Does this spell get used often in 4th Ed.?
I would like to put some questions out there in reference to death in 4th Ed. Is it easy to die? Are DM’s finding that their pc’s are dying too easily when participating in “level appropriate” encounters? Players, do you find yourselves facing the prospect of death often? I have been slowly coming to the realization that the game as it is written favors the longetivity of characters, making it harder for them to die. The concept of Epic Destinies seems to have been written with the hopes that a player brings up his character from 1st through 30th, rather than forming a destiny for a newly rolled epic tier character. The availability of healing surges, and the 3 death saves mechanic coupled with the fact that you have to go way below 0 HP to die make it more obvious, perhaps too obvious, almost to the point where this post and its questions would be ridiculous. 🙂
Yet throughout forums and other blogs, I get the feeling that total party are fairly common. I want to know why that is, and what other players and DM’s are experiencing at their tables. If the designers wish to chime in and give me their perspective, please do! I look forward to reading varied opinions, as my mind is pretty made up.
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Random plot hook of the day: An abandoned tower a day’s journey from town has started emmiting some arcane lights in the middle of the night. These lights can be seen for miles around, and since last week people have been mysteriously waking up in the middle of the night and walking toward the tower. The tower had an arcane lock protecting it when the town guards went to investigate, and they were too scared to break in. Adventurers are needed… help!
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kaeosdad
May 8, 2009
Yes, TPKs happen, and they happen often! Personally, I think the primary reason is that you do indeed feel invincible with huge amounts of hp, an action point, a bunch of powers and three saving death throws. But! The monsters are tougher, also deals more damage and the three saving throws aren’t going to help you if the rest of your party is down for the count.
To illustrate this the last time I played a pc I was a part of a TPK session. I was kicking ass and after the first four gobbos I saw a room full of gobbos and thought hell, what’s a few goblins more. 5 rounds later I and the rest of the party were unconscious and being coup de graced left and right.
So I think it’s the illusion of awesomeness that is causing tpks. PCs in 4e are just as fragile as previous editions, there are just more opportunities to save your own ass from falling into the fire completely.
jonathan
May 8, 2009
TPKs happen becuase everyone’s survival is so interdependent in 4E. Previous editions were more like – you die often; you die alone. In 4E its designed as an all for one one for all approach; makes for great tactical combat; sharing healing surges, multiple ways to heal. If you get dropped, you can easily stand back up just with the flick of a few simple powers ; 2nd wind, etc etc. So, I would say it’s harder to die alone in 4E.
jonathan
May 8, 2009
forgot to click the subscribe to comments button.
Ameron
May 8, 2009
I’ll tell you why you’re still seeing a lot of TPKs – PCs do stupid things. My group has been playing together for 20 years and we still don’t know how to work together on the battlefield. We all fight different opponents simultaneously and we get smoked. And every time it happens we say “let’s focus all our attacks on one target next fight” but we never do.
The mechanics of 4e were, in part, designed to eliminate the 5 minute work day. The PCs shouldn’t have to rest for 8 hours after every fight. And with this in mind DMs are pushing PCs to do more before taking an extended rest. A lot of PCs haven’t clued into this yet and they blow all their best powers in the early rounds of the first fight. The result is that they’re ill-equipped to handle the next fight and again you have PCs dying because they were stupid.
I’ve come up with ways for PCs to play smarter and live longer in Avoiding Death (part 1) and Avoiding Death (part 2). If PCs follow these 10 suggestions death in D&D should be a problem any more.
Stuart
May 8, 2009
“PCs in 4e are just as fragile as previous editions”
This wasn’t my experience in our first 4e game. Nobody was dropped in 1 hit from an unlucky roll – something we say in our 1e game. Maybe that’ll change in future games, but our DM has already started increasing the # of points of monsters we face off against in each encounter to make it more challenging.
Now, we were using terrain for AC bonuses, using powers to move the enemy about the battlefield, and concentrating fire to take down the enemy faster – but that stuff seems pretty straight forward. The DM missed one opportunity to hammer on a player that I would have taken in their shoes as well. I guess if you have a background in boardgames / wargames it might make things easier for you?
mike
May 8, 2009
in my experience, if players can make their own characters then they should not be afraid to die.
if you use a quick pre-generated one, then yeah your going to die. the base system rules from the point buy system will kill you.
Aoi
May 8, 2009
I think that even though the new edition has been out for the better part of a year now, it was such a radical departure from previous editions that folks are still figuring out how to play it and get the best gaming experience.
This is one of those areas: people are used to thinking that 24 hp is way more than a 1st level PC should have, and they think about how tough that makes you as if the monsters were doing the same damage they did previously. Not true in my experience, especially given that everything’s giving you conditions now.
