The group I played with in school (wow...a looong time ago!) had very few PC deaths, except for our sessions where we made characters using the strict "method 1" approach to stats--3d6 six times, assign in order.

Those characters were hilariously awful, and very few survived a session.  It was more like a DCC funnel session, but fun once in a while.

HP represent the wearing down of the opponent. Wearing down skill, luck, stamina, and all that.

0 to -10 is the bleeding out and/or shock part. 10 minutes seems a bit long. But as noted, often you start out a little or alot into the negative to begin with.

-6 to -10 is the FUBAR stage.

At low levels this actually balances out to a degree. If all you have is 4 HP total/left when someone whales on you for 10 then you are right out the gate at -5 HP and will be dead in 5 rounds. Take into account possibly being hit more than once when you go down and things can get really messy really fast. At low levels wild animals were more of a terror than the monsters as they more often had multiple attacks.

i have seen the 4e and 5e whack a mole effect in full flight and dislike it greatly. i am much more on board with the zero hp = out of the current fight, preferably with a chance of death, or injury/setback, but without needing a week to recover (which is what i went with in Low Fantasy Gaming, in my sig ). you then get a real feeling of danger when getting to low hps, which reminds me of Ad&d, but without the harshness of basic's auto dead at zero.

Sett, I've experienced the opposite.  I've given characters max-at-starting, ignored the "only fighters get extra HP for high CON"* rule and let everyone have the +3 or +4, etc. etc., and have had more TPKs than not.  And it's not through me being a dick ("ha ha!  Huge ancient red dragon for you, first levelers!") or the players being idiots ("black pudding?  Yum!  Let's go up and lick it!"), but rather, it's dice rolls.

I think the "AD&D is more lethal" is a combination of a few things: one, people houseruling or ignoring how the rules (given as options) work for being dropped to zero or below and they just say "zero is dead", two, ignoring the rule on dying just because of bad/dumb luck (which Gary said, give 'em a break - if they played to the hilt and still died because of a shit die roll, you don't have to kill them) and finally, modules like S1 and S2 which would gleefully turn foolish parties into slurry.

Personally, I feel like inasmuch as Gary said "never give a player an even break, and conversely ALWAYS give a monster an even break" it was clear that he was doing more to ensure player character survivability: have two stats of at least 15.  Zero HP needn't equal death, you could drop to maybe as low as -3 before dying in one shot, and then have 7 more rounds until you were stone dead, the DM could adjudicate that you weren't slain but rather lost a limb, or eye, etc., the inclusion of more healing magics, and so on and so forth.  By itself that seems like, wow, yeah that's a step away from making today's adventurers tomorrow's monster poop that can happen in original D&D...but it got "worse" depending on your point of view with post-Gygax 1e and of course 2e.  I seem to recall Dragonlance modules basically telling the DM: "Don't let the player-characters die.  They can't."  Then 3e/3.5 were less lethal than 2e.  4e was positively ridiculous with things like Healing Surges and ... what was that one class that could just YELL your wounds shut, can't recall right now.  HP inflation factors in to that, too.  Consider the baddest dragon in AD&D (well, not unique I mean): the Huge Ancient Red Dragon.  The HARD has 88 hit points, and all other considerations, and is considered pretty damn tough.  Then in 3e, you had dragons with h u n d r e d s of hit points.  But then, characters too could have 50, 60, 70 hp by mid-high levels!

With all respect to Rob Conley, when we playtested 5e a few times with him one of the things that struck me was how nutty the HP and HD curves had gotten (I think they scaled it back a bit?) but we got in a fight with some grey ooze that had ... god, 120, 130 HP?

Taken in that light, it isn't so much that "AD&D is super lethal!" as it is that later editions' power curves are exponential over AD&D's.

Does that make sense?

Quote from: thedungeondelver;912151With all respect to Rob Conley, when we playtested 5e a few times with him one of the things that struck me was how nutty the HP and HD curves had gotten (I think they scaled it back a bit?) but we got in a fight with some grey ooze that had ... god, 120, 130 HP?

What happened in the final 5e release rules is that hit points are still inflated however they tweaked everything so that it works better. It not quite as flat as OD&D but pretty close. The result is that they can build classes with distinct ways of doing damage however it is nothing like D&D 3.X or 4e. In conjunction with bounded accuracy, I don't feel there is much of a difference between OD&D and 5e in the OUTCOME of combats. High level 5e characters are vulnerable in a way that prior edition characters, including AD&D 1st, are not. Excepting OD&D. Of course how that outcome is achieved in 5e and OD&D is very very different.

I haven't switch wholesale over to 5e because there are still a lot of fiddly things to do when you make new classes and creatures. Since the outcome of what I do in D&D 5e and OD&D is the same I rather stick with OD&D as the foundation for the Majestic Wilderlands as making shit up for it is a lot more straightforward. The temptation remains though because of the 5e OGL. However I got most of what is Majestic Wilderlands version 2.0 written up, I probably will just stick to completing that.

Quote from: estar;912172I haven't switch wholesale over to 5e because there are still a lot of fiddly things to do when you make new classes and creatures. Since the outcome of what I do in D&D 5e and OD&D is the same I rather stick with OD&D as the foundation for the Majestic Wilderlands as making shit up for it is a lot more straightforward. The temptation remains though because of the 5e OGL. However I got most of what is Majestic Wilderlands version 2.0 written up, I probably will just stick to completing that.

