things that allow the DM breathing room to run the level of lethality he wants.

These things don't remove the threat of death. They remove the threat of death the DM didn't intend. I don't know why you want to discuss this as if DM intent doesn't factor in.

 

[Kannon]

Okay, that is a decent list of the things that allow the DM breathing room to run the level of lethality he wants.

These things don't remove the threat of death. They remove the threat of death the DM didn't intend. I don't know why you want to discuss this as if DM intent doesn't factor in.

Also, this. I can run stuff as I want without worrying about the accidental TPKs I got in previous editions. Essentially, now the players die from being stupid, not me getting a number or two wrong. Or rolling well, which I tend to do a lot. (7th incarnation of the +5 Icosahedron of TPK) Or worse, having to fiat something to not nuke the bastards again. I hate that. Now I can actually challenge, if not outright try to kill the players, without me succeeding all the time. Makes it fun.

 

[wlmartin]

Max HP is not really bridging too much of a gap on character death. There is a big difference in giving max HP at each level than having to make 3 death saves, get to negative bloodied, as well as all the other bells and whistles that make death harder to achieve.

Also, there is making sense and a game and then there's going overboard. A Wizard walking around at 1st level with 1,2, or even 3 HP is a bit much.

Most of the time with max HP you could still be killed with one shot at 1st level in previous editions.

Don't sit there and try to turn this around back on me. Death is a part of the game and making it a little harder to achieve is fine, but making death something that's barely obtainable is where the problem is. 4th edition is by far the easiest to survive in. I'm not talking about lucking rolls from the bad guys and bad rolls from the good guys. I'm talking about your normal average career as a PC.

ForeverSlayer - This thread seems to be another "I hate 4e so im going to shout about what is crap about it and see what attention I get"

Looking through the responses, a lot of people disagree with you about.. well pretty much any anti-4e topic you keep on touting in this forum.

This is pure and blatant Trolling.
Visiting a forum, expressing a view that attracts a lot of "Um, no you are wrong" responses and whilst discussion is a good thing and something we are all here for, it is a very very sad man that seeks to create threads such as this in the hope to have people to talk to...

The attention you are getting vs your opinion on 4e is extremely negative and whilst you seem to enjoy discussing your point in great detail and others are happy to ignore the "Don't Feed The Troll" sign around your neck, I really do pity you because everytime I see a post with your name on it.. i know that it is going to be another poor excuse for a discussion about how you dislike 4e.

I just spent 20 minutes reading through comments on a YouTube Hitler Spoof (you know the one from Downfall that has him shouting at his Lieutenants) where the spoof was all about how 3.5 was better than 4e.

The comments were flush with 4e vs 3.5 discussions...
These discussions were actually quite valid in that YouTube upload since it was a Pro 3.5 edition video and comments made for and against the differences made sense there.

They do NOT make sense here.

I believe that I would speak for the majority of the members of this area of the Enworld Forums (4e discussion area) in saying that we are sick and tired of hearing people using any excuse to bash 4e.

We like it... it is why we are in here and not some Pathfinder or 3.5 forum.

It would be one thing if your posts were
"I dislike 4e, what do you guys think about these houserules to modify my 4e game to make it more 3.5... or can you suggest some yourself"

This is a positive and productive way to look at handling the issue some 4e players have which is that SOME areas of 4e arent to their liking and creating a houserule that works best to counter these issues may actually be a benefit to others who read it.

Your posts however have been all about telling us what is wrong with 4e.

We plain don't want to hear it.


I do feel like I am repeating myself above and sorry if that is the case.

I will end by asking the same polite rule I was taught as a child
"If you can't say something nice, do not say anything at all"

If you have productive posts to make about 4e, things that will interest other 4e players and help grow the brains and understanding of those members who read this forum then I welcome it and would love to see it.

If you think about writing a post or starting a thread and before clicking "Submit Reply" read it back and say "Ah, thats too much 4e bashing in there, I had better consider my audience and make sure it is going to be received well"

I am sure, ForeverSlayer you will take the above as an excuse to rehash some of your earlier points about how 4e is rubbish and rehash your anti 4e points shown in this thread but please, take it for what it is... help to stop you getting your butt kicked everytime you open your mouth!

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Okay, that is a decent list of the things that allow the DM breathing room to run the level of lethality he wants.

These things don't remove the threat of death. They remove the threat of death the DM didn't intend. I don't know why you want to discuss this as if DM intent doesn't factor in.

We don't play with DM intent when it comes to combat, we just roll the dice.

 

[malraux]

We don't play with DM intent when it comes to combat, we just roll the dice.

Ummm, that's pretty blatant strawmaning, to the point that you can only be trolling.

 

[Pentius]

We don't play with DM intent when it comes to combat, we just roll the dice.

That's...I think the word I'm looking for is laughable. I did actually laugh when I read this.

If you have a DM, then you have DM intent. It's as simple as that. Someone builds the encounters. Someone runs the monsters. This person has some criteria, some concept, as to how to do it right.