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

[Thyrwyn]

...But if I have to add in something as basic as flanking to a combat adventure game, and then use facing just to make it meaningful, that's lazy design. Let's be critical of it so they will design better systems that stand apart from each other next time.

Flanking isn't 'basic'. At least not to everyone. It wasn't introduced to D&D until 3rd Edition (2000), and it got along just fine without it. At least not as a core rule, it may have been one of the options in 2nd, but I never played with it. The vast majority of RPGs I have played don't use it, and I would hardly call their design 'lazy'. Or maybe I misunderstood your comment.

 

[steeldragons]

I agree with The Jester (shocked faces all around I'm sure. hahaha.). If it makes sense for the enemies to do so, then they will. I'ts not being mean or unsporting. It's offering up a consistent, coherent world in which the players can be immersed. To whit...
Instinct:
Ex. 1. Carrion Crawlers feed by paralyzing prey and then munching on it. That's what it's going to do if it can. Obviously, it will fight others attacking it...in which case, it won't be attacking the "downed" PC.
Ex. 2. Wolves, Tigers, and most other predatory animals will drag downed/unconscious prey away if they have to because they can't feed where the prey fell. In the case of, say, a pack of wolves or lion pride attacking mutiple PCs, they will try to drag the "meal" away from the fighting/commotion/others that might want a bite of "their" kill and then, yes, eat in peace. They will continue to do damage to "downed" PCs.

Insanity...
Ex. 1. Ghouls. They paralyze specifically so they CAN tear into you and rend you to bits. That's what they do/how they feed.
Ex. 2. Gnolls. I'd say that they're just crazy and savage enough to continue to rip out the throat of any prey that goes down. They'll start feeding right then and there, even if combat is still swirling around them. That's the kind of freakish crazed savages they are...and a reason for them to be extra feared.
Either of these will jsut keep "hitting" and tearing prey apart til there's nothing left.

Tactics...
Ex. 1. Orcs. They'll give the downed PC an extra stab just for the sheer pleasure of the cruelty of it and/or the cultural importance of "making the kill." They will, however move on to continue fighting, since they live for that.
Ex. 2. Hobgoblins, I would say, would give the extra stab to the downed foe because they are intelligent and savy enough in battle to know that if they don't, that foe might get up again...especially if there's a cleric running around the battlefield. They are also reliant on their assisting one another tactics, so this isn't going to be multiple rounds. Though if it is skipped the round you go down, they will go back over the battlefield, at the end, making sure every bleeding body on the ground is well and truly dead.
I would expect no less from any other intelligent or particularly cruel creature, such as Goblins or Drow.

Things like Bugbears or Ogres, I would think are too stupid to do it, i.e. "Hit something til it falls down and then move on to hitting the next thing." Dragons wouldn't necessarily bother unless, as someone made the colorful example, they wanted to make a point/prove something to those still standing.

So, it's not a "everything does/would" or even those things that are likely to will always have the opportunity for. But it can happen and it doesn't strike me as poor play/DMing to do so...when it makes sense.

 

[fuzzlewump]

In my view, a system must be flexible to be strong. Otherwise, it breaks.

No, I'm cool with what I've got. And if it isn't working for me, I'll just change it till it does.

Right, I get the metaphor, but wouldn't you want a flexible system with better more tested variant rules that you could then tweak? Like, that's just objectively better and makes a stronger game right? We should make that desire known as a subculture, rather than quietly house ruling it. Criticism is how things change. Maybe you disagree with my particular complaints, but there is still value in criticism. I'm really on the soap box about flanking because to me it's such an integral part of a positioning based tactical combat game. (Movement is measured exactly, spell areas are measured exactly, opportunity attacks to name a few.... Before anyone disagrees that 5e is a positioning based tactical combat game.)

 

[fuzzlewump]

Flanking isn't 'basic'. At least not to everyone. It wasn't introduced to D&D until 3rd Edition (2000), and it got along just fine without it. At least not as a core rule, it may have been one of the options in 2nd, but I never played with it. The vast majority of RPGs I have played don't use it, and I would hardly call their design 'lazy'. Or maybe I misunderstood your comment.

I personally think flanking is very important but 3e was my first real edition, I was very young while playing 2e. But the point I was more driving is that we shouldn't be ok with a rule being half baked and needing another system to make the rule meaningful. I think it's worse that the rule in question here is flanking, because I personally think flanking is a very important rule, but the principle applies to any rule, variant, or whatever.