The same thing is especially true in my experience with the death mechanics. In previous editions, you died when you hit -10 hp (or 0). In 4e, you can die at -4 if you fail your death saves. In that sense, going under 0 is potentially more lethal in 4e. The death threshold is just there for death by massive damage purposes IMO. The beauty of the death system for me is that element of uncertainty inherent in the death save. Being at 2 failed death saves and watching the d20 roll is a much more intense moment for me than being at -9 and having my next turn start and just dying.
Lou
May 8, 2009
@Aoi I totally agree with you.
“Being at 2 failed death saves and watching the d20 roll is a much more intense moment for me than being at -9 and having my next turn start and just dying.”
I’ve only rolled death saves once and I was on pins and needles after the first two had failed.
jonathan
May 8, 2009
as far as death saves are concerned — it seems like there are tons of ways to get out of jail for free. So long as you have plenty of party members standing around willing to use their Heal skill. I mean, a DC15 for stabilization is… easy. Especially at Paragon levels. (maybe remembering it wrong; at work – no PHB).
newbiedm
May 8, 2009
I agree with Jonathan, dying can be avoided easily enough.
Pangalin
May 9, 2009
4E lethality is almost entirely down to player competence, in my experience. I’ve had several encounters that very well could have ended in TPKs except a player found a clever way to manuever out of it (usually via RP).
It’s very much down to the DM’s aggression and the player’s skill. If your players die too often, ratchet it back a little. If none of them so much as get KOed, crank it up a notch. The game’s default difficulty assumes a default party, and the “default party” rarely if ever exists in practice.
gastogh
May 11, 2009
I tried and failed to type up a post that tells a cohesive story and includes perceptive pointers and insight, so I’ll just list a number of facts gleaned through experience. If these answer any questions, goody.
1. I’ve played with the same group for roughly 40 sessions of about 6 hours apiece. Characters started at level one and have reached 20 so far. Our current party composition is two wizards, one fighter, one melee rogue, and one assault swordmage.
2. There have been many character deaths, and with the exception of an incredibly deadly Sleep trap, every death has been a direct result of one of these:
-frail characters rushing in aggressively and ending up as the target of all the focus fire in the world (read: player stupidity)
-impossibly high monster to-hit bonuses and defenses occurring simultaneously on a supposedly (and erroneously designated) level-appropriate solo monster
-inappropriate encounter level (five 18th-level characters without a healer versus an encounter group level 23, anyone?)
3. The GM has said he has intelligent enemies focus the fire on strikers and healers (as a result, no one wants to play healers anymore). This is clearly reflected in our death statistics. The only TPK so far saw us barely losing at lvl 18 to an encounter lvl 23 bunch.
4. Controllers Reign Supreme, All Hail. Pile up enough difficult terrain, slows, dazes, stuns, pushes, slides, pulls, grabs, immobilizations, blindness, teleportation, walls, defensive interruptions and reactions and frelling *tentacles* and no enemy ever gets to land a single blow, or possibly even *move*. Our wizards, if they get to focus on the same enemy or enemies, will completely shut them down if such is at all possible.
5. An encounter appropriate to our level is, on the average, smacked down so hard at least three out of five characters don’t end up losing a single surge or daily power. So we’ve been regularly tossed against things like these:
-unavoidable damage that hurts because we have no healer because no one wants to play those because they always get killed first.
-enemies that keep out of melee range with hover flight (we get this so much…). But no cause to fret for the Wizards are Almighty and will kill them all anyway, usually without taking damage.
-“hard”-rated encounters.
6. Three out of five players (five because the sixth ran into disagreements with the GM and quit the game) have had serious problems with the GM’s houserules.
In closing, the game remains fun and challenging so long as you get to do something (in half the fights our fighter has used most of his actions for Full Defense) and are not nerfed too hard (I dropped a character because of that). For now, less enemies with flight and we’ll be standing in fine standings.
Major_Evil
May 20, 2009
Well I’m thinking you have already moved on from this topic, but here is my take on it. I currently run a group that started out as 4 players but has swelled to 8 players (yes I am crazy). That being said we have had one TPK since we started playing 4th edition about a year ago. I have found that with the increase of resources (action points, surges etc) tends to get the party into more trouble then not. They dispatch of encounters relatively easily but their surges get eaten away bit by bit. In the case of the TPK it was due to some of the party being out of, or almost out of healing surges but some party members having about half – and they pressed on by goading the other members out of taking a extended rest. As luck would have it, the next encounter was the “boss” encounter and he and his minions ended up overwhelming the group and it resulted in a TPK. Needless to say the group is a bit more shell-shocked and they are all a little more cautious now – since they are almost level 11 the cost of raise dead goes up quite a bit 😉