Death and 5e

[Catullus64]

In a recent session, one of my players, a relative newbie who has only played in a few one-offs before joining my campaign, experienced his first character death.

The party was set upon by diseased, worm-ridden blight wolves in the wilderness. The fight was close; most of the wolves were down. This player's character had gone down earlier in the fight, and had been narrowly saved with the party's final potion, but he took another hit and went down again. He rolled a death saving throw; 5. Before his next turn, the Ranger attempted a Medicine Check. 9. He rolled again; Natural 1. Before the end of that same round, the Druid slew the final wolf, and looked down to see the life leaving his friend's eyes. Everyone was bummed for the rest of the session. Recriminations were had about how they could have saved him, how the Ranger could have avoided this fight by scouting, how the Druid should have saved a spell slot for an emergency heal. The player who lost the character tried to be a good sport, but he was clearly bummed to see his character end like this. We ended the session demoralized.

I thought about this event in contrast to the first time I ever lost a character, when an older friend introduced me to an AD&D session.

We were nearing the end of the first dungeon level. We were a little dinged up, and the cleric had run dry of healing spells, but we figured we would try to get just a little more treasure before falling back to the town. My 3rd level Thief went to search for and disarm the traps, but I rolled poorly. Giving the all-clear, I stepped nervously over the threshold, and tripped a buzzsaw-pendulum. I took 8 damage, which was more HP than I had at the moment, so the DM described how I was split vertically in half from head to toe. And then we laughed. I was an Elf, so Raise Dead was off the table, and we couldn't come close to affording a Resurrection. So they wrapped the two halves of Redgrim Rosethorn in a canvas, and promised to drink to his memory. I spent the rest of the session making smart remarks as Redgrim's bitter ghost, and then rolled up a new character.

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that 5e's very forgiving, multiple-barriers death mechanics actually make character death feel a lot worse when it happens. When it does happen, it tends to feel like the product of extraordinary bad luck, or unfair encounter design. With the interactions between death saves, damage, and healing, it often comes at the end of a multiple-rounds-long emotional see-saw between fear and hope, and it nearly always feels like it was eminently preventable. I'm not saying that this is entirely a bad thing; having death be emotional rather than lulzy can be the right feel for your table and your story. But I feel like overall it sets up players to feel like their character dying is a failure condition, rather than just another part of playing the game.

Addendum: Yes, I'm aware that nearly every edition of this game has had some rules, optional or default, for a dying or unconscious state at 0 HP, but I think that most will agree that 4e and 5e have perhaps the most forgiving ruleset.

[MoiMagnus]

Our group quickly switched to making peoples drink a potion of healing rather than using a Medicine check as soon as we could afford it, precisely for this kind of situation.

The thing I don't like about 5e saving throw, is that you just slowly die of bad luck. The things I like about 5e saving throws is that you get an automatic failure each time you take damage. It feels much more "deserved" to die because your soon-to-be-corpse was a collateral damage of a fireball, than to slowly die just because you rolled bad at the beginning of your turn.

[Civis Mundi]

The things I like about 5e saving throws is that you get an automatic failure each time you take damage. It feels much more "deserved" to die because your soon-to-be-corpse was a collateral damage of a fireball, than to slowly die just because you rolled bad at the beginning of your turn.

This has definitely been the cause of more failed deaths than bad rolls at my table. Bad luck tends to factor in most at lower levels, because at higher levels, you just have more resources to throw at the problem.

For me, that's working as intended. D&D has become more and more of a narrative-based game over the years, and we want death to feel dramatically appropriate. The various barriers can help with that. But there are a few other facets that I think make it work for me.

1) Death is hard in D&D if you're playing cautiously, but a character's most dramatic moments can come when they throw caution to the wind for the sake of what they feel is right. That means sometimes a character does something that would mean their death, because it's truly what their character would do. Often, that death becomes the character's defining moment.

2) Sometimes bad luck happens, and death comes when it's not dramatically appropriate. That's when you pull a Boromir, and find a way to make the death feel substantial and appropriate. Maybe the dying character gets a final monologue, and the other characters can say their last goodbyes. Maybe you just crack open a bottle and party for your fallen friend, just like you described. Maybe it becomes a turning point for the party. Maybe it's just anotehr reminder of how fragile life can be, even for a seasoned adventurer -- the stuff of Darkest Dungeons.

3) For new players who are still too attached to their first characters to stomach the loss, you can ask them whether they want some kind of outside intervention to bring them back to life, and tie it into the story. They might still rather roll a new character, but it's good to have the option open when you're still getting into the game.

[Willie the Duck]

I think there's something to that. In 5e, death is demoralizing because you (usually) had every opportunity in the world to avoid it (so if it happened, it feels like someone really dropped the ball). In TSR editions, death was so ubiquitous, unexpected, and unforgiving (doesn't matter how high level you are if the green slime drops on you and the cleric doesn't have a cure disease, and so forth) that it is just part and parcel to the experience.

[Unoriginal]

In a recent session, one of my players, a relative newbie who has only played in a few one-offs before joining my campaign, experienced his first character death.

The party was set upon by diseased, worm-ridden blight wolves in the wilderness. The fight was close; most of the wolves were down. This player's character had gone down earlier in the fight, and had been narrowly saved with the party's final potion, but he took another hit and went down again. He rolled a death saving throw; 5. Before his next turn, the Ranger attempted a Medicine Check. 9. He rolled again; Natural 1. Before the end of that same round, the Druid slew the final wolf, and looked down to see the life leaving his friend's eyes. Everyone was bummed for the rest of the session. Recriminations were had about how they could have saved him, how the Ranger could have avoided this fight by scouting, how the Druid should have saved a spell slot for an emergency heal. The player who lost the character tried to be a good sport, but he was clearly bummed to see his character end like this. We ended the session demoralized.

I thought about this event in contrast to the first time I ever lost a character, when an older friend introduced me to an AD&D session.

We were nearing the end of the first dungeon level. We were a little dinged up, and the cleric had run dry of healing spells, but we figured we would try to get just a little more treasure before falling back to the town. My 3rd level Thief went to search for and disarm the traps, but I rolled poorly. Giving the all-clear, I stepped nervously over the threshold, and tripped a buzzsaw-pendulum. I took 8 damage, which was more HP than I had at the moment, so the DM described how I was split vertically in half from head to toe. And then we laughed. I was an Elf, so Raise Dead was off the table, and we couldn't come close to affording a Resurrection. So they wrapped the two halves of Redgrim Rosethorn in a canvas, and promised to drink to his memory. I spent the rest of the session making smart remarks as Redgrim's bitter ghost, and then rolled up a new character.

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that 5e's very forgiving, multiple-barriers death mechanics actually make character death feel a lot worse when it happens. When it does happen, it tends to feel like the product of extraordinary bad luck, or unfair encounter design. With the interactions between death saves, damage, and healing, it often comes at the end of a multiple-rounds-long emotional see-saw between fear and hope, and it nearly always feels like it was eminently preventable. I'm not saying that this is entirely a bad thing; having death be emotional rather than lulzy can be the right feel for your table and your story. But I feel like overall it sets up players to feel like their character dying is a failure condition, rather than just another part of playing the game.

Addendum: Yes, I'm aware that nearly every edition of this game has had some rules, optional or default, for a dying or unconscious state at 0 HP, but I think that most will agree that 4e and 5e have perhaps the most forgiving ruleset.

Death feeling bad is not a bad thing. I personally prefer feeling like there are real stakes in my character's survival and that I can fight the grim reaper tooth and nail to my character getting bisected being a joke, and this by a wide margin.

Not that laugh-worthy PCs deaths can't still happen, but that's not the same.

Games that expect your PC to get ground to dust in the first dungeon or to get killed by a farmer with a pig-stick can be very funny, but it does have the effect of making it hard to be invested in the character and their adventure, especially when you expect to have a nearly identical character shows up at the next tavern inherit the dead character's equipment.

The feeling of failure will fade into the memory of a memorable game event, most of the time, rather than the memory of a funny death among many.


I think there's something to that. In 5e, death is demoralizing because you (usually) had every opportunity in the world to avoid it (so if it happened, it feels like someone really dropped the ball). In TSR editions, death was so ubiquitous, unexpected, and unforgiving (doesn't matter how high level you are if the green slime drops on you and the cleric doesn't have a cure disease, and so forth) that it is just part and parcel to the experience.

Death is only demoralizing until the morale is regained, making the down-then-up feeling memorable. Ubiquitous, unexpected and unforgiving death make death expected, accepted, and such just another day at the office.

[Wizard_Lizard]

I can't speak for other editions but I feel like 5e is very character based. You make your character and they are yours. Whereas I've heard 1e and 2e being described more you and your friends (dm included) vs the game.. 5e is more.. you and your friends and the game interacting with eachother in lots of ways. Death feels rough because of how much you empathise with your own pc. if death comes quickly and often.. you don't really get that so often.

[Corsair14]

Coming from older editions back when you made several characters to have one ready when they die, get over it and reroll. 5e makes it so hard to kill players I give BBEGs the same death saves just for some parity.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I recommend as part of session zero you discuss:
What role will death play in the game?
How do you feel about character death?
What, if anything, is a "good death"?
How comfortable are you with death by bad luck? Or as a consequence of bad play, bad teamwork, or...?

Death sucks, but what apart from new char gen is the penalty? Lower XP? If we remove death (and its pretty close to that in 5e now), what's the point? If there nothing really at risk, is there even a game?

[Keravath]

There are many ways to save characters - only a few to lose them. As a result, it can feel more impactful when luck goes against you and the character dies anyway (at least in situations where death is not instant and the character's wind up making death saving throws).

Also, if you consider popular media, how often do the heroes die? That is the expectation of some of the newer folks playing D&D.

From a party perspective, a cleric with the spare the dying cantrip avoids the problem. A character with the healer feat that uses an action (or a thief rogue as a bonus action) to heal the downed character will bring them back up AND last, an item an adventurer should never be without ... the healer's kit.

With a healer's kit, stabilization is automatic at the cost of an action, they cost 5gp and have 10 uses. This avoids the issue with failed medicine checks.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/equipment/healers-kit

[Kurt Kurageous]

I give BBEGs the same death saves just for some parity.

If you do it with lower level foes, they start throat slitting. Basically any story-significant NPC/foe should get them. Mooks? No.

[Vogie]

What I did for my parties was revising the Death Saving throws to follow Exhaustion levels.

It does two things- it gives players a sense of 'wounds' whenever they fail a death save and pop back up, and also essentially double the number of potential death saving throws.

One of my parties is playing a gritty version of Icewind Dale, and they can pick up exhaustion levels through failing their frost checks when the temperatures dip, or they get wet, et cetera. I've heard of DMs using exhaustion levels to also emulate excessive heat exposure, disease, curses, you name it. It's a strong effect that's baked into the system already, and isn't used much.

[Theodoxus]

I don't know... I come to 5th Ed by way of 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions. Characters were always characters, and while it was a lot easier to die, if you didn't play cautiously (and some games were built to just be meat grinders and we knew that going in) - death still stung.

The first 5E death I had was the second game I played (the first being a one-shot that taught me the differences between 3rd and 5th editions, but I wasn't invested in the character). After 3 sessions, the party was 3rd level. I was playing a rogue, with the newly minted SCAG, I had just grabbed Swashbuckler. We were on our way to a monastery in the mountains, and I was scouting the path forward. I found humanoid tracks leading up to an outcropping of rocks, so decided to climb up and see what was there. Well, my stealth roll was adequate and I peered over the edge and saw a small band of orcs that had a couple of elves tussled up. The band had stopped for lunch.

I went back down to the party and let them know what I saw. We decided to try to ambush them, to rescue the elves in hopes of a reward. I scrambled back up the boulders while the rest of the group went around the far side that had a trail. Once I saw the party was in position, I charged the lone lookout, hoping to get him alone to use my new found sneak attack modification. That part went well, nearly killed the orc outright (I had the highest Initiative thanks to a decent Dex and Cha score). The party charged in, taking the first three orcs. Unfortunately, the fifth orc was closer to me and the lookout, so he charged over and hit me with a great axe, critting. I went down. The rest of the party didn't notice, and I bled out.

They did win, but we didn't have enough cash to get me rezzed, so I vowed that would never happen to me again. That's the primary reason I nearly always play a Life Cleric. I like being a healbot, so that helps, but basically, I play cautiously and try really hard to never let a fellow player meet the fate poor Nimbus did back in January 2016.

[Anonymouswizard]

5e runs into a weird issue where it does everything it can to to minimise character death, but the fact that it has no actual rules (even optional) about outright allowing or disallowing it can make actual occurrences feel pointless.

There are two ways to solve this problem (if you consider it a problem), one way is to make it easier to lose characters, the other is to add in-book advice and potentially actual mechanics about when to lose characters and player input into the process. People know why the first one works, it becomes less of a shock when you've experienced it fifteen times. The latter works because it allows every death to feel important and worthwhile instead of random, and in many cases the rules recommend getting player-approval before actually killing off the character.

There are also games with Fate Points or Edge or other metagame currencies where you can permanently drop your starting amount to survive certain doom, but D&D5e would need rejigging to make that work (although it's one of the things I'd do if I was writing 6e, have every character have a 'Inspiration Pool', have abolities run off Inspiration, vary based on how much you have, or just require you to have some at all, and let you burn points off your maximum* to survive death).

As a side note I want to bring up the game Agon here. While I know it's not the first game to do this, it's the first game I've owned where a strict reading of the rules does not allow a character to die. This is partially because it's more concerned with simulating narrative arcs rather than the world, but it does have a method for characters leaving the group. This works by moving towards your Fate and thus advancing your legend, which isn't an inherently bad thing as it does mean you'll get some advancements, and when you reach the end of the track your character remains with the group until the current conflict is finished and then remains behind on the island while the player makes a new character. This is interesting because it telegraphs characters leaving, avoids the morale problems of a sudden exit as well as avoiding punishing the player by not letting them play, and all round works for the game. However it would not fit with D&D without major reworkings of assumptions.

* Potentially just until level up.

[Naanomi]

I have not had a lot of player deaths outside of TPKs or conscious attempts to abandon downed characters when fleeing potential TPKs. Just... So many opportunities for cautious parties to prevent it under normal play

[Civis Mundi]

What I did for my parties was revising the Death Saving throws to follow Exhaustion levels.

It does two things- it gives players a sense of 'wounds' whenever they fail a death save and pop back up, and also essentially double the number of potential death saving throws.

One of my parties is playing a gritty version of Icewind Dale, and they can pick up exhaustion levels through failing their frost checks when the temperatures dip, or they get wet, et cetera. I've heard of DMs using exhaustion levels to also emulate excessive heat exposure, disease, curses, you name it. It's a strong effect that's baked into the system already, and isn't used much.

I'm a huge fan of this, and I'm going to have to use it at some point. Exhaustion in general is definitely an underutilized mechanic.

[JonBeowulf]

I get what you're saying about how it takes quite a bit of bad luck to actually have a character die in this edition. Heck, I tried to get my pally an epic death and couldn't do it... he simply WOULD NOT DIE. When I'm DMing, character death seems to be TPK or nothing.

However, reading over what happened afterward sounds absolutely wonderful.
- The players were annoyed and pointing fingers at each other (just as the characters likely would have done)
- The players discussed what could have been done differently, which means they learned something from this

It had to suck to lose the character, but adventuring isn't a safe profession. Death needs to be a real threat.

But to me, it looks like some bad feelings are the only "bad" that came out of this.

[MrStabby]

I find death in 5th edition interesting.

The death save rolls are relatively easily avoided as causes of death in most encounters.

As a DM I really had to go all out to create a genuine hazard for players without just droppng a dozen ancient red dragons on them. Effects like acid pools to do damage every turn to downed characters, splitting the party, or (and this could get very nasty), darkness/fog/reduced visability to make healing a bit harder (well, healing word anyway); silence is also golden. Instant death effects that sidestep death saves like gibbering mouthers and mindflayers can sometimes be a hazard.

Yes attacking downed PCs will raise the stakes a bit but alone this doesn't really raise the risk a lot.

All of this adds up to Death is often going to be telegraphed by the game. You see the environment or the behaviour or whatever it is that is going to kill you some time before it does. It is fair; you know if you go down then all bets are off.

When death isn't telegraphed it feels more unfair. That bad guy whipping out those extra attacks on the downed ally, that trap that teleports you to the center of a big furnace to burn to death, that poison that does 40d6 points of damage per round...

And I think we have the expectation of the former when it comes to hazards - not that things will be easy, but because when your character dies it will be because of something specific - dumb luck on death saves or because you failed a perception check and got squashed by a boulder. We expect our character and the party in general to have some agency in the deaths of characters - either by tactical error or by strategic error or, in the finest traditions of tragedy by some character flaw.

I would rather have a game with real risk; it feels like there is no success without failure. We roll the dice because we embrace uncertainty. Nothing communicates that a character can die, like a character actually dying. Nothing shows that the supposed personal danger to PCs is just a false facade like no character ever having to be burried. That said, I do like to get invested in characters and if they die, I damn well hope they do it for something they belive in.

[MaxWilson]

If you do it with lower level foes, they start throat slitting. Basically any story-significant NPC/foe should get them. Mooks? No.

My experience is the opposite: players are more likely to try to brainwash downed NPCing into joining their team than to slit their throats.

And if players are willing to leave enemies for dead sometimes instead of finishing them off, it leaves a nice precedent in place that can let monsters avoid finishing PCs off. Just recently, I witnessed two 8th level PCs get crushed by the ancient white dragon in Rime of the Frost Maiden (they unwisely chose to hang around her treasure horde for too long after killing the Ice Troll, and then a series of unlucky rolls while trying to flee/hide led to what looked like imminent TPK) but the combination of one PC being down and dying and the other PC adopting a passive posture (doing nothing but bandaging the other's wounds), plus lucky rolls on the oracle dice, let the dragon consider them as vanquished and leave them for dead (as opposed to eating them).

Anyway, I allow anyone and everyone to survive below zero HP until they hit - (max HP).

On the subject of death: yes, 5E probably does make PCs too robust, which makes death feel like a failure. I like how Cthulhu Mythos for 5E highlights the fact that reaching stage three insanity (stark raving) need not be taken as a failure, since many stories involve someone sacrificing their sanity to protect others. It advises players to pick themselves back up and resume having fun with their friends with a new character. Good advice.

[strangebloke]

killing players is still easy as heck if you want to run a "super difficult dangerous XXX" dungeon. You just have to think a little beyond "the floor is a mimic, the walls are mimics, the ceiling is a mimic." The chief difference is that as the DM you won't kill your characters by bad luck.

Any time a PC has died at my table, its been because of

taking on something they really shouldn't have tried to fight (eg, running into a portal to hell at 3rd level)
terrible/reckless positioning (monk getting way ahead of the party and getting isolated and swarmed)
utter lack of preparedness (forgetting to make medicine checks or us the potions on hand to save a dying comrade.)
an actual, super-dangerous encounter that was intended to be climactic and risky.

[KorvinStarmast]

I can't speak for other editions but I feel like 5e is very character based. You make your character and they are yours. Whereas I've heard 1e and 2e being described more you and your friends (dm included) vs the game.. Having played a lot of AD&D 1e, and having DM'd more of it ... not quite.

5e is more.. you and your friends and the game interacting with eachother in lots of ways. Death feels rough because of how much you empathise with your own pc. if death comes quickly and often.. you don't really get that so often. It's not the game, it's the player. Some players get really connected to their PCs. Others don't.

It advises players to pick themselves back up and resume having fun with their friends with a new character. Good advice. Yes, that is a very good
attitude to take if you want to have fun with this game.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If you do it with lower level foes, they start throat slitting. Basically any story-significant NPC/foe should get them. Mooks? No.

My announced default is "named NPCs, no matter what side they're on, get death saves. Unnamed ones don't unless there's a good, player initiated reason(1)."

(1) such as what they want to do being really amusing. But saving such an anonymous NPC means they will get named, and there will be penalties (lingering wounds, like the guy who was crippled because the party saved him after he got shot in the back by a crit crossbow)

[da newt]

From the description, this sounds like a great opportunity and a good table.

The death of a PC was consequential to the players and PCs - They care. That's awesome.

Now to build everyone back up from it - pep talk the new player into really leaning into their new PC and succeeding where last time they fell short - have a session 0 like discussion with all about what did we learn, how did this affect everyone, how do you want stuff like this to play out as we go forward, etc and then jump back into the game with gusto keeping the downed PC in the collective memory ...

[Omni-Centrist]

In a recent session, one of my players, a relative newbie who has only played in a few one-offs before joining my campaign, experienced his first character death.

The party was set upon by diseased, worm-ridden blight wolves in the wilderness. The fight was close; most of the wolves were down. This player's character had gone down earlier in the fight, and had been narrowly saved with the party's final potion, but he took another hit and went down again. He rolled a death saving throw; 5. Before his next turn, the Ranger attempted a Medicine Check. 9. He rolled again; Natural 1. Before the end of that same round, the Druid slew the final wolf, and looked down to see the life leaving his friend's eyes. Everyone was bummed for the rest of the session. Recriminations were had about how they could have saved him, how the Ranger could have avoided this fight by scouting, how the Druid should have saved a spell slot for an emergency heal. The player who lost the character tried to be a good sport, but he was clearly bummed to see his character end like this. We ended the session demoralized.

I thought about this event in contrast to the first time I ever lost a character, when an older friend introduced me to an AD&D session.

We were nearing the end of the first dungeon level. We were a little dinged up, and the cleric had run dry of healing spells, but we figured we would try to get just a little more treasure before falling back to the town. My 3rd level Thief went to search for and disarm the traps, but I rolled poorly. Giving the all-clear, I stepped nervously over the threshold, and tripped a buzzsaw-pendulum. I took 8 damage, which was more HP than I had at the moment, so the DM described how I was split vertically in half from head to toe. And then we laughed. I was an Elf, so Raise Dead was off the table, and we couldn't come close to affording a Resurrection. So they wrapped the two halves of Redgrim Rosethorn in a canvas, and promised to drink to his memory. I spent the rest of the session making smart remarks as Redgrim's bitter ghost, and then rolled up a new character.

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that 5e's very forgiving, multiple-barriers death mechanics actually make character death feel a lot worse when it happens. When it does happen, it tends to feel like the product of extraordinary bad luck, or unfair encounter design. With the interactions between death saves, damage, and healing, it often comes at the end of a multiple-rounds-long emotional see-saw between fear and hope, and it nearly always feels like it was eminently preventable. I'm not saying that this is entirely a bad thing; having death be emotional rather than lulzy can be the right feel for your table and your story. But I feel like overall it sets up players to feel like their character dying is a failure condition, rather than just another part of playing the game.

Addendum: Yes, I'm aware that nearly every edition of this game has had some rules, optional or default, for a dying or unconscious state at 0 HP, but I think that most will agree that 4e and 5e have perhaps the most forgiving ruleset.

2E is so brutal, with some of the rules i remember you have until you hit -10 to be stabilized, and you only gain HP back from the negative with a trained healer in a restful, sterilized place. Until that happens, each day you are useless and have to roll a d20 to see if you will either get 1 point better or 1 point worse. It was horrifying.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I have a theory about consequences in games and showmanship that I've been applying as a DM for... well, a long, long time now.

I used to work casino events, often as a blackjack dealer. I was a pretty popular table, despite having a certain, ah, personality. You see, I couldn't help but crack smiles at player misfortune. I'd laugh when people lost big bets. My players would comment on it all the time, how incredibly amused I was by players losing big bets. It wasn't pure schadenfreude, I promise; I also clapped and congratulated excellent play, or commented when someone was doing very well.

After a while, I started noticing that my table was typically the most busy, and I had a big tendency to have patrons that would stick at my table the entire night. Despite essentially mocking my players' losses. I carried this with me into DMing.

Like when I dealt cards, I am the players' most real adversary. The cards, dice, minis- none of these things have the personality to truly be an enemy. Only a person could be that. Thus when I DM, I take on the role of the players' foe, personally. I mock their poor luck and ill conceived plans. I laugh as I throw fireballs into their formations and I'm always sure to deliver crits with smiles. I like to take time outside of sessions to threaten to kill their characters next time, sometimes in detail. Often? It's actually foreshadowing. I've done exactly as stated a few times, enough that my players listen very carefully to my taunts. If I say lava, expect lava.

But!

I'm also the first to congratulate them when they win. I concede defeat happily, and I'm all-too generous with my rewards. Because while I'm their adversary, I'm also the one who wants them to win the most. I'm their enemy when I need to be their enemy, but I never forget that it's just a role that I'm adopting for their sake.

It's all about the attitude. Smug, but never smarmy. Arrogant, but never a sore loser. I treat death like a marvelous joke, and that's enough to make it one. To sum things up; play a supervillain at your table, but never forget that you aren't actually one.

[Catullus64]

2E is so brutal, with some of the rules i remember you have until you hit -10 to be stabilized, and you only gain HP back from the negative with a trained healer in a restful, sterilized place. Until that happens, each day you are useless and have to roll a d20 to see if you will either get 1 point better or 1 point worse. It was horrifying.

Ha, very much so. To the point that I feel the default "full-stop dead at 0 HP" rule is almost kinder.

[Kurt Kurageous]

What I did for my parties was revising the Death Saving throws to follow Exhaustion levels.

It does two things- it gives players a sense of 'wounds' whenever they fail a death save and pop back up, and also essentially double the number of potential death saving throws.

I had a rule (later abandoned) that you gained a level of exhaustion for every time you hit 0 HP. That changed "bouncing" to something not so consequence-free. I thought it added a little more menace to the game.

I abandoned the rule because it meant the player downed began lobbying endlessly for a long rest, and denying them that made me the bad guy because it was my house rule, not RAW. Especially whiny were those who used their skills a lot, tankers less so.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Personally (and this is my own opinion, not a claim at universal fact), I find that cheap death does a few things:

1. Removes any reason to care about the characters. To the degree that death is frequent, characters just become transparent extensions of the player, mere playing pieces to be used up and discarded. That kills my verisimilitude.

2. Detracts from plot and world coherence. You start having to make really big concessions to be able to slot in a new person. Sure, if you're doing an old-school, no-plot, "how much treasure can we haul out" dungeon crawl, that doesn't matter. Especially with sidekicks/minions along. But that's super constraining on adventure design in and of itself. If the ongoing narrative is driven by the characters, it starts to strain incredulity as to why these new people even care about this ongoing thing. Or are even there to begin with, when you're in session 2 of 4 in the vault that's been abandoned for decades. Or you get rapid tonal shifts. Basically the only non-plotless games that work are the "stop the evil caricature from destroying the world" ones, because those everyone else has a stake in. And to me, those plots are boring.

I've killed exactly two[1] characters in 14 groups over 5 years. One was his own darn fault (no, you can't solo a dire yeti at level 2), the other was a severe tactical blunder (when the rest of the party can't get to the mindflayer because you're in the way and you fail multiple saving throws in a row and then get hit with a crit brain extraction...yeah. You dead.

[1] Well, there was the roasted goblin. But he got better. Stupid chair.

[MaxWilson]

I have a theory about consequences in games and showmanship that I've been applying as a DM for... well, a long, long time now.

I used to work casino events, often as a blackjack dealer. I was a pretty popular table, despite having a certain, ah, personality. You see, I couldn't help but crack smiles at player misfortune. I'd laugh when people lost big bets. My players would comment on it all the time, how incredibly amused I was by players losing big bets. It wasn't pure schadenfreude, I promise; I also clapped and congratulated excellent play, or commented when someone was doing very well.

After a while, I started noticing that my table was typically the most busy, and I had a big tendency to have patrons that would stick at my table the entire night. Despite essentially mocking my players' losses. I carried this with me into DMing.

Like when I dealt cards, I am the players' most real adversary. The cards, dice, minis- none of these things have the personality to truly be an enemy. Only a person could be that. Thus when I DM, I take on the role of the players' foe, personally. I mock their poor luck and ill conceived plans. I laugh as I throw fireballs into their formations and I'm always sure to deliver crits with smiles. I like to take time outside of sessions to threaten to kill their characters next time, sometimes in detail. Often? It's actually foreshadowing. I've done exactly as stated a few times, enough that my players listen very carefully to my taunts. If I say lava, expect lava.

But!

I'm also the first to congratulate them when they win. I concede defeat happily, and I'm all-too generous with my rewards. Because while I'm their adversary, I'm also the one who wants them to win the most. I'm their enemy when I need to be their enemy, but I never forget that it's just a role that I'm adopting for their sake.

It's all about the attitude. Smug, but never smarmy. Arrogant, but never a sore loser. I treat death like a marvelous joke, and that's enough to make it one. To sum things up; play a supervillain at your table, but never forget that you aren't actually one.

Hmm, interesting. I've struggled with this issue in the past--I've done #2 but not #1. It never occurred to me that it was possible for one person to do BOTH. I'll have to try this, thanks.


Personally (and this is my own opinion, not a claim at universal fact), I find that cheap death does a few things:

1. Removes any reason to care about the characters. To the degree that death is frequent, characters just become transparent extensions of the player, mere playing pieces to be used up and discarded.

I can imagine how this might be true if death occurred VERY frequently (like, ten times a game session), so that people run out of character ideas and just start making Bob #2 and Bob #3, but otherwise no, in my experience this does not happen. I don't necessarily mind if players play in pawn stance (where the PC is an extension of the player), especially for new players for whom my primary concern is just teaching them how to fantasy roleplay (vs. fantasy roleplay AS SOMEONE ELSE), nevertheless I find that most players eagerly adopt a persona. Some people even find it easier to imagine what Fantasy Bob would do than to imagine what Self would do in Fantasy World, so adopting a persona makes roleplaying easier.

It's not difficult to get those inclined to roleplay in-character to do so. Refer to them by name, ask some simple questions ("How does XYZ make you feel, Fantasy Bob? What are you going to do about it?"). This is still true for a replacement character after a death.


2. Detracts from plot and world coherence. You start having to make really big concessions to be able to slot in a new person. Sure, if you're doing an old-school, no-plot, "how much treasure can we haul out" dungeon crawl, that doesn't matter. Especially with sidekicks/minions along. But that's super constraining on adventure design in and of itself. If the ongoing narrative is driven by the characters, it starts to strain incredulity as to why these new people even care about this ongoing thing. Or are even there to begin with, when you're in session 2 of 4 in the vault that's been abandoned for decades.

Character trees solve this issue. The backup characters are there all along (some may even be converted NPCs), have established relationships with PCs and NPCs, may have gone on adventures, etc. You can only have one onscreen PC at a time, but between adventures you can switch who you're playing, and if a onscreen PC dies the DM will arrange for one of the backups to arrive soon-ish. Whenever an onscreen PC goes up a level, an offscreen PC can go up a level too as long as it's not a HIGHER level than the onscreen PC.

[PhoenixPhyre]

1) I can imagine how this might be true if death occurred VERY frequently (like, ten times a game session), so that people run out of character ideas and just start making Bob #2 and Bob #3, but otherwise no, in my experience this does not happen. I don't necessarily mind if players play in pawn stance (where the PC is an extension of the player), especially for new players for whom my primary concern is just teaching them how to fantasy roleplay (vs. fantasy roleplay AS SOMEONE ELSE), nevertheless I find that most players eagerly adopt a persona. Some people even find it easier to imagine what Fantasy Bob would do than to imagine what Self would do in Fantasy World, so adopting a persona makes roleplaying easier.

It's not difficult to get those inclined to roleplay in-character to do so. Refer to them by name, ask some simple questions ("How does XYZ make you feel, Fantasy Bob? What are you going to do about it?"). This is still true for a replacement character after a death.



2) Character trees solve this issue. The backup characters are there all along (some may even be converted NPCs), have established relationships with PCs and NPCs, may have gone on adventures, etc. You can only have one onscreen PC at a time, but between adventures you can switch who you're playing, and if a onscreen PC dies the DM will arrange for one of the backups to arrive soon-ish. Whenever an onscreen PC goes up a level, an offscreen PC can go up a level too as long as it's not a HIGHER level than the onscreen PC.

1) it takes time to settle into a character and (more importantly) settle a character into a group dynamic. Multiple multiple sessions. One or two deaths and replacement during a year-long campaign? Doable. Having a non-trivial chance of losing a character in any given session? Yeah. No.

One of my priorities and sources of fun is being in the world and world-fit. In my experience, cheap death ruins that.

2) That really only works for a few types of campaigns. My current campaign involves jumping all over the world with highly character-driven narrative. Switching out characters has happened (and those are now NPCs), but there isn't really a home base. And in most cases, arranging for the new character to arrive at any time other than "end of arc" (ie 3-10 sessions) would be, well, a stretch. Currently every active character has either a personal antagonist in play or a "mysterious backstory" that they're chasing down, plus a larger antagonist for the group as a whole. So having a stable of characters starts stretching my credulity.

[Keravath]

I find death in 5th edition interesting.

...

Yes attacking downed PCs will raise the stakes a bit but alone this doesn't really raise the risk a lot.

...



Just one quick comment. Attacking downed PCs will kill them very quickly so if the party is aware that the attackers will attack downed PCs either because they have seen yo-yo healing at work and are smart enough to realize that they need to make sure the creatures are really dead or if it is beasts who pause for a snack then the risk of character loss goes way up.

An unconscious character means that all attacks against it are at advantage AND all hits from within 5' are critical hits.

"UNCONSCIOUS
• An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can't move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings
• The creature drops whatever it's holding and falls prone.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature."

"Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death."

Two melee hits against a downed PC and they are dead since each will cause 2 failed death saves automatically. Most creatures at tier 2 and many in tier 1 will have multiattack so a single creature will have multiple attacks with advantage and two hits (damage amount is irrelevant unless it exceeds the character hit points which is insta death as well) will kill them.

Depending on the initiative order and the actions available to each character, it is very easy for NPCs that attack downed PCs to kill them off.

[Theodoxus]

*snip - laughing at character (mis)fortune*

I do this. Not quite as enthusiastically, but I do tend to play the 'adversarial' DM - but I'm also the friendly DM. And I haven't lost any players over it, so something works...

I know all the conventional wisdom is to work as a team to bring forth the game out of the fun, but if I'm running combat (which I've expressed elsewhere how much I don't enjoy the tedious nature of), I'm gonna try to win. Sadly, group tactics I'm horrible at, so my monsters tend to die in glorious fire... I can throw a deadly ++ encounter at my players and still come out the loser... (I'm far better running a single character than a group of guys; I don't play minionmancers - lol)

But I'm never sore about it. After the fact I cheer on the team for a job well done. I mourn with them over the loss of a character, or even a beloved sidekick or animal companion. But they charge on, knowing that I'm rooting for their fun, not their deaths, even when I'm really rooting for their deaths. :smallwink:

[Waterdeep Merch]

Just one quick comment. Attacking downed PCs will kill them very quickly so if the party is aware that the attackers will attack downed PCs either because they have seen yo-yo healing at work and are smart enough to realize that they need to make sure the creatures are really dead or if it is beasts who pause for a snack then the risk of character loss goes way up.

An unconscious character means that all attacks against it are at advantage AND all hits from within 5' are critical hits.

"UNCONSCIOUS
• An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can't move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings
• The creature drops whatever it's holding and falls prone.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature."

"Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death."

Two melee hits against a downed PC and they are dead since each will cause 2 failed death saves automatically. Most creatures at tier 2 and many in tier 1 will have multiattack so a single creature will have multiple attacks with advantage and two hits (damage amount is irrelevant unless it exceeds the character hit points which is insta death as well) will kill them.

Depending on the initiative order and the actions available to each character, it is very easy for NPCs that attack downed PCs to kill them off.

While I have few qualms with killing characters (as my players will attest), if I were to suddenly be terrified that death would ruin the experience because I've decided on a big narrative game where any loss ruins everything, I'd just outright remove it and even let the players know that. You go to zero, you're unconscious, no death saves, no coup de grace's, no accidental fireball death. The whole party goes under, the bad guys get away with... whatever, but everyone wakes up later. Possibly missing loot or the macguffin, maybe the villains got away to do something sinister later, or maybe we're doing a typical prison break again. Because even if there isn't an ultimate consequence, there really does need to be some consequence to failure else you start to have an existential crisis about playing this "game" that apparently has no purpose beyond asking the DM what happens next. It's 'Press X to continue' with a lot more faffing about.

If a player gets cheeky about it and decides upon stupid behavior that would lead to certain death, they're the only ones that are in actual danger of dying. Diving into lava kills you, narrative be damned. I'll go find a player that isn't an idiot.


I do this. Not quite as enthusiastically, but I do tend to play the 'adversarial' DM - but I'm also the friendly DM. And I haven't lost any players over it, so something works...

I know all the conventional wisdom is to work as a team to bring forth the game out of the fun, but if I'm running combat (which I've expressed elsewhere how much I don't enjoy the tedious nature of), I'm gonna try to win. Sadly, group tactics I'm horrible at, so my monsters tend to die in glorious fire... I can throw a deadly ++ encounter at my players and still come out the loser... (I'm far better running a single character than a group of guys; I don't play minionmancers - lol)

But I'm never sore about it. After the fact I cheer on the team for a job well done. I mourn with them over the loss of a character, or even a beloved sidekick or animal companion. But they charge on, knowing that I'm rooting for their fun, not their deaths, even when I'm really rooting for their deaths. :smallwink:

Defeating an opponent is fun, after all, especially when you're doing it with friends. Even if you aren't the hardest opponent to beat, just being there for your friends to overcome you is priceless.

[Vogie]

I had a rule (later abandoned) that you gained a level of exhaustion for every time you hit 0 HP. That changed "bouncing" to something not so consequence-free. I thought it added a little more menace to the game.

I abandoned the rule because it meant the player downed began lobbying endlessly for a long rest, and denying them that made me the bad guy because it was my house rule, not RAW. Especially whiny were those who used their skills a lot, tankers less so.

That was I originally thought of - and abandoned for the same reason.

Our Icewinddale game, for example, about half or less of the PCs have at least 1 level of exhaustion at any given moment, of the 7 PCs in that game. I also run them REALLY HARD, upping the deadliness of both the environment and the encounters, simply because there are 7 of them.

While they still occasionally lobby for a long rest (especially the monk who tends to fall to equally both the hostiles and our Warlock's AoEs), they knew I was going to do this from the get-go. When they run into a Skill challenge, the players know that they're going to have to make up for their exhausted allies. When they're building their plan for attack, they position themselves, knowing that those allies will have disadvantage on initiative.

It's really added a level of strategy that I wasn't anticipating.

[MoiMagnus]

I had a rule (later abandoned) that you gained a level of exhaustion for every time you hit 0 HP. That changed "bouncing" to something not so consequence-free. I thought it added a little more menace to the game.

I abandoned the rule because it meant the player downed began lobbying endlessly for a long rest, and denying them that made me the bad guy because it was my house rule, not RAW. Especially whiny were those who used their skills a lot, tankers less so.

I am mostly convinced that bouncing is a good thing for the game, but that there is a missing step between "totally ok but low HP" and "dying" where you are out of the fight for most purposes (to the ground, incapable of making complex actions like attacking) but able to be bounced back to normal efficiency without negative consequences (other than someone else having to take the time to bounce you back in the fight).

For example, something that would not work at all in 5e without some massive changes but could be an idea for another RPG is that at half-HP you are for most purposes eliminated from the fight (attacks with huge disadvantage, no spellcasting, very slow movement, difficulty to stand, etc) but no significant penalty if you get healed. However, when you reach 0HP, you start getting exhaustion or long lasting injuries, assuming you don't simply die.

[Vegan Squirrel]

Okay, I'm coming back to this thread after reading it a couple days ago and having rules swirl around my mind since then. Here's my proposal.

Death saves are optional. When a character is reduced to 0 HP, they can choose to begin making death saving throws, which will lead to either death or consciousness. High risk, high reward. Or, they can choose to remain unconscious and stable for the rest of the encounter. To account for unconscious characters taking damage, just add up any such damage taken and they'll outright die if it reaches their HP max (no sense giving a failed death save to a character who's not making death saves).

And to be clear, as a DM, I wouldn't be targeting a character who opted out of death saves unless there's a very good story reason (they're battling that character's long-time nemesis; the villain has killed this PC before and they keep getting resurrected, so there's a strong motive to obliterate the body, etc.).

The main problem I see with this rule is that it's safer to choose to stay unconscious if you know you'll be yo-yo healed within a few rounds anyway, so maybe add a rule where even if healed, it'll take a full turn to emerge to full consciousness (kind of like a surprised turn—in fact, the surprised condition sounds like the perfect template).

[Segev]

Bouncing back is also clearly intended, even from death, with spells like revivify.

I like the theory behind the house rule to have failing death saves send you down the Exhaustion slope rather than just tracking 3 fails vs. 3 successes. I think it can be improved upon in terms of player engagement, though, by adding effects for each successful death save. So here's a proposal (it's a little more complicated than the standard rules, sadly):

When you are reduced to 0 hp, you make an immediate death save. On a success, you are incapacitated, prone, and cannot move, but can still perceive around you and call for help. On a failure, you are unconscious (per the norm). Either way, you're dying.

Each round on your turn, you make another death save. A failure gives you a level of exhaustion. A success moves you up one "level" along this progression:

Unconscious
Incapacitated and prone, unable to move or speak. If somebody takes an action to interact with you (including treating your wounds), you can speak or otherwise communicate weakly with that character.
Incapacitated and prone and unable to move
Incapacitated and prone, falling prone at the end of your turn if you aren't already; automatically fail Ability checks (so can't climb or swim without the appropriate movement types)
Incapacitated and prone but stabilized, falling prone at the end of your turn if you aren't already; automatically fail Ability checks (so can't climb or swim without the appropriate movement types)

If you made your initial death save, you start at level 3 on that chart, and thus your next successful death save restores your ability to move, but you're still prone, and you're actually stabilized by the next one. You're still at 0 hp and can barely crawl, but you at least are an active participant in things.

If you failed your initial death save, you start at level 1 on the chart and your first successful death save wakes you up and enables you to have dramatically appropriate interactions with people paying close attention to you. It takes longer to claw up to stability at that point.

And, per the house rule I was inspired by, failed death saves beyond that initial one to determine if you're unconscious or not pile on Exhaustion levels. So you can be multiple levels of Exhausted by the time you work your way up to stabilized. I think this creates a nice combination of levels of impact various deadly wounds can have on a creature.

The big downside is still the one that those who had the "level of exhaustion for hitting 0 hp" rule faced: players will just want to long rest immediately. And multiple levels of exhaustion can make the game significantly harder, creating a "death spiral" that 5e largely seems to try to avoid with its recovery and long rest rules.

Maybe there could be a low-level spell or even a nonmagical alchemical beverage (coffee!?) that temporarily alleviates one or more levels of exhaustion, enabling PCs to keep going for a time at some expense, making it a higher amount of attrition but not a show-stopper. Dwarven ale that gets you so drunk you don't notice you're exhausted, alleviating a level or more of exhaustion in return for the Poisoned condition? (Worded something like, "While poisoned in this way, the creature ignores n levels of Exhaustion," so immunity to poison actually works against you here.)

[Vegan Squirrel]

Maybe there could be a low-level spell or even a nonmagical alchemical beverage (coffee!?) that temporarily alleviates one or more levels of exhaustion, enabling PCs to keep going for a time at some expense, making it a higher amount of attrition but not a show-stopper. Dwarven ale that gets you so drunk you don't notice you're exhausted, alleviating a level or more of exhaustion in return for the Poisoned condition? (Worded something like, "While poisoned in this way, the creature ignores n levels of Exhaustion," so immunity to poison actually works against you here.)

I've seen it suggested (I thought in this thread, but I don't see it here) to allow spending Hit Dice to remove levels of exhaustion instead of healing HP damage. That would at least let a short rest be enough, at a cost. That dwarven ale is also quite interesting.