Like feats. An improper response to 'x feat is broken' is 'well it's just a variant option, so it doesn't reflect on the game, the designers; it exists in a vacuum of perfectness.' Like, no, they are the game designers not me. Don't feed me broken or half baked stuff. (Disclaimer, I play and enjoy 5e.)

 

[SirAntoine]

I agree with The Jester (shocked faces all around I'm sure. hahaha.). If it makes sense for the enemies to do so, then they will. I'ts not being mean or unsporting. It's offering up a consistent, coherent world in which the players can be immersed. To whit...
Instinct:
Ex. 1. Carrion Crawlers feed by paralyzing prey and then munching on it. That's what it's going to do is it can. Obviously, it will fighter others attacking it...in which case, it won't be attacking the "downed" PC.
Ex. 2. Wolves, Tigers, and most other predatory animals will drag downed/unconscious prey away if they have to because they can't feed where the prey fell. In the case of, say, a pack of wolves or lion pride attacking mutiple PCs, they will try to drag the "meal" away from the fighting/commotion/others that might want a bite of "their" kill and then, yes, eat in peace. They will continue to do damage to "downed" PCs.

Insanity...
Ex. 1. Ghouls. They paralyze specifically so they CAN tear into you and rend you to bits. That's what they do/how they feed.
Ex. 2. Gnolls. I'd say that they're just crazy and savage enough to continue to rip out the throat of any prey that goes down. They'll start feeding right then and there, even if combat is still swirling around them. That's the kind of freakish crazed savages they are...and a reason for them to be extra feared.
Either of these will jsut keep "hitting" and tearing prey apart til there's nothing left.

Tactics...
Ex. 1. Orcs. They'll give the downed PC an extra stab just for the sheer pleasure of the cruelty of it and/or the cultural importance of "making the kill." They will, however move on to continue fighting, since they live for that.
Ex. 2. Hobgoblins, I would say, would give the extra stab to the downed foe because they are intelligent and savy enough in battle to know that if they don't, that foe might get up again...especially if there's a cleric running around the battlefield. They are also reliant on their assisting one another tactics, so this isn't going to be multiple rounds. Though if it is skipped the round you go down, they will go back over the battlefield, at the end, making sure every bleeding body on the ground is well and truly dead.
I would expect no less from any other intelligent or particularly cruel creature, such as Goblins or Drow.

Things like Bugbears or Ogres, I would thing are too stupid to do it, i.e. "Hit something til it falls down and then move on to hitting the next thing." Dragons wouldn't necessarily bother unless, as someone made the colorful example, they wanted to make a point/prove something to those still standing.

So, it's not a "everything does/would" or even those things that are likely to will always have the opportunity for. But it can happen and it doesn't strike me as poor play/DMing to do so...when it makes sense.

I'd like to see how you play the drow! In campaigns where the DM demonstrates this skill level, there is no room for questioning whether something is too cruel or too hard. Being in a campaign where the monsters seem like real foes, not just intangible sets of numbers and concepts, steeldragons' are all very lucky.

I am pretty sure Gary Gygax would be very impressed. The more you put into the game, the more you get out of it.

 

[SirAntoine]

This game is supposed to be fun. If a player thinks a glorious death for his PC is fun, DMs should not hesitate to bring that particular joy around. However, if a player loves his PC and doesn't want to lose it, there should be more hesitation - because you're making the game more fun for that player.

The DM has a lot of control over these things through encounter design and enemy tactics. As a DM, you should figure out what is fun for your players - and give them that experience.

I also think this is very accurate. Whenever a PC died in my campaigns, we all sat around and talked about it to help the player get through it. No character's death was ever taken lightly, but while it may shock readers, deaths were quite common.

 

[SirAntoine]

This thread has been a rather strange read, for starters, some one asks the question "in 5th edition a 10th level character seems hard to kill" a statement that i Personally do agree compared with most systems, including their own previous 4 editions 5th discousarges PC death more but still leaves the obvious room for change, but the concept of death saves etc is the most anti-death yet imo what leaves me confused is a large amount of peoples answers to this being house rules and non BTB items such as used by tucks infamous kobolds but surely if your using these things one is not truly playing 5th edition DND?

I know the purpose of a forum is discussion but have any of you even bothered to discuss what he actually asked? Or too readily put forward your opinions on a loosely fitting subject of combat difficulty being more to do with a DM than system followed by arguing whos imaginary rulings for unconscious player characters is superior or in the jesters case he seems to just be arguing whos arguing more politely, which is rather sad.

