Make Fighter PrCs Essential

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 3:49 am

Exactly, the problem with your idea is not having a class that is only viable for a short period of levels.

The problem with your idea is that the PHB fighter is seriously viable for zero levels.

Zero!

If you want to create a game in which people start by taking 5 levels of "Fighter" then go off into PrCs, like "Ranger" or "Barbarian" or "Knight" or "Demigod" or "Master of Element X" or whatever, that's fine. Absolutely. Go ahead.

But recognize that in order to do that, you first have to create a Fighter class that

1) Doesn't suck.
2) Adds something to every PrC path that one can take from Fighter 5.
3) Is viable from levels 1-5.

And the PHB fighter is none of those things.

You will not be able to ever create a reason why someone who is starting at level 1 will want to be a Fighter over a Wizard or Rogue or Barbarian if you are using the PHB Fighter for any levels at all.

And since you are all ready designing a new fighter class anyway, you should seriously consider whether you want everyone to have the same character for five levels, or if just making "Barbarian" "Demigod" "Ranger" and "Firemaster" different classes is better.

I know if I want to play a Fire Master who throws fire from his sword, and burns so that people who attack him burn, and whatever, I don't want to spend five levels hitting someone with a non fire sword.

Likewise, If I want to be a Ranger, I want to have a pet at level 1, not wait till level 5.

Ect.

So in the long run, starting people off as Fighter and PrCing them is fine, as long as all the PrCs are something like Demigod and not something like Ranger, and as long as you start by making a whole new Fighter class that is not the fighter in the PHB.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 8:18 am

I started this in the morning, and have been busy with repairing some things, getting some parts for some overdue home reno, general cleaning up, and getting some one ready for a trip out of the country.

I'm not sure if this post is coherent, but then neither am I at this point. I'll post this up, and look at after getting some sleep.

[edit]: also Kaelik, that's a really good point. Just making a PrC Ranger for 'fighters' to take is dumb. Those can exist, but they're different from people that started as a ranger.

What if martial class levels were slots.

So, you can take a level in your current class; or the level of an other class; that's the same level as your next level.

Going from 9 to 10? and you're a [whatever]? You can gain the level 10 abilities of a class. There you go, something level appropriate.

Would that work? or get too crazy?

Wait, wait, wait, wait... what? Fencer? What the fuck?

I seriosuly don't even know what you're referring to at this point. Like, at all.

I had to go back to brilliant gameologists and search for "fencer" to see if that was actually part of those threads. There's seven entries, and none of them relate to that game. So... you're really going to have to explain this to me, because 1) I have no clue what you're talking about, and 2) BG's search function doesn't even show up anything remotely related to that character or game using a search for 'fencer'.

Are you referring to how Whirlwind + TWF allows a character to attack everything within melee weapon reach up to two times (one time normally, TWF allows a second attack) when making a full round action? That's the closest thing to what you're talking about that I can think of.

That character could never "take two AoOs on everything", they just had a lot of AoOs, and anything entering his threatened space (after he Whirlwinded; I actually attacked an other PC in order to 'trigger' Whirlwind).

They could however move past creatures, and make 2 attacks on everything within melee weapon reach. Which I'm pretty sure that they did in their round, or were going to.

You're also hyperboling on well.. everything. A reach of nintey feet?

Geez. I seriously wish. Even after pulling out every thing I could, I reached a total of 25 or 30 feet with Kusari-Gamas (Large Size, Fighter ability, Extending Weapons, Reach Weapons). I took every thing possible short of burning feats* on being larger to get as much reach as possibe

*:

Honestly, that was not something I wanted in the build/character, I wanted a human, not a monster.

Everything that you say about that character is hyperbole. He was actually a lot more balanced than you make him out to be.

His weapon damage was shit (3d6+30 vs... like 11d6+[the Barb's Str mod from being both stacked for Str, and Huge]), but he made up for it with ability damage (Con); and the ability to scare enemies once he had killed one enemy.

His skills were high, and he had a wide range of them as "class" skills, due to multiclassing. Stealth and Perception were two very key parts of the character, nothing would be able to ambush him that was alive. His Knowledge skills allowed him to figure out what encounters he could deal with, and which he couldn't. His mechanic abilities were there since having an other de-trapper is always useful.

