But, in the course of a regular campaign(say starting lvl 1), has anyone actually had a PC die?
I have played in 4 campaigns(2 still going). One that has now reach lvl 12(from 1) where I play a melee rogue, and the other as a fighter tank(now lvl 8). The rogue has been bashed around a lot(as I put him in very dangerous positions to destroy anything that he touches). But the fighter gets bashed down to negatives in nearly every battle(warlock, cleric, mage, archer ranger is the rest of the party), and I have to put him into the thick of it and try to hold down as many enemies as possible every round.
Now, I hate having PCs die, but I get irritated when DMs metagame to protect a PC from that, if I do something stupid, I accept the consequences.
Now, as the rules stand, you need to be brought down to negative, and then fail 3 death rolls. That means that once you hit the dying mark, you need to roll >10 3 times. Theoretically, this means 5-6 rolls before you die, which is 5-6 rounds. Say bad luck, that would decrease to 4 rounds. 4 rounds before one ally can get a heal check, or a power to give you some HP... I have found that it is easier(prob not the right word for it...) to die via taking your bloodied value into negative.
So, anyone had a PC die yet? Was it via sheer stupidity? Any house-rules out there that seem to fix this? Or am I the only one that finds it irritating when it seems to be nigh impossible to die.
Oh and yes, I am the kind of person that hates using cheats on games, as I enjoy the challenge and having to use my wits in order to succeed...
Cheers lads!
Admittedly I send high level foes at my PCs, I don't hold back on monster tactics unless it looks like TPK is immenent, and my PCs are a little hesitent to use dalies for some reason.
In the adventure I played about two weekends ago, I could have easily killed a character if I'd pressed it a little harder (and possibly the whole group); he was already in the negatives and all it would have taken is another attack directed at him - I had the enemies attack someone else instead. I'm not that mean to my own son to kill his character in his second encounter in a game.
I think there is some lethality left in 4th ed, but it is far less random and swingy.
A couple were from particularly vicious enemies who wanted to make sure the heroes didn't get back up. They either CDGed downed PCs or just attacked them until they stopped breathing (negative bloodied).
I saw one death where a PC just got gibbed by some lucky hard hitting enemies. Two archers had readied actions to shoot someone when they came around the corner. The PC came around said corner while already bloodied and got hit by both archers for max damage - negative bloodied instantly.
The other two PC deaths that come to mind occurred when the PCs had to retreat and they had no way of getting fallen comrades back on their feet. Without help the abandoned characters eventually bled to death (failed three death saves).
(It was the last fight of the module, so I still got full exp.) Reraise rules let us get away with not paying anything so long as I Forfieted my monetary awards and any story awards earned afterwards.
EDIT: and then, in the High-Level version of Cormyr 1-1, he killed 8 minions in one shot. (Lightning weapons, and huddled minions. :D)
Yuriel, Stormsoul Genasi Wizard. Blasted by a Baron Saguhain(sp?) from unblodied to bewlow negative bloodied in one shot.
That was an EXPENSIVE raise.
The following two are party members:
Rolan, Elf idio-I mean Ranger, killed on the chopping block by an old general attempting to depose a king.
Whyndham, Human Wizard, same campaign as the last, eaten by shadowbats at level 3. deep pit drop, with the bats at the bottom.
The first was a halfling rogue. She got knocked prone and ravaged by zombie dogs. The other characters were pinned down and the leader out of heals. This death was due to bad planning (running past the zombies) and bad luck (they kept hitting her when she tried to get away).
The next death was an eladrin warlock. He teleported behind a portcullis where the rest of the party could not follow him. He opened a door and a bunch of hobgoblins hit him with flails. Since it's hard to keep a teleporting eladrin as a slave, they killed him before the other characters could get there.
The third death was the dragonborn paladin who tried to avenge the warlock's death. He lifted the portcullis and charged the hobgoblins. Everyone else decided to retreat. He was dropped to unconsciousness by the hobgoblins and the ranger finished him off to spare him a life of slavery.
