Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Instant Death Mechanics Vs 'Git Gud' & Fun

Chippy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2018
Messages
6,037
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I'm playing some NWN modules again, and I remember now why I kinda shelved this game for years. I'm actually a great believer in instant death under the right circumstances. Some examples:

  • W1: The fight agianst the Beast was effectively instant if you went toe-to-toe with him. Even if you had farmed XP, it was still a hard fight, and you had to do the research to use Aard and kill him.
  • X3: You're flying around in a ship with 5000 hull and 200 shielding. You get hit by a capital ship that has 10000 damage (for example) and 1-shots you.
  • A traditional RPG: You fail your saving throw vs death...
The third one is what boils my piss. And it's only in NWN that it really bothers me. I'm playing 'A Hunt Through The Dark' and my drow has 44 MR and high Fortitude saves. So I go up against a beholder and instatly die from a death ray because I rolled a 1 despite succeeding at the roll, and the ray bypasses MR. Also spell protection(s) are worthless because they dispel it instantly. And summoned undead get banished.

So if you're in a situation where you're playing a certain class, and you haven't got death immunities (assuming they worked anyway) and if you got up against 5 beholders...then you're gonna die.

It's not even like you can use terrain or line of sight against them. At least in other games, you could snipe a beholder from range and maybe HIPS or duck behind a wall before they nuked you. In NWN they blast you through tunnel walls and target you with spells in stealth even though they can't see you/and before you HIPS.

So you're not playing a game at this point: you're just a gambler. An addict that wont accept that the deck is stacked. Because the game may as well just be a table with you vs the 'game' and 5-10 beholders/dice that are rolled - and if you roll a 1 on each of them, you lose.

So there isn't really a 'git gud scrub' here is there? As it's effectively a single player game...that is, lacking a party.
 

Tavernking

Don't believe his lies
Developer
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
1,216
Location
Australia
Perma death is better in games where you have the option to avoid combat, or can figure out how to stack the odds in your favour
 
Joined
May 31, 2018
Messages
2,509
Location
The Present
It sounds like your complaint is actually about critical failure on a roll of 1 first, and flaws with the NWN engine second. Would you have accepted your fate if you rolled a 2--or only if that 2 changed the outcome?

In D&D, HP is not the only metric by which your character can endure. In many instances, it certainly can be prudent to cause an enemy to fail one saving throw rather than mine through their HP--though that is also a function of design. In 2E, at higher levels the inverse was true. The blade of RNG cuts both ways. Certain (non-magical) classes rely on dice more than others, as they lack explicit ways to counter effects. In a game where you control one character using a rule-set based on parties, any choice will pose a significant risk. Wizards tend to experience theirs early, warriors tend to face their's later. A wizard having 100% of their HP erased by a critical hit or one full attack is considered regrettable but fair, but a high level warrior getting aced by a Finger of Death spell is considered tragic? The only difference is the high level character had more time invested. A tiny violin plays for them both.

Modern attitudes would agree with you, and Save or Die effects are now a historical artifact in gaming for the most part. Personally, I mourn their loss. Magic without potency isn't magical--just shitty ranged DPS with more restrictions and animations. Removing Save or Die was one of the major steps towards homogenizing classes into shades of the same thing.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
While it technically is abusing a loophole in the game, I don't believe beholders in NWN are capable of using finger of death while silenced.
 

PapaPetro

Guest
I'm fine with one-shotting / save-vs-death as long as its respectably telegraphed to the player. Either you're provided with in-game lore beforehand that prepares you for what you're up against and how to defend against it (along with providing you with access to that defensive layer), or there is visually/mechanically some sort of windup so you can react to it (extra rounds to cast, countdown, lengthy animation) to dodge the death, throw up a protection spell, do burst damage, stun the mob, etc.

Instant one-shotting will always be bogus though as is just save scum fuel.
 

copebot

Learned
Joined
Dec 27, 2020
Messages
387
In D&D characters die and that's fine. It adds to the drama and tension. In computer games like NWN modules, the game cannot resume when your sole character has died like it can in the tabletop, so these kinds of mechanics can cause issues. In traditional D&D you are also expected to have a party and maybe some hirelings also, to take some of the randomness of 'save or die' off the table or to otherwise make it something that can be recovered from. In a game like NWN the game just ends when you die, so you quickload and continue.

Lots of people complain about 'save or die' mechanics and it has been designed around in later D&D editions. IMO the older editions had the right idea about "save or die" because it keeps the excitement level high. Characters are also supposed to be more disposable: death is part of the game, and knowing the many tricks to avoiding instant death is part of the metaknowledge that makes the game more interesting. This is an issue with the transition from TTRPG to CRPG, and CRPGs just need to take a different approach. Probably the most in vogue way to do it in contemporary game design is to make it so death has some kind of penalty without it necessarily being permanent. The 'death penalty' of a TTRPG also for most DMs is just to make you roll up another character -- it's not actually to have to 'start the game over' from scratch, which would suck and not be fun at all. There are just some limitations with certain types of CRPG design that make death and failure less interesting as game mechanics. Just having to reload from 10 seconds earlier it not all that compelling.

A game like Battle Brothers in which character death is expected, normal, and recoverable is good and closer to the TT roots of the genre. If you raid the monster's lair with your company and half of them die, recovering from the setback can be compelling from a narrative and gameplay standpoint. Even if it results in a Game Over, if the next game is novel enough compared to the previous game, it may be a painful outcome but at least it isn't boring or repetitive.

