Scary situations that aren't

In another thread, someone mentioned the idea of a monster destroying the PC's supply wagon during a desert trek, and pointed out that being trapped in the desert with no food or water was a really scary situation. I've also heard people talk about being stranded on partially wrecked ship with no water. But while such a disaster would be devastating for real people, a typical adventuring party is only going to be mildly inconvenienced, not in danger of death. All you need is a single character with a single level of cleric or druid to cast Create Water and you can have 10 gallons of water per day using just a first level spell slot (more using a higher level slot or more castings). A druid or ranger can cast Goodberry to provide food each day, or the party can carry along corpses and use ritually cast purify food and drink from the cleric to get rid of any rotting, without even dealing with survival skills. So a thing that's supposed to be a life and death situation that forces 'now we have to find the destination or die' downgrades to 'now we have to prepare two spells and use 1 or 2 slots a day to deal with the problem' when actually put to adventurers. The only way to really make players worry about thirst is to either contrive a party with no cleric/druid casters or disable some normal first level spells (anti-magic, 'the gods won't grant that spell'), which aren't really satisfying - I can't really think of a good way to make this one work that doesn't involve arbitrarily turning off basic abilities.

What are some other situations people have run into that should be scary but can actually be readily dealt with by PCs? And are there any non-cheesy ways to make the situation actually seem 'real-world' dangerous instead of mildly inconvenient?

With regard to the food and water scarcity challenge, not every party has a cleric or druid. It's probably safe to say it's more likely the party will have a cleric than a druid (given D&D's traditional party complement). In a situation where the party does have a cleric, then preparing and casting create water means dedicating a precious prepared spell for something to overcome an exploration challenge (at the cost of a healing, combat, or buff spell, for example) and one spell slot which is a limited resource. It's not trivial at lower levels and, let's face it, worrying about food and water is really a challenge suitable to tier 1 and maybe some tier 2 PCs.

In a wilderness trek where extreme heat demands the PCs must have access to more water than normal (see DMG page 110), I always have the monsters go for the water supply, as long as the monster needs water to live. This sets up a situation where the PCs have to defend something other than themselves which is a fun change-up. And if they fail to protect the water, well, that's another spell slot gone, right? If they're doing 6 to 8 encounters per day, this becomes a burden the players feel.

Note that in an exploration challenge, PCs might also have the opportunity to forage while traveling which is another way of dealing with this issue; however, this comes at the cost of not staying alert for hidden dangers (unless the character is a ranger in favored terrain). A character that is foraging is therefore automatically surprised if a lurking monster attacks. So there's a fair trade-off here. As well, unless the character has a high Wisdom modifier, there's a chance the PC doesn't gather enough water in the effort (see DMG page 111).

Create water requires a material component of a 'drop of water', so if they have no water...or no focus, it will be difficult. That said, if anyone has a water skin, that's probably enough to cast the spell indefinitely. And, obviously, it's not a problem if you're stranded on a boat.

Good berry requires a 'sprig of misteltoe. Not readily available in a desert...or on a boat.

So, if you were going to create a scenario where they couldn't have food or water, you'd have to manage their foci or material components. If their supplies were taken, it could happen their material pouch and/or focus was also stolen.

5e no longer has Protection From Elements, so environmental hazards like extreme cold and heat could prove to be scary. Leomond's tiny Hut, helps with that, though.

Teleport takes the scariness out of a lot of things when you can 'fast travel' everywhere.

OverlordOcelot said:

What are some other situations people have run into that should be scary but can actually be readily dealt with by PCs? And are there any non-cheesy ways to make the situation actually seem 'real-world' dangerous instead of mildly inconvenient?

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Barely hanging on the ledge of the 3rd floor (assume 20-foot drop) above a cobblestone street. A fall of that height wouldn't necessarily be fatal, but it would seriously hurt. Like "you're not dead but ain't going anywhere anytime soon" hurt.

I've made my peace with the abstraction of hp but as soon as the PCs are 2nd level, 2d6 damage is no longer a significant threat. I know it's not breaking the game but since we're looking for situations that should-be-scary-but-aren't, a 20-foot drop is not even remotely as threatening in the D&D world. Let alone a 30-foot fall or more.

I'm not convinced anything should be done about it; defenestration shouldn't always be a more effective solution than stabbing someone in the eye but on the other hand, it would be nice if a 10-foot pit trap was a little more than a mere inconvenience, and jumping down from the tower's roof wasn't just a more efficient way to climb down...

Laurefindel said:

Barely hanging on the ledge of the 3rd floor (assume 20-foot drop) above a cobblestone street. A fall of that height wouldn't necessarily be fatal, but it would seriously hurt. Like "you're not dead but ain't going anywhere anytime soon" hurt.

I've made my peace with the abstraction of hp but as soon as the PCs are 2nd level, 2d6 damage is no longer a significant threat. I know it's not breaking the game but since we're looking for situations that should-be-scary-but-aren't, a 20-foot drop is not even remotely as threatening in the D&D world. Let alone a 30-foot fall or more.

