D&D 5E Do you think 5e is deadly enough and do you finish off downed characters?

Voadam said:

Allow me to expand. It has not been my experience for PCs to spend actions on downed foes in ongoing combats even in AD&D, 3.0, 3.5, or Pathfinder 1e when creatures did not die at 0.

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Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure in all those systems you have negative hit points, and healing an unconscious character only gets them back up if it takes them to positive hit points. I think that makes a huge difference in the threat posed by an unconscious character, and therefore makes spending your action to coup de gras them a much less appealing prospect.

I place no value at all in the 'deadliness' of the game and killing the downed would work at cross purposes for me.

Charlaquin said:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure in all those systems you have negative hit points, and healing an unconscious character only gets them back up if it takes them to positive hit points. I think that makes a huge difference in the threat posed by an unconscious character, and therefore makes spending your action to coup de gras them a much less appealing prospect.

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It's been a long time since 2e but in 3.5 i believe you are correct on how it worked.

Notably on the coup de grace it was very difficult for almost all monsters to even attempt one because of the conditions needed. Even ghoul & ghast were going to have trouble due to their tohit & the save DC after early levels. The fact that those two could cause paralysis in order to do a coup de grace or allow one to happen if there was another intelligent foe present (ie not zombies) is what made them straight up terrifying.

Charlaquin said:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure in all those systems you have negative hit points, and healing an unconscious character only gets them back up if it takes them to positive hit points. I think that makes a huge difference in the threat posed by an unconscious character, and therefore makes spending your action to coup de gras them a much less appealing prospect.

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HP went down to -10 in AD&D and 3e, in PF it was to negative con. A coup de grace in d20 was to try to one shot kill a helpless person, not to kill an unconscious one. It was to cause an auto hit crit that forced a save or die of DC 10+damage.

All you needed to do to kill an unconscious character is inflict enough to go from negative hp to negative 10, usually one normal hit on an unmoving target.

In d20 a first level cure light wounds did 1d8+ level (max 5) hp, generally enough to bring an unconscious but not dead character/monster back to fighting consciousness.

In 5e it is easier to bring someone back from unconscious, it can happen with a common ranged bonus action 1st level spell.

Deset Gled said:

- Yes, 5e combat is very lenient. Not as deadly as I like, but not problematic enough to want to deal with houseruling it.

- "Finishing off" characters is something that rarely makes sense if the monsters aren't meta-gaming. Monsters/enemies should finish off active targets that are still hurting them before taking a second swipe at a downed character. It might make sense for an arch-nemesis character, or a hungry colossal beast that's hunting rather than fighting, but that's about it.

- One thing that I really don't enjoy in 5e (and 4e) is the way that the PCs use different death rules than the enemies. If the PCs can get up so easily after getting knocked down, the NPCs should be doing it often, too. I understand the gamist principles behind making the rules work this way, but it's not a design choice I like.

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The second time a thought dead enemy pops up to fight again if nothing happened, I will finish them off.
But actually, depending on the initiative order, a creature who is healed by a 1d4+5 ability who is prone and have to pick up their weapons are no big threat at all.
Also the cleric can't attack with spiritual weapon or use other bonus actions or cast a non cantrip spell.

So even in the best scenario, where the cleric's initiative is just before the downed character the problem is marginal...

Note, that you can't delay and readying a bonus action is usually a big waste of action economy... I am actually not sure if you can ready bonus actions at all...

The game is deadly enough with alternate rest rule where HP are not recovered overnight. And I will finish off fallen characters but only in a few conditions.
1) The whack a mole has been started. A fallen character has been healed back up and fights. Intelligent villains will finish off fallen character as they would a troll. Two to three hits just to be sure.

2) The enemies are aware of the group's tactics and powers and knows that a fallen character can get back up fast. Intelligent enemies will not hesitate to take a fallen character hostage.

3) The opponent is an animal or has animal like instincts. It will get away with a fallen character if it can get away with the body. A wyvern will fly away, a manticore will do the same.

