D&D (2024) A realization about Monster Crits and Death Saves

[Chaosmancer]

There has been some discussion about what no critting for 1D&D Monsters might mean, but I'm making a "basic rules overview" document and I just realized... Monsters not being allowed to crit means that hitting a downed player is only a single death save fail, not two.

I think I like this? But it is certainly very different from what we are used to.

 

[Stalker0]

Certainly possible. Or there may be changes tk the death saves and/or coup de grace rules that keep that in. We will wait and see

 

[ReshiIRE]

That is definitely a positive change from the crit rulles. It is too harsh to make it so that one attack can potentially outright kill a character in death saving throws. If a player character is in the dying state and the GM is making a character delibertly attack that person, then the risk from dying is already much higher than usual; having all attacks in that state be crits makes things less flexible and less controllable by the GM and player.

 

[the Jester]

I guess I'm the exception in that I think 5e is already so easy on the players that the last thing it needs is ANYTHING that turns the difficulty level down even more.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I guess I'm the exception in that I think 5e is already so easy on the players that the last thing it needs is ANYTHING that turns the difficulty level down even more.

I certainly understand what you are saying and implicating with your statement and on the face of it I do not disagree. But I will say that I have always found that the difficulty on a DMs part to cause real stakes for players was never that that I couldn't kill any one singular character... but rather it was the difficulty in making things challenging for the party on the whole.

To me, killing A character is easy... the monsters just bum-rush one PC, whale away on them, and then when they hit 0 just thwack them a few times and they're dead. But doing that does nothing to challenge the rest of the party and they will most certainly have an incredibly easy time of things based on potential healing and the number of HP spread out across their group, and with all the monsters now in a circle and exposing their backs around that one downed PC.

So to me it's the possibility of getting say 3 or more PCs down and making death saves that is the hard part. That's where I'd say players have it easier. I don't care if any of them die or not... I just want the tensions high as the remaining half of the group need to make hard decisions and split their time stabilizing their comrades while also taking the monsters out.

To me, generating that kind of mass damage across the board to all of the party that's the hard part of combat from the DM side of things. And is also why it doesn't bother me personally if thwacking an Unconscious PC only would now cause a single automatic death save rather than auto-critting and doing two. I don't need the help in killing someone, I need help in cutting large swathes through the party on the whole.

But everyone has their own checks and balances on what they find is needed and I would not argue their needs.

 

[Stalker0]

I guess I'm the exception in that I think 5e is already so easy on the players that the last thing it needs is ANYTHING that turns the difficulty level down even more.

I am with you, but I am also in the camp that says "we have to wait and see what monsters look like before we can comment".

A few examples: Perhaps monsters in general will receive an increase to damage, now that WOTC doesn't have to worry about the once in a blue moon super crit killing a player, they can just flat out make monsters more dangerous in general. Or....maybe monsters get their own version of inspiration, where you can spend it to give a monster max damage on a hit or something. Or crits will exist for specific monsters, and be like 3x damage, but that is effectively the "monster's special ability". etc etc.

 

[CleverNickName]

That is definitely a positive change from the crit rulles. It is too harsh to make it so that one attack can potentially outright kill a character in death saving throws. If a player character is in the dying state and the GM is making a character delibertly attack that person, then the risk from dying is already much higher than usual; having all attacks in that state be crits makes things less flexible and less controllable by the GM and player.

We house-ruled this a while ago, for all the reasons you listed. At my table, a character or NPC cannot fail more than one death save throw at a time.

(That's right, I wrote 'NPC.' My NPCs also get death saves, to make capture/nonlethal combat resolution easier.)

 

[OB1]

This was a consequence of my house rule that characters are slowed (as per the spell) rather than unconscious at 0 HP (with the slowed effect lasting until the character makes a DC19 Con save at the end of their turn while above 0HP) and it works out just fine. Of course, the PCs remaining on their feet at 0HP also means they tend to take a lot more attacks as well We went back to the standard rule for 0HP while testing the new rules in Spelljammer (taking a break from our main campaign) and I'm as of yet undecided whether I'll continue to use the houserule with the OneD&D ruleset.

 

[ReshiIRE]

We house-ruled this a while ago, for all the reasons you listed. At my table, a character or NPC cannot fail more than one death save throw at a time.

(That's right, I wrote 'NPC.' My NPCs also get death saves, to make capture/nonlethal combat resolution easier.)

Right, I forget "important monsters or characters having death saves" is a homebrew style deal in 5e. That I would like to see added - not only to make capture and nonlethal combat easier, but to set up trickier combats and provide moral dilemas to the world.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I am with you, but I am also in the camp that says "we have to wait and see what monsters look like before we can comment".

A few examples: Perhaps monsters in general will receive an increase to damage, now that WOTC doesn't have to worry about the once in a blue moon super crit killing a player, they can just flat out make monsters more dangerous in general. Or....maybe monsters get their own version of inspiration, where you can spend it to give a monster max damage on a hit or something. Or crits will exist for specific monsters, and be like 3x damage, but that is effectively the "monster's special ability". etc etc.

This is why playtesting the no-crits rule without those things is pointless. It shouldn't even be in the UA.