Are starting characters too vulnerable

[uncruliar]

As I said on another thread I am very new to D&D. As such my comments and questions are based on very limited amounts of gameplay and possible misunderstandings of the rules.

It seems to me that starting characters are very vulnerable to combat. Even a fighter who rolled well with his hit dice can only get 6 hit points (or have I misunderstood already). If a monster is lucky enough to hit him just a couple of times there is a good chance he will be dead.

What is the mortality rate of new characters?

Do you sprinkle beginner's adventures with lots of healing potions for them to find to keep the characters alive?

[geoffrey]

Mortality rates can be very high:
www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=34964

IMO, that's part of the fun. Try to have big (10+ members) parties. Don't hesitate to allow a player to run as many characters at a time that he wants to. If someone, for example, wants to concurrently run half-a-dozen PCs, great!

And make sure the DM lets players roll-up replacement characters and get back into play on a moment's notice.

[coffee]

Yeah, I have to go along with what Geoffrey said.

Kesher (who you can find on this forum) started up an original D&D game locally a while back. The first fatality happened in the first room, about a minute after we walked into the dungeon. The player sighed and reached for his dice to roll up a new one.

Another player showed up with three or four characters already rolled up -- when his first one died, he just flipped the page in his notebook and was ready to get back into the game.

Moral: The character may die, but the game goes on!

[kesher]

What Geoffrey said. When I started playing with the Old School Mindset, one of the biggest "aha" moments for me was the idea that characters develop through play, so at the beginning they're necessarily cyphers. Therefore if they bite it five minutes into the dungeon, so what---it took like 10 minutes to roll them up, so just roll up another.

I'd say that's essential, though---get the player playing again asap. It doesn't have to be pretty, either. I mean, find them tied up in a bag in an otherwise empty corridor. Someone make something up on the spot about how they got there, and you're on your way.

That also means: No back stories. Their back stories will assemble themselves as play progresses. At least, that's how we do it in my campaign.

Now, all that said, I always let characters start out with maximum HP at first level, which is really my only concession to lethality. Of course, since I'm playing ODD, a Fighting Man will have seven (possibly eight) HP, and all attacks do 1d6, so, it ain't that big of a deal...

* Oops, cross-posted with Will (who's talking about our campaign!)

[kesher]

Feb 26, 2010 16:10:02 GMT -6 coffee said:

Yeah, I have to go along with what Geoffrey said.

Kesher (who you can find on this forum) started up an original D&D game locally a while back. The first fatality happened in the first room, about a minute after we walked into the dungeon. The player sighed and reached for his dice to roll up a new one.

Another player showed up with three or four characters already rolled up -- when his first one died, he just flipped the page in his notebook and was ready to get back into the game.

Moral: The character may die, but the game goes on!

Those are great examples. That first character even had platemail armor, but the giant rat got a critical hit and, you know, chewed off his face... Read about it here.

The second instance was so classic---he came with three characters prepared, and two of them died in the first hour...actually, others died, too. Read about it here.

And man---that moral! I'm going to inscribe it on the outside of my DM screen...

[capheind]

If you have Netflix rent "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising" The pile of dead bards says it all...

[Random]

Mortality is high; very high actually at low level. Have plenty of bodies in the dungeon. I recommend between 10-20* characters total (though only a few need be classed PCs, one or two per player is my preference) for a low level expedition.

*I've found that a (reasonably intelligent) squad of about 15 tends to make it back with usually no more than half casualties and enough loot to warrant a return trip (as well as some good experience towards level 2). The townsfolk NPCs will be wary with all the deaths, but hey, the adventurers came back with treasure, so there should always be more hirelings waiting to join for the next trip.

As for the vulnerability of individual characters, yes, two hits from a dangerous monster should kill a 1st level fighting man. The real advantage the PCs have is that more heads are better than one (unless you're playing a one-on-one game), and they tend to have variety in class abilities.

[coffee]

As far as the beginning fighter having 6 hit points, that varies by edition.

If I recall the edition you have correctly, fighters get 8 sided hit dice. And if he has an 18 Constitution, he'd get a +3 to that, so he could start with a maximum of 11.

(Hey, even in OD&D he could start with 8, if he had a Con bonus.)

[cyclopeatron]

Yes, I think by-the-book starting characters are too vulnerable for casual players. In my experience the main problem is that super weak characters make players timid and not willing to take even small risks, which can grow tedious after a while.

I allow maximum HP at 1st level, and also the bind wounds house rule (+1d4 HP if you bandage wounds immediately after combat). This basically boils down to a character having to receive an average of two hits to be killed. In my experience this keeps mortality at a nice trade-off level between letting the people play a little more adventurously while still feeling some threatening intensity. Soo... I'm not as hardcore as some OD&D DMs, but I think it's more fun for my players this way at low levels. We also play with large parties: 8-12 (6-8 players, 2-3 NPCs).

