D&D 5E Making Combat Mean Something [+]

[EzekielRaiden]

Last point - surrendering, calling a truce or running away may be a viable option now when the alternative is much worse.

Surrender almost always means giving up your objective anyway--often worse than dying in most adventures. You're enslaved, or imprisoned, or killed, or worse. There's a good reason most players refuse to consider surrender. If you're going to do this, you'd better make sure to communicate to your players that "surrender" does not mean all the usual horrible awful baggage that comes with it, and that it's actually possible to request a "truce" and have that not be an absolutely horrible and unacceptable choice.

To be clear in a typical 4 hours session for me there’s probably a 25% chance of a player dropping to 0 hp. What is important is that in any encounter a character might drop to 0 hp.

I find these odds extremely unlikely given my experience of 5e combat (the odds are much more like 50% even for games with few combats), but even if we take this seriously, you are then saying that you want approximately a 1-in-24 (about 4.17%) chance of a character death every single session. Or, to put that in slightly different terms, you want approximately 2 character deaths every year assuming weekly sessions (52 weeks with a 1/24 chance of a character death gives 2.6 average deaths per year, SD 1.57) purely due to death by 0-hp exhaustion. This is excluding any other source of death, e.g. failing death saves.

I don’t except your premise as per my previous post. The chance of falling to 0 from a crit hit may be there, but the reality with a party of four it doesn’t happen very often. I have a group of experienced (dare I say too experienced) players they don’t (generally) make bad choices and fluff decisions. Characters are dropping to zero in 25% of sessions at most. Add in the reduced number of combats, this is a balancing mechanism to add danger where it otherwise wouldn’t exist.

See my above math. You're getting on average 2-3 deaths a year from this. Possibly more, since there's something of a domino effect in D&D stuff--I'm just working off of your stated expectation that someone drops to 0 HP in only 25% of sessions. And, as I said, my experience with 5e combat indicates that that is wildly underestimating the actual rate.

If the party fight as a team we may find the wizard standing over the fighters prone body trying to defend him.

Your proposed rules do not give any incentive for fighting like a team. They in fact do very much the opposite. It is every man for himself, because a single bad round is enough to put you at risk of instant death. The rules you have proposed will punish players who make desperate last stands unless they have already accepted and embraced that their death is inevitable. That is the whole point of (as you term it) "making combat mean something." To go into combat is to court death. This creates the incentive: "Do everything you can to avoid combat, and if you engage in combat and it goes poorly, do everything you can to escape." If that is an incentive you wish your players to heed, go right ahead. It's not one I would want, but in all seriousness, my opinion of it is irrelevant; I just believe you should go into this eyes-open.

 

[TheSword]

You could literally play a Wizard to 20th level, never make a single attack roll, and kill more things than your party Martial.

I do like the idea of the second level of exhaustion that gives disadvantage to attack rolls, also giving targets against your spells advantage on their saving throws.

 

[TheSword]

Surrender almost always means giving up your objective anyway--often worse than dying in most adventures. You're enslaved, or imprisoned, or killed, or worse. There's a good reason most players refuse to consider surrender. If you're going to do this, you'd better make sure to communicate to your players that "surrender" does not mean all the usual horrible awful baggage that comes with it, and that it's actually possible to request a "truce" and have that not be an absolutely horrible and unacceptable choice.

And there is the rub. You are right. But fighting at an optimal level until death does nothing to counter this. The risk of continued fighting being greater than the risk of what will happen when captured is the only way to encourage it.

I find these odds extremely unlikely given my experience of 5e combat (the odds are much more like 50% even for games with few combats), but even if we take this seriously, you are then saying that you want approximately a 1-in-24 (about 4.17%) chance of a character death every single session. Or, to put that in slightly different terms, you want approximately 2 character deaths every year assuming weekly sessions (52 weeks with a 1/24 chance of a character death gives 2.6 average deaths per year, SD 1.57) purely due to death by 0-hp exhaustion. This is excluding any other source of death, e.g. failing death saves.

See my above math. You're getting on average 2-3 deaths a year from this. Possibly more, since there's something of a domino effect in D&D stuff--I'm just working off of your stated expectation that someone drops to 0 HP in only 25% of sessions. And, as I said, my experience with 5e combat indicates that that is wildly underestimating the actual rate.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Unless of course the PCs get very creative and avoid equal fights.

Your proposed rules do not give any incentive for fighting like a team. They in fact do very much the opposite. It is every man for himself, because a single bad round is enough to put you at risk of instant death. The rules you have proposed will punish players who make desperate last stands unless they have already accepted and embraced that their death is inevitable. That is the whole point of (as you term it) "making combat mean something." To go into combat is to court death. This creates the incentive: "Do everything you can to avoid combat, and if you engage in combat and it goes poorly, do everything you can to escape." If that is an incentive you wish your players to heed, go right ahead. It's not one I would want, but in all seriousness, my opinion of it is irrelevant; I just believe you should go into this eyes-open.

A desperate last stand isn’t desperate when there is no consequence to it. Its not heroic when you pop up to full health and hit points shortly after.

There are times when fighting is necessary and times when it isn’t. Folks wouldn’t be adventures if they weren’t willing to take risks. Otherwise they would go and be a farmer. In my experience players with reasonable team work take calculated risks all the time for the good of the group - wizards do take some hits in combat to save the fighter as a last resort. Maybe that’s why i see fewer PCs drop to zero hp.

