Think of it this way. You managed to get what you came for and you now realize just how powerful the minions of Kyuss are.
One little “almost” defeat and you’re giving up. Tsk tsk.
Yeah, I hate save or die stuff too. I mean, it really sucks when I’m ready for an all out battle with a BBEG and then I cast my 8th or 9th level spell that screws him 20 ways from gameday, and we win in triumphant fashion. I mean yeah, I hate breaking out my highest(or second highest) level spells possible and having super awesome things happen. I mean, some of them are called things like WISH and MIRACLE but that doesn’t mean they should have drastic effects.
Yeah, I hate save or die stuff too. I mean, it really sucks when I’m ready for an all out battle with a BBEG and then I cast my 8th or 9th level spell that screws him 20 ways from gameday, and we win in triumphant fashion. I mean yeah, I hate breaking out my highest(or second highest) level spells possible and having super awesome things happen. I mean, some of them are called things like WISH and MIRACLE but that doesn’t mean they should have drastic effects.
See, I think thats lame though. A fight with the big boss should be climactic. Not PCs win initiative and one shot him in one round. Likewise, the big boss shouldn’t also be able to nuke the party in one round if it goes first.
I remember one time in a game R’yal was running when three wizards got the jump on our group of 7 (I think). Technically the CR was below what our group was rated for.
They did what any self respecting wizard would do when faced with a group of enemies, whipped a fireball at them. 3 fireballs hit us in succession. Everyone in the party except the tanks were dead or dying before it became their turn. We didn’t even finish the round. The game ended right then and there, we didn’t bother with the live player’s turns.
3E and 3.5E have balance issues, I think that’s pretty easy to agree upon.
Far worse then the save or die effects are the simple die effects. Namely the vorpal sword.
BBEG’s don’t work at high levels if you play by the rules for the evil bad guy. They need allies.
Once you pass the mid levels single foes can’t stand up to the party unless you monty python there abilities.
At least have some minions wear the PC’s resources down a little before facing them.
Like the Ancient Vampire my PC’s faced at the climax of my previous campaign. He had maximized hit points, unholy toughness great wyrm dragon like ability scores and massive fast healing, as well as numerous unique supernatural.
when the dust settled one pc was dead, one crippled, Another driven insane spell channeled prismatic spray. The cleric blew himself up with a phoenix fire which was actually the finishing blow. He would have been even tougher had I kept wounding on his sword.
One thing when using BBEG’s is to have them take precautions against likely one shot kill effects.
All dragons with an energy vulnerability should learn energy immunity as one of their 6th level spells.
Since Jim’s cleric is dead, it’s going to be interesting to see how we’re ressurected, if at all.
Kevin’s character was barely able to shift to windwalk to get the hell out of Dodge (an ability Jim’s character cast on us), and our friend Kelly summoned his mount - a large bird - and flew out of the caves.
~~Becka
Kevin’s character got out of Dodge and ended up in Tenser’s house - our ally. The priest is not the only person in the world who can raise… or go get folks out of other planes, or make me not undead (if I am even undead).
Again, this game is wide-open for a ton of options. A little adversity makes a saga. Kicking (Gibbering Mouther Ate Your Word!) all the time and gettting loot gets boring.
Yeah, I hate save or die stuff too. I mean, it really sucks when I’m ready for an all out battle with a BBEG and then I cast my 8th or 9th level spell that screws him 20 ways from gameday, and we win in triumphant fashion. I mean yeah, I hate breaking out my highest(or second highest) level spells possible and having super awesome things happen. I mean, some of them are called things like WISH and MIRACLE but that doesn’t mean they should have drastic effects.
See, I think thats lame though. A fight with the big boss should be climactic. Not PCs win initiative and one shot him in one round. Likewise, the big boss shouldn’t also be able to nuke the party in one round if it goes first.
This is under both player and DM control. You too are guilty of ending climactic fights with one shot that hit for 98 points of damage.
If the baddies know about us, and see that you can lop off the head of a comparable fighter with one hit, of course they are going to burn an 8th level spell to get you out of the fight.
Any fantasy book I have read, any movie I have seen, any myth I have heard had adversity (death or near death) in it. This is the way of mighty tales.
The problem is more prominant at mid-levels, as these type of effects or spells begin to become available, yet proper protections are not as common yet. Not because the protections are hard to come by, as they are actually easier to obtain, but because PCs/NPCs do not have the wealth to keep everything balanced. An affordable good weapon may be about 50% of one character’s wealth; he is not going to be able to handle proper protection with his remaining wealth. At the same time, D&D is not like MMORPG where you’ll just stop your mission to make some more money, you are generally stuck with whatever you have.
However, at higher levels, I actually see the reverse of this problem; that is, everyone is too well protected and none of the flashy, powerful, broken stuff can work. The PCs are so decked-out in their protective gears and spells, as are the BBEG/minions, combat is now reduced to trading damage over time at a boring pace (especially when either side fashion a Cleric/Druid or 2). Combat in general boils down to 1-3 rounds of firing off big spells/abilities only to find that both sides are immune, then the remaining of the battle, if it can still be called that way, boring dice-rolling and systematic calculations of HP deduction and recovery.
