How deadly is your D&D campaign?

[GiantOctopodes]

A pretty basic question, one I've been wondering because we're about to hit level 5, and up to this point absolutely no one has died. I'm trying to figure out how deadly a "base" D&D campaign is, to identify if we're playing a "softer" campaign than usual, or if PC death is just rare in this edition.

So, for those who are actively playing campaigns right now, what level range have you played through, and how many PC deaths, if any, have occurred? And note that being knocked to 0 HP but not dying does not count as a PC death. Unless some kind of resurrection magic was used, you didn't die :smallbiggrin:

A piece of knowledge that is not necessary, but could be interesting, is what size is your party? Wondering if our relatively large 6 person party has anything to do with our safety, and wondering what kind of correlation might exist between party size and rate of death, if any.

[Baptor]

2 characters, level 1-8, no deaths, we are using healing surge rule in dmg.

They've had plenty of close calls, which as the dm is where I like it.

[1pwny]

I was playing a level 1 Tielfing Warlock in a level 1 party. We were going to fight a frog, but it rolled a nat. 20 on a Stealth check, popped up in front of us with initiative, and then hit me into negatives immediately.

That was really chance, though.

[mr_odd]

2 characters, level 1-8, no deaths, we are using healing surge rule in dmg.

They've had plenty of close calls, which as the dm is where I like it.

This is what I try to do. I want encounters to be scary enough that PC's consider running away (or actually do) and that make players themselves nervous. Last session I ran, I dropped three players multiple times, but no deaths.

[pwykersotz]

I drop a character or two to 0 every other session, and I've had one party wipe. The first one died, and the rest fell like dominos. I don't use monsters above the CR of the party, and I've never exceeded the upper bound of exp allocation for Deadly encounters. So...pretty deadly. I also have run a game through about level 5 (where the party wiped last time). The first group had 5 players, then I lost one to his job and now I have 4.

[Baptor]

. The first group had 5 players, then I lost one to his job and now I have 4.

Real life. More deadly to a character than a hundred liches.

[Louro]

This is the first time I DM 5th edition and at the beginning I was a bit confused with the dificulty rating.
My party are a cleric, sorcerer, necromancer and monk. Although the campaign is not very fight oriented I found anything below the hard mark is an easy fight for them. They are experienced players yes, and sometimes with incredible lucky strikes but...
CR single monsters are like a walk, pairs of foes not a big threat, and they got lucky with the 30 kobolds horde.
I guess its time to go next level and bring them some real pain.

Anyways, the main source of damage on the campaign are the traps. Traps concealing other traps. Illusion traps. Illusions that appears to be the deactivating mechanism but activates them instead. Small traps that makes them head for the big one. Riddles to just make them lose time while the trap they just deactivated recharges again.
Yep, I love traps.

[GiantOctopodes]

Anyways, the main source of damage on the campaign are the traps. Traps concealing other traps. Illusion traps. Illusions that appears to be the deactivating mechanism but activates them instead. Small traps that makes them head for the big one. Riddles to just make them lose time while the trap they just deactivated recharges again.
Yep, I love traps.

I absolutely love this. I am also a huge fan of traps, ideally in layers like a rose, or an onion, or something. Especially in "easy" romps through Kobold lairs. Fear the Kobolds and their traps!

[JAL_1138]

This is the first time I DM 5th edition and at the beginning I was a bit confused with the dificulty rating.
My party are a cleric, sorcerer, necromancer and monk. Although the campaign is not very fight oriented I found anything below the hard mark is an easy fight for them. They are experienced players yes, and sometimes with incredible lucky strikes but...
CR single monsters are like a walk, pairs of foes not a big threat, and they got lucky with the 30 kobolds horde.
I guess its time to go next level and bring them some real pain.

Anyways, the main source of damage on the campaign are the traps. Traps concealing other traps. Illusion traps. Illusions that appears to be the deactivating mechanism but activates them instead. Small traps that makes them head for the big one. Riddles to just make them lose time while the trap they just deactivated recharges again.
Yep, I love traps.


I absolutely love this. I am also a huge fan of traps, ideally in layers like a rose, or an onion, or something. Especially in "easy" romps through Kobold lairs. Fear the Kobolds and their traps!

Time to bust out the 10ft pole. :smallbiggrin:

I mentioned this in another thread, but per the "Fun" heading on Pg. 85 of the DMG, "frayed rope bridges and pools of green slime" and "whirling blade traps" are officially fun. It's in the rules.

[Maxilian]

Well we are a team of 4 people (sometimes we play with only 3), we end up the fight like great heroes or end up crawling out of the battlefield, i have been in the hands of death a couple of time and the mage died once, thankfully we had a way to resurrect him (That was the hardest fight ever, we even had a countdown of 10 rounds to ressurect the mage -so we had to kill the boss and all the mobs before those 10 rounds passed- :smalleek:)

[Fable Wright]

Time to bust out the 10ft pole. :smallbiggrin:

I mentioned this in another thread, but per the "Fun" heading on Pg. 85 of the DMG, "frayed rope bridges and pools of green slime" and "whirling blade traps" are officially fun. It's in the rules.

