D&D 5E Is Dying really hard?

[OB1]

Absolutely. I'm running a game where players are meant to try and avoid combat whenever possible or risk not being able to complete their objective, so my changes help reinforce that.
Besides avoiding combat in the first place, they are Alison much more likely to retreat when any one or two players get to half HP as they can't afford to risk exhaustion and death saves


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[Rhenny]

I like the simplicity of death saves and the excitement they generate when a 1 or a 20 is rolled, or a pc approaches the 3rd failure. If a DM/gaming group wants a more deadly game encounters can be made accordingly and foes can go for the jugular. Personally, when I DM, I'm a little softer on PCs because I want the overall story and character development to be the focus. I don't want to focus on just combat as a chess game/war.

As a player, I almost never feel as if the game is too easy even if my pc makes it through one or two encounters without much damage. I like to focus on building the story and developing my character more than I like to always be challenged to the death. As long as the fear of death is there, actual death does not need to happen.

 

[Immoralkickass]

Its not hard if you throw a few more Beholders at the players.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Death is faaaaaar too rare and difficult in 5e for my tastes, and then when it happens, trivially overcome with revivify, a mere 3rd level spell. Here is the fix to make 5e dangerous: (1) remove all raise dead type magic from PC spell lists, (ii) only one death save at zero hp, not three.

 

[Hussar]

My problem with the death saves thing is if you, as DM, want to make the fight lethal, you have to deliberately gank a PC. And that's just not going to make anyone at the table happy. Sure, it's realistic and believable that that critter takes the time to dump a couple of attacks into a downed PC, but, it feels very antagonistic as the DM. If I killed a PC because of a failed save or a good die roll, I felt that I was a bit removed from the PC death.

In 5e though, it's going to be pretty obvious when the DM is trying to kill a PC. I think it's one of those things that the table should discuss - make it clear from the outset that baddies will usually/always try to eat a downed PC before play even starts. Particularly if you want to be consistent about it. Either do it all the time, or none of the time. Otherwise, it's going to lead to hard feelings.

 

[Mercule]

That's true too. The problem that I have encountered many times in my group is this: PC goes down, monster is nearby and has the option to hit the downed PC again and force a death save or two. Players VEHEMENTLY argue that an intelligent enemy would not attack an unconscious foe, and would instead attack the other still standing PCs. Which is kind of true in a way, OTOH, if the monster doesn't make sure the character is dead, there's a very good chance she will be healed the next round or same round, pop back up like nothing happened and keep on fighting.

I'm not sure what a good solution to this is. Deliberately killing a PC through metagaming technique tends to not settle well and disrupts the fun.

I play my NPCs based on personality -- and try to telegraph, in advance (which works maybe 50% of the time).

Some guys are just nasty and will coup de grace someone, either out of spite (in case the party flees) or some other drive (uncontrolled zombies might stop for lunch). Others will weight the odds of dropping the healer before she can get the meat shield back on his feet or try to drop the wizard before he can zot them. When in doubt, though, I favor moving on to the next PC. 1) it sucks to lose a PC, especially when the rest of the group is doing well and your luck stinks. 2) Allow for the cinematic moment of rolling a 20 on the death save and shiv the guy from behind just before he takes out your buddy.

In practice, I've found that those death saves are pretty darn swingy. The session before last, I had one PC roll death saves half of the night, alternating up and down during a long, pitched combat. They pulled her out of the fire, had an epiphany about where a magic sword was located (finally put together the Fortunes of Ravenloft reading) and went to get it. This last session, they decided to go back and try the combat again, with preparation. A couple of harsh damage rolls later, and not only was the Paladin down again, but so was the Druid. The Druid rolled a 1, a success, and another 1. The Paladin rolled three failures in a row.

So, the group agreed that Strahd has now broken them and we're going to do something else next session.

 

[Tony Vargas]

sometimes the best thing to do is stabilize the the downed character instead of healing them - that way they aren't a high priority target. Then heal them when you are confident they won't immediately get attacked and put down again.

My problem with the death saves thing is if you, as DM, want to make the fight lethal, you have to deliberately gank a PC.

One of the most elegant house rules I've encountered for discouraging whack-a-mole is to impose a level of exhaustion whenever a PC reaches 0 HP.