He could pretend to be a spell caster since he had a high UMD score, and could auto-cast level 5 spells off of scrolls, and use Wands with no problem.

In some ways, comparing him to a Rogue that took a level of Wizard, or Fighter, he was about the same. The rogue would be able to UMD scrolls of Divine Power; be able to use wands that would let it sneak attack most targets (except oozes). Alternatley using the Crossbow sniper, a Light Crossbow with the reloading and extra dimensional bolt storage would allow decent damage out to 60'; and on a lot of things. Such a character could pull off more and more varied types of ability damage via poisones, pre-applied to their bolts; and multiple poisons can be applied at once.

As for "fuptillion HD is the only counter to Con damage".

Seriously, that's retarded. Full stop.

Con damage is more effective when a creature has moar HD.

That's how Con damage builds work. The more HD the target has, the more HP they lose when their Con score goes down even 2 points. At 10 HD and up, reducing Con by 1 point is considered a good idea.

If Ubernoob had used a creature with 500 HD, any Con damage would have dealt that much more damage.

The only logical, and reasonable counters to "deal con damage" are...

1) Low HD, Massive Con scores.

Since Con damage is good because it's a multiplier of Con damage dealty and HD; you need to remove HD from turning a small amount of Con damage into a huge deal.

Seriously, 24 HD creatures with a Con score of 48 are better than 48 HD creatures with a Con of 24.

Better still, 1, 5 or 10 HD creatures with a Con of 50+. Since any Con damage means trivial damage to such a creature.

2) Lots of peeney weenies.

More targets, more total Con points in play. Less effect when Con damage is dealt.

8 CR 16 creatures with 24 con and 48 HD is threatening, but seriously, just tossing out dozens of CR 11 24 HD Elementals will bog down the PCs more than a few uber-brutes that die from Con damage

Elementals are CR 11 with 24 HD, and go up to 48 HD; that's +24 HD; each 4 HD adds +1 to CR (usually); so they're CR 17 monsters in an APL 14 adventure.

Honestly, I've seen worse in actually published WoTC adventures, and in Living Greyhawk adventures. I tailored my character to be able to deal with some encounters that are 'higher' than average CR, since I regularly see such encounters.

Like... say... Wail of the Banshee traps in level 6 adventures, Cloud Giant Skeletons (CR 7, but... no room to really escape to) with 2 claw and 1 morningstar attack [a DM error, but I digress] popping out of a closet. No, seriously, the "closet troll" was used as an encounter. Except that the troll, and it's closet, where a huge sized room was the monster's 'closet'. The dungeon also had infinite giant spiders in a room. As well as a Gargantuan monstrous Scorpion (CR 10) in ... duhn, duhn, duhn, an other small, enclosed room where leaving/entering was 'slow' and 'difficult'.

Those above encounters/traps are seriously from one of the lvl 5-6 Eberron games. Seriously.

3) Things immune to ability damage, or able to insta-repair ability damage.

Something Construct, or Undead. Something with 5 (?) levels in Knight (refresh/remove all ability damage).

Seriously, if you're telling me that Uber used low Con, massive HD creatures to "counter" a character that did Con damage, he went about it the entirely wrong way from a math and numbers point of view.

From a DMing point of view, he could have just said "numbers too big, what do you want, you get that instead". The fact that he thought "using bigger monsters" was a solution, shows how much of a non-solution that was.

It both didn't solve the problem, and the method was basically the main way of showing what sort of monsters are weakest versus a low damage build that relied on ability damage. We can be honest, after the DR 15/- halving the 200-ish damage per round down to 100-ish total damage, it was pretty much only Con damage that did the heavy lifting on that character.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:07 am

JE, I warned you. Welcome to my ignore list.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:49 am

Judging__Eagle wrote:You're also hyperboling on well.. everything. A reach of nintey feet?

JE, stop being a retarded liar.

You had a reach of some bullshit + you had Blitz, you could move then full attack, which is why anything within 90ft would take more than it's HP in damage, because your characters full attack autokills anything in the MM I.

Judging__Eagle wrote:His weapon damage was shit (3d6+30 vs... like 11d6+[the Barb's Str mod from being both stacked for Str, and Huge]), but he made up for it with ability damage (Con); and the ability to scare enemies once he had killed one enemy.