The fourth and fifth death happened at the same time. The paladin and fight set up a shield wall in a doorway when fighting a large number of carnage demons. The wizard ran out in front of them to use some close blast spell. He took a couple of hits, which bloodied him, and the carnage demons tore him to pieces. The same thing happened to the cleric who ran out to try to save him. Lesson of the day: don't get bloodied near carnage demons and don't go ahead of the defenders.
The sixth death was largely bag luck. The characters were facing a difficult encounter in which they were slowed or dazed for most of the encounter. The gnoll barbarian was dropped into negative hit points and failed his first three death saves before anyone had a chance to do anything about it.
There have also be a multitude of close calls for the fighter and ranger. The only character who has never come near death is the warlock because she is a rather self serving character and never allows herself to be in harms way.
The first three casualties where on the adventure at the end of the dmg book. The white dragon won initiative flew right over where the party where and stunned almost all the party (was a party of 4), then burned an AP and proceed to breath everyone. Warlock as the only character not stunned, he missed the dragon and then the dragon proceed to ko the fighter without missing a single attack. From there the twf ranger and the warlord fell on the following rounds so the warlock decided to flee. Result the dragon was unscratched and three party members dead.
Other dead I had was on KoTS where the rogue went away from the rest of the group and got ambushed by some kobolds. Ironically they killed Irontooth with easy before the tragic death of the rogue.
Dying is quite possible, especially when you remember to apply the rule that strikes against you on death saves only reset after a rest.
Where is this rule? I thought it reset when the player went postive
As for deaths I have killed.. 6 players so far. 5 at one time and 1 2 weeks ago. I dont pull punches and I let the dice fall where they fall.
Where is this rule? I thought it reset when the player went postive
It is in the Death & Dying section. Page 295, under the description of what happens when you roll under 10 on a death saving throw.
Lower than 10: You slip one step closer to death. If you get this result three times before you take a rest, you die.
We had: 1 human cleric, 1 halfling rogue, a fire genasi dark pact warlock and a storm genasi shielding swordmage. I played the last two.
Going in, I did not know that we would be facing all undead, several with necrotic resistance which made my warlock practically useless.
The DM kept trying to kill the halfling doing all the damage for the party but he couldn't hit him thanks to my mark and he didn't do as much damage thanks to the shielding aegis.
But, it took forever to kill them (four total in party and one not real useful...) and we finally started running out of healing and rolling like crap.
Swordmage went down and after being brought back up (and losing warding.
) finally went down and failed his third death check. Zeus died.
Tiefling Swordmage took some focus fire in the final fight of Last Breaths of Ashenport. Wizard saw a good opportunity (everything clustered) and fireballed the area. It would have been fine, but she rolled a crit against the Swordmage. Brought him down to exactly his negative bloodied value after fire resistance.
He almost lost his new Ranger this last week when a Blue Dragon pushed a wall over on top of him and the Paladin. Two failed saves later the Paladin makes a Heal check for second wind (the Ranger hadn't used it before going down, he's a Dragonborn that rides the Bloodied Bonus gravy train) before getting knocked unconscious by the dragon, Ranger stands up and crits the dragon for its last 20 hit points.
The death, in fact, wasn't due to three failed saves, but rather being dropped to lower than the negative bloodied value. During an encounter on a cliff side our rogue found himself in one of the few spots on the map where if you fell, you would fall all the way to the bottom rather than landing mid way on an outcropping. He took enough damage to fall unconscious, and another several d10 when he landed. It was a survivable fall, I just happened to roll quite high (I was only about 3hp over his limit).
After that battle, I nearly lost my warlock to Mummy Rot. Even with everyone aiding my Endurance check every day when we rested, I was vacillating between the initial stage and the one right before death. To make matters worse, this took place during a voyage, and I beat death by rolling 1 or 2 more than needed far too often before reaching the port's temple for a ritual cleansing.