All too often I see player X say, well we can’t get away from this fight because player Y is unconscious inside the creatures threatened area. So we might as well carry on. The thought of abandoning one of the team causes players to act irrationally and either the campaign ends or the players win. Every… single… time…

Now if player Y isn’t unconscious but can actually act albeit heavily restrained this is less of an issues. Also if player Y is killed outright, this is also less of an issue. He’s dead, the damage is done.

My eyes are fully open.

 

[Flamestrike]

I’m not a fan of gritty realism healing because it just slows down time, it’s the equivalent of just packing more into a day artificially.

No it doesnt do anything of the sort.

If you're getting 0-3 encounters per day, and not more than 3-5 days featuring combat encounters between downtime and resting opportunities, then it's literally perfect for a campaign like yours.

You wind up with 6-8 encounters per long rest, with 2-3 short rests over that time period.

I don’t like the fact that long rest abilities only kick in once a week.

It's a lot better idea than wrecking martial PCs, forcing them to suck badly (disadvantage on all rolls they make, denying Rogues sneak attack) for no other reason than doing their jobs (while casters get to push on largely unaffected) and entrenching/ incentivizing the 5MWD (which further widens the martial/ caster gap).

Do you want to compare a Wizard 5 vs a Fighter 5 or Rogue 5 with 4 levels of Exhaustion, round by round?

It's your game so do what you want, but you posted for observations and those are mine.

 

[TheSword]

No it doesnt do anything of the sort.

If you're getting 0-3 encounters per day, and not more than 3-5 days featuring combat encounters between downtime and resting opportunities, then it's literally perfect for a campaign like yours.

You wind up with 6-8 encounters per long rest, with 2-3 short rests over that time period.

That isn’t a given. There will be peaks and troughs and I don’t want to artificially put constraints on adventure design and player action by playing the resource game to add risk. I just don’t think it works very well.

It's a lot better idea than wrecking martial PCs, forcing them to suck badly (disadvantage on all rolls they make, denying Rogues sneak attack) for no other reason than doing their jobs (while casters get to push on largely unaffected) and entrenching/ incentivizing the 5MWD (which further widens the martial/ caster gap).

Do you want to compare a Wizard 5 vs a Fighter 5 or Rogue 5 with 4 levels of Exhaustion, round by round?

By your rationale Exhaustion as a fundamental rule hurts martials more. That may be the case but it’s balanced in other ways. I don’t believe in the martial-caster gap, it’s a function of play style. I’ve never encountered it in 30 years of playing. Or rather a problem of perspective and white room theory crafting. I’m not really interested in seeing the thread descend into a caster martial debate.

If it makes it easier, assume every character in this campaign is a martial.

 

[TheSword]

Incidentally with the one-D&D playtest rules I would replace the d6 with 1d12-1 exhaustion levels. Or possibly 2d6-1 if I wanted to reduce instant death but increase the chance of follow up death. In fact the latter would reduce the chance of that instant death on the first hit - but make the impact of the lingering wound longer and harder to heal.

 

[Mort]

If it makes it easier, assume every character in this campaign is a martial.

Unless players have no other choice, why would they play a martial in this type of campaign?

You're clearly trying to emphasize exploration and social. Tiers martials (fighters and barbarians particularly) have very few ways to excel, or even be competent in. Unless forced, why would a player choose to play a martial in such an environment?

 

[DND_Reborn]

I don’t believe in the martial-caster gap, it’s a function of play style. I’ve never encountered it in 30 years of playing. Or rather a problem of perspective and white room theory crafting. I’m not really interested in seeing the thread descend into a caster martial debate.

I agree 100%. It has never been a problem for me or any group I've played in, either.

Back to the thread topic....

Casters make attack rolls often with their spells, and if it does really bother people, granting targets advantage on saves vs. spells at 3 levels of exhaustion COMPLETELY levels the field.

Personally, I wouldn't do this and have never found the need. Other than cantrips, spells are finite, while weapon attacks are infinite.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My eyes are fully open.

Okay, well...you're literally describing a situation where you want the players to act less like a team and be more selfish, after having said, "If the party fight as a team we may find the wizard standing over the fighters prone body trying to defend him." Those two things are not compatible. Either you want them to act more like a team, which these rules will not support (and will in fact oppose), or you want them to act more like homo economicus, people who are "consistently rational and narrowly self-interested," and thus willing to abandon a friend if it means surviving and not willing to engage in a fight even if it means preventing a murder.

If that's what you meant by "if the party fight as a team," then you're just using a definition of teamwork that is entirely alien to me. If it isn't what you meant, I'm confused as to how you are making these two inherently contradictory goals (encourage teamwork; encourage consistently rational and narrowly self-interested behavior) actually play nice.

 

[Lanefan]

Movement penalties matter less when you can teleport, or fly. [...]

Meanwhile the casters can Fireball, Hypnotic pattern, Magic missile, Heat Metal, Animate Objects, Wall of Force, Dominate person, Hold Person, Sleep, non attack roll damaging cantrips etc etc etc and able to Teleport via Misty Step etc with impunity?

I believe the OP is intending to run in the 3rd-7th level range, so some of those e.g. Wall of Force, Teleport, etc. are likely off the table.

That said, there's certainly room to have injuries knock back the casters (Clerics too!) more than they do now under these proposals. I suggested a spell-slot reduction tied to exhaustion upthread; got any other ideas?

Who would you rather be playing in the above; the Wizard (disadvantage to attack rolls, half HP, disadvantage to Skills) or the Rogue and Fighter?

Who does the rule hurt the most?

Half h.p. if you're a Wizard could hurt a lot, as half of not much is quite little.