Undead, however, will always finish off characters unless highly intelligent. Zombies will eat a fallen character. Specters, wraith, weights, shadows and other undead that creat other undead will make sure that a fallen character becomes one of them (or servant undead). Only intelligent undead such as a lich, a mummy lord or a full fledged vampire will act in an other way. All others will try to feast.

UngeheuerLich said:

The second time a thought dead enemy pops up to fight again if nothing happened, I will finish them off.
But actually, depending on the initiative order, a creature who is healed by a 1d4+5 ability who is prone and have to pick up their weapons are no big threat at all.
Also the cleric can't attack with spiritual weapon or use other bonus actions or cast a non cantrip spell.

So even in the best scenario, where the cleric's initiative is just before the downed character the problem is marginal...

Note, that you can't delay and readying a bonus action is usually a big waste of action economy... I am actually not sure if you can ready bonus actions at all...

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Why would needing to pick up their weapons make them "no big threat at all" given the rules?
In my experience as both a GM & player exposed to other players the loss of half movement is a loss of nothing due to the downed player planning to let all of their movement go unused anyways.

Lyxen said:

After that, finish off downed characters depends on the adversaries, but there is always revivify, which partakes of the philosophy above.

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I banned Revivify in my games, except as a Rare treasure item. Having access to 3rd level raise dead removes any tension, and the expensive material component, I found players ignoring it and trying to cast the spell whenever convenient, or focusing all of their efforts on collecting/buying/stealing diamonds. Since the very beginning of 5e I have also used death saves with no modifiers; it is always 10+. Nothing changes that roll, even if you have magic rings or bless or bardic inspiration. I have had to pull punches on more than one occasion to not kill downed PCs. I also don't run D&D past 10th level, but from experience, they get quite hard to kill by 9th, although I know it can be done clear to 20th with the right combination of tactics, I just don't care for the game that high level personally.

We had a weird situation last week where two PCs leapt off the top of a tower on the back of a paladin's "find steed" and used the impact to destroy the horse, but it soaked up enough damage to only knock the PCs unconscious and not kill them outright. Staying on the tower would likely have meant death from the monster, but the player messed up the spell and only afterwards realized it was a 10 minute casting time, not an action. Well, I wasn't going to redo the whole scenario and rewind it, so we just went with it, but if we hadn't botched the spell, that would likely have been two dead PCs.

tetrasodium said:

Why would needing to pick up their weapons make them "no big threat at all" given the rules?

Spoiler: PHB190 interacting with objects around you sidebar

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In my experience as both a GM & player exposed to other players the loss of half movement is a loss of nothing due to the downed player planning to let all of their movement go unused anyways.

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Soneone with two weapon has more problems. Also if someone else took the time to at least kick the weapon away with a free item interaction.

D&D is an RPG... a role playing game. As a DM or a player, my tactics are determined by the personality of the character I am embodying at the moment. The knowledge, instincts, personality and goals of a character, whether PC or NPC, determine what they do when an enemy (or ally) fall.

As for whether D&D is deadly enough... while PCs in my games die, I think the question is flawed. PCs need to be challenged, but threat of death is not the only way to challenge them. If your combats all have to be life and death struggles where PCs barely survive, your PCs will not feel like heroes and it will get frustrating for players. If you feel combat is not deadly enough, I suggest you focus on adding other challenges to combats that PCs can lose even if their lives are not in significant jeopardy. For example, protecting something, stopping something from occurring, catching something before it escapes, deactivating something, capturing something, traveling through unusual environments, solving a strategic challenge (like an under dark rope bridge that is in the center of a 200 foot wide chasm with drow archers on both sides, or fighting your way out of a building that is collapsing/on fire).

Also consider that an individual encounter that depletes rest based resources is doing its job even if hps never drop that low. PCs that use too many resources in the first combat may find combat 3 or 4 before a rest more difficult. This requires there to be a time sensitivity for the PCs that limits how often they are willing to rest, but there are thousands of ways to achieve time sensitivity. One large time sensitive goal that overruns several adventures can do it with little maintanence (for example, recover the three MacGuffins from three sites in the next 20 days).