In the other group I play with, we had a TPK to a white dragon the first session. Luckily, "it was all a dream!"
Now, I am not concerned with one shot lvl 30 games, or anything similar.
But, in the course of a regular campaign(say starting lvl 1), has anyone actually had a PC die?
I have played in 4 campaigns(2 still going). One that has now reach lvl 12(from 1) where I play a melee rogue, and the other as a fighter tank(now lvl 8). The rogue has been bashed around a lot(as I put him in very dangerous positions to destroy anything that he touches). But the fighter gets bashed down to negatives in nearly every battle(warlock, cleric, mage, archer ranger is the rest of the party), and I have to put him into the thick of it and try to hold down as many enemies as possible every round.
Now, I hate having PCs die, but I get irritated when DMs metagame to protect a PC from that, if I do something stupid, I accept the consequences.
Now, as the rules stand, you need to be brought down to negative, and then fail 3 death rolls. That means that once you hit the dying mark, you need to roll >10 3 times. Theoretically, this means 5-6 rolls before you die, which is 5-6 rounds. Say bad luck, that would decrease to 4 rounds. 4 rounds before one ally can get a heal check, or a power to give you some HP... I have found that it is easier(prob not the right word for it...) to die via taking your bloodied value into negative.
So, anyone had a PC die yet? Was it via sheer stupidity? Any house-rules out there that seem to fix this? Or am I the only one that finds it irritating when it seems to be nigh impossible to die.
Oh and yes, I am the kind of person that hates using cheats on games, as I enjoy the challenge and having to use my wits in order to succeed...
Cheers lads!
Yes. Though admittedly so far only once, and it was in a very tough fight against the BBEG of an adventure. The BBEG in question was a wizard and some of his bodygaurds managed to plow their way past the PCs to go bang on the 5th level PC wizard who was lobbing annoying spells from the back. HE went down. That didn't kill him though, but it took him well into the negatives. It did cause much of the rest of the party to fall back to points near his body to aid him and/or deal with the bodyguards. WHich caused them to be clumped together perfectly for the NPC wizard's fireball, with the unconscious PC wizard in the AoE. It took him far enough into the negatives to die.
I don't know that I would call it either stupidity or bad luck, just one of those things.
It's hard to kill PCs without a TPK, though. You basically have to attack them while they're down, and you have to knock people down when the party doesn't have any healing left. The easiest way is probably a PC going down in a damaging zone like Hunger of Hadar.
One was 1st level, when the group was new to 4e- they forgot about their dailies, and were wiped out by a bunch of kobold mercenaries.
The next was 5th level, when the group briefly seized plunged the small city they were based in into complete and utter chaos- when the king's elite soldiers arrived to set everything straight, the party attempted to fight them, despite my warnings that they looked far outmatched. I didn't expect it to end well for them. It didn't. (But the wizard did manage to escape the city, which was more than I expected them to accomplish)
-SYB
Now, I am not concerned with one shot lvl 30 games, or anything similar.
But, in the course of a regular campaign(say starting lvl 1), has anyone actually had a PC die?
The first real adventure I ever ran in 4th edition I killed a PC. In my test adventures prior to its release, I killed four PCs. And I've played with the dice once to save a PC from dying in the current campaign, and in one encounter the NPC probably COULD have killed a PC, but they would have certainly lost the battle had they done so (they did anyway, but it was close)
Now, as the rules stand, you need to be brought down to negative, and then fail 3 death rolls. That means that once you hit the dying mark, you need to roll >10 3 times. Theoretically, this means 5-6 rolls before you die, which is 5-6 rounds. Say bad luck, that would decrease to 4 rounds. 4 rounds before one ally can get a heal check, or a power to give you some HP... I have found that it is easier(prob not the right word for it...) to die via taking your bloodied value into negative.
