D&D General How Often Should a PC Die in D&D 5e?

[Micah Sweet]

If by "such defeats" you mean quick and random deaths which the player had no chance to take an action to avoid, yes.

So why bother using monsters with paralysis, or petrification, or level drain, or indeed any other "you're screwed, at least for now" effect at all? Are you calling for such things to be removed altogether, and if not, why not? It sounds like to you they're an unalloyed bad.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You obviously get to decide what's enough for you, but I think if I were trying to make this determination this way, I'd probably want to really look at how potent the monsters I was using were supposed to be in the different editions.

(I think the point is plausibly provable this way, I just think it'd need more care. Hell, even getting the difference in what Challenge Rating is telling you between 3d and 5e seems at least vaguely important, here.)

The reason I don't make that differentiation is that in all editions, a pack of ghouls (for example) represents the same thing in the world. Modeling things in a fantasy world is my priority, so if the same ghouls are less dangerous in one edition as opposed to another, than the system is also less dangerous.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So why bother using monsters with paralysis, or petrification, or level drain, or indeed any other "you're screwed, at least for now" effect at all? Are you calling for such things to be removed altogether, and if not, why not? It sounds like to you they're an unalloyed bad.

Well level drain obviously has been gone for good while and should stay so. But other such things are fine defeat conditions, but they work better if they're telegraphed and their effect doesn't rely on just one roll. If there are more decision points along the way, there is more room for tactics.

 

[prabe]

The reason I don't make that differentiation is that in all editions, a pack of ghouls (for example) represents the same thing in the world. Modeling things in a fantasy world is my priority, so if the same ghouls are less dangerous in one edition as opposed to another, than the system is also less dangerous.

Yeah, one of the big differences between us is that for me the setting is important mainly as a place where things happen, and they happen in the game to and around the PCs; the characters and the events matter more to me than the setting does. I'm not trying to model anything, at least not the way you'd use the word.

So, for instance, I know that in the campaign I'm running where the PCs are 6th-level, the things they're interacting with are pointing them in the direction of things connected to the deep history of the setting (using places like the Hopewell Culture sites in Ohio as inspiration for locations in-setting), but I don't yet know where those places will be, or what exactly the PCs will be able to accomplish there (presuming, of course, that the PCs maintain interest in those places and survive getting to them--honestly not completely guaranteed).

 

[Imaro]

This is pretty easy to test. Run the same level, same class PCs against the same group of monsters in different editions and see what happens.

Do the systems line up like this? If so Orcs appear much more dangerous in 3e and 5e than in older editions.

 

[Oofta]

For me, back in ye olden' days we accepted that sometimes your PC dies, and then you make another one and keep playing, because the player was more important than the PC.

Hardly surprising that people have always had different preferences and ways of playing to those preferences.

 

[Reynard]

Yes, and?? Unless you are also choosing your own resolution mechanic and process... which yes anyone can modify the rules.... then in some games this is just description while in others it is the mechanic and process for finding said trap.

From the 5E SRD: In most cases, a trap’s description is clear enough that you can adjudicate whether a character’s actions locate or foil the trap. As with many situations, you shouldn’t allow die rolling to override clever play and good planning. Use your common sense, drawing on the trap’s description to determine what happens.
In other words, characters till need to be looking in the right place even in 5E, so the defining factor is what the GM decides "the right place" means. Ergo, playstyle is the controlling factor here.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well level drain obviously has been gone for good while and should stay so. But other such things are fine defeat conditions, but they work better if they're telegraphed and their effect doesn't rely on just one roll. If there are more decision points along the way, there is more room for tactics.

The more decision points you add in, the less likely to get a positive (as in, the effect happens) result. As it stands in D&D 5e, the number of failures you need for anything actually bad to happen is higher than I'd like.

 

[Oofta]

This is pretty easy to test. Run the same level, same class PCs against the same group of monsters in different editions and see what happens.

I've run two different groups, same level, similar items and for one group it was a cakewalk and the other it was touch and go. So I don't think it's just edition, there are a lot of factors.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, one of the big differences between us is that for me the setting is important mainly as a place where things happen, and they happen in the game to and around the PCs; the characters and the events matter more to me than the setting does. I'm not trying to model anything, at least not the way you'd use the word.

So, for instance, I know that in the campaign I'm running where the PCs are 6th-level, the things they're interacting with are pointing them in the direction of things connected to the deep history of the setting (using places like the Hopewell Culture sites in Ohio as inspiration for locations in-setting), but I don't yet know where those places will be, or what exactly the PCs will be able to accomplish there (presuming, of course, that the PCs maintain interest in those places and survive getting to them--honestly not completely guaranteed).

Yeah, we have quite different priorities. I want very much for the setting to not exist primarily as a backdrop to PC action. I want to model what's in the setting, which includes the PCs and everything around them.