D&D 5E Killing a Teammate

[MechaPilot]

My problem is that her character's still alive, so she shouldn't be making a new character. I don't think it's unreasonable to only allow a player to have one character at a time. I mean, it kind of sucks for her, but that's the consequence of failing the saving throw. Letting her character die feels kind of the same as letting a character die because you rolled bad stats. It's not trusting the dice to make a good story.

I have a few comments and questions.

#1) Do you expect the player to still show up to the game sessions? If so, why do you expect that? Her character is, according to the PHB definition of stunned, unable to move of her own accord, unable to take any actions or reactions, is guaranteed to fail one of the primary saving throws (Dex), and "can speak only falteringly." This means the player will have virtually nothing to do with her character except to say, "I continue to lie there, I guess." Also, if the PC's Int remains at zero then the PC will literally be dumber than a pack animal and will probably not have much to offer through her limited verbal capacity.

#2) If swallowing is considered an action, reaction, or requires that one be able to "move" the character is already going to die of thirst in relatively short order.

#3) If the stunned PC is able to drink and swallow some kind of food, are the other PCs prepared to wash the feces and urine off of the character at least once a day? Do they have the water supply to do that? If not, I assume they're just letting her stew in her own waste, a scent that will surely attract scavengers and/or predators.

#4) Dice don't know how to tell a story, and they are quite literally incapable of doing so: they can only generate random outcomes. The DM turns those outcomes into a story, which is part of why doing it well is difficult. If it "sucks for her" you need to recognize that you are choosing that for her because the story can literally go in any direction that you want it to.

 

[Horwath]

This is such a grey area.

But,
we all have to consider, how likely is that the person in question would survive this kind of travel in his/hers condition?
How likely are other 4 character to die is they drag the person around underdark for months?

They have to move slower, they lose any stealth possibility, climbing, jumping, walking on foot wide ledge over abyss, swimming in underground lakes? two people always under prepared with weapons/shields because they have to carry a stretcher.

by how much do they drop their survival rate by that? 80? 90%?

If it were few days haul, they would all try. But for few months? Its borderline suicidal to even try?
You cant sacrifice 4 people on a remote offchance that one might survive. maybe...




We are all spoiled by hollywood war movies that they always carry wounded back across enemy lines, but in reality for every one carried back there is 10 or 20 that are left behind.

Enemy sniper even count on soldiers compassion to kill even more as they wound/not kill on purpose point soldier so other have to carry him and make themselves easy targets.

 

[S'mon]

If the PC is perma-stunned (I'd probably let them recover 1 INT point/day, personally) then it's very bad DMing to not let the player bring in a new PC. Let the player bring in a new PC, whatever happens to the old one.

 

[Lanliss]

Weak justifications in order to get away with a murder of expedience. The party knows that the PC can be restored to a fully functional state, so no, there is no good reason to "mercy" murder the poor PC. The PC is not going to desire death because she has a 0 int for a time and will then be fully restored. The idea that there might, maybe, some time be that trolls might possibly kill the PC is also not a justification for murder. Even if the party does encounter trolls, the PC is nowhere near guaranteed to be killed, unlike with the murder of expedience you suggest.


It doesn't matter if it would take them a year. Murdering someone, because it might be hard to keep them alive is evil.

The DM has constructed a no-win scenario. These are the facts.

A. PC is broken for 8-10 sessions.
B. Player cannot play for these sessions, because the DM will not allow more than one PC per player.
C. The party cannot kill the broken PC, as they will lose class powers.

So the choices are to be "good guys" in the game, and drag a vegetable through the underdark,while being douches in real life, as they are then helping the DM to exclude this player. Or they can scrap all of their character building in a single action, by killing the broken PC, thus allowing their actual friend to return to the game.

It reads like the DM wanted them to have to pick between kicking this player out of the game, or basically scrapping their current characters.

More importantly, this is a real choice that people make, in real life. "Should I take my loved one off life support, or should I let them live on as a brain dead vegetable?" A very hard question, and I do not think it is fair to say anyone who chooses to remove life support is evil. Except, instead of simply living in a hospital, the brain dead PC will be dragged through one of the most hostile environments you can find, a constant liability to the entire party and, depending on what their quest is, the entire human race. Yes, possibly a bit of an over exaggeration, but also possibly true.

As I said before, it is not simple enough that an outside observer, with limited information from only one of the possible viewpoints, could declare the party to be Evil, while still being fair about it. That would be like walking into a courtroom during the last sentence of a man's defense for killing in self defense, and immediately declaring him guilty of murder, and sentencing him to death. There is just not enough information.