The problem, as Shiroiken already alluded to, isn't due to one single issue. It's a combination of resurrection magic being made available early and cheaply, combined with the death save routine as opposed to dying at 0 hp.

I think it is a more complicated issue than it may appear. In addition to heal-from-0, the ease of casting healing word, death saves/dying rules, and the availability of raise dead (and freebie resurrection & re-builds in AL at low level), there's also the fact that in-combat healing comes from spells which compete with other spells for both known/prepped space and for all-important resource of slots, and that healing under 5e's fast-combat tuning can't readily keep ahead of damage, and that actually dropping a PC is about the only way to get across a sense of danger, since merely inflicting damage in no way impedes a creature in D&D.

Encouraging more pro-active healing by heaping punishment on the dropped character may not help much, the healer still faces the same resource calculations: slots are valuable, healing is not adequate to keep an ally up, HD, overnight healing, and heal-from-0 are all more efficient ways of restoring hps than proactive healing in combat, and he's not the one paying the higher price for dropping. :shrug:

If you want more pro-active healing, either introduce in-combat healing that doesn't consume slots, or make in-combat healing more potent, able to keep up with damage (which'll undermine 'fast combat'). Or both.
You can also reduce the 'efficiency' aspect by healing from negatives instead of from 0.

 

[Nevvur]

I think it is a more complicated issue than it may appear. In addition to heal-from-0, the ease of casting healing word, death saves/dying rules, and the availability of raise dead (and freebie resurrection & re-builds in AL at low level), there's also the fact that in-combat healing comes from spells which compete with other spells for both known/prepped space and for all-important resource of slots, and that healing under 5e's fast-combat tuning can't readily keep ahead of damage, and that actually dropping a PC is about the only way to get across a sense of danger, since merely inflicting damage in no way impedes a creature in D&D.

Encouraging more pro-active healing by heaping punishment on the dropped character may not help much, the healer still faces the same resource calculations: slots are valuable, healing is not adequate to keep an ally up, HD, overnight healing, and heal-from-0 are all more efficient ways of restoring hps than proactive healing in combat, and he's not the one paying the higher price for dropping. :shrug:

If you want more pro-active healing, either introduce in-combat healing that doesn't consume slots, or make in-combat healing more potent, able to keep up with damage (which'll undermine 'fast combat'). Or both.
You can also reduce the 'efficiency' aspect by healing from negatives instead of from 0.

As you note, it's a complicated issue, but the way I see it additional penalties for KOs close the efficiency gap between pre-zero and from-zero healing in combat. The house rule I brought up incentivizes pre-zero healing, but doesn't automatically make it the best choice. From-zero healing will be more efficient most of the time, but pre-zero healing starts looking really good if you're facing 4 or more levels of exhaustion

Regarding who's "paying the price" for these house rules, I regard the party as a single unit. If one member suffers, everyone suffers, though I admit it wouldn't necessarily feel this way if I were on the player side of the table.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[JacktheRabbit]

That's true too. The problem that I have encountered many times in my group is this: PC goes down, monster is nearby and has the option to hit the downed PC again and force a death save or two. Players VEHEMENTLY argue that an intelligent enemy would not attack an unconscious foe, and would instead attack the other still standing PCs. Which is kind of true in a way, OTOH, if the monster doesn't make sure the character is dead, there's a very good chance she will be healed the next round or same round, pop back up like nothing happened and keep on fighting.

I'm not sure what a good solution to this is. Deliberately killing a PC through metagaming technique tends to not settle well and disrupts the fun.

Is it meta to think that in a world with healing a foe might understand that there is "dead" and there is "mostly dead" and "mostly dead" means "slightly alive" and "slight alive" means they are only one ranged heal spell from ganking said foe while they try to focus on the remaining standing foes.

As for the OP, the situation described sounds more like a jerk of a player who is going to find their cleric left to hang out to dry at some point by a meta-gaming fellow player that didnt appreciate the dick move in a previous battle. And its not really that meta, people talk, rumors get spread, at some point someone that is not a fan of the cleric might mention why the party had an opening. Players dont have to straight out say it for it to be said at some point by their character.