D&D 5E Perma-Death At Your Table: How Possible Is It?

[Vaalingrade]

As DMs are known to accept any free snackage provided, just drop a cooler of Zima next to his chair. By the time he's out of free drink, his bladder will be too full to drink enough to be drunk.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I voted "It happens" but usually not because of bad luck, but because of player stupidity or stubbornness.

Also, from the title, perma-death makes me think of things where revivify/raise/reincarnate is not possible. From what the OP describes, just failing 3 death saves would be perma-death. Being reduced to dust by a disintegrate spell would be closer... But even then there are ways around it.

IIRC, there really hasn't been a perma-death since AD&D when, if you failed your resurrection survival check, you were crap out of luck--nothing could bring you back then...

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah but unfortunately, there's a facet of modern gaming that has made raise dead/reincarnate trivial in most games.

You are told not to have mixed level parties. So often, this is what happens-

"Aw man, I died. That sucks."

"Hey maybe we can bring you back?"

"It cost 5000 gp though, that's going to be hard, might take us a few sessions."

"It's ok, I have an idea for a new character."

NEW CHARACTER HAS ENTERED THE GAME.

 

[Odysseus]

About one PC per campaign. Usually around first to third level. Although we did have one TPK at 12th level..

 

[Blue]

1. Characters go down fairly frequently.
2. Characters die very infrequently. It's usually due to poor player choices, perhaps compounded by bad luck but never in my last few campaigns primarily due to bad luck.
3. After the first few levels, characters usually have a way back from death because D&D 5e is not shy about giving them, so perma-death is almost exclusively due to player choice wanting to retire the character.

How should I vote on the poll?

 

[Blue]

Yeah but unfortunately, there's a facet of modern gaming that has made raise dead/reincarnate trivial in most games.

You are told not to have mixed level parties.

Then stop listening to people who feed you misinformation. 5e handles mixed level parties a lot better than any other edition due to bounded accuracy.

Solved.

 

[iserith]

Across a campaign of about 20 to 30 sessions, there's usually 2 to 3 character deaths in our D&D 5e games.

Generally I recommend players have at least one backup character ready, though often we have multiple character per player (and more players than seats for the game) that rotate in and out. This helps with anyone having to sit outside of the normal play experience while creating a new character, should their current character die.

 

[GreyLord]

I didn't see the choice for ours. It happens and at low levels is not particularly rare. There's always a chance of it happening. It doesn't happen all the time and we have PC's that last from level 1 to when we end. After they hit mid to higher levels it stops being so constant (and I let Players start their characters at a higher level if they lost their character). WE don't keep blank character sheets around though.

 

[James Gasik]

Then stop listening to people who feed you misinformation. 5e handles mixed level parties a lot better than any other edition due to bounded accuracy.

Solved.

Well actually the DMG says a gap of two or three levels between different levels in a party isn't going to ruin the game for anyone, and I've seen this play out in Adventurer's League, but let's just say there's a lot of debate about what level new characters should join the game at.

 

[DeviousQuail]

There is a running gag at my table about barbarians dying early and often. For all it's toughness the class gets killed more often than any other. RIP Karsa, you unfortunate soul.