D&D 5E It's so hard to die!

[Asisreo]

It’s just hilarious that people keep complaining that the game is not deadly enough whilst at the same time refusing to use the recommended amount of encounters. I understand that for more story driven pacing six to eight encounters per day will never work, but ‘gritty realism’ is for that.

It doesn't really even have to be 6-8 encounters. It could easily be as low as 3 deadly encounters at a reasonable difficulty.

Actually, it could also be 1 super-deadly encounter as well, but this approach is far more absurd and I'd recommend against it unless you're comfortable having a level 5 party fight a Purple Worm or Death Tyrant for the day.

Its totally possible for them to be victorious but you'll find player death to be much, much more common going this route.

 

[CleverNickName]

Actually, it could also be 1 super-deadly encounter as well, but this approach is far more absurd and I'd recommend against it unless you're comfortable having a level 5 party fight a Purple Worm or Death Tyrant for the day.

Its totally possible for them to be victorious but you'll find player death to be much, much more common going this route.

Yeah, it's possible but I don't recommend it. Well, unless your players are the sort who absolutely must go nova, in every battle, every time, in which case this might be a viable option. They get their epic hours-long battle scene where they get to explode through scenery like the last 15 minutes of a Marvel movie, and then you get to continue the story without having to worry about the "five minute workday."

 

[TheSword]

Party size is the single biggest contributor to this problem (if indeed you see it as a problem).

Believe me. In a party with 3 players it isn’t hard at all to die. A single play drops or is taken out for a round or two and you are 33% less effective. Lose 2 and your 66% less effective. In a party of 3 it’s harder to have a wall protecting back rank characters. There’s also less chance of a character being free to heal.

If you have a bigger group. Consider the massive damage optional rule. Or the rule that you have a level of exhaustion if you drop to 0 hp.

 

[Yardiff]

I'm surprised this thread grew so many pages without anyone mentioning how the shift from 3.x's vancian spell prep to 5e's spontanious casting affects the comparison @Corrosive made . Back in 3.x a healer would need to prepare each spell infividually at the cost of not preparing some other spell in each slot dedicated to a heal. Preparing too many heals meant the healer was curtailing their ability to cast other spells when needed or desired while not preparing enough had the obvious problem of people being likely to die. In 5e preparing a heal spell along with the other spells allows a caster to cast any combination of them in the exact situations needed as often or few times as they have unusedspell slots or needs

Actually in 3.x cleric could spontaneously use healing spells, which means they could memorize any spell they wanted and then sacrifice those spells for a healing spell when needed.

 

[NotAYakk]

Larger parties, if you scale opposition equivalently and focus fire when possible, makes instant-gibbing of individual PCs more likely not less.

 

[Asisreo]

Yeah, it's possible but I don't recommend it. Well, unless your players are the sort who absolutely must go nova, in every battle, every time, in which case this might be a viable option. They get their epic hours-long battle scene where they get to explode through scenery like the last 15 minutes of a Marvel movie, and then you get to continue the story without having to worry about the "five minute workday."

I'll also say that this becomes much more viable at high levels when players have more tools to counter more diverse set of threats.

A level 1 party might be able to survive a Black Pudding encounter if they're well-prepared, optimized, and efficient but having them face a shadow demon of Banshee is basically being unfair.

At the other end of the spectrum, a level 20 party might find a fight against an Ancient and Adult Red Dragon as a tough but appropriate fight to challenge them. Heck, the Tarrasque is basically considered a joke even though it has more adjusted EXP than the aforementioned dragon encounter.

 

[TheSword]

Larger parties, if you scale opposition equivalently and focus fire when possible, makes instant-gibbing of individual PCs more likely not less.

I’m not sure. In a party of 6, it’s possible to create a shield between squishy characters. It’s also much more likely for their to be a spare healer. In a party of three it’s not even a given that there will be a specialist healer, rather than a secondary healer.

Not only that, in a party of 3 when a player goes down - all the enemies force is then directed at the remaining two. So they now take 50% more aggression.

In 5e, death tends to result from being unconscious with no one to heal/the rest of the party leaving you behind/dropping themselves. A bigger party and scaled opposition might make being dropped to 0 more likely, but I think fulfilling one of second conditions is much rarer.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I don't know of a implied setting where this is true. Are temple clerics healing people willy nilly in your world? I think 80% of the people in my world have never seen a healing happen. And are the bad guys living in caves in the wilderness more up to date than the citizens? I don't see the heavy rules knowledge players have about the game being common knowledge to a lot of bad guys. If it is high level enemy of great power then sure. Most people aren't that.

I don’t know of an example where this is false. Phandelver, a podunk village, has a shrine to Avandra with a keeper that supplies healing potions. Any PC or NPC proficient in Herbalism tools can create more.

Every settlement larger than a village is littered with multiple temples and shrines, and while not all priests are clerics, people expect their gods to provide healing as well as spiritual counsel.

While unintelligent monsters may not have access to healing magic, monstrous humanoids all have shamen with access to healing magic and the more militaristic goblinoids likely have dedicated healers and quartermasters.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Have you tried throwing 88 opponents at your party???

Warning: lots of blood!

 

[Stalker0]

Larger parties, if you scale opposition equivalently and focus fire when possible, makes instant-gibbing of individual PCs more likely not less.

The issue is table time. If you have more players combat already takes longer. More monsters and now it’s even longer.

there are ways to be more efficient at that but it’s just simple math. The more rolls the more time things are going to take to resolve