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[Align]

Well, with the random encounters out of the way, you could just move stronger beasts further underground. Deeper into their caves. Would be thematic and good for gameplay, since you'd have to wade through the annoying pests living in the caves to get to him.
As long as stuff actually lives there. All I met before being crushed by some Giant was a single Troll. Not much experience to be gained there.

Meanwhile, in an older version, I had an adventurer slog through 50-something kills before finally finding the monster I had come to kill, and by then I was more than a match. He barely even saw me coming thanks to my over-levelled Sneak ability.

[Anu Necunoscut]

Plot Armor isn't super-powered or anything.  All it would do is make a mortal wound survivable.

Did you hear what you just said?  :-D  I think the lack of hand-holding in DF is refreshing, and having your heart or lungs pierced should kill you dead.  Such trauma kills people dead today even with the best medical care.  Personally I love the idea that one unlucky hit will end your career--prevents players from obsessing too much over grinding stats when even a great character may be killed in one fateful instant.  I never understood the fun of having a supremely unrealistic ubercharacter who defies even the game's own logic, for whom discretion and caution are completely (or even partially!) unnecessary.  Going through a game that way often lacks all sense of danger or risk, and requires absolutely no skill other than patience.  If DF becomes like contemporary RPGs wherein you just apply your ass to the chair long enough and you "win" no matter what, that would be a sad day.  I'm happy that people who lie prone to get wolf-piled for stat boosts (like me!) can occasionally have their throats ripped out.  :-D

I understand that tastes differ on this, but the above is my way of thinking.  In other words, it shouldn't matter how many push-ups you did that morning, a bolt through the brain should kill you.

[Gaulgath]

This really wouldn't be in the spirit of the game. Allowing adventurers to have more options for quests and such, joining armies, town guards, etc. would be more fitting.

[Zemat]

I agree. What hurts Adv. Mode the most is not the quick deaths. But the lack of stuff to do while living.

[MaxVance]

I say no. I believe one of the help files (or something I read on the Internet, I don't remember) said that you aren't playing the character so much as you're playing the civilization. If your guy dies, start a new character and maybe make a post about the deceased.

On the other hand, there is such a thing as savescumming. It runs out when your shame catches up to you. 

[Puzzlemaker]

Honestly, what I want is the ability to do stuff in adventure mode without dying so often. 

The suggestion to have them deeper in the cave with more critters in the way was a good one, although I would think that it gets annoying pretty fast at later levels. 

Right now the way things are, it's very random early on if you encounter a survivable fight.  Fights that are survivable that are pointed out, like taking out weak bandits, would be nice.

As for survival mortal wounds- just because you survive them doesn't mean you will live very long.  Maybe it's just the way things are set up; it's to easy to get killed via the puncture of vital organs, despite your rib cage and/or skull.  But I digress; "survive mortal wounds" in my mind means instead of it puncturing your heart, it goes through your spleen, liver, and stomach.  Survivable, but not nice.  Still, a moot point if there is some sort of system where you can adventure without dying suddenly all the time to the point where it is ridiculous.

[Anu Necunoscut]

Honestly, what I want is the ability to do stuff in adventure mode without dying so often. 

The suggestion to have them deeper in the cave with more critters in the way was a good one, although I would think that it gets annoying pretty fast at later levels. 

Right now the way things are, it's very random early on if you encounter a survivable fight.  Fights that are survivable that are pointed out, like taking out weak bandits, would be nice.

As for survival mortal wounds- just because you survive them doesn't mean you will live very long.  Maybe it's just the way things are set up; it's to easy to get killed via the puncture of vital organs, despite your rib cage and/or skull.  But I digress; "survive mortal wounds" in my mind means instead of it puncturing your heart, it goes through your spleen, liver, and stomach.  Survivable, but not nice.  Still, a moot point if there is some sort of system where you can adventure without dying suddenly all the time to the point where it is ridiculous.

Well, hopefully I didn't sound too argumentative, because you make some good points.  I pretty much assumed that "survive a mortal wound" meant what you indicate above.  :-)  It definitely would be nice if the adventurer had a range of interesting things to do of varying difficulties, rather than having the current choice:  "Spend an hour grinding up stats against random wildlife, or die in one hit vs. a zombie giant."

I do like all the dying, and I think if you're careful you can avoid death pretty easily.  The problem is having something interesting to do while you avoid the most dangerous situations and build experience--currently there's not very much of that.

[Puzzlemaker]

Okay; just wanted to be clear by what I meant with survive mortal wound.

And yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head.  There isn't anything -interesting- to do to level up.

[Zemat]

I say no. I believe one of the help files (or something I read on the Internet, I don't remember) said that you aren't playing the character so much as you're playing the civilization. If your guy dies, start a new character and maybe make a post about the deceased.

Well, not everyone likes to play that way. Also, most adventurers' short lives are so lame the have no effect on the world and there's no point in making a post about them.

I don't mind my adventurers dying at some point by random chance. The problem is that almost always that point comes during or before the first quest. It would be better if the chances of having a long lived adventurer where as high as dying right away.

That said. I don't agree this game needs some sort of Plot Armor. The problems with adv. mode are temporary and are a matter of balancing encounters and adding more stuff. Something I think Toady plans to tackle anyway. But I wouldn't mind if Toady added an init option that added "cheats" of some sort.

[PenguinSeph]

Plot armour/Fate points are solving the problem the wrong way around.

There should be more things to do that do not murder starter characters, instead of making things that should be hard easy.

[Sean Mirrsen]

There should actually be a little more things to make the character survive, in addition to that. Companions will help you survive. Properly balanced ranged weapons will. Magic will, especially magic healing. Stuff like wild animals being less aggressive if you're travelling on a major road, and fed-ex quests will allow a character to get better equipment before venturing out into the wilds.

It's all planned, I think, it's just that we're playing a game in development, which is why the game periodically becomes uninteresting.

[Anu Necunoscut]

Properly balanced ranged weapons will.

The lethality of ranged weapons is something I would really miss.  I love it when a game has the balls to make a heart-piercing arrow fatal.  If shield skill is trained high enough, you can laugh off an insane amount of arrows already--although certainly the random lucky shot should still kill -any- character dead.  Of course playstyles and tastes vary--I certainly don't pretend my opinion is the "true" one, but I really value that aspect of DF.

[Puzzlemaker]

Arrows cannot pierce your lungs, stomach, heart, and spleen at the same time.

They also should be partially stopped by armor and your ribcage.

[Granite26]

There are enough adventure type games out there that babysit you on your way up.  I find the combat to be extremely frustrating, but that's part of the draw of it.

[Puzzlemaker]

I think there is a difference between "babying" and "Throwing to a pack of wolves, literally".