It is. Its rare to die save by being CDGed or simply left to die (which does happen, usually if the party is being torn down and is out of healing powers or its the last encounter and someone runs out of healing surges).
And while playing I have only died if I try and play a rogue. I have had three of them get eaten so far (a white dragon ate one, one of them died to a nasty ongoing damage tick that I could not seem to save against, and the other one got dropped out of the third story of a ruined tower with only 1 hp left at the top of the fall).
love,
malkav
After we got into the keep, My halfling rogue was absorbed by a
, so I started playing the pregenerated cleric. When we got to the BBEG, we had a hard time getting him out of the magic ritual circle that healed him, and he killed 2 of us. That woman blasted the second paladin into the tentacles that were reaching out from the portal, and he got pulled in.I ended up saving myself and the warlock at the last second when I ran over next to the pit at one end of the room. The BBEG attacked me, missed, and then shifted next to both me and the pit. On my turn, I shifted and bullrushed him into it. Either the DM just didn't want to TPK us for a third time, or I got really lucky. Oh yeah, the warlock and I killed him by pushing a statue onto his head.
Since then, only one character has died. It seems that once players learn their lesson about not dying they have a pretty easy time surviving just about anything. The last time we played, we learned that "And to your horror..." means that the next encounter heard us fighting and came charging down the hall to help kill us. We took on 2200-2500xp worth of encounters without even a short rest (one encounter after another) until my half-elf hellock with his ridiculous number of temporary hit points was the only one still up to heal people and save the party.
In short, yeah, it's hard to kill players. It's almost too easy to survive in 4th Ed once you learn to use basic tactics. In last night's LFR game, however, we probably would have been TPKed, except that I forgot my swordmage warding went away after I lost consciousness. We might have made other mistakes too, I'm not sure. The DM definitely forgot some things on the last encounter before that. In the end, everyone got the heck beat out of them by the goblins, and did lots of damage. No one was the party saver, so it was an awesome fight. :D
Also ran the tariff of Relkingham and in the end the paladin bought it at third level because he was subjected to the daily of Avonathemon and the rest of the party got bottlenecked at the door by the minions.
Now, I am not concerned with one shot lvl 30 games, or anything similar.
But, in the course of a regular campaign(say starting lvl 1), has anyone actually had a PC die?
I have played in 4 campaigns(2 still going). One that has now reach lvl 12(from 1) where I play a melee rogue, and the other as a fighter tank(now lvl 8). The rogue has been bashed around a lot(as I put him in very dangerous positions to destroy anything that he touches). But the fighter gets bashed down to negatives in nearly every battle(warlock, cleric, mage, archer ranger is the rest of the party), and I have to put him into the thick of it and try to hold down as many enemies as possible every round.
Now, I hate having PCs die, but I get irritated when DMs metagame to protect a PC from that, if I do something stupid, I accept the consequences.
Now, as the rules stand, you need to be brought down to negative, and then fail 3 death rolls. That means that once you hit the dying mark, you need to roll >10 3 times. Theoretically, this means 5-6 rolls before you die, which is 5-6 rounds. Say bad luck, that would decrease to 4 rounds. 4 rounds before one ally can get a heal check, or a power to give you some HP... I have found that it is easier(prob not the right word for it...) to die via taking your bloodied value into negative.
So, anyone had a PC die yet? Was it via sheer stupidity? Any house-rules out there that seem to fix this? Or am I the only one that finds it irritating when it seems to be nigh impossible to die.
Oh and yes, I am the kind of person that hates using cheats on games, as I enjoy the challenge and having to use my wits in order to succeed...
Cheers lads!
2 i was taken out at 1st level by a snake after a bit of afight
the second died at 3rd level fighting a warforged gaurds, he might have lived but the party bailed on him do to his starting the fight in the 1st place
Now this isn't due to some evil DM Empowerment or just someone being vindictive.
In order to "up the ante" our group requests that the DM roll their dice in the open... this means no fudging rolls to save PC lives and many... many unfortunate accidents.
