D&D 4e power - last stand

[RoboHobo]

Here's a home brew power I am working on. Was planning on giving it to all PCs.

Last Stand
Daily - Free action
Personal
Offering your life to a deity, you are
granted great power.
Effect: You gain temporary hit points
equal to your maximum hit points.
All spent daily and encounter powers are recharged.
Until the end of the encounter, you gain
damage resistance 10, and a +7 power
bonus to all defences.
Special: At the end of the encounter, you
die, and cannot be resurrected by any
means.

Thoughts?

[Mando Knight]

1.) Overpowered.
2.) No duration.

[RoboHobo]

Overpowered? Of course, it is! Your character dies permanently after using it. It is for a long running campaign where sacrificing a character would be a big deal, not in random games where characters are ammunition. My thinking is that it would allow for some great roleplay and a lot of fun in a TPK scenario, which is the only time they would probably use it.

[Dust]

Personally, I'm not a fan. At all. And this is from someone who built this exact same power...more or less...in a homebrew system (available to all characters and everything).

I would be willing to postulate that you haven't seen a lot of 4e character death. That this is something you're worried about prematurely. And if that's true, then I would definitely dissuade you from adding this in as a canon option; there's no sense trying to fix what isn't broken, and you're not even sure whether or not you think it NEEDS fixing.

The reason I say this is is because, in my experience, the most memorable 4e character deaths are not the ones where they go out in a blaze of glory. They're the sudden, shocking and horrific moments that nobody was prepared for and nobody could have anticipated.

When the Ardent makes the choice between healing himself or the ranger and then have the enemies converge on him and start rolling high over and over and over and he's cleaved apart in a matter of seconds. When the bugbear chieftan raises his weapon high and lands a massive critical hit on the party sorcerer, sending the robed woman tumbling to the ground in a crumpled heap.
When these things happen - and they might, make no mistake - the last thing that would make the situation more dramatic is for them to pop back up and go 'IT'S COOL, GUYS. I'mma just win this fight and then die for real.'

If you want to promote roleplaying opportunities, do so with a quest for a resurrection, or the character having the ability to come back as a Revenant. Take five minutes to describe a touching funeral next time it's appropriate, with long-forgotten NPCs showing up to say a few words or just pay their respects. Allow the group to deal with the death in their own way - turning it into a scene from a bad Stallone movie, where the hero kicks righteous ass before biting the bullet - feels contrived and awkward in 4e.

[Tingel]

Your avatar is horrid, but your post is very attractive, Dust.

Dramaturgically sound.

[RoboHobo]

Hmm I can see your point Dust. But just to nitpick, a dead / unconscious character can't take free actions, so they can't die and then decide to use this. Also I wasn't thinking of fixing anything that I considered broken, I was thinking "wouldn't it be cool if..."

I might put it on a single use item rather than giving it to everyone though.

[Dust]

Your avatar is horrid...
Well, I wasn't going to mention anything, Kettle, but.... :smallwink:

I might put it on a single use item rather than giving it to everyone though.
THAT, I could see. That might be a fun idea.