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

[TiQuinn]

Or your 1e DM used kid gloves. Save or die poison starting at level 1 encounters. Level drains before you could do anything about them. Starting with 1-3 hit points and no con bonus a good portion of the time. No at will cantrips.

If you truly saw fewer 1e PCs die something has gone wrong with either 1e, 5e or both with you I think.

Did you play 1e?

I love how Gary Gygax wrote all these rules that he ended up not even using in his own game, but anyone else who deviated from them was using “kid gloves”.

 

[Oofta]

Seems to me that you agree with me, if you are talking 5e, since as I wrote, you as GM are making the game deadly. Or are you telling me that the 5e CR system, which is what should guide us to make a fair assessment of the system, is deadly as written?

I think the CR system is a starting point but it has to be adjusted based on desired outcome and many other factors. I also don't think there will ever be a system that fits all of the variations of groups, level of resources available and other factors. EDIT: according to everything I've read the 2025 MM will also up the effectiveness of monsters to better match their CR. Something I already have to keep in mind if using KP's Tome of Beasts.

In OD&D we apparently made the game far less deadly than a lot of other groups. In 5E I don't run a particularly deadly game based on preferences of the group but would have no issue cranking up the difficulty.

 

[mamba]

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.

that sounds more like ‘if according to what is being described, the players should locate and disarm the trap, do not roll dice to determine this’. It says nothing about the reverse, it only says ‘reward clever play instead of rolling dice even then’

 

[Umbran]

Maybe you enjoy posting just to annoy people?

Mod Note:
How about you use the ignore feature rather than turn this into an insulting match, hm?

Really, don't make it personal.

 

[Reynard]

that sounds more like ‘if according to what is being described, the players should locate and disarm the trap, do not roll dice to determine this’. It says nothing about the reverse, it only says ‘reward clever play instead of rolling dice even then’

The GM is still allowed to require specific search parameters. Remember, the Gm decides whether an attempted action should result in a skill check, not the player. If the player "searches for traps" only the GM gets to say "you found one" or "roll" or "you don't find one" and only the GM decides how to get to any of those responses. So, a GM who wants a more "player skill" based system never has to allow a roll, and can just grant success or failure based on the PC actions, all by RAW.

 

[Maxperson]

Typical for you, perhaps.

Well, we did play by the rules. So a typical minor orc encounter with 3-4 orcs would not uncommonly TPK the first level group of 5 PCs due to rolled hit points at 1st level. Even the fighter usually had less hit points than a single longsword could do with one hit.

The DM still decided what to throw and when. For that matter I've also played a PC that died at first level. Admittedly it was an elf, so it was destined to happen in any edition, but still.

Sure. The DM could softball encounters if he wanted. Just look at the random encounter tables. That 1st level group with their low hit points could randomly encounter...

1-4 giant badgers with an AC of 4, and 3 attacks, 3-13 giant centipedes with save or die poison each, 2-5 lemures which regenerate and good luck having holy stuff at 1st level, 2-8 troglodytes, 1-3 boring beetles with an AC of 3 and 5 hit dice each, a very young dragon, gelatinous cubes and more. You ran into up to monster table 3 in dungeons.

The outdoor table was even worse, since it didn't care about levels and you would encounter ghouls, gargoyles, dinosaurs, dragons, trolls, and more. All at 1st level unless the DM was softballing those encounters.

So yes, typical for me was typical for the game if playing the encounters tables as written.

 

[Maxperson]

I love how Gary Gygax wrote all these rules that he ended up not even using in his own game, but anyone else who deviated from them was using “kid gloves”.

It was a surprise for me to find out many years later that he didn't play that way. As kids there wasn't really much way for us to know that he didn't run his games that way and we played encounters like the book told us to.

It would have been nice for the books to let us know that we shouldn't randomly throw trolls and gelatinous cubes up against 1st level groups, but the books didn't.

 

[Maxperson]

No more than I am, not killing PCs in my 5e games right out of the gate. The DM in 5e can kill the PCs whenever he wants, just as the DM in 1e could. The DM in those 1e games wasn't choosing to, and neither am I.

The major difference is that 5e tells you what encounters are balanced against 1st level groups and suggests encounters that can be handled. 1e told you to send trolls and dragons at 1st level PCs with 1 hit point. Further, 5e gives you max hit points, abilities usable every round instead of 1 ability used once in a day, better armor at 1st level on average, and more. PC survivability is vastly greater in 5e, 4e and even 3e.

 

[Oofta]

Well, we did play by the rules. So a typical minor orc encounter with 3-4 orcs would not uncommonly TPK the first level group of 5 PCs due to rolled hit points at 1st level. Even the fighter usually had less hit points than a single longsword could do with one hit.

Sure. The DM could softball encounters if he wanted. Just look at the random encounter tables. That 1st level group with their low hit points could randomly encounter...

1-4 giant badgers with an AC of 4, and 3 attacks, 3-13 giant centipedes with save or die poison each, 2-5 lemures which regenerate and good luck having holy stuff at 1st level, 2-8 troglodytes, 1-3 boring beetles with an AC of 3 and 5 hit dice each, a very young dragon, gelatinous cubes and more. You ran into up to monster table 3 in dungeons.

The outdoor table was even worse, since it didn't care about levels and you would encounter ghouls, gargoyles, dinosaurs, dragons, trolls, and more. All at 1st level unless the DM was softballing those encounters.

So yes, typical for me was typical for the game if playing the encounters tables as written.

Well, it has been close to half a century since I've played OD&D so I don't remember every detail of how we did it, but I don't remember a high death count in games we played. Did we all "softball" it when we DMed? Maybe. I know we invented things like blessed pools that would heal or even raise dead, although the latter destroyed the magic of the pool.

D&D has always been customized based on what experience people wanted in my experience. I don't care and I don't see how it matters. Especially with OD&D, everyone was still trying to figure out what the game was supposed to be.

 

[Oofta]

The major difference is that 5e tells you what encounters are balanced against 1st level groups and suggests encounters that can be handled. 1e told you to send trolls and dragons at 1st level PCs with 1 hit point. Further, 5e gives you max hit points, abilities usable every round instead of 1 ability used once in a day, better armor at 1st level on average, and more. PC survivability is vastly greater in 5e, 4e and even 3e.

When did we get encounter guidelines? Because I don't remember them any in OD&D or 1E. There might have been some in 2E, based on XP. The closest we got was the random encounter tables, but random encounters led to us fleeing as often as fighting.