Adventuring is a dangerous business afterall!
The most recent death was a Rogue character. Albeit the player wasn't overly experienced, but he made a fair assessment of the situation.
The Rogue had used his daily power against a number of enemies (Blinding Barrage) and had the top initiative so had combat advantage. He blinded the enemy and the next up was the Wizard who also slowed them.
The next enemy was an Orc Brute with a Greataxe, but it was blinded and slowed however it was only 2 squares away (can you see what's coming?).
The Orc activates and moves two forward, even though blinded, it takes a swing at the (reasonably high AC) Rogue... rolls a 20!
In the new rules, you can't score a critical if you can't hit the target on a 20, so everyone puts their brains to the problem and counts the bonuses and penalties... the Orc would have hit AC16 on the roll of a 1... the Rogue has AC16... the attack and high crit puts the Rogue down below his negative bloodied score in one hit and everyone commiserates... the life of an Adventurer is indeed tough.
One was during the first Delve Night adventure. I guess I didn't knock down the difficulty of the last fight enough (the group's a party of 4), and they nearly got killed by the knife fighters. The paladin went below 0 at least twice during the encounter.
The other fight was in the Rescue at Rivenroar adventure. There's a room with a few needlefang drake swarms, and they had bloodied one character and KOed another during the first round of combat. I realized right away that it would probably be a TPK if I didn't ease up, and since I didn't really want to do that quite yet, I let them get away and rest up.
I have "killed" characters in my game the following ways.
Falling damage -twice
A player pulled a Leroy Jenkins into 4 Phantom Soldiers and a Wraith at 2nd level (After jumping off a 20ft wall without acrobatics to get a piece of the action)and killed himself and one other player who tried to rescue him (The other 5 players ran the other way after seeing the cleric attempting to rescue Mr Idiot get curbstomped)
A player already slain twice decided to "scout ahead" and then attempted to solo a Gelatinous Cube. The rest of the party arrived just in time to see the cube finish off it's engulfed victim
One player was nearly killed when another player cast remove affliction and rolled a 1 on the die (missed insta death by 2 hps) as the character had been wounded prior to petrification.
We've had a couple of close calls otherwise but he is the only death.
Now, as the rules stand, you need to be brought down to negative, and then fail 3 death rolls.
if you get into negative hit points and fail 2 death saving throw before being save, then the next fight the same day if you go negative again you cannot fail any save or else completely die. Look at the rule it's 3 death saving throw PER DAY(per full rest period it mean btw) and your out. our group figured out that last line later on, let me tell you that the fighter is 3 times undead by now
if you get into negative hit points and fail 2 death saving throw before being save, then the next fight the same day if you go negative again you cannot fail any save or else completely die. Look at the rule it's 3 death saving throw PER DAY(per full rest period it mean btw) and your out. our group figured out that last line later on, let me tell you that the fighter is 3 times undead by now
I'm pretty sure it doesn't specify an extended rest. I don't have my books with me (being at work equals fail), but I'm almost positive it resets on any rest.
if you get into negative hit points and fail 2 death saving throw before being save, then the next fight the same day if you go negative again you cannot fail any save or else completely die. Look at the rule it's 3 death saving throw PER DAY(per full rest period it mean btw) and your out. our group figured out that last line later on, let me tell you that the fighter is 3 times undead by now
The PHB (on page 295) says that any rest is sufficient to reset the death count.
Greetings,
In the the campaign I play in two deaths in four sessions both in the same fight (4 level 2 characters against a level 8 elite brute---we almost won 11 HPs left on it when it ran away).
As someone who's DMed almost every version of D&D (no OD&D or BECMI) this feels like one of the most lethal editions to me (although the lack of save or die effects offsets that somewhat)
As someone who's DMed almost every version of D&D (no OD&D or BECMI) this feels like one of the most lethal editions to me (although the lack of save or die effects offsets that somewhat)
Yes and no.