I think 4e is going to suffer from giving people what they ask for, among other things. Just because everybody complains about characters dying doesn’t mean you should make it harder to die. What you are going to end up with is a RPG on Prozac. No lows, but no highs. Just a steady stream of ‘okay’.
It may suck to have a character taken out of the fight, but when you know that your character could die and you only have one roll for him to live and you succeed, it is a great feeling. I have been in games where people have jumped up and cheered when someone made a vital roll. Now if you don’t make it you just spend an action point and try again. Even if you do fail it won’t be that bad, you’ll just get up next round.
There are a few issues that make me not like high level play.
First, I play D&D because I love story and I like cinematic moments. I want my character to be a hero… I think most people do. I want my character to matter in the storyline, not just be a pawn or other non-contributing part of the story.
With that said, I understand that what’s a hero if peril isn’t on the line? Well, the issue for me is that death cheapens the story as you don’t often read about the hero dying and getting raised over and over.
Most importantly is that it’s just not enjoyable for me to sit out for hours while the rest of party carries on (even if they are trying to get me raised). I’d rather be engaged at the table. I have lots of things to do besides D&D that make me question my time at the table, especially when I’m not having fun… it just seems like a waste of my time.
This is a game… and a game should be fun and should involve everyone all of the time. My reward from playing D&D isn’t surviving, it’s overcoming challenges, thinking through problems, roleplaying, and in general, making a great story.
I cannot sit at a table for hours on end wondering if the next roll will force me to sit there politely while everyone else plays on.
I put a lot of time into my character, take a lot of notes, and try to be as engaged as I can be. My first character in this recent campaign (that I really loved) died. I quite sadly created another character and have died. I was raised this time, but it just seems cheap to me. If I was reading this story, I very well may have put the book down.
I should note that I’ve long ago resolved to not roll up another character until 4e comes out. It’s a draining process for me and I just don’t have the desire to put more effort into something that might only last a few hours.
My reward from playing D&D isn’t surviving, it’s overcoming challenges, thinking through problems, roleplaying, and in general, making a great story.
This sort of sums up the change in mind-set from the old days to the modern D&D system. Back in OD&D or 1e, it took all of five minutes to replace a dead character. The game didn’t encourage you to flesh out your fighter beyond a name (though many players still chose to do so), and when all you needed to do was roll 3d6 in order, choose class, roll hit points, and pick your (1 or 2) spells if you happened to be a caster, replacing a character was no big deal. Gygaxian Expert Dungeoneering and Survival was the rule of the day. The Tomb of Horrors really exemplified this mindset: it was fun to butcher characters when they were little more than avatars for the players in the way that the thimble was in Monopoly.
But you turn that whole mindset on its ear when the system encourages you to develop your character and gives you more mechanical options that “what class do you want to play?” If your players need to spend the hour, or possibly even the next few days before the next session, coming up with a new character to bring to the table, and you as the DM then need to think of a way to introduce that character beyond, “Hey guys, Bob the Fighter’s brother showed up to avenge Bob. You can call him Bob 2. He joins the party.”, then players are going to be more frustrated when a random death happens. Death is rare to the point of basically being impossible in games like Burning Empires, and I believe it’s in Raising the Stakes that a character can only die if he “raises his Death Flag” in exchange for a bunch of bonuses (essentially, the drama of death persists, but it’s the player who chooses when death is appropriate enough to go all-in on an encounter).
Indeed, the best way to look at death is as a “defeat condition”: if you die, your character failed to see through a quest to the end. Sure a player will be unhappy at defeat, and there will be excitement at the prospect of avoiding defeat, but there are plenty of other ways to get players to stand up and cheer. When everyone starts throwing buffs on the paladin before he charges and smites the evil wizard, and then he rolls for damage with a huge pile of dice, that’s exciting too, for instance. And there are plenty of other defeat conditions aside from death: I’ve seen players fight harder to avoid capture than they have to avoid death (especially once true resurrection is available). If a game system makes death an inordinately large burden / penalty for the player, to the point where the excitement of that last-ditch “roll or you’re gone” sort of thing is overshadowed by the dread of having to sit out for the rest of the game, then yes, something’s wrong with using that model as the approach to making the game exciting.
It’s clear that I haven’t played recently enough. I’ve been DMing for ages, but hardly ever get to sit in the player’s seat. I seem to recall death as being something that “just happens”, and if I’m out for hours while they’re going on, I write it off and look forward to next week’s session, making notes on my next PC while I’m at it, or just relaxing and enjoying the session as an observer.
There’s other measures to be taken as well. If sitting out hours is agonizing, think about how hard it is to sit out weeks at a time in a play by post if you get killed off there. So what did I, as DM, do?
I actually instituted an afterlife thread, carrying the RP over to the Fugue Plane (yes, SuperJosh, I’m looking at you). Even dead, his character was still getting to “play the game”.