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The 20-foot drop is potentially a hit die or a low-level healing spell slot. It's only a threat to a character's life in specific situations (such as being very low on hit points), but like create water, it's a drain on resources and attrition is the name of the game.

iserith said:

The 20-foot drop is potentially a hit die or a low-level healing spell slot. It's only a threat to a character's life in specific situations (such as being very low on hit points), but like create water, it's a drain on resources and attrition is the name of the game.

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Agreed, but when specifically asked about situation that should be scary in real life but aren't for D&D character, falling damage immediately comes to my mind.

Laurefindel said:

I've made my peace with the abstraction of hp but as soon as the PCs are 2nd level, 2d6 damage is no longer a significant threat. I know it's not breaking the game but since we're looking for situations that should-be-scary-but-aren't, a 20-foot drop is not even remotely as threatening in the D&D world. Let alone a 30-foot fall or more.

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Falling damage does seem quite light (and the fact that it doesn't scale by size is also an issue. How about making it a d10 per 10ft drop so a 20 ft drop would be 2d10? (I'd say a 10 ft drop is easily navigable for most (so DC 10) with it increasing with height so at 20ft: DC 15, 30ft: DC 20, 40ft: DC 25). Medium size creatures would have a scale factor of 1, tiny: .25, small: .5, large: 2, huge: 4, gargantuan: 16 (given that it's based on mass which is tied to volume which is cubed of course but let's not go crazy... )

robus said:

Falling damage does seem quite light (and the fact that it doesn't scale by size is also an issue. How about making it a d10 per 10ft drop so a 20 ft drop would be 2d10? (I'd say a 10 ft drop is easily navigable for most (so DC 10) with it increasing with height so at 20ft: DC 15, 30ft: DC 20, 40ft: DC 25). Medium size creatures would have a scale factor of 1, tiny: .25, small: .5, large: 2, huge: 4, gargantuan: 16 (given that it's based on mass which is tied to volume which is cubed of course but let's not go crazy... )

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Realistically, falling damage should just be a percentage of your maximum HP. After a certain point, falling should always be lethal no matter your size, Constitution, level, or hit points.

I imagine mortal combat with armed opponents should top this list....

iserith said:

With regard to the food and water scarcity challenge, not every party has a cleric or druid. It's probably safe to say it's more likely the party will have a cleric than a druid (given D&D's traditional party complement). In a situation where the party does have a cleric, then preparing and casting create water means dedicating a precious prepared spell for something to overcome an exploration challenge (at the cost of a healing, combat, or buff spell, for example) and one spell slot which is a limited resource. It's not trivial at lower levels and, let's face it, worrying about food and water is really a challenge suitable to tier 1 and maybe some tier 2 PCs.

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But I've seen people comment on this like lack of water is a major problem for all Tier 2 PCs, that it's something that should be a major plot point if it happens and not just 'oh well we'll use up 1 first level slot' or includes a caveat like 'as long as no one has a level of this common class'. It's also tier 2 modules that I've seen with the 'track your water before going into the desert' section in the start. And this isn't just an oddity of 5e, the spell has been around in the same basic form since 1e when clerics were even more likely since party size was assumed to be 6-8 and there were typically fewer classes. People in conversation seem to treat this as a lot more than a 'oh, we'll have to dedicate one first level slot to it' issue.

And if they fail to protect the water, well, that's another spell slot gone, right? If they're doing 6 to 8 encounters per day, this becomes a burden the players feel.

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I've never seen an outdoor adventure where players are doing 6-8 non-trivial encounters per day for multiple days. How do you balance the real time needed to run 6-8 encounters that actually use resources per day and also have multiple days of exploration happening? If you're not having multiple days of exploration, then the lack of supplies won't catch up with you, but I really don't see how you'd throw in enough encounters that players notice the lack of a single 1st level spell and also have the exploration phase move quickly enough for the exploration part to actually happen. (This isn't a rhetorical question, I'm really wondering how you manage to pull this off without getting bogged down in tons of encounters or losing the 'exploring lots of land' feel)

TaranTheWanderer said:

So, if you were going to create a scenario where they couldn't have food or water, you'd have to manage their foci or material components. If their supplies were taken, it could happen their material pouch and/or focus was also stolen.

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If you're removing gear to the point that players don't have spellcasting foci, then I'd say that it's pretty likely the challenge to become that their combat gear has been removed, and the lack of water becomes distinctly secondary to the challenge of losing basic equipment. Having enemies steal specifically holy symbols, material component pouches, independent foci, shields with foci embeded, but not any ordinary weapons or shields is probably going to look a bit silly, and you're also going to need to steal every water carrying container (so there's not a drop of water to start off with for create water). I'm not saying that it can't work, but I think you're going to end up with the lack of supplies playing a distant second to the lack of basic 'can I function when we encounter something ' items or is going to look really contrived. Especially if the players are the type to plan ahead and carry extra foci.