It seems to me that actual character death is a rarity (My PCs are 7th level and have suffered a grand total of ONE fatality, but that's just me). It seems WAY more survivable at low levels, I remember one 1e game where I killed a first level character on the first die roll of the first combat of the campaign, a wizard with only 3 HP got hit by a crossbow bolt and back in those days you didn't even have the -10 HP cushion. That sort of thing just isn't going to happen in 4e.
ON the other hand, it seems that people still come close to dying even at higher levels. IN my experience, in most previous editions of the game, well prepared characters seemed well nigh unkillable at higher levels. So far they seem roughly just as vulnerable as first level characters in 4e. So while death seems more rare over all, the threat of it doesn't evaporate at higher levels.
It is in the Death & Dying section. Page 295, under the description of what happens when you roll under 10 on a death saving throw.
Note that by rest, it means short or extended.
I've had one character die in the game I've been running. They're level 7 now (though I've been a tiny bit free with the XP, so they should be only at 6), and at level 4, I put them up against a bunch of homunculi (I think it was 3 Iron Cobras, and 3 Iron Defenders).
It was supposed to be a hard fight, as my players had been steamrolling through most things with relative ease. In the end, the homunculi took down the paladin, and I eased up a little, keeping the monsters confined in one area while the PCs tended their wounds a few steps away, and the downed paladin was behind the enemy line, rolling death saves. He eventually failed 3, but the very next round the players were able to get back him. Being a lenient DM, I let him still be alive, but imposed a penalty on him as if he had just been resurrected (-1 to all rolls until 3 milestones had passed).
Laying unconcious next to a drake swarm. I pointed out that the drakes don't seem to rationalize threat/non-threat... But mostly food/not-food, and the swordmage laying unconcious next to them looks very delicious. Every players turn went towards pushing the drakes away from the swordmage. :D
Although I was the DM, I'll take the liberty of speaking for the group I play with.
Between late July - end of Dec '08 the players lost 10 characters.
11 if you want to count one killed during an in-game PvP dispute that turned into a duel.
Several deaths were faled saves. Several were from -bloody. The other 1/2 were just assumed. The party wiped invading a gnoll lair. All were down. We didn't bother with the mechanical details after that because it was known the gnolls weren't inclined to show mercy.....
And no, we didn't play KoTS.
The level 10 party took out a level 14 solo with an endless supply of level 13 minions, complete with terrain hazards.
They only had fear of death twice. Once was in KotS when some tactical blunders lead to a near-wipe (no one died though -- they got away). The second was when I forced them through a series of encounters with no resting before I crafted house rules to get rid of that.
Against Irontooth I lost both my characters; the pregen Dwarf Fighter and my own Eladrin Wizard. The wizard was badly designed anyway. Now I'm running that Labyrinth one and had a lot of fun with the final Horned Hold encounter. It was an on-level encounter for 5 PCs, and I didn't scale it back for my 4. They can handle themselves pretty well, so I've been just running the encounters as written instead of scaling back. No deaths so far, but I came close to killing the Rogue.
In my recent adventure I knocked down two players below 0hp at separate occations. They didn't die though.
Afterwards, the DM said that he didn't know the ranger was that low in hit points, and that the kobold should have targeted my PC instead.
Our DM admitted that he went a little easy on us once in our first campaign because we were a bit outmatched in the first solo we went up against and were still learning the rules. 3 out of the 4 characters went down to 0 hp at some point during the last fight in Kobold Hall.
In 3.5 we had at least one character death in each campaign that was of any significant length.
First game of LFR I played. Whack! Dead.
-SYB
LFR? Living Forgotten Realms?
Not too familar with 4E, still playing 3.5 :D
- Human Cleric of Tempus (3.5): Died with the rest of the group (except for the wizard, who activated Fly just in time) to the mind flayer at the end of "The Speaker in the Dreams".