This is a really interesting topic, and I am enjoying reading the responses to this question. I suspect that the answer(s) to this question depend mostly on the attitude of your players. After a few games most players get somewhat attached to their characters. The situation is much different in one-shot and convention games, where gonzo play with disposable characters can be a blast.

If you're curious, here are the Gygax-inspired house rules I've been using for my OD&D campaign: cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2010/02/house-rules-for-our-white-box-games.html

[capheind]

when I'm looking for a wacky dungeon adventure everyone should be playing 5-10 characters + hirelings, and henchmen, and lots and lots of death ensues.

When I want to play out an epic story line with characters of great nobility, dramatic battles, and dragons and oll that then I just let the characters start around 5th level with a few key magic items.

The high death rate kinda cuts off once your characters get the feel of spelunking dungeons and take advantage of more tactical maneuvers.

[Zulgyan]

You can also start play at a higher level, say 3.

[Finarvyn]

Back in "the day" we used to go through characters like water in a stream. (This was particularly true in our Boot Hill games, which were notorious for people rolling out new characters fast enough to return to the same shootout before it ended. We never allowed anyone to pre-roll characters.)

Feb 27, 2010 1:11:15 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

You can also start play at a higher level, say 3.

This is my solution nowadays, and I got the idea originally from Gary Gygax himself.

While my high school buddies had little attachment to characters, my current gaming group (mostly female and including wife, sister, daughter) are more into "back story" and we rarely ever lose characters anymore. I guess we've "lost" a part of the old school feel, but it seems to be worth the tradeoff for these particular players.

[uncruliar]

Thanks for all the response - lots of interesting ideas. I'll be playing with my son and his mates. I guess they won't be as attached to their characters as Fynarvin's wife and daughters but they might get disheartened with too high a fatality rate. I like the bind wounds house rule.

[waysoftheearth]

After fiddling around with a few variations, I've settled on allowing all PCs +0 to +6 starting hp, based on their constitution score (in place of the standard +1 per level for PCs with high con).

It is a bit like getting all your "potential" bonus hp due to constitution all at once at level 1, rather than spread out over levels 1 to 9. It means most 1st level PCs can probably survive one hit -- but a second hit could very easily be fatal.

I like it because it (mostly) gives the player a choice after being hit, rather than simply being slain outright.

[cyclopeatron]

Gygax himself seemed to feel that starting characters in OD&D are too vulnerable, as evidenced by the fact that almost all of his OD&D house rules make lower-level characters stronger.

If anyone is interested, I tried to comb through various on-line forums (including this one) to compile the various reported Gygax house rules for OD&D. I posted a summary here:

cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2010/03/gary-gygaxs-whitebox-od-house-rules.html

[coffee]

That's a pretty darn spiffy compilation! Have an exalt for that, Cyclopeatron!


And as far as starting higher than first, I had a DM back in the early 80's who started everybody at 5th level. I didn't want to start that way, being pretty new to the game, so I started as a henchman to an established character -- but I got up to speed pretty quickly (and as a fighter, I still had stuff to do.)

Characters still died in that game, though. But not as fast as the really really old days.

[makofan]

The stats for my online campaign

As a fun list, here are the fatal incidents that have befallen various PC's:

CAUSES OF PC DEATHS

Giant Spiders: 10 (Jaako, Carlo, Brumbar, Renardo, Ozmar, Valandil, Sebastian, Moziah, Vanna, Freddie)
Ghouls: 3 (Rutgar, Greebo, Noltus)
Gelatinous Cubes: 3 (Houngli, Zaran, Nick)
Giant Beetles: 2 (Ulfgar, Yorjd)
Pit Traps: 2 (Rumigard, Tonkul)
Green Slime: 2 (Edyrn, Gunther)
Kobolds: 1 (Zsolt)

Total Deaths: 23

[codeman123]

Yeah fatality rates are high. I never have liked the "negative" numbers are death system but i have used it and still do in my ad&d campaign. I do like the idea that a character can die in one or two blows because in my perspective level1 characters are just a little above the cut. They are just not heroic yet they are trying to find their place in the world and even the best can fall before they become heroic. A lot of my players hate this kind of play style though so i usually give 1st levels a little boost. sometimes negative numbers equal death sometimes i just give them a few healing potions that someone has gifted them with for offering to save their village from the evil creatures that infest the dungeons or i have even started characters at 2nd level.

[capheind]

I like the binding wounds Idea. In my games I generally did have a decent level of player death, but it was mitigated by my general preference to lots of natural animals and puzzles in my games, and fewer magical critters, so that when they stumble onto a band of Orcs, its actually a significant event.

[aldarron]

Interestingly, I've never gotten the impression from what I've read about Gygax's greyhawk campaign that there was the kind of attrition rate that there should have been according to the rules. I don't recall hearing of any early favorite character getting killed. I suspect Gygax often found ways to keep characters alive or they just miraculously came back. Dave Arneson was admittedly playing by his own rules much of the time but his main players seem to almost nevr have died and those who did either cam back somehow or became famous monsters. I guess my point is that a little dm slight of hand to keep alive characters seems to have a very long track record.