Ooooooo... just the guy I was looking for. have a couple of things for you real quick;

First, came across this interesting info about the Picts that I never knew before. Could never figure out why the Picts were able to hold off the Romans... until now.

Scottish Brochs (Towers... where the word Brooch originated from?)
http://www.scottishbrochs.com/index.html

https://senchus.wordpress.com/2015/07/

...and second, had a catastrophic failure of my Windows machine back in January, and it took out all my generator files for Inspiration Pad Pro. I only had a partial backup and lost at least 100 man-hours of generator database builds. Since then I started a Github archive for all my new IPP Generator files, so I don't lose them again if my desktop goes tits-up.

You can find this archive here;
https://github.com/GameDaddy2/IPP-Repository

You are welcome to anything there, and I would appreciate it if you happen to still have those IPP files I emailed you a few years back, if you would email them to me, or upload them to the GitHub so I could get them back (and everyone else can use them.)

Cheers!
GameDaddy

Quote from: estar;911972The RAW rule states that unconsciousness is at 0 or lower, death results at -10.

Only in a special case. Here it is again:

Quote from: DMG, p. 82When any creature is brought to 0 hit points (optionally as low as –3 hit points if from the same blow which brought the total to 0), it is unconscious. In each of the next succeeding rounds 1 additional (negative) point will be lost until –10 is reached and the creature dies.

The first sentence says a creature taken to 0 hit points is unconscious. There's no imprecision here -- it applies to a creature who has brought to exactly 0 hp, no more and no less. (Or 0 to -3 hp, if caused by one blow when using the optional rule.)

This is followed by a rule that covers unconscious creatures with anywhere from -1 to -9 hp, but it's not a general rule. Because the second sentence is predicated on the first, and thus only applies when a creature has been brought unconscious under the conditions in the first sentence.

Now the rules don't say what happens if you're taken to -4 hp in one blow, but they also don't say what happens if you're dropped to -100 hp. Presumably the same thing happens -- you're dead.

So if you're dropped to 0 hp (exactly), you're unconscious and may take 9 rounds to bleed out and die.

If you use the optional rule, then you're unconscious if you're dropped to 0, -1, -2, or -3 hp with a single blow, and may take 6 to 9 rounds to die.

AD&D never granted an extra 10 hit points (with conditions). It's an extra one hit point (or with the optional rule, 4), with a timer.

Quote from: CRKrueger;912112Running at 100% and then dropping dead is the kind of thing you expect from someone at the end of a Berserk.  
Of course Running at 100% and then dropping unconscious to start dying isn't all that much better.  

But steadily degrading in effectiveness without being dead or unconscious is a death spiral, which doesn't seem much better either.

That doesnt sound right at all. About 90% of characters then taken down are going to die as I've hardly ever seen anyne get taken to exactly zero. Sure, its happened. But not even once a session. The vast majority of the time someones down and into the negatives at the same time.

Quote from: Omega;912190That doesnt sound right at all. About 90% of characters then taken down are going to die as I've hardly ever seen anyne get taken to exactly zero. Sure, its happened. But not even once a session. The vast majority of the time someones down and into the negatives at the same time.

It's better than dying at 0 hp.

But I think a lot of people felt like you, wanted a bigger buffer, and read what they wanted into the section.

What I like is max HP at level one then roll ALL hit dice when you gain a level and take the new result if it's higher than the old one. Easier at first, more forgiving, more dice rolling and only baaaaaarely from HPs over the long haul.

What I like is reroll all hit dice every time you rest and take the new result if it's higher than the old one.
That way, you also get a recovery mechanic.

Quote from: estar;912172What happened in the final 5e release rules is that hit points are still inflated however they tweaked everything so that it works better. It not quite as flat as OD&D but pretty close. The result is that they can build classes with distinct ways of doing damage however it is nothing like D&D 3.X or 4e. In conjunction with bounded accuracy, I don't feel there is much of a difference between OD&D and 5e in the OUTCOME of combats. High level 5e characters are vulnerable in a way that prior edition characters, including AD&D 1st, are not. Excepting OD&D. Of course how that outcome is achieved in 5e and OD&D is very very different.

I haven't switch wholesale over to 5e because there are still a lot of fiddly things to do when you make new classes and creatures. Since the outcome of what I do in D&D 5e and OD&D is the same I rather stick with OD&D as the foundation for the Majestic Wilderlands as making shit up for it is a lot more straightforward. The temptation remains though because of the 5e OGL. However I got most of what is Majestic Wilderlands version 2.0 written up, I probably will just stick to completing that.

Yeah, 5e has definitely backed down from where it was in terms of HP during the playtest, at least as far as I'm concerned.  But it's still up there.  I have a 9th level wizard in an on-again/off-again game we run that has...I want to say 47 hit points?  While that's not outside of the realm of possibility in AD&D it is high.  Not 4e high though.  And he has a lot more defensive options than a 9th level 1e Magic User would have.

Quote from: Cave Bear;912199What I like is reroll all hit dice every time you rest and take the new result if it's higher than the old one.
That way, you also get a recovery mechanic.

That works too, but I'd probably declare that a "rest" is a week or something punitive like that.

I think 56 hp is bog standard for level 9 Wizard in 5e. You just need a 14 Con and you're set. Toss in an AC 20 (with a 14 Dex, and you'll always have access to Mage Armor and Shield), and uncounterable spells, too, and wizards are surprisingly great at defense. Offense, too. And utility.