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6 years ago ::
Sep 05, 2007 - 1:37AM
#11
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Personally, I found low level character were weak and I had to take care of DM not to kill them, but still got funny fights
(ever had you fellow adventurer throw a burning chair at you, in the hope the magic clothes let go?)
In mid-levels all is good, if hard to find a nice challenge
In high-levels instant death abilities can be a little to decisive on the battlefied
In short, some change would be nice. However I agree, that taking away all the edge won't be fun. I ask for a bit more of balance. Level loss is slightly annoying for player (loosing abilities) and for DM a bit (party balance), however I do believe death should not be easy to circumvent. Resurrection sickness is, in my opinion, a bit too weak. A more persistent ability penalty seems the better idea, to me that is.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 05, 2007 - 1:50AM
#12
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Okay... no risk of death, infinite use of healing and combat spells (maybe not the big ones, but certainly a lot of the smaller ones), more feats, talents, easier multiclassing, no risk of losing levels...
I'm sorry, was this game supposed to be fun? Because at least part of the reason that D&D is fun is the "joy of victory" thing, you know, where your party *could* have lost everything and died irretrievable, but instead managed to pull through and win.
Without the risk of losing, where's the joy of winning?
No risk of death? Umm, a game like that is one where combat is done purely for flavor, and the DM decides when you win. Last I checked, losing too many hit points meant dying. That can happen, even with reusable spells.
Losing levels adds nothing to the game. More feats & talents plus easier multiclassing (huh, it's pretty 'easy' to multiclass in the current game) means a greater variety of characters. There's nothing to stop you having combats you win by the skin of your teeth, so I don't see what the issue is here. TPKs in the depths of the dungeon will be as irretrievable in 4e as they are in 3.5e (without the DM introducing a deux ex machina).
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6 years ago ::
Sep 05, 2007 - 1:52PM
#13
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Date Joined:
Jun 25, 2001
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Okay... no risk of death, infinite use of healing and combat spells (maybe not the big ones, but certainly a lot of the smaller ones), more feats, talents, easier multiclassing, no risk of losing levels...
I'm sorry, was this game supposed to be fun? Because at least part of the reason that D&D is fun is the "joy of victory" thing, you know, where your party *could* have lost everything and died irretrievable, but instead managed to pull through and win.
Without the risk of losing, where's the joy of winning?
At mid to high levels, this is pretty much the case. infinite healing with wands of CLW, resurrection magic, etc.
Only a TPK will stop the PCs and that assumes they didn't set up a clone spell or what not. In fact, if you have character death be less frequent, but permanent, it adds more risk to the game.
This is a game where we want recurring characters. This isn't call of Cthulhu where heroes are supposed to die on a regular basis. We can either get recurring characters by making death a reversible status condition, or we can make PC death rare, but actually mean something.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 05, 2007 - 6:02PM
#14
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In my game you lose the experience points, but not the abilities you had already earned. For example you are a level 2 PC with 1200xp and die and are raised, you now are a level 2 PC with 500xp (or however the math would work out). This saves the record keeping headache of which feat did I just lose, and was it 12hp or 13? But can still be a significant penalty to the player.
Death and raising can get way too complicated. The simpler the system the better. Losing levels, whether by death or special attack, usually just frustrates me enough as a player to want to start a new character.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 05, 2007 - 6:29PM
#15
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Date Joined:
Aug 29, 2007
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I preferred that idea, just dropping the XP whatever amount WITHOUT negative levels. Keeps them from levelling, and the only side effect was the variations in level I would get sometimes.. (example.. the cleric and barbarian were at odds. mainly because the barbarian "had his way" with a female priest at the Cleric's Temple... [it was actually a spy from the death cult sent to destroy the temple of pelor] and the cleric failed to heal the barbarian a few times out of anger. the barbarian was around 5 K xp behind the pack). but I fixed this by going the "rest XP" route. It was cheap, but I allowed the barbarian to recieve .5x more the xp in bonus XP at the conclusion of certain games to catch up... mainly cause you can't have a barbarian 2 levels behind the group trying to go toe to toe with a potentially disasterous wizard who turned out to be the leader of that death cult.