RPGs also usually involve gambling with dice -- the gambling part is naturally part of the genre, and I think it's smart when designers embrace this and use gambling psychology to make the game more engaging. The combination of randomness and quicksave-quickload design does have a degenerate outcome, though, because the entire aspect of randomness that might make something emotionally compelling gets taken away if you can just use quickload until you get the outcome you want.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Instant death mechanics are trivialized by quicksave. Having to choose between losing progress or finding a cleric to resurrect a party member makes them a more interesting mechanic.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
NWN 1 is a shit game because D&D is not supposed to be solo'd.

It would be a decent game with full party control, but the way it is now it's one of the worst RPGs in existence. Yes, that includes janky slav shovelware.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
NWN 1 is a shit game because D&D is not supposed to be solo'd.

It would be a decent game with full party control, but the way it is now it's one of the worst RPGs in existence. Yes, that includes janky slav shovelware.
When I play D&D I typically only control my character though.
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
Facing a beholder is a gamble. They've got 3 at will instakill attacks (disintegration, flesh to stone and death spell) for a reason. Facing 5 of them? Well, do not complain if you get your ass handed on a plate.
 

smaug

Secular Koranism with Israeli Characteristics
Patron
Dumbfuck
Joined
Feb 20, 2019
Messages
6,438
Location
Texas
Insert Title Here
I think Wizardry 1 had a cool system, I would like something like that except less masochist autism
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Facing a beholder is a gamble. They've got 3 at will instakill attacks (disintegration, flesh to stone and death spell) for a reason. Facing 5 of them? Well, do not complain if you get your ass handed on a plate.
Disintegrate isn't a save-or-die in 3e iirc.
 

Chippy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2018
Messages
6,037
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
So I go up against a beholder and instatly die from a death ray because I rolled a 1 despite succeeding at the roll,
But you didn't succeed at the roll. You rolled a natural 1.

This is where my narcissistic autism kicks in. As you know, a natural 1 is a fail, yet 1 + 20 = 21 vs DC: 18 isn't really a fail. Mathamatically. It's the rulz just stating "We need to keep the game fun, so we decided you're gonna get 1-shot every time you roll a 1". Then they decided that certain spells and abilities just bypass SR.

And because it's single player, the game seems to target the player as combat begins. It will always target the player before a summoned undead as it goes hostile. Even if the player is on the other side of the screen (and seperated by walls) and the undead is within melee range. And you have no party control. This is what seperates NWN from all other RPGs becasue it's so poorly made.

They should have appreciated that their engine had limitations that made sticking to the rulz frustrating. In some cases Bioware and modders even use the engine limitations to place the player in this situation because they think it's "fun". That sort of thing should be a cardinal sin among game designers.

It doesn't bother me that much, but I would have thought that a developer would want the player to play their game on ironman mode at least in spirit. Like a gentleman's agreement. If the game is well made, you can really enjoy an ironman mode. But if it's just gambling, then stuff like this just drags a game down to save scum/player scum levels.

And years later I really start to appreciate just how shit Bioware always were...after BG1.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
I'll agree with not liking natural 1s being auto-fail. If I still save despite rolling a 1, then so be it. Rolling a 1 already has a harsh penalty -- you basically don't get any modifier at all. I don't really think it needs another one on top of it.
 
Joined
May 31, 2018
Messages
2,509
Location
The Present
NWN 1 is a shit game because D&D is not supposed to be solo'd.

It would be a decent game with full party control, but the way it is now it's one of the worst RPGs in existence. Yes, that includes janky slav shovelware.

To be fair, NWN1 was heavily intended to be a multiplayer virtual table top experience. Official modules are rather balanced around single player, but they adjust up for multiplayer. I have played both SoU and HotU multiplayer. Beyond that, the vast majority of time I spent with NWN (which was ample) wasn't even on the OC--it was on player made persistent worlds. My favorite, by far, was Montlethia Under Siege. They had alot of custom hakpaks. Going on adventures with an actual party was incredibly fun.
 

CappenVarra

phase-based phantasmist
Patron
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
2,912
Location
Ardamai
instant death mechanics are most fun in games that only allow ironman, otherwise it's pointless

AD&D Type F poison was it? i need to re-read mah booksies
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
NWN 1 is a shit game because D&D is not supposed to be solo'd.

It would be a decent game with full party control, but the way it is now it's one of the worst RPGs in existence. Yes, that includes janky slav shovelware.
When I play D&D I typically only control my character though.

But you play with other people, and you co-ordinate your party during combat (at least all the people in my groups do that).

You can't do that with NWN's retarded AI companions.
 

rogueknight333

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 31, 2017
Messages
347
In general, I find instant death tends to actually be less of an issue, for better or worse, in NWN than in most other D&D games, since in most NWN modules, aside from very low-level ones, items providing immunity to Death magic and such are typically common (Beholders do not dispel effects granted by items). I suspect it sometimes seems worse because in many other games with just one campaign veteran players have gone through it multiple times and have the meta-knowledge to handily deal with most instant death attacks, which obviously will not be the case if one is playing a wide variety of modules. And of course any given module could be an exception to the usual tendency, depending on how the builder chose to handle things. Absent item immunities, the weird and possibly buggy way the default Beholder AI was implemented is indeed going to make them difficult to defend against without using exploitative tactics of some kind.
 

Chippy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2018
Messages
6,037
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
instant death mechanics are most fun in games that only allow ironman, otherwise it's pointless

AD&D Type F poison was it? i need to re-read mah booksies

Yep; Save vs paralysation, posion, death. Or save vs China, Covid-19, and Communism by modern rulz.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom