Yes, that is exactly what I wanted to do. No, really.
D&D 5E My New Players Have Quit 5th Edition
Yes, that is exactly what I wanted to do. No, really.
Who knows, maybe I read a previous comment of yours and got the idea to add the constitution score from you!
Manbearcat
Legend
[MENTION=85179]ren1999[/MENTION] , I know you said you refuse to do so in your OP, but you might want to consider starting the PCs at level 3 and just see how that goes. There are still 17 levels after that. That is a lot of gameplay. The designers outright said that level 1 and 2 are for the folks who want that vulnerable feel and conflict avoidance inherent to initial play in old school, dungeon crawls. I'm pretty sure you aren't going for that. It seems a little bit of "cutting off your nose to spite your face" to endure a few levels of PCs who are more fragile than you (and your group) would like when the answer is pretty trivial. Level and xp are mostly just metagame concepts to organize and facilitate play. Starting off at level 3 shouldn't be too jarring or burdensome and it may create a more pleasant experience. At least more pleasing than the anger-inducing hours you seem to be putting in now.
I would suggest either doing that or cut your losses and run something else.
I would suggest either doing that or cut your losses and run something else.
First, nothing can bring a 5E character to below 0 hit points. Hit points do not go negative any more. If you take more damage than you have hit points, you are reduced to 0. If the leftover damage (after dropping you to zero) is greater than or equal to your max hit points, the Instant Death rule kicks in and you die; otherwise, the excess is simply lost with no effect, and you start making death saves on your turn. If you get hit again when already at 0, each hit adds one to your "failed death save" count, or two for a crit.
Second, just as in 4E, you can choose to incapacitate instead of kill when you reduce a foe to 0 hit points. If you do this, the enemy is at 0, unconscious and stable.
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Lanefan
Victoria Rules
From what I gather there is no such thing as negative h.p. in 5e as written; if you go to or below 0 h.p. you are unsconscious*, after which you roll a series of saving throws one per round (the mechanic is much like a 4e skill challenge) with three successes meaning you're stabilized and three failures meaning you die. External things can modify this - if you take damage while unconscious that counts as one auto-fail, for example.
* - unless you go WAY below 0 in one blow, then you bypass all the above mechanics and just die.
Lan-"I'd do it differently myself, but we're talking RAW here"-efan
thunktanker
First Post
If the bugbear hits most of the pregen characters, it's not going to matter too much if he gets average or higher.
He does (11) 2d8+2. I'd roll, because hey, maybe I roll a 4.
Thaumaturge.
2d8+2! Oh geeze, those newbs are toast.
MonsterEnvy
Legend
The Bugbear is not fought in the first encounter however. Also even with a surprise round. Which the Goblins only get if they beat the character perception check. There is no way 4 of them could have taken down 5 pc's before any of the PC's did anything.
Blackwarder
Adventurer
I don't get it, you had 3 players, one of them was an experienced player who played 3 of the pregen characters and the other 2 were new players who each played one character.
During the first combat of the adventure you managed to roll realy high for all goblins getting complete surprise, you then continued (through no fault of yours) to roll realy high for the attacks and managed to drop the new players characters below 0 and it seems that you misunderstood the dying rules so you out right killed them...
What happened to the other three characters? Did you focus fire on those two characters? And if so why?
As for more robust 1st level characters, tough luck, most of us who did the playtest survey prefer this level of 1st level characters and the developers have said that if you want to start playing with 4e style of 1st level characters than just start at 3rd level, you will get the HP you like plus the level of options of 4e.
I had something like that happen to me during the playtest, I nearly TPK a group consisting of 3 new players to the hobby, I used this to illustrate that D&D is not a computer game and that you should be more alert, when the group recuperated they started playing more smart and less expecting to just have combat encounters handed to them on a platter (the rest of the players came from 4e).
Anyway, I'm rumbling. Tell us how your second game went, good luck!
Warder
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