The Barbarian ended up catching a VC, venerial Curse. But luckily for everyone, the cleric and barbarian made ammends...
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6 years ago ::
Sep 05, 2007 - 8:30PM
#16
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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I say they should just get rid of resurrection entirely. It's the ultimate story killer.
Instead, just make combat less lethal. You don't die at -10. In fact, no amount of damage can kill a PC, they just get incapacitated. A PC dies only in special circumstances, and death is more or less final (barring some crazy one shot plot device artifact or ritual).
Basically to kill a PC you need an enemy who does a CdG or something similar to him. Normal wounds can just take him down for a while.
This is a great idea, and should be implemented posthaste. As in, why wait for 4th?
Okay... no risk of death, infinite use of healing and combat spells (maybe not the big ones, but certainly a lot of the smaller ones), more feats, talents, easier multiclassing, no risk of losing levels...
I'm sorry, was this game supposed to be fun? Because at least part of the reason that D&D is fun is the "joy of victory" thing, you know, where your party *could* have lost everything and died irretrievable, but instead managed to pull through and win.
Without the risk of losing, where's the joy of winning?
Once the party is down, the trolls just pop off all their heads, and that's the end of it. There's still a risk of death, there's just no risk of sudden, anticlimactic death.
On the other hand, having one party member killed, and the party departing for home to get him fixed right back up again, cheapens the threat of death far more than simply making it difficult for characters to cross that threshold. Death should have a finality that the current rules don't afford it; it's the second-worst* status effect, to be sure, and the hardest to get rid of, but it's still ultimately just a status effect. In my mind, if you really want your friend back, you can get off your butt and go to the afterlife to fetch him back yourself!
*After domination.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 06, 2007 - 11:22AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Dec 31, 2004
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I say they should just get rid of resurrection entirely. It's the ultimate story killer.
Instead, just make combat less lethal. You don't die at -10. In fact, no amount of damage can kill a PC, they just get incapacitated. A PC dies only in special circumstances, and death is more or less final (barring some crazy one shot plot device artifact or ritual).
We do something like this in a game which I don't DM. If you're taken to -10 or below, you make a fort save with a DC 15+1/2 the damage past -10. If you save, you survive, but get a disfiguring scar that does 1d4 drain to a random ability. If you fail, you die. Places a little more emphasis on fortitude saves, but the adventuring life favors hearty chaps, yes?
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6 years ago ::
Sep 06, 2007 - 11:57AM
#18
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Date Joined:
Aug 16, 2007
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There used to be no save at all for level loss. Ouch!
The trend in D&D development has been to move away from an all-or-nothing struggle between the DM and the players and more to risking the characters, but always being able to continue in the story.
While some think that raise dead is a story killer; not being able to continue in the story because your character died seems like more of a story-killer to me. At least for the player(s) that died.
Of course, a TPK is still going to be pretty hard to recover from...
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6 years ago ::
Sep 06, 2007 - 11:49PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Nov 27, 2006
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Thirdly, what the hell was so much fun about having your class features dictated to you?
Fourthly, what the @#$% was fun about getting level drained?!
Yeah, y'know, none of these exist in Saga, and we manage to have fun all the same. I wonder why...?
Hey, YOU signed up to play D&D.
So you found out you don't like these things (small details like class, levels, set abilities).....
Well, there's the door. Quit *****ing & go play GURPS or something.
Oh, I see you're still here.
Must mean you want to play D&D. So what class are you?
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6 years ago ::
Sep 07, 2007 - 12:20AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Apr 20, 2006
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I played D&D 3.5e. With massive house-ruling (and a good heaping of the Ultimate Classes).
Then Saga came out.
Now I can't stand it and look forward to seeing what 4e plans to do about 3.5e's worst @#%$.
Hey, look! These are the 4e forums! Wonderful, that.
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