How often does someone drop to 0 HP

[nickl_2000]

In a level 12 group it has probably only happened 6-7 times. How often do you see someone drop in the midst of a battle?

[JackPhoenix]

6-7 times in 12 levels? I've seen that in one session.

Death House was *fun*.

But generally, not every encounter, but at least once or twice between long rests, if serious combat encounters happen.

[Tiadoppler]

I tend to run shorter but more difficult adventuring days for my level 13 group (3-4 major (deadly+) encounters, rarely more than two encounters in a row without a short rest), and there's generally at least one KO per battle, and Revivify/Raise Dead do get fairly regular usage.

Usually they play smart enough that it's the Zealot Barbarian getting resurrected, and there's plenty of emergency healing available, so there's only been one permanent PC death so far (Warlock accidentally killed his own soul, knew he wouldn't be able to be brought back if he died, then, much later, split the party and got himself into a solo boss fight against one of the big-bad's major lieutenants. Roll a new character.).

[solidork]

My Half Orc War Cleric never went to 0 in all the time I played him (5-13). I never even used Relentless Endurance once.

We play with a homebrewed Dragon class and it seems like he goes down every other fight. Being a large Dragon tends to get you focus fired.

[ImproperJustice]

Not too often, then it’s like Holy Cow the Whole team is down, ah ma Gerd what do we do!

When we hit level 9 and started fighting Giants we either have solod control of the situation or its just death everywhere.

Kinda like Rifts rocket tag.

[darknite]

Easily once per session when I DM. I usually add a little caliente to my encounters.

[Xetheral]

In the last campaign I ran, I think one PC hit zero HP once. Many of the encounters were extremely difficult/overwhelming, but the party either avoided them, retreated from them, or successfully turned them into non-combat encounters.

[Gryndle]

Averages out to about once per session at my table.

0HP or one fight with next to no resources, or someone on their last legs, that's pretty much where I want my DMing difficulty level set at.
I don't want to be a killer DM. Building a PC bodycount does nothing for me. Not that I mind killing a PC once in a while; there have been 4 this campaign (which is currently at 16th level). And I don't want to be too easy.
So my goal is to push them hard enough that the guys know if they are off their game as players or as PCs it can spell disaster.

[LudicSavant]

In a level 12 group it has probably only happened 6-7 times. How often do you see someone drop in the midst of a battle?

This depends entirely on the DM and players. The difficulty level scales to the DM, and the ability to handle that difficulty scales to the players.

It can quite easily range from "you will never be in any real danger, ever" to "bring several character sheets to a session." I've seen both sides of that scale, and both are fitting for different types of groups.

The number of times a group can hit zero can go up astronomically when the difficulty is tweaked just to the point where players are very much in danger of a TPK, but not just being totally overwhelmed and wiped out. In these cases players might be fighting tooth and nail to pop people up off the death gate time and time again in hopes of having even one player alive at the end of the fight to Revivify everyone.

[Ding]

My group's current DM usually only has one, maybe two encounters per long rest. They tend to be large and drawn out, with 1-3 big enemies and a whole bunch of little guys, so it's kind of a war of attrition. Usually we can play smart enough as a team to make sure that nobody drops to zero, but by the end we'll all be one to two decent hits away from KO. Basically, we get about one character KO'ed every other session, on average. Only one actual death so far in several months of playing.

When I DM though, I like to start out with an all-out onslaught for the first round or two, to make the players worried (e.g. have all the enemy spellcasters launch AoE damage spells right off the bat). Probably 1-2 KO's per encounter. If somebody is in a really bad position or does something dumb, I have no qualms about downing them in the first or second round. I'm secretly sympathetic, though, so I try not to kill :smallwink:.

[McSkrag]

As a DM I have to say, "Not often enough!"


But seriously, in my experience, for a given encounter it is usually a few PC's get KO'd or none which is usually a result of bad or good tactics on the PC's part. I think this is the right approach. It's shouldn't be the result of a couple good or bad rolls.

