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Nov 14, 2012 -- 1:33PM, lofgren wrote:

I think there needs to be a fudge range, where PCs can be dropped but still be returned to the fight. Otherwise it is far too likely that a single character dropping will result in a TPK. The balance point of the round and the encounter is too fine if there is no fudge factor.

Some people deal with this by being fine with a TPK, or by fudging dice. I prefer to deal with it by making the deaths of the characters not the main goal of the monsters in any encounter.

Nov 14, 2012 -- 3:40PM, lofgren wrote:

It doesn't matter whether the monsters' main goal is killing the characters. Frankly I think that such a rule eliminates a huge array of otherwise viable stories, something I am always loathe to do. But as long as killing the characters is even an option for the monsters, it's going to happen occasionally.

Without additional (if reasonable) steps I'll concede that it really just decreases the likelihood of killing a character.

Nov 14, 2012 -- 3:40PM, lofgren wrote:

It's not that I have a big problem with a TPK. Au contraire, I believe that the possibility of a TPK, at least in key plot fights, must be present or else a lot of the tension is lost for me.

So everyone says. I wonder how many of them have tried what I'm talking about.

Nov 14, 2012 -- 3:40PM, lofgren wrote:

But I don't believe that the system should be balanced around a point so fine that a single character going down means that the party is in an irreversible tailspin. And if you are going to balance around that point, then dropping characters in the first place needs to be an extraordinary occurrence.

And that's what we find. Even with the "balanced math" it's no mean feat to take out even a single PC in combat in 4th Edition. That's part of what people complain about, but the game has been on this trajectory for a while, and not because no one asked for it.

Nov 14, 2012 -- 3:40PM, lofgren wrote:

Building an assumption of fudged dice right into the system means building a system you don't expect to actually perform well.

I'm not saying that assumption is built in, I'm just saying that lots of people do that. That said, I think the designers do assume the DM will put their thumb on the scale if things aren't working right for them. The designers can't anticipate everything. D&D really only works inside a very narrow range of assumptions.

Nov 14, 2012 -- 1:57PM, Centauri wrote:

Some people deal with this by being fine with a TPK, or by fudging dice. I prefer to deal with it by making the deaths of the characters not the main goal of the monsters in any encounter.

Most good stories involve the protagonists being defeated and/or captured at least once every episode. Shame this rarely occurs in D&D. The DM should be able to win one every once in awhile.

I feel the OP's pain and was thinking of implementing this rule myself.  Especially in high level games, players seem downright invulnerable.  Like the OP, I am an experienced DM and have tried all sorts of encounter-based solutions, such as more/varied/more powerful monsters, traps, terrain, etc, and none have been enough to counteract the games' ridiculous healing mechanism and rule imbalance favoring players.

Yes (with caveats), yes, and yes.  They are having fun but agree that combats do not generally feel threatening and that the game would be more fun if they did.  And my fun matters too: at this point, after running an entire campaign up to level 26 in 4E, I am extremely frustrated at the game mechanic and find it irritating that the system makes higher level PCs basically unbeatable unless the DM puts in an inordinate amount of planning, or cheats.