Last game session, we were talking about Felltower a bit before we did our Gamma Terra game. One the subjects that came up was casualties. The discussion about them isn't germane to this post. But in thinking about that, I idly took a look at the casualty list again. It's pretty big.
The lowest point player character on the list is 250.
The highest point is 534.
The fastest anyone died was session 1.
The longest lasting player character lasted almost 100 sessions and had delved for 7 years (2011-2018).
There are 31 PC names on the list. Many are multiples.
There are 40 NPCs on the list. Only two - Brother Ike and Red Raggi - are multiples.
That's a total of 71 killed in action in Felltower in 113 delves. That's 0.628 casualties per session. On a PC basis, it's 0.274 casualties per session. Obviously, they clump, and range from 0 to 19 per session. The most PCs killed in one session was 8.
So if I'm doing the math correct, for every 10 delves, it's likely that about 6 characters die, of which 2 or 3 will be PCs. That's about 1 PC death every 4 sessions, along with 2 and a 50/50 shot of losing another (2.5 lost per 4 delves.)
That's pretty awful.
Is Felltower (and its sister side locations) that lethal? Yes. I'm going with yes.
How about the resurrection stats?
ReplyDeleteLet's see, it's 13 + 1 reincarnation, if I'm counting right. Out of all of the people resurrected, only two still live - Dryst and Red Raggi. Everyone else has been killed again. The one reincarnation was Quenton Gale (now Mudborne); he's still alive.
DeleteAnd that, folks, is what's known as a challenge!
ReplyDeleteI love that Felltower is hard. There is a sense of accomolishment that comes with any victory against odds like that. I also love that if you're dead, you're just dead. No runners up. No participation trophies. DF on Hard Mode, indeed.
I'm also secretly rooting for Vryce to rise with all of his gear as a draugr or worse. That'd make for a particularly memorable encounter/slaughter.
I've gotta say, I too love that Felltower is hard. I've been gaming most of my life and this is probably the first campaign that I ever truly feared for characters' lives. It makes you play in a completely different way and it is really fun as a challenge. I'm sad that Gwynneth is dead but she's died before and she went out on a failed HT check so she died well with Mo.
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