No, they're officially Fun. Every dwarf fortress player knows that there's a difference between fun and Fun (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.34:Losing).

[JAL_1138]

No, they're officially Fun. Every dwarf fortress player knows that there's a difference between fun and Fun (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.34:Losing).

For bonus points, put the Fun in a dwarven fortress that's recently struck adamantine

[comk59]

No, they're officially Fun. Every dwarf fortress player knows that there's a difference between fun and Fun (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.34:Losing).

Thank you! I was just going to mention the different levels of Fun.

[Louro]

BTW, how do you manage the trap detection?
Rules say you can use the passive perception (assuming players are actively searching and thus advancing at half pace) but I don't like this too much since I know beforehand if they will spot a trap or won't. I prefer them to Rol for it so they may spot it or not.

Edit: do we have a trap related thread?

[mr_odd]

BTW, how do you manage the trap detection?
Rules say you can use the passive perception (assuming players are actively searching and thus advancing at half pace) but I don't like this too much since I know beforehand if they will spot a trap or won't. I prefer them to Rol for it so they may spot it or not.

Edit: do we have a trap related thread?

I held the belief that passive perception was for normal travel, while actively searching gave the players a chance to roll.

[Tenmujiin]

Last session my party had encounter the DM described as 'a step above deadly.' Basically it was three deadly encounters that we were supposed to be fighting later in the adventure that the party paladin decided he needed to smite RIGHT NOW. We had 2 people actually drop (the paladin and rogue) and the paladin was propped right back up by my healing word, between our monk grappling the main caster and our paladin convincing the cultists to group on him (followed by my tempest cleric's maximised shatter).

We were able to clean up the encounter with almost no actual threats to our characters safety. After the main caster was dealt with we started working on cleaning up the remainder and our party rogue was critically hit by an inflict wounds which then had high damage rolls. He died instantly and the next few (20ish) minutes was spent with the entire group pouring over rulebooks to work out wtf just happened. We were lv3 and the rogue had taken a grand total of 6 damage up 'till then.

So yea, this edition can be rather swingy (and deadly).

[Louro]

I held the belief that passive perception was for normal travel, while actively searching gave the players a chance to roll.

I would never allow to spot a trap if not actively searching for clues, unless the designer wanted it to be more or less obvious.

I allow passive perception to spot secret doors that are actually traps :evil

---
And yes, this edition is far way more fluid and also deadly than 3.5.
Last season my party got an enemy party (same level) by surprise. None of the enemies got a single turn to act, burned, sneaked and kicked to death even before they realized what was going on.

[Falcon X]

I tend to set up deadly situations for my players, but then do everything I can to swing it in their favor if it is too much for them.

[Talderas]

So, for those who are actively playing campaigns right now, what level range have you played through, and how many PC deaths, if any, have occurred?

Level 5 now, 0 deaths. The body count following my group of adventurers has been piling up an this past weekend I even managed to kill something from full health to dead with vicious mockery. I felt like I beat the game.

[Kyutaru]

I don't believe in dice fudging, I believe in progressing the story in new ways. So the PCs have had their asses handed to them several times.

Just in the Starter Set alone:

1) They suffered a full party wipe on against three goblins in the bugbear's cave. This is after having slaughtered their way past countless goblins and some wolves. All because the cleric, god rest his soul, decided attacking the three goblins while two party members lay unconscious was the ideal move because "armor". In his next life, he has become a far more proactive healer.

2) The mage was one-shot against a rampaging ogre in the forest. The group thought they could just murder the thing before it reached them so not one move action was wasted on running away. The ogre took two whole turns to reach them then pummeled the caster in the face.

3) The party entered a hobgoblin fortress clearly manned. They snuck around back and centered a gaping hole in the wall. After a while they cleared some guards then entered the door leading to the boss himself. During the battle, one of the enemies grabbed a prisoner and attempted to flee. The party so engaged with the boss decided to ALLOW this to happen because "we can just catch up to him later". A few rounds later, the sound of a goblin horde from the dining hall could be heard marching in their direction. Upon attempting to leave, a squad of hobgoblins was on their way back into the fortress. Completely surrounded, the party ran up the stairs with a zerg on their back, dashed across the battlements, fled down the side stairway, and hid in the forest till their pursuers lost them.

4) Giant webs means giant spiders. Never forget that. The party apparently did and it cost them the life of their Cleric Mk2.

5) The most commonly purchased item in the first few levels has been potions of healing. A WORTHWHILE INVESTMENT THUS FAR!



I'd have to say that on the average encounter, the party has a 6% chance of death or total annihilation.

[Vogonjeltz]

A pretty basic question, one I've been wondering because we're about to hit level 5, and up to this point absolutely no one has died. I'm trying to figure out how deadly a "base" D&D campaign is, to identify if we're playing a "softer" campaign than usual, or if PC death is just rare in this edition.

So, for those who are actively playing campaigns right now, what level range have you played through, and how many PC deaths, if any, have occurred? And note that being knocked to 0 HP but not dying does not count as a PC death. Unless some kind of resurrection magic was used, you didn't die

A piece of knowledge that is not necessary, but could be interesting, is what size is your party? Wondering if our relatively large 6 person party has anything to do with our safety, and wondering what kind of correlation might exist between party size and rate of death, if any.

