D&D 5E D&D 5e death and consequences?

[Sacrosanct]

On a related spin to this topic, the frequency and/or availability and consequence of rez spells can affect more than just the PCs directly.

For example, a few years ago I was running my group through ToEE. One of the PCs ended up fighting and killing his arch nemisis from his backstory. However, the arch nemisis didn't do anything wrong that the PC could prove. The PC just got angry and backstabbed him.

Consequence? The temple used raise dead on him. At the cost of 50,000gp that the PCs didn't have, and that particular PC was on probation. If not for the paladin (of st cuthbert church) vouching for him and promising to make good on the money, the PC would have been in jail. So most of that loot found in T1-T4? Went to the church to pay for this spell. And you can believe that the arch nemisis wanted revenge after being murdered. He ended up joining the cult of Zuggtmoy, rising to general, and was part of the final battle, wielding Blackrazor against the party.

Oh yes, the availability of raise dead spells can have an impact...

 

[Spinachcat]

There's been no consequence for death even back with 3e, and additionally 4e and 5e make dying itself a rarity (except for your characters, of course) with its laughable access to healing and please-don't-die over and over again saving rolls.

But that's deliberate design choices based on who's left in the RPG hobby.

Gamers who sought challenges in gameplay abandoned RPGs, especially D&D. All we got left are "gamers" who can't handle games where somebody loses as it would offend the New D&D Credo of "Everybody Wins!" (except for you dead reader, of course). It's not just a RPG thing. We've seen the same "if you play, you auto-win" mentality infect video games for years too.

And I don't blame WotC. Apparently "Everybody Wins!" is good for sales of books (not much for actual play), and from a pure financial "loot the rotting corpse of the hobby" perspective, it makes complete sense.

 

[Lanefan]

There's been no consequence for death even back with 3e, and additionally 4e and 5e make dying itself a rarity (except for your characters, of course) with its laughable access to healing and please-don't-die over and over again saving rolls.

But that's deliberate design choices based on who's left in the RPG hobby.

Gamers who sought challenges in gameplay abandoned RPGs, especially D&D.

Speak for yourself, mate. Some of us are still here...

Apparently "Everybody Wins!" is good for sales of books (not much for actual play), and from a pure financial "loot the rotting corpse of the hobby" perspective, it makes complete sense.

Now there's a cheerful take on things.

/sarcasm

Lan-"perhaps the hobby's rotting corpse will be revived by 5e"-efan

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Everyone must learn the most important lesson of all: Don't let the DM roll a crit when you are at 1HP and never, ever be unlucky with saving throws. Only fools and bad players who deserve a spanking ever have the gall to be unlucky!

One of the rules for living through combat is "don't ever get in a fair fight." If you're at 1hp and not doing your darndest to disengage, you've screwed up. Yes luck can play a role, but the situation you describe is not bad luck.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One of the rules for living through combat is "don't ever get in a fair fight." If you're at 1hp and not doing your darndest to disengage, you've screwed up. Yes luck can play a role, but the situation you describe is not bad luck.

Actually, that kinda describes my first ever game of D&D...

We died, unable to disengage, but it was a close and epic battle...pretty much decided by luck.

 

[Daniel Russell]

There's been no consequence for death even back with 3e, and additionally 4e and 5e make dying itself a rarity (except for your characters, of course) with its laughable access to healing and please-don't-die over and over again saving rolls.

But that's deliberate design choices based on who's left in the RPG hobby.

Gamers who sought challenges in gameplay abandoned RPGs, especially D&D. All we got left are "gamers" who can't handle games where somebody loses as it would offend the New D&D Credo of "Everybody Wins!" (except for you dead reader, of course). It's not just a RPG thing. We've seen the same "if you play, you auto-win" mentality infect video games for years too.

And I don't blame WotC. Apparently "Everybody Wins!" is good for sales of books (not much for actual play), and from a pure financial "loot the rotting corpse of the hobby" perspective, it makes complete sense.

This seems odd to me. My players are finding 5E to be the most deadly version of D&D they've played since 2E. One of my players lost their first ever character in his first game of 5E (he's only been playing since 3E, so didn't have the 2E experience). On the other hand our most suicidal player (who lost 10 characters in 4E and I lost count in 3E has yet to even get knocked out.

 

[mcbobbo]

This has been a very interesting discussion. Thanks all for the good read.

That said, I agree that death has been a speed bump for at least the last 20 years of D&D.

But not necessarily for the spells, rather the "I wanted to try (splat book class) anyway" reroll.

Starting over at level 1 died with the concept of encounter balance. You simply can't anticipate the party's capabilities if you have no idea what level range they are. Or worse you wind up creating solo adventures for the most powerful characters while the other players watch and try not to get splattered all over the wall.

5e might be different, but I would be surprised. I'm guessing the DMG will address it.

TL;DR: Diamonds aside, power creep encourages rerolls which do nothing to help the death penalty situation.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

Starting over at level 1 died with the concept of encounter balance. You simply can't anticipate the party's capabilities if you have no idea what level range they are. Or worse you wind up creating solo adventures for the most powerful characters while the other players watch and try not to get splattered all over the wall.

5e might be different, but I would be surprised. I'm guessing the DMG will address it.

I'm about half a dozen games into a 5e campaign (started when D&D Basic came out). Most of the PCs are 4th level. I'm planning to start new characters (at 3rd level and will encourage the group to start multiple characters at the same time to avoid too much disparity between character levels. We'll see how it goes.

Other alternatives I'm considering:
1. Start new characters at half the XP of the highest level PC in the group.
2. Start new characters at the lowest level of the current "Tier" (1st, 5th, 11th, 17th). I can't see ever needing to start a new character at 17th level. By that time the PCs should have the resources available to raise their dead allies.

 

[drjones]

One of the rules for living through combat is "don't ever get in a fair fight." If you're at 1hp and not doing your darndest to disengage, you've screwed up. Yes luck can play a role, but the situation you describe is not bad luck.

Oh yeah, no one ever gets attacked more than once between their turns, no one ever gets a run of bad rolls, the DM never rolls two crits in a row. This is entirely a game of player skill, and definitely one that people should feel SUPER superior and condescending about.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Oh yeah, no one ever gets attacked more than once between their turns, no one ever gets a run of bad rolls, the DM never rolls two crits in a row. This is entirely a game of player skill, and definitely one that people should feel SUPER superior and condescending about.

There is also the law of averages. If you seek deadly combat as a preferred plan of operation, the law of averages says that you will probably lose some of them.

Deciding to fight as plan A in the first place IS a direct case of testing player skill. Bad rolls, multiple crits, bad luck in the order of the draw, these are all things that can happen to either side in any fight. All one can do as a player is control the factors that CAN be controlled.

Getting back to the law of averages, if the party engages in straight up combat with a really worthy foe 10 times, how many of those engagements should the party realistically hope to win? If the answer is greater than 5, what is that victory percentage based on?

Fantasy graveyards are full of PC corpses that are a direct result of an ego based victory assumption.

Survival at above average rates means making a fair fight something that happens only when all plans have gone to crap.