D&D 5E Finding 5th edition too "safe".

[Sacrosanct]

Seriously, though, it's about the pattern I found in AD&D, also. Low level, sure, it's deadly, but you quickly grow out of that. The monsters never get that badass. .

Yep. The AD&D module, Tomb of Horrors is famous for its lack of lethality...


Did you play the same AD&D as everyone else lol? Save or die dude. You didn't grow out of that. One single failed roll and you were toast, instantly. Dragons also did their HP in damage for their breath weapon. So that ancient red just did 88 hp to everyone in the area of effect, which was enough to instantly wipe out most of the party of equal level that the dragon was in HD. And don't forget about all the level draining monsters.

Outgrow lethality and monsters never got bad ass....heh. Thanks. I needed a good laugh

 

[Azzy]

First of all, there's already a couple of threads that cover this perceived issue.

Secondly, house rule it to be more lethal. It's pretty easy, and there are already some suggestions here that should help you address the issue.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Now I will say that 5th edition feels less safe than 4th edition but just not enough to give us that sense of danger and loss.

4e was tricky at higher levels because fights went on for so many rounds which made for so many chances for things to go horribly wrong.

I generally found 4e a little to the easy side of challenging across levels. Tiers had a sort of shock value. When you first played Paragon, the sudden increase in out-of-turn actions could feel a little crazy, but once you got used to it, the overall challenge stayed fairly even across levels, as long as you faced 'level appropriate' challenges, which could vary considerably if you were playing the sandbox style...

5e fights are so short - most of ours are done within 3 rounds and at low levels somebody in our party gets knocked down. This makes it brutal and captures the feel of pre 3e - but only at low levels.

Yep. But that was, IMHX, the feel of pre-3e, specifically AD&D. At low level, randomly deadly to grindy. Fun/challenging through the 'sweet spot' of mid levels. 'Too easy' (not exactly, more like made challenging only by increasingly insane 'gotchyas,' leading to rampant paranoia) at high levels.

Aside from cutting down the hit dice as others have suggested, I would restrict the 3rd level spell Revivify because it does undermine lethality, or just ramp up the monsters and drawn those fights out.

You can always make 5e deadly by throwing enough monsters at the party, assuming they can stand up to the party's AE capacity (whether through toughness or good tactics), thanks to bounded accuracy.

I actually liked the addition of Revivify in 3e (I think it was 3e, that was when I noticed it, anyway). To me it comes off as dramatic life-saving, while actual Raising seems to cheapen death.

Did you play the same AD&D as everyone else lol? Save or die dude. You didn't grow out of that. ...

Sometimes I wonder.
Mostly I think I just didn't forget as much of it.
For instance, you absolutely did 'grow out of' SoDs in 1e. At high level, "save: neg" started to mean 'does nothing.'

"SoD" only became the win (or lose) button (and the acronym) when 3e gave everyone 'bad' saves that stayed bad no matter what level you got to and let you powergame untouchable save DCs. That's something D&D never recovered from. In 4e, you'd have a Non-AC defense or two that couldn't keep up with the treadmill, and in 5e most classes have 4 bad saves.

That's another thing you could do if you want more dead PCs, Corpsetaker, introduce some SoDs.

 

[mellored]

Give people 1 death save.

 

[Tinker-TDC]

My increase in lethality works more like this:
Long rests regain half of your hit dice (no overnight healing, just half your hit dice)
You can only use 1 hit-die per hour (once per short rest)
If an attack brings you to negative Constitution score (score, not modifier) it is lethal (this one actually tends to make level 1 less lethal than vanilla rules, but higher levels it is much more deadly)

 

[Sacrosanct]

Sometimes I wonder.
Mostly I think I just didn't forget as much of it.
For instance, you absolutely did 'grow out of' SoDs in 1e. At high level, "save: neg" started to mean 'does nothing.' .

I think your memory is a bit clouded. A 12th level PC still failed on a 7-9 or lower. That's still a great chance to instantly die, even at high levels. A 9th level (and name level meant something in AD&D*) PC still had roughly a 50% chance of missing their save or die. That's huge. Not sure what AD&D you were playing, but it doesn't sound like the same saving throw tables everyone else was using. I don't know of any other edition where at high level, you still had a 50% chance of instantly dying.

*AD&D isn't like 3e, where making it to level 9 was easy and fast. That was end game material for most AD&D adventures, and took a while to get there.

 

[feartheminotaur]

Yep. The AD&D module, Tomb of Horrors is famous for its lack of lethality...

That's a little disingenuous since ToH was made specifically to be deadly. ToH was a reaction to notable players saying they could beat any challenge and, which...hey, is just like this thread, only Gygax responded with more demi-liches and less gum flapping then we are here.

 

[Wuzzard]

Why give up all the other improvements that have been added to the game since 2nd Ed, when you can just easily adjust the game to make it more lethal?

 

[MechaPilot]

In most editions of D&D it's crazy-easy to jack up the lethality with a minimum of work.

If you want 5e to run more like 2e, I would suggest the following houserules:
1) Remove HDs completely.
2) Change overnight healing to only 1 HP per long rest regardless of character level.
3) Remove death saves: characters automatically die when they reach zero HPs.
4) Being raised from the dead causes your Con score to drop by 1 each time it happens.
5) Remove Ability Score increases from all the classes.
6) Change the MM's life drain ability from reducing max HPs on a hit to requiring a save to avoid losing a level.

 

[Oofta]

Just hit people when they're down. Hitting a dying character causes a death save, two if it's within five feet.