As for in-character justifications, they could number in the billions, on both sides of the argument. We would need to know every character's full backstory, as well as have player notes on EVERY thought the character has, before we can even pretend to know what their character's justifications are for killing or not killing the PC.

 

[BoldItalic]

It's quite simple. The DM is evil.

 

[Kobold Stew]

The DM has failed his players, and needs to provide a means of fixing it.

This was not an interesting challenge for players to overcome: it was a fictional scenario that because of arbitrary decisions has sidelined one player for 8-10 sessions. He presents the issue only in terms of characters, when there are real people involved, investing real time and looking for fun. If I were any of the players in this game, I'd be walking if this issue couldn't be resolved within one session.

Real people, investing real time, trumps any in-game factors.

Bad gaming is worse than no gaming, and the DM is ensuring this is a bad game.

 

[Maxperson]

This is such a grey area.

But,
we all have to consider, how likely is that the person in question would survive this kind of travel in his/hers condition?
How likely are other 4 character to die is they drag the person around underdark for months?

They have to move slower, they lose any stealth possibility, climbing, jumping, walking on foot wide ledge over abyss, swimming in underground lakes? two people always under prepared with weapons/shields because they have to carry a stretcher.

by how much do they drop their survival rate by that? 80? 90%?

If it were few days haul, they would all try. But for few months? Its borderline suicidal to even try?
You cant sacrifice 4 people on a remote offchance that one might survive. maybe...

Right. It's a murder of expedience to save themselves the added trouble and risk. That's evil. It makes some sense, but it's evil.

 

[Maxperson]

The DM has constructed a no-win scenario. These are the facts.

A. PC is broken for 8-10 sessions.
B. Player cannot play for these sessions, because the DM will not allow more than one PC per player.
C. The party cannot kill the broken PC, as they will lose class powers.

The DM has not constructed a no win scenario. Keeping the PC alive is a win. It may be boring for the player unless the DM changes his mind on B, but it's a win for the PCs.

So the choices are to be "good guys" in the game, and drag a vegetable through the underdark,while being douches in real life, as they are then helping the DM to exclude this player. Or they can scrap all of their character building in a single action, by killing the broken PC, thus allowing their actual friend to return to the game.

Personally, if the DM won't budge on B, I like option D better.

Players: "We're going to be playing something else instead of D&D." or "We've decided on a new DM."

The DM made a mistake and refuses to fix it. That's bad. He should be replaced.

More importantly, this is a real choice that people make, in real life. "Should I take my loved one off life support, or should I let them live on as a brain dead vegetable?" A very hard question, and I do not think it is fair to say anyone who chooses to remove life support is evil. Except, instead of simply living in a hospital, the brain dead PC will be dragged through one of the most hostile environments you can find, a constant liability to the entire party and, depending on what their quest is, the entire human race. Yes, possibly a bit of an over exaggeration, but also possibly true.

False Equivalence. The PCs are not faced with that option. Their companion can be fixed as good as new, unlike the real life brain dead choice. Since the PCs know that, killing the PC to save themselves some liability is a murder of expedience and is therefore evil.

As I said before, it is not simple enough that an outside observer, with limited information from only one of the possible viewpoints, could declare the party to be Evil, while still being fair about it. That would be like walking into a courtroom during the last sentence of a man's defense for killing in self defense, and immediately declaring him guilty of murder, and sentencing him to death. There is just not enough information.

I'm not declaring the party to be evil. I'm saying the act is evil. A murder of expedience to save the party some trouble is never anything but. Even if the entire world rested on their shoulders, it would still be an evil act to murder the PC to make things easier on themselves. Perhaps necessary, but still evil.

 

[Horwath]

Right. It's a murder of expedience to save themselves the added trouble and risk. That's evil. It makes some sense, but it's evil.

It's not added trouble.

It is going from expectable survival rate to highly unlikely survival rate.

As I stated, if it were fey days to temble/town/whatever it would be evil not to carry him. This is just non-heroic. Not evil, just not really good.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not added trouble.

It is going from expectable survival rate to highly unlikely survival rate.

That's bupkis. 1) there is no way to calculate whether it's unlikely that they will survive or if they will just be slightly inconvenienced. 2) even if it does make them unlikely to survive, which you can't prove, it's still nothing more than evil murder to execute someone so that you can have a better chance at survival. Necessary maybe, but it won't be anything but an evil and very selfish act.