Party of 3 PCs, 1 NPC. Level 5 now.

In about 14 fights we've had 2 almost TPKs and each PC has almost died about 3 times individually. The NPC was almost killed once by the PCs.

[odigity]

5) The most commonly purchased item in the first few levels has been potions of healing. A WORTHWHILE INVESTMENT THUS FAR!

Not a chance in hell.

I'm almost level 4 in both my campaigns, and in both I've yet to achieve 200gp in wealth despite saving almost every penny. No way I'm blowing 50gp on 2d4+2hp one time. There are a million other ways to solve that problem (the simplest being patience aka resting, obviously). No damn way I'm spending an ACTION to drink 1/4th of my LIFE SAVINGS for a measely SEVEN hp avg.

[Kyutaru]

That may be something to complain to the DM about. Using only the official Starter Set, one of my player groups just hit level 3 and has 200 gold EACH. They also missed out on tons of hidden treasure so most of that is from quest rewards and boss loot. I'm not allowing them to sell off the gear they find monsters using either.

Wealth seems to be pretty common in the official campaigns. Heck they still haven't identified and sold that golden statue that will net them another four healing potions.

[rs2excelsior]

I've only done 1 session of 5E D&D. 5 member party, 1 PC death.

My Barbarian died valiantly fighting against a former party member who'd become an avatar for an elder god (don't ask). Actually, do. It's a fun story.

And I was the one party member who'd gone to bat for the guy beforehand. :smallannoyed:

[JFahy]

Lethality: about 10 sessions, 4 players, everyone has gone down at
some point but nobody's died yet.


BTW, how do you manage the trap detection?
Rules say you can use the passive perception (assuming players are actively searching and thus advancing at half pace) but I don't like this too much since I know beforehand if they will spot a trap or won't. I prefer them to Rol for it so they may spot it or not.

Edit: do we have a trap related thread?

Most of the traps I've seen so far have detection DCs of 15-ish, so they
won't be found passively unless the point person has dynamite wisdom.

If they looked in about the right spot, or were worried about the right
kind of trap, I'd give them advantage on the check and that would give
them a pretty good chance of not getting clobbered. (And if they look/
worry about exactly the right thing, they find it.)

[PracticalM]

Since we've been playing through the playtest I've had 2 characters die, large numbers can go to 0 during a session depending on what they are facing. Recently we had someone get to 2 failed death saves and that was the closest in some time. We've got a lot of healing in our party now so I doubt anyone is likely to die from here on out. (1 cleric, 1 druid, 1 ranger, 2 paladins in a party of 10-12)

[Inevitability]

I was playing a level 1 Tielfing Warlock in a level 1 party. We were going to fight a frog, but it rolled a nat. 20 on a Stealth check, popped up in front of us with initiative, and then hit me into negatives immediately.

That was really chance, though.

I hope you mean a Giant Frog? :smallwink:

[Eslin]

As deadly as I can make it without having the potential for players to be killed from merely bad luck, since their deaths should be their own fault. The higher level they are the more I expect them to be making provisions for bad luck, however.

[Tzi]

A pretty basic question, one I've been wondering because we're about to hit level 5, and up to this point absolutely no one has died. I'm trying to figure out how deadly a "base" D&D campaign is, to identify if we're playing a "softer" campaign than usual, or if PC death is just rare in this edition.

So, for those who are actively playing campaigns right now, what level range have you played through, and how many PC deaths, if any, have occurred? And note that being knocked to 0 HP but not dying does not count as a PC death. Unless some kind of resurrection magic was used, you didn't die :smallbiggrin:

A piece of knowledge that is not necessary, but could be interesting, is what size is your party? Wondering if our relatively large 6 person party has anything to do with our safety, and wondering what kind of correlation might exist between party size and rate of death, if any.

My players have proven exceptionally lucky....

One character death and it was purely that characters fault. He essentially opened Cthulhu's computer and his horrifying porn collection fried his soul.

I have 4 players, they've made it from 1-7. One NEARLY died when he tried to stealth past a Lich on a floating magic space station. The disintegration spell brought the Monk to 1 HP...... a poor roll on the part of the Lich.

In most campaigns I do there is usually 1-2 character deaths in the course of a campaign. With 5e, combat has become easier for me to do so I've gotten better at running combat and creating fun encounters but at the end of the day I generally don't set out to kill the players. Usually the obstacles are possible to beat or escape..... BUT bad luck has killed a player.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Our group (second level) had one death to a gelatinous cube. The terrain made it difficult to avoid the thing, and then we just kept failing DEX saves and STR checks. The cleric was at 1 HP while still engulfed, then took the 6d6 acid. We would have been better off just killing the thing as quickly as possible; it's not that beefy.

Oddly enough we've performed quite well in more difficult encounters (large #s of humanoids) before and after; the dice gods are fickle.

[ghost_warlock]

I killed four characters in the first session.

They were 0-level mooks who didn't even have a character class yet, though. :smallbiggrin: We'll see how they do this weekend now that they have fancy class abilities and spells.