[Guy Lombard-O]

My group's current DM usually only has one, maybe two encounters per long rest. They tend to be large and drawn out, with 1-3 big enemies and a whole bunch of little guys, so it's kind of a war of attrition. Usually we can play smart enough as a team to make sure that nobody drops to zero, but by the end we'll all be one to two decent hits away from KO. Basically, we get about one character KO'ed every other session, on average. Only one actual death so far in several months of playing.

When I DM though, I like to start out with an all-out onslaught for the first round or two, to make the players worried (e.g. have all the enemy spellcasters launch AoE damage spells right off the bat). Probably 1-2 KO's per encounter. If somebody is in a really bad position or does something dumb, I have no qualms about downing them in the first or second round. I'm secretly sympathetic, though, so I try not to kill :smallwink:.

That sounds about the same as our group. Few actual deaths, but KO's are reasonably common. Oddly, our cleric seems to go under in almost every serious battle, but we've kept her from actually dying so far.

[Foxhound438]

I'm in a game right now where both me (fighter) and the rogue go down almost every fight, largely because our casters are new players and the DM insists on having every enemy in a 2 mile radius start sprinting in as soon as anything happens (often starting with an enemy getting like 2 free actions right away when they were surprised, but I won't talk about that).

[Misterwhisper]

At level 1 to 3, maybe twice.
Past that not much at all.

I tend to play with a group that is very controll heavy, our current game is a lore bard, a celestial warlock, a divination wizard and a barbarian monk.

Honestly the barbarian monk works MUCH better than I thought it would.

[Spiritchaser]

At least half the party at least once on levels 1 and 2

After that it mostly depends on how drunk the players are

[xyianth]

Of the last 4 sessions in our now level 2 party:
Fighter (me) has gone down 3 times.
Rogue has gone down once.
Wizard has gone down once.
Ranger hasn't gone down yet.
Warlock has never been damaged.

Our group has a lovely saying: "AC Never Matters!"

Oh, and it is important to note: We are all having a blast and wouldn't change a thing.

[Laserlight]

In the Monday night group, people generally don't quite get to zero, as they break off and call for healing. I add an exhaustion level every time you hit zero, so they have motivation to avoid it.

In the Thursday night group, we've got one player whose characters tend to the foolhardy. Other than him, it's been a while since anyone has hit zero.

[SleepIncarnate]

As a DM I have to say, "Not often enough!"


But seriously, in my experience, for a given encounter it is usually a few PC's get KO'd or none which is usually a result of bad or good tactics on the PC's part. I think this is the right approach. It's shouldn't be the result of a couple good or bad rolls.

I can second this. With my current group, we tend to avoid any major encounters, either out thinking them, talking our way out of them, or just dumb luck. When we do have major encounters though, our DM is fond of hordes. We've not had any yet with any boss type opponents, as the only major encounter we haven't avoided was getting caught in a goblin ambush. It was the 5 of us and a handful of NPCs (only one of which could actually fight) against 40 goblins. We were on a ship going down a channel, so there was only so much the goblins could do, but they were smart enough to come at us from four directions, forcing us to split up to defend on different fronts. Through our own use of tactics, none of us dropped to 0 hp during the fight. Two of the NPCs did though.

I expect that to change as we face tougher opponents, but not too heavily.

[Tanarii]

Generally. at least once a session.

PC dying completely is down to about 1-2 times a month now. Most of my regular players are on top of their basic player skills game and don't do totally stupid stuff any more. And they coach newcomers to the campaign in T1 so they don't get their ass handed to them immediately.

Especially AL newcomers. Seems like most AL players have negative amounts of survival instinct. :smallbiggrin:

[noob]

Normally someone drops at 0 hp once every 6 seconds and if unlucky dies.
In team whack a more cleric people can fall at 0 hp many times per turn.