I apologise to does who actually did answer helpfully but i can tell you now this thread was almost useless to me and probably to anyone else who was interested in the topic as id say about 70% of this thread was unrelated and without being rude quite uninteresting.

further apologies if the actual poster of the thread didn't feel the same and i too am just further de-railing the thread but honestly why does every topic on this dam forum lately have to some how become what is the equivalent of an edition war, how hard can it be to discuss the aspects of a system without putting your personal bias and techniques forward? Just discuss the merit of whats there. If suggestions of how to improve said system are then asked for, THEN PROVIDE THEM? Too many people in this world seem to have it in their head that their ideas are brilliant and clearly wished to be heard by all.

Edit Note - saw some obvious spelling errors and the irony of my own post was killing me, so to ensure i contribute positivity a easy way to kill high level characters that are accounted for in core rule books and the advice therein (and therefore could actually be counted when discussing the natural bias of 5th towards character death)

some one mentioned it briefly above but magic missile. The tactic of any intelligent wizard with access to this spell should be to cast it on any unconscious enemies when ever possible. at 10th level you have access to 5 missiles if it still works the same. Thats 2 unconscious charecters dead, with 1 first level spell. In answer to the issue of charecters never dieing from one attack, thats been slowly occuring since 3rd edition and comes from the fact since WOTC (IMO) took over D&D it has been seen more as a computer game than a life simulator or fantasy RPG and does as others have said require some effort from the DM to not cause some disjunction with reality. E.g the 10th level human being unconscious on the floor, getting stabbed in the neck, and not just being dead. I REPEAT HOW EVER AN ANSWER TO THE ABOVE POSTERS QUESTIONS IS NOT TO TELL HIM TO IGNORE 5TH EDITION AND JUST SAY THE CHARECTER IS DEAD BECAUSE THEN BY YOUR VERY OWN DEFINITION HE IS NOT PLAYING 5TH EDITION, HE IS PLAYING YOUR VERSION OF IT. THIS MAY BE AS EQUALLY VALUABLE, HELPFUL IN SOME CASES BUT ITS NOT WHAT WAS ING ASKED FOR

I apologize for derailing the thread. I meant no wrong, and thought house ruling the issue would save the DM time.

 

[SirAntoine]

Is there a way to restart the thread? The original poster wanted to know how within the established rules for the new edition, a 10th level character could be killed. He obviously just wanted to know if he was doing something wrong, like they seem invincible, and that's not right. No one said anything about if the DM is too cruel or if what is and isn't a fair tactic.

So I call all experts of the new edition to answer this thread properly.

 

[Morrus]

5. A lot of monsters have been scaled down in challenge. Beholders for example are more of an annoyance now than a deadly enemy.

Regarding monsters, when converting something, I prefer to replace encounters with similar but level appropriate encounters. Just switching monster stats to the new ones won't work; you get a non-appropriate challenge as a result, as you've discovered.

For each encounter, you can look at it and say "ok, this is a goblin-archer themed encounter designed to be very difficult; my job is to build a new goblin-archer themed encounter that will be difficult in the new rules".

That's an issue I've found with most conversions, and why they often don't work well. It's more work, for sure, but it gets you the right result.

 

[DaveDash]

Regarding monsters, when converting something, I prefer to replace encounters with similar but level appropriate encounters. Just switching monster stats to the new ones won't work; you get a non-appropriate challenge as a result, as you've discovered.

For each encounter, you can look at it and say "ok, this is a goblin-archer themed encounter designed to be very difficult; my job is to build a new goblin-archer themed encounter that will be difficult in the new rules".

That's an issue I've found with most conversions, and why they often don't work well. It's more work, for sure, but it gets you the right result.

Thanks Morrus, I've been getting a handle on the conversion process now after a lot more practice. I've also started to level up a lot of monsters from the MM using the rules in the DMG (which is quite easy I have found) to match some of their 3rd edition counterparts.

For example, City of the Spider Queen uses an 'Advanced Chuul' which by itself is an EL14 encounter (which is probably on the hard side for a level 12-13 party). So I looked at what would be a 'hard' encounter for my party (level 13), and that came out to be about a CR15 monsters based on the DMG encounter guidelines. I then leveled up the Chuul to have appropriate hit points and DPR for a CR15 monster.

1:1 conversions definitely don't work for the reasons you've stated.

My point was more along the lines of though the "Save or Else" effects have been toned down on a lot of monsters. For example, the Beholder I have run in 5e wasn't anywhere near as scary as the Beholders I have ran in previous editions.
The only real "bad" thing it did was disintegrate the bow of the main archer of the group. He didn't have a backup so they had to Word of Recall back out of the dungeon.

The players still thought it was a hard fight though, so as mentioned earlier, I guess that's a win-win.