- Human Paladin of Helm (3.5): A killing machine, sending everything to oblivion with a single charge. Didn't help him against Hedraks Disintegrate in "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil".
- Human Wizard / Incantatrix (3.5): Died in the following session to a revived Hedrak. She wasn't as invisible as she thought, and didn't make the fort save for Slay Living.
- Human Rogue / Paladin / Shadowbane Iniqusitor of Tyr (3.5): Died together with all others at the first encounter in the inner fane of "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil". Killed by a ******* door...
- Half Elf Sorceror / Wild Mage (3.5): She should have stopped combusting the Count Strahd of Zarovich after he casted True Seeing...
- Dragonborn Paladin of Bahamut (4E): Died twice. First after getting surprised by a patrol in "Keep on the Shadowfell", he was pushed down a cistern, and spiked with arrows by the enemy artillery. Got raised, and died the second time in the inner fane of the well of demons in "Thunderspire Labyrinth". The tail slap of that gnoll warlock was too much for him. And he didn't make his death saves so well...
- Half Elf Infernal Warlock (4E): Wasn't fast enough to outrun that last orc soldier after seeing the other party members fall in battle.
- Drow Cleric of Corellon (4E): Well, lets say the enemy controller _loved_ to dominate our rogue. Who sliced the whole party except the swordmage to pieces.
I have no idea how often my chars (especially in 4E) lay on the ground bleeding, and getting saved in the last second. But its still fun, we all know the risks, and I still have a lot of ideas for new chars. The ones I miss the most though are the Helm-Paladin, because he was just _mean_ in combat, and the Incantatrix, whom I barely played...
/edit: To add: So far, none of our PCs was _ever_ Coup de Grace'd. Our DM(s) never target unconscious PCs with intent, they tend to go for the real risks, and not the ones already bleeding to death. It may not be the most realistic behavior, considering that PCs tend to stand up with the Cleric still alive, but it's kind of an unwritten houserule, to decrease the mortality rate. Dying _can_ be frustrating. An area attack hitting the clumped up group with the unconscious fighter still in the middle is different, of course.
Well the group ran into 3 Needlefang Drake Swarms supported by a Goblin Hexer. at level 2. They were in a sewer with the "drink" being difficult terrain and causes 5 damage if you stay in it. They started surrounded and didn't push in to a good corner. The hexers cloud combined with the swarms knockdown and aura TPKed em.
As we wiped we rolled level 2 characters (and DMing changed, another rule od this Insert Coin". We almost (like thank god my battlerager is freaking hard to take down, and the small white dragon got greedy and came into melee AND the dice gods loved me) died.
He fell to the bottom, with 2 hit points left... Which on his next turn the fire took care of. Due to some bargain he had with his deity (multi-classed cleric of Raven Queen), the following turn he was granted a healing surge..
It ended with me tanking as my warlord on top, while the fighter charged up the stairs to the ledge killing all the grappling hook mooks (minions).
Call it luck or being rather lenient. My current party has been asking for harder challenges, so if we play tomorrow, they're in for a world of hurt... :evillaugh
Now, I am not concerned with one shot lvl 30 games, or anything similar.
But, in the course of a regular campaign(say starting lvl 1), has anyone actually had a PC die?
I have played in 4 campaigns(2 still going). One that has now reach lvl 12(from 1) where I play a melee rogue, and the other as a fighter tank(now lvl 8). The rogue has been bashed around a lot(as I put him in very dangerous positions to destroy anything that he touches). But the fighter gets bashed down to negatives in nearly every battle(warlock, cleric, mage, archer ranger is the rest of the party), and I have to put him into the thick of it and try to hold down as many enemies as possible every round.
Now, I hate having PCs die, but I get irritated when DMs metagame to protect a PC from that, if I do something stupid, I accept the consequences.
