D&D 5E How do you kill a 10th level character?

[the Jester]

Man, I should have just multiquoted from the start...

You have to be nice.

No you don't.

It's good to be a nice person, but a DM's job is to adjudicate. Softballing is false adjudication. If a carrion crawler has the chance to munch on a downed creature, it will. Same with a ghoul.

No one would be trying to finish off enemies because raise dead exists. Once a combat begins, everyone has to fight to win, not waste time.

Raise dead is far less relevant than cure wounds in combat. Or lay on hands, or healing word, etc. Fighting to win means making sure that guy who's been cutting your friends down stays down instead of popping right back up like a jack-in-the-box.

Is every monster going to hit the guys who are down? Of course not. But asserting that it's a bad thing for those monsters who are logically inclined to do so to follow their inclinations is simply wrong.

Make the assertion that for some groups it's bad to hit them when they're down- well, that's another beast entirely. That's a playstyle choice, and a fine one for those groups to make. But it's certainly not for everyone. My groups would be quite surprised if my bad guys started universally using inefficient, "Go ahead and kill us all, we'll wait" tactics.

It's taboo. So no, you shouldn't do it.

"Taboo"?? Since when?

No, it absolutely is not taboo, and that assertion is just trying to push your playstyle onto others. Sorry, but that's ridiculous. To repeat- it's a playstyle choice, one that's fine to make, but one that many other groups find makes for boring, predictable play, and one that is absolutely not universal.

If evil brings good down to its level, then it has won. The ultimate evil is to submit to the evil.

I don't even know what this has to do with the topic at hand. Aren't you playing a game that's largely about killing monsters and taking their stuff? Isn't, then, the logical goal at hand often to... kill the monsters and take their stuff? Are you claiming that this is "evil bring[ing] good down to its level"? I think it's far easier to make that argument with the whole "females and young" conundrum, which is often solved via slaughter. But that's another topic entirely.

 

[mcintma]

I tend to agree with the OP that 5e is a bit 'soft' by mid-level.

In my game death is at -Con HP, not at -HP. The compounding (doubling) effect is too much IMO e.g. the 1st level char with 8 HP dies at -16 (quite deadly), but by 10th she has 80HP and only dies at a whopping -160 damage ...

Edit: chiming in ... I would tend NOT to whale on a dying character unless the creature has no other viable options or storywise there is some reason it just REALLY wants that particular character dead.

YMMV

 

[the Jester]

I just feel I have to say to every newcomer out there, don't listen to these guys unless you are an expert and you really know your players would be okay with it ahead of time.

Dude, really? I could just as easily add "Or unless your players aren't crybabies who need pampering."

This is a playstyle issue. You keep acting like it's some sort of moral imperative that makes a DM a big meanie if he plays it the other way. It's not.

 

[Mondas711]

So let's kill off the 10th level character and have the party run away. The monsters drag him away and eat him. All of him. There's nothing left to raise. The player was enjoying playing that character and now the character is gone forever. Please reroll and I will let you go ahead and make a 10th level character to join the group but, hmm let's see here, because I run a standard campaign, according to the DMG you get no magic items and we'll just use the average and give you 625 gp. Oh, by the way, everything I just did there was properly adjudicated so don't be a crybaby about your character dying.

Does anyone else see a problem with this scenario? Maybe, the reason it is harder to kill a 10th level character is because it's nearly impossible to tell what equipment a 10th level character would have gotten during 10 levels of adventuring so having one die off easily puts a serious crimp on the game.

For my next trick, I'll kill the rest of the party and you can all be 10th level and not have a single magic item in the party. Muhahaha!!

 

[Ahrimon]

So let's kill off the 10th level character and have the party run away. The monsters drag him away and eat him. All of him. There's nothing left to raise. The player was enjoying playing that character and now the character is gone forever. Please reroll and I will let you go ahead and make a 10th level character to join the group but, hmm let's see here, because I run a standard campaign, according to the DMG you get no magic items and we'll just use the average and give you 625 gp. Oh, by the way, everything I just did there was properly adjudicated so don't be a crybaby about your character dying.

To which I would so "ok." I have other character ideas. If the game doesn't use magic items then I'm not exactly out anything. If it's a magic item game, the DMG has rules for starting characters with more money and magic items. Either way, I'm sure I gave it my all with my last character. I would have no problem with a new one. We're not talking about a rocks fall, you die hyperbole here.

Does anyone else see a problem with this scenario? Maybe, the reason it is harder to kill a 10th level character is because it's nearly impossible to tell what equipment a 10th level character would have gotten during 10 levels of adventuring so having one die off easily puts a serious crimp on the game.

I, and many, many, gamers on these forums don't see a problem with it. The DMG has default rules for starting characters above 1st level, and most groups have a set of house rules to go with it.

For my next trick, I'll kill the rest of the party and you can all be 10th level and not have a single magic item in the party. Muhahaha!!

Now your just continuing on with the siliness in order to try and prove that your point is the only one that could ever be right. No one should ever play any way but yours....

Once you accept that a whole lot of us out here don't want to be pampered and have the game rigged so that we always win maybe we can get on with the discussion at hand rather than jumping up and down trying to convince us that we're having badwrongfun.

 

[Nebulous]

After spending some time with the rules, something has been bugging me. As far as I know, the only ways to kill a character are as follows:

1. A single attack that takes the character to a negative HP total equal to the HP maximum
2. Fail three death saving throws
3. An ability that explicitly says it causes death

Despite hunting and searching, I haven't found anything in the game that qualifies for number 3. I'm sure it's out there

Life Drain from undead?

 

[Nebulous]

It is correct that it's quite hard to die in 5E.
But I would say that petrification is the same as death.
Both Greater Restoration and Raise Dead are level 5 spells so it's equally hard to get rid of the petrified condition as it is from being dead.
So for me the Basilisk, Gorgon and Medusa all have death attacks.

I'm not sure if I would say it is "hard" to die in 5e. I think it is far easier to die than in 4th edition. Anyway, i agree with what you said about Petrification, it is essentially a death attack. Especially at low to mid level characters.

 

[Rune]

So let's kill off the 10th level character and have the party run away. The monsters drag him away and eat him. All of him. There's nothing left to raise. The player was enjoying playing that character and now the character is gone forever. Please reroll and I will let you go ahead and make a 10th level character to join the group but, hmm let's see here, because I run a standard campaign, according to the DMG you get no magic items and we'll just use the average and give you 625 gp. Oh, by the way, everything I just did there was properly adjudicated so don't be a crybaby about your character dying.

Does anyone else see a problem with this scenario? Maybe, the reason it is harder to kill a 10th level character is because it's nearly impossible to tell what equipment a 10th level character would have gotten during 10 levels of adventuring so having one die off easily puts a serious crimp on the game.

For my next trick, I'll kill the rest of the party and you can all be 10th level and not have a single magic item in the party. Muhahaha!!

In my campaign, that new character would start at level 1.

That said, TPKs are a pain in the ass and I do employ some houserules to give the players a degree of mitigation and agency. And, consequently, I have no qualms about playing ruthless enemies ruthlessly.

 

[Schmoe]

Life Drain from undead?

Good one, I forgot about that. Thanks!

 

[Nebulous]

I tend to agree with the OP that 5e is a bit 'soft' by mid-level.

In my game death is at -Con HP, not at -HP. The compounding (doubling) effect is too much IMO e.g. the 1st level char with 8 HP dies at -16 (quite deadly), but by 10th she has 80HP and only dies at a whopping -160 damage ...

YMMV

I don't recall, but is this supposed to be from one attack, or total damage suffered in a round?