Once again, you don't get to just lie your way to victory. You had six attacks that autohit on a 2 against any CR 14 enemy in the MM. You do average of 240 damage per full attack, not counting Con damage.

That's more than the HP of any goddam creature in the MM of even close to our CR. The fact that the Barbarian that you also made was also ruining the game for everyone is just more evidence that you personally are an asshole who ruins games.

Judging__Eagle wrote:As for "fuptillion HD is the only counter to Con damage".

Fuck you liar. The counter to someone who does 240 damage per round + Con damage is to have monsters with more than 240HP. If your monster has less than 240HP, it could have a Con of elevendy billion, it would still die in one hit.

No CR 14 monster in the MM could survive a full attack from your character. Not a single one. Cr 14 enemies all have less than 24 Con.

He sent lots of monsters with higher than average Con against you.

Just because you are too retarded to know anything at all about what a game of D&D is like, not my fucking problem, except when I made the mistake of playing in a game with you, because your stupidity ruined it.

So try this again: 24 Con is Fucking higher than average. You do more HP damage, not counting con, than any CR 14 enemy even has.

You are fucking retarded.

Judging__Eagle wrote:Seriously, 24 HD creatures with a Con score of 48 are better than 48 HD creatures with a Con of 24.

Better still, 1, 5 or 10 HD creatures with a Con of 50+. Since any Con damage means trivial damage to such a creature.

You weren't casting spells that only did Con damage! You were hittin for 200 damage + con damage.

A 24 HD elemental with 48 Con would Does not fucking exist.

Not to mention a 10HD 50 Con monster would still die in a single round, because it would only have 245HP, and you did 240Hp damage per round even to enemies immune to Con Damage.

Judging__Eagle wrote:3) Things immune to ability damage, or able to insta-repair ability damage.

Yes, if only he had limited himself to things immune to mind affecting effects in the Beguiler party, then you would still be wrecking shop with 240Hp damage per round, while I sat in the corner and cried.

Judging__Eagle wrote:Seriously, if you're telling me that Uber used low Con, massive HD creatures to "counter" a character that did Con damage, he went about it the entirely wrong way from a math and numbers point of view.

THEY WERE NOT LOW CON!

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 4:58 pm

Well, I really didn't gear the character to the monsters. That I'll admit. I never read monster stats in great detail, mostly b/c it's boring, and mostly b/c I want to be surprised by what a monster can do to the PCs as much as possible when I'm DMing. I often have the players roll d% just so that I can see a level appropriate monster that I can fit into the game, I've never used before. I don't want to do Balor's, I want to try the other fiends out as well.

I didn't realize that dealing 200 damage a round at level 14 was broken; for some reason, I still feel like it's below average. I feel that a character should grow at a higher rate than their equivalent challenges as the game progresses.

You go from fighting kobolds, and troglodtye zombies, and killing them with your greatsword, to fighting CR 20 Dragons, and not getting wtfpwned when it full attacks you the way that can sometimes happen in D&D.

Seriously, I feel that if a character can't solo a level equivalent challenge, then we're not playing D&D, and that we're playing EQ, where the monsters get stronger than the players as levels get higher. I want games where the PCs get much more powerful in combat than their enemies do, so they move from fighting a squad to Kobolds, to fighting a platoon of Stone Golems at level 15 or so, to fighting a clan of cloud Giants in their home turf at level 20.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 6:41 pm

Judging__Eagle wrote:I didn't realize that dealing 200 damage a round at level 14 was broken; for some reason, I still feel like it's below average. I feel that a character should grow at a higher rate than their equivalent challenges as the game progresses.

That's because you are stupid.

Judging__Eagle wrote:and not getting wtfpwned when it full attacks you the way that can sometimes happen in D&D.

CR 28 Dragon full attacks do less damage than your Fighter in single round.

Judging__Eagle wrote:Seriously, I feel that if a character can't solo a level equivalent challenge, then we're not playing D&D, and that we're playing EQ, where the monsters get stronger than the players as levels get higher.

Do you not know what the Same Game Test is?

It's the most widely used method of balancing here on TGD.

The balance goal is to win 50% (Not a 100% you fucking moron) of the time against equal CR opposition.

Your Fighter, facing an "expanded same game test" IE, every single possible CR 14 challenge in the game, would still have a 100% success rate.