Now, as the rules stand, you need to be brought down to negative, and then fail 3 death rolls. That means that once you hit the dying mark, you need to roll >10 3 times. Theoretically, this means 5-6 rolls before you die, which is 5-6 rounds. Say bad luck, that would decrease to 4 rounds. 4 rounds before one ally can get a heal check, or a power to give you some HP... I have found that it is easier(prob not the right word for it...) to die via taking your bloodied value into negative.
So, anyone had a PC die yet? Was it via sheer stupidity? Any house-rules out there that seem to fix this? Or am I the only one that finds it irritating when it seems to be nigh impossible to die.
Oh and yes, I am the kind of person that hates using cheats on games, as I enjoy the challenge and having to use my wits in order to succeed...
Cheers lads!
I don't know if this has been said because I have read all the way through but this is a common mistake. You have to take a rest before the death save resets. IE: If you are dropped down and miss 2 saves and are saved by an ally and then Don't rest and go to the next encounter and are drop again and miss that save you die. Because you have missed three saves. This could also happen in the same encounter by being dropped then saved by ally and dropped again before the end of the encounter.
So yes it it perfectly possibly, though a bit difficult, to die. Which seems like a pretty good balance to me.
Ian
happens sometimes.Thinking he was safe, I left him standing there in front of the door in the middle of the hallway, then BOOM! A HUGE club comes CRASHING through the door, SLAMS into my monk, and continues to fly, smashing its way out of the dungeon.
There was a grease stain left on the floor where my monk was.
It spontaneously combusted.
For one, my bloodied Rogue/Fighter, down to at-wills after a long day and rough fight, ended up against an elite while the party was pinned down. It didn't end well.
For the second, my Paladin went solo against a solo to protect the party while it regrouped from his devastating area attack. I burned through three Lay on Hands and an Inspiring Word before a critical put me to negative bloody.
For the third, where the DM intervened, it was the same Rogue/Fighter who died against the elite, earlier the same day. We ran into some orcs, and onyl I rolled high enough on initiative to go before them. I'm a fairly durable character, designed for frontline fun, so I step in front of the Artful Dodge Rogue to intercept the anticipated charge. Four orcs charge, and I take three high crit criticals and a max damage roll on the normal hit. Full HP to negative bloody in four attacks. The DM said it was nonlethal after we got over the shock. As I mentioned, the character died later in the session again, so apparently, he was ill-fated from the beginning.
Group 1 - lost a ranger at level 2. Later there was a TPK at level 6.
Group 2 - I just recently joined. The rogue died before I joined the group. They were all level 2.
Group 3 - I joined after the first game. The group lost a level 1 paladin. At level 5 there was a TPK.
Group 4 - I have not "officially" joined this group yet but sat in a few sessions. No character deaths as of yet. The PCs are level 4.
Group 4 - I am DMing this one. I killed off the rogue, who was level 3.
As a GM, I hate TPKs. It ruins the fun, and even one PC death often stops the game for a session. As a player, I hate it when the GM clearly pulls punches so that the PCs survive things they could not normally (provided the challenge was appropriate for our level and so on.)
So far, IME, 4E D&D has proven to be very brutal. I have not had a PC survive past level 6 as of yet.
I really wish I'd played a warlord instead of a cleric. I keep wanting to give tactical advice (aka 'USE SOME TACTICS YOU PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS'), but my cleric isn't smart enough to do that sort of thing. After we cleared out the rabble, it was basically two one-on-ones (ranger vs enemy archer, wizard vs hobgoblin warcaster) and a two-on-two (cleric and paladin against two hobgoblin soldiers) ... bad day.
The Goblin and Skeleton ninjas CDG'ed the characters that got knocked unconscious, since their goal was to kill the characters in the first place. I don't pull punches, and now, whenever I wanna scare my players, I break out my printed out ninja squares (cardstock inch square with a small, deceptively cartoonish ninja printed on them). Haven't used that whole "ambushed at night" thing in a while though...My other game I play a warforged.. the DM must coup de grace to kill me
