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

[Lanefan]

I mean, if we allow "ever" then that's a massively different question. You could have the characters wake up resurrected in a cyberpunk future if you want. I find that sort of argument pretty tedious. If it isn't going to functionally happen in the next, say, month? I think we can reasonably call that "not happening."

I had a PC die in early 1984. In the same campaign he was revived in late 1988, only to quickly die again; he was revived a second time in early 1989 and is still going - after a fashion - today.

Needless to say, in early 1984 I rolled up a replacement; and that replacement was Lanefan.

Certainly, the person who played the dead PC isn't going to be super happy about spending the next "I have no idea how many" weeks waiting for the possibility of a resurrection, yeah? At which point you've already asked them to make a new character anyway, or you've literally just shut them out of the game entirely. Either way, it's equivalent to the character actually being permanently dead, they have to give up what they were playing and either not participate whatsoever, or try to invest in a brand-new character.

There's some middle ground here. Oftentimes, if someone's PC is hors de combat for any great length of time and revival or replacement isn't an immediate option I'll get that player to roll for a party NPC or even hand that NPC over to the player to play outright for a while. Other times, a player might want to stick around and just enjoy the entertainment of seeing what happens to the rest of the gang. Or, the player might start banging out a new chaacter right away even if it turns out not to be needed in the long run.

It ain't quite as all-or-nothing as you posit above.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Then we feel very differently about this, which explains our differing preferences. One of the biggest selling points of RPGs to me is the certain level of unpredictability that is often lacking from formulaic fiction.

I'm all for unpredictability stemming from the fact that it's collaborative fiction. I hate the dice getting to choose things and I very much hate a level of unpredictability where it's possible for the game to rob me of my work in designing and developing a character as part of the story.

 

[Lanefan]

Basically, I just don't care for "random orc #12 killed you with a lucky crit" or "random <behir/beholder/whatever> hit you with an instant-death move and you failed your one save to avoid it" stuff, because I find those deaths incredibly boring and story-ending.

Which is fair enough.

That said, do PCs have access to such one-shotting abilities to use on their foes? Can they, for example, knock off the BBEG with a lucky crit? If yes, then the foes should have that same access when it makes sense. If no, we're cool.

 

[prabe]

The style of gameplay I noted really only works well at lower levels when the PCs are still nobodies unless you do a wuxia/xianxia/cultivation type shift to a higher plane where the powerful PCs are nobody again§. Generally somewhere in tier2 or early tier3 of play the leveling pace picks up and straps on rocket boots when 5e PCs can't really be switched over to having their connections grown through a need for better magical gear.


§calculating cultivation is a good (and easily accessible) example of doing that because it happens so many times and within a story mainly about funding the journey to super powers it does a nice job of also looping in the relevant financial aspects far better than d&d tends to do.

I don't think I've done much 5e play wherein the PCs were nobodies, it's not a trope I find useful or enjoyable as DM or as player. This might be a difference in our core preferences.

And while I know vaguely what wuxia is, I gotta admit I'm less clued-in about xianxia or (in this context) cultivation--which I could probably do something about, but it's my point is I'm not deeply familiar with the art forms/genres so the chances are really good that I'm not aiming play at the tropes associated with them. (Which isn't snarking on those tropes, or people who want to embrace them in TRPG play.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

Which is fair enough.

That said, do PCs have access to such one-shotting abilities to use on their foes? Can they, for example, knock off the BBEG with a lucky crit? If yes, then the foes should have that same access when it makes sense. If no, we're cool.

5e expressly just lets bosses no-sell anything that matters 3 times.

 

[Lanefan]

As for "trivial problems," I ... dunno how many of those any of the PCs in the 5e campaigns I've run have encountered. I'm pretty sure all the situations they've encountered, they've treated with gravity appropriate to their seriousness. But I've also been running campaigns very much mostly where the PCs' interests, desires and (ahem) themes have been relevant in play, the PCs haven't been playing through some story I have in a book or my notes.

A band of 20 Orcs raiding some farms near the northern hills is a trivial problem for a 15th-level party but a pretty big headache for a party of raw 1st-level types.

The interests of believability etc. would indicate your 15th-level party will occasionally hear about such (to them) trivialities, even if all the party does is pass the info on so some lower-level types can deal with it.

 

[prabe]

OK, that's fair. Putting it as just "the player left the game because his character died" without further explanation, however, implies a much worse attitude on the player's part; and it was to that I was reacting.

Were it the DM tossing the player because her character died a la what happens to Black Leaf's player in the Chick tract, I'd be barking at the DM instead.

Yeah, I probably wasn't super-clear. While he left when his character died, it was more a matter of that was his opportunity than anything else.

 

[Lanefan]

Limb loss has been a thing in 5e since the 2014 DMG:

View attachment 389380

So it's optional, but it's there. Cool!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So it's optional, but it's there. Cool!

Well, I'm pretty sure it is not in the new DMG anymore.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, I'm pretty sure it is not in the new DMG anymore.

<facepalm>