Because you literally kill any CR 14 in a single round, any two CR 12s, any four CR 10s, ect.

And you have practically unhittable AC and ridiculous saves.

No, you aren't playing EQ if some CR 14 enemies can beat you. You are not playing D&D unless I can point to 4 CR 14 challenges that can beat you. Because that's the balance standard defined by D&D.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 8:12 pm

Ok, now I agree that JE is being a fucking idiot. Optimization is one thing, but that's overkill.

However.

CR 28 Dragon full attacks do less damage than your Fighter in single round.

Lol, what? He was doing like 240 and 24 Con right? A CR 28 would do a lot more than that.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:35 pm

214 and 18 Con.

Also, I guess that I really don't like the fact that in D&D you have to have a whole party to be able to complete an adventure. I really don't see why a character can't go through an adventure on their own.

Seriously, most stories don't do that. They're all about a single character, and their adventures.

When they team up with other adventurers or heroes, it's to stop catastrophic events that they can't deal with alone. Not deal with things that any of them should have been able to deal with alone.

I think that is a disconnect between what I want in the game, and what the game expects I should do. I want to recreate stories that I have read, where one or two characters deal with some average sized problem for their power level. An alley-way full of kamikaze street urchins, or a rampaging, but dumb, monster in a city. Characters should team up to do things like... stop an invading army, by assassinating it's leader; or steal the plans for an enemy fortress; then infiltrate/destroy it.

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:42 pm

Because DnD isn't a story simulator, JE. It's a multiplayer game.

Sure, you can play Left 4 Dead by yourself, maybe make hack where you play Gordon Freeman and solo it by yourself, but the game is made for four players working together.

Their is no fucking reason you need to be able to solo DnD.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:48 pm

Average of 3d6+30 is 40.5 X6 is 243. So yes, you do 243 damage per round, assuming no AoO, and all enemies are immune to Con damage.

2) GoA, there is a very good reason why he should be able to play the game solo.

Because JE is an asshole who is utterly unwilling to accept anyone at all being even remotely comparable to him.

He will literally go bat shit insane if other people in the group don't explicitly beg him for aid, because he is a horrible horrible person.

Of course, that doesn't apply to anyone who is capable of walking into a game of D&D saying "This is our story" instead of "this is a story about me and how awesome I am, you guys are all sidekicks" like JE thinks every time, as evidenced by his own fucking comments.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:25 pm

I am working on a full level 1 to 20 Fighter Class. What does a level 20 Same Game Test look like?

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 12:41 am

I'd imagine you'd fight that aborted fetus god.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:05 am

Ok, a slight argument in JE's defense, I just ran my PC from Ubernoob's game, the Anthro Goat Monk, against the CR 14 monsters in MM1.

Apparently I like, dropped Tome and it broke, because I was able to solo all of them, a few in one round, and the only things that actually came even vaguely close to dropping him were the Truly Horrid Umber Hulk and Werewolf lord.

I wasn't even trying to make a solo character....

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:06 am

Off the top of my head, "pure fight" style options include:
Tarrasque
Pit Fiend
2x Very Old Black Dragon
4x 16th level wizards

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:17 am

Kaelik wrote:Average of 3d6+30 is 40.5 X6 is 243. So yes, you do 243 damage per round, assuming no AoO, and all enemies are immune to Con damage.

2) GoA, there is a very good reason why he should be able to play the game solo.

Because JE is an asshole who is utterly unwilling to accept anyone at all being even remotely comparable to him.

He will literally go bat shit insane if other people in the group don't explicitly beg him for aid, because he is a horrible horrible person.

Of course, that doesn't apply to anyone who is capable of walking into a game of D&D saying "This is our story" instead of "this is a story about me and how awesome I am, you guys are all sidekicks" like JE thinks every time, as evidenced by his own fucking comments.

Actually... it's the complete opposite.

I want all of the PCs to be at the same level as my PC; and when I DM, I want the same from the PCs; I want them to be at the same level.

The thing is... I set the dial to 11 for PC ability; and I set the NPC dial to 1-5; then increase it over time; until the NPC dial is about the same as the PC dial.

Characters that are the same as any other character that I've ever seen before are boring; and characters that have wide and noticeable power disparity are so unbelievably frustrating.