[Malifice]

Generally. at least once a session.

PC dying completely is down to about 1-2 times a month now. Most of my regular players are on top of their basic player skills game and don't do totally stupid stuff any more. And they coach newcomers to the campaign in T1 so they don't get their ass handed to them immediately.

Especially AL newcomers. Seems like most AL players have negative amounts of survival instinct. :smallbiggrin:

Deaths are 'down' to 1-2 per month now?

Good lord. What were they before?

[Xetheral]

Generally. at least once a session.

PC dying completely is down to about 1-2 times a month now. Most of my regular players are on top of their basic player skills game and don't do totally stupid stuff any more. And they coach newcomers to the campaign in T1 so they don't get their ass handed to them immediately.

Especially AL newcomers. Seems like most AL players have negative amounts of survival instinct. :smallbiggrin:

I'm beginning to think that your version of "Combat-as-War" might be more appropriately labeled as "Combat-as-Hell". :) I mean, it makes some sense if we make a syllogism with "Combat-as-War" and "War is Hell".

More seriously, though, with those kinds of attrition rates in a CaW game, I'm curious: is the party too-often willing to fight even when they don't have the upper hand? Or is the opposition just so overwhelming that it's a testament to their ability to stack odds in their favor that the attrition rate isn't even higher?

[KorvinStarmast]

In our tier 3 campaign, we were up against giants and had someone drop to 0 every session for about six sessions in a row. My 1/2 orc three times had to "pop up to 1 from 0" in those six sessions, only one of which saw him need to start make death saving throws.

Getting critted by a giant, twice in one fight, does a nova on your HP.

[Tvtyrant]

I have some different rules about what dropping to 0 means so it is less likely to be lethal, but I make the combats much more deadly so it happens about once every session.

[Kenny Snoggins]

Up to probably level 5 my bard was getting KOd every session, and was usually the first to drop. That was often a result of being closest to all the badness when things started as he was both the face and the only guy with thieves tools. Usually nobody else dropped, except for occasionally our EK.

Our sorcerer was killed by a series of bad rolls from a almost max damage breath attack and our ranger was killed by strand both around the end of tier 2. I think for both it was about the only time they ever rolled death saves (well the sorceror was instantly killed).

Since then there haven't been any deaths. I've been KOd twice in tier 3, but due to weird sort of DM fiat effects rather than combat. I think only our EK has also been knocked down in tier 3. I usually get targeted with AOE spells to shut down spirit guardians and avoid my staff of the magi but between lucky and the staff and cutting words and shield I've generally been able to stay on my feet.

[Tanarii]

I'm beginning to think that your version of "Combat-as-War" might be more appropriately labeled as "Combat-as-Hell". :) I mean, it makes some sense if we make a syllogism with "Combat-as-War" and "War is Hell".

More seriously, though, with those kinds of attrition rates in a CaW game, I'm curious: is the party too-often willing to fight even when they don't have the upper hand? Or is the opposition just so overwhelming that it's a testament to their ability to stack odds in their favor that the attrition rate isn't even higher?usually when a PC dies it's because the party pushes past a 3rd, or even 4th, short rest in a session.

(Edit: I probably should also put my guesstimate of 1-2 PC deaths per month in better context. That's 1-2 deaths per on average around 15 sessions. Not per 4 sessions.)

And combat as war has nothing do with stacking odds. (Except in that it's always a smart tactics, obviously.) It just means removing the assumption that any fight will be a fair fight ... So you as a player might want to think about if you want to pick a fight.

Since treasure is in dungeons and wilderness adventuring sites, parties have to assume if they choose to go get it, they'll be picking a lot of fights along the way. They can't avoid all of them and accomplish their goals.

What makes it combat as war is they get to pick where they go, set their own goals and the level of difficulty they are willing to face along the way, the risk they are willing to balance against potential reward. And, yes, sometimes abandon their goals and run away to survive.