Playtest Results: problems with "To the Death"

[Epic Meepo]

This feedback is based on my "Heroes of Hibernia" playtest campaign.

While running 2nd level/1st tier adventures, the 'to the death' champion ability caused multiple problems. Firstly, the ability doesn't make it clear that a champion below 0 hit points is still staggered. Several players at my table were under the impression that 'to the death' allowed them to act without penalty when below 0 hp.

Secondly, 'to the death' provided too large a hit point sink at low levels. Most of the 2nd level/1st tier PCs in my playtest were performing about as well as 3rd-level non-mythic characters. The sole exception was a paladin champion. On account of his 'to the death' ability, he didn't feel even remotely challenged by encounters that were one-shotting the party's wizard archmage into unconsciousness. (The other players in the group immediately requested they be allowed to rebuild their characters, taking Dual Path and 'to the death' as their 1st-tier abilities. I vetoed this request.)

Thirdly, 'to the death' makes the Diehard feat and the orc ferocity racial trait completely obsolete for characters with access to champion path powers. A champion with 'to the death' gains no benefit from either of those abilities.

Suggestions: Add language clarifying that characters with 'to the death' are still staggered when below 0 hp. Allow 'to the death' to keep a character alive to triple the character's Constitution score below 0 only if the character also has Diehard or orc ferocity. Possibly restrict it to characters with a certain minimum number of tiers.

Alternately, convert 'to the death' into a Diehard (Mythic) feat instead of a champion path ability, thus requiring characters to take Endurance and Diehard before qualifying. Possibly add a minimum tier as an additional prerequisite.

[Jason Bulmahn]

Good feedback... I was wondering whether or not that particular ability would be a bit too good at lower tiers.

I will look into some fixes for this.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

[Hama]

Epic Meepo wrote:

Thirdly, 'to the death' makes the Diehard feat and the orc ferocity racial trait completely obsolete for characters with access to champion path powers. A champion with 'to the death' gains no benefit from either of those abilities.

Diehard would remove the staggered condition that a character has while in the negatives.

And i already noted in a previous thread that my fighter 1/champion 1 needed to take 60 points of damage to die.

[xevious573]

I have a thought on this. While perhaps changing this a bit for normal play makes sense, this ability would be really useful in making Mythic solo adventuring a bit more viable, atleast in the early game. Just a thought.

[Morain]

The ability seems like it should have a requirement like being mythic tier 3 or something. Other than that it seems ok to me.

[TheLoneCleric]

It's got issues. It would be fine if it was tiered like other Mythic abilties.

Grant the 3X (Diehard version) on the first pick up.

Grant the full effect on the 2nd and maybe add a Mythic 6th tier requirement or something.

[Darth Grall]

xevious573 wrote:

I have a thought on this. While perhaps changing this a bit for normal play makes sense, this ability would be really useful in making Mythic solo adventuring a bit more viable, atleast in the early game. Just a thought.

You know, on reflection this is dead on. I think the ability is really strong & perhaps it should at least have a prerequisite of Diehard or something similar(samurai resolve, orc ferocity, etc); but I don't think I'd add a tier requirement to it.

If you want to be that guy who goes off and solo's a dragon at low levels, this will be your path ability if you want to live. And imo, that's okay as long as it has some requisite.

[Starsunder]

Me and my players really like the ability. Yes, it's strong, but hey, this is mythic damn it. :)

It really adds that increased layer of survivability for the melee warriors, and if the other classes wanna dual path, and use one of their precious path abilities to snag this instead of something more focused on their particular class, I don't see the problem.

[Epic Meepo]

Update: In the last playtest session I ran, an 8th-level/4th-tier paladin champion with 'to the death' actually died from hp damage.

It took an APL+4 encounter; four rounds being grappled by a full-attacking CR 10 daemon; a round being grappled and constricted by a CR 12 sea serpent; a couple rounds of bleed; and a critical hit that dealt 81 points of damage... but I finally discovered the breaking point of the 'to the death' ability.

[Pendin Fust]

Real life or PvP? I would love to see the thread if it was online.

[Epic Meepo]

Real life. I don't have a transcript of the two-and-a-half hour battle, but I'll be posting a summary of the encounter set-up in the near future (in the playtest thread whose link appears in the OP).

[TheLoneCleric]

Killed my first PC with To The Death. -95 HP did it. But that was after eating 3 AoE bursts and failing a jump check and getting run over by a Mecha Sphnix/Train thing.