I've gone through entire campaigns where my character crafts items for every other PC, and they still make horrible decisions like.... get a [Warforged] Feat that lets them deal 2d4 Electricity damage with their Slam attacks, and take 1d4 Electricity damage themselves.

I will seriously point out to other players that stuff like Frenzied Berzerker is right up their alley; and help them plan out the feats that they need for it.

I basically ended a campaign because I was frustrated with the DM giving the PCs and Players shitty options as "good ideas". That, and the DM constantly interfering with any time that was going to be spent crafting items that the non-casters needed; "for the lulz".

I seriously explained to him that the other PCs were sucking because they were not getting anything remotely useful to them; and that item crafting was going to help close that gap. We got a summons to do some 'urgent mission' the day after we got back from our last adventure.

Then again, that entire DM was made of fail.

Since playstyle can vary greatly among players, even with the same characters, or even optimized characters; powerlevel among PCs can be very disparate.

In my own games, I close those gaps by just flat out handing items non randomly. It's a cop-out move, but it works very well.

For my own playstyle, my main goal is "do stuff". I seriously don't give a shit about loot, or fame, 'changing the world', or whatever. Getting more powerful is cool, but the main thing for my PCs is "do stuff".

Being begged for aid...honestly, it's never happened, and it would be weird if it happened. Like... really weird. I've never expected it, and I'm not sure where you get that idea Kaelik.

The whole "We're heroes and you're our sidekicks" statement is one that I used years ago about a game that was boring and frustrating me.

I should have probably sandbagged more, but D&D is about doing shit that I can't do in real life. I want a character that can walk on water, or make the group invisible, or shoot lighting from a scroll. You know, stuff that I can't do in real life.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 4:26 am

JE I want you to pay very close attention to this post. I'm going to comment it for simplicity sake.

JE, stop posting bullshit rambling stories about your games that contribute exactly zero to the actual discussion.
// This is the content of my post.

//This is the empty space that I didn't waste by inserting stories about D&D games I have played in that have nothing to do with the discussion.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:39 pm

But ya know, this whole dramafest taught me something. While JE is still wrong, so is the same game test.

Think about it. If you're supposed to go 50/50 with something of your level by yourself, then that means your party would go 50/50 with something 4 levels higher. And all of this makes sense as they are supposed to be equal to you, and if you don't have a 50% chance to beat your double, something is wrong.

However at the same time you're expected to fight something 4 levels higher about 5-10% of the time, which given there are 13 and a third encounters per level amounts to anywhere from 2 per 3 levels to 1 per level. And if you only have a 50% chance of winning the result is you have Elennsar's game where your odds of surviving to level 3 are minimal, and surviving to 20 is virtually unheard of.

Yet clearly people do get characters to non mook levels, and even to awesome levels. So clearly your actual chance to succeed has to be higher than that, or the game is unplayable.

Which means either:

1: The standards are wrong.
2: The frequency for encounters is wrong.
3: Giant Frog?

TavishArtair · Post by **TavishArtair** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:51 pm

In all the D&D games I've played in and even run, the encounters are almost always of an EL higher than the party level, not equal, because equal CR fights are almost completely uninteresting, as they are merely resource attrition, and there is no appreciable chance of failure. The party specifically has to arrange a fight, usually, in order to make it an "appropriate" equal CR encounter. People then blow most of their resources in these encounters since they're at serious risk, and it doesn't feel dumb to do. This paradigm actually pushed some of the 4e design to try to bring the rules more in line with practice, although it is highly doubtful that they succeeded any.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:04 pm

Roy wrote:However at the same time you're expected to fight something 4 levels higher about 5-10% of the time, which given there are 13 and a third encounters per level amounts to anywhere from 2 per 3 levels to 1 per level. And if you only have a 50% chance of winning the result is you have Elennsar's game where your odds of surviving to level 3 are minimal, and surviving to 20 is virtually unheard of.

Yet clearly people do get characters to non mook levels, and even to awesome levels. So clearly your actual chance to succeed has to be higher than that, or the game is unplayable.

No. It just means that you lose a fair amount of the time and that "resurrection budgets" are built into the treasure games.

Now, at low levels the encounter guidelines don't really work. And at high levels the CRs don't really mean anything. But in the 4-9 range it actually follows pretty well. Yeah, if you throw an Ettin at a first level party it's all over. But the actual suggestion is supposed to be Fire Giant versus 6th level party - and that really can go either way. And yeah, you're supposed to run into that kind of thing like twice in three levels, and one of them is supposed to beat you and the other is supposed to go down. The idea is that losing to the fire giant is not supposed to be game over. The party is expected to have one or two guys escape and then either raise their teammates or watch them make new characters.

Now what actually happens is that the DM gives the PCs a bunch of advantages such as favorable terrain or helpful NPCs for the boss fight with the Fire Giant to make it not "really" a Level +4 encounter and then people don't die. Or the party doesn't jam when the fight starts going ugly and then they all die and wonder what the fuck went wrong.

But the game as conceived really does throw a monster that has about a 50% chance of beating the party about once every level and a half. And it does so with no apologies, because in D&D land, losing a fight to the death is totally survivable.

-Username17

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 5:58 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: Now, at low levels the encounter guidelines don't really work. And at high levels the CRs don't really mean anything. But in the 4-9 range it actually follows pretty well. Yeah, if you throw an Ettin at a first level party it's all over. But the actual suggestion is supposed to be Fire Giant versus 6th level party - and that really can go either way. And yeah, you're supposed to run into that kind of thing like twice in three levels, and one of them is supposed to beat you and the other is supposed to go down. The idea is that losing to the fire giant is not supposed to be game over. The party is expected to have one or two guys escape and then either raise their teammates or watch them make new characters.

Not really Frank. If you ever leave your companions behind, you'll never want to resurrect them, like pretty much ever, because the real value that's in their magic items is lost.

Not to mention the only spell that'll resurrect them wtihout a body is 9th, so again, it's pretty much totally not worth it unless you're at least level 10, since it's going to require all your party to pretty much sell every magic item they own. Even then, they may not even be able to afford it.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 7:49 pm

1) RC:

Except you go back in, kill whatever killed them with foreknowledge, then get all their loots back.

2) Roy, that happens to a party of four.

Parties of four have lots of ways to escape things like that, including standard action teleports, and making friends with people who agree to Resurrect them.

You are supposed to die once every 3 levels, but that's not a big deal, since you have built in money for that purpose, like Frank said.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:15 pm

Kaelik wrote:1) RC:

Except you go back in, kill whatever killed them with foreknowledge, then get all their loots back.

Good luck, given that you're down tons of magic items from prior death, not to mention the items you probably had to sell for multiple true resurrections... I mean shit if half your 4 man party dies, that's 50,000 gp just for the spell components alone, not even counting whatever the cleric is going to charge you to cast it.

At mid levels, you're lucky if your party wizard doesn't end up having to pawn his spellbook.

And that assumes that your monsters haven't changed up their defenses at all. Having survivors get away knowing the layout of your lair is bad news, and if they almost beat you before, the monster may just decide to pack up and move somewhere else. If the monsters totally beat down the PCs without any losses then they may just stay put and not change anything, of course, if the monsters kicked the PC's asses when they were at full strength, I can't really see how they'll reliably win without magic items.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:24 pm

would it hurt the game at all to give players free resurrections? Maybe you take the paladin's helm, or something that was undeniably his, back to his church and say "Sir Gawain has fallen, here is his helm as proof" and the head priest goes into the back for a few hours and comes back out with Sir Gawain in loaner armour and his helm ready to go get his shit back. Then you take the rogue's theives tools to his guild and do the same thing, or take them to his cleric girlfriend, or whatever.

Would it really hurt things if you made sure every character had an in game connection that would resurrect them for free?

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:56 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:would it hurt the game at all to give players free resurrections? Maybe you take the paladin's helm, or something that was undeniably his, back to his church and say "Sir Gawain has fallen, here is his helm as proof" and the head priest goes into the back for a few hours and comes back out with Sir Gawain in loaner armour and his helm ready to go get his shit back. Then you take the rogue's theives tools to his guild and do the same thing, or take them to his cleric girlfriend, or whatever.

Would it really hurt things if you made sure every character had an in game connection that would resurrect them for free?

Really feels too MMORPG to me.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 1:10 am

I agree. I hate the idea of free resurrection. It completely ruins any risk factor.