D&D 5E Advice needed: is it ok to kill a player’s character if he is not there!

[S'mon]

Is the character active and present and earning experience and treasure when the player is not present?

Yes? They are fair game. Kill them if you would kill a present PC in the same circumstance.

No? They disappear off screen for the duration into the same invincible narrative pocket dimension familiars disappear into.

I definitely prefer to have PC absent (& unharmed) when player absent. But many players ask for someone else to play their PC. In that case they're just as legitimate a target as any other PC.

 

[S'mon]

Personally, I find your solution of “if the player isn’t there, the character isn’t there; they can’t die but they don’t gain XP” to be the solution that works best for me.

That's my preferred approach for a session absence. If an absent player asks for their PC to be present & played by someone else, they take the same risks as everyone else.

The OP situation is a bit different - player put the PC in a situation of near inevitable death, then suddenly had to leave. If the PC had had another turn I'd prob have had them disengage-flee-stay alive, but as it is they would have died whether player present or absent.

If people can't take their PC dying, or not dying without their permission, I'd rather not play with them, that's not the kind of game I'm interested in running and I'd lose interest pretty fast. Although I've run games with easy raise dead & games with rules that make PC death harder, generally as part of genre conventions.

 

[Zardnaar]

This. It isn’t intrinsically ok or not ok. Whether or not it’s acceptable is something that should be decided before gameplay starts, and that should be the expectation moving forward.

Since that doesn’t seem to have happened here, you should use this opportunity to set the precedent moving forward. Talk to your players, not to ENWorld, about whether they think it should be ok to kill a PC when the player isn’t present, and if not, what should happen to the character instead. Then whatever decision you come to as a group, that’s what you should do both in this specific instance, and moving forward.

This. If the player said it's ok for others to run his PC it's 100% fine.

Even without this in the situation described they bailed mid combat when PC could die.

So it really depends on a lot of factors, who you're playing with trust etc.

Personally I would be fine be but I would ask another player to run it.

Failing that apologize and ask DM what's the deal is I have to bail asap.

 

[DEFCON 1]

One other option is to give the player a retconned chance to respond.

Prior to your next session (maybe like 30 minutes before the game starts) meet with the player and flash back to the fight just before the player had to leave. Rogue up ahead... both ettins right there... the hungry hungry goblins milling about. Then just re-run the rogue's battle, allowing the player to actually run his rogue. Because if you do that... the rogue player might see what is happening and be able to react to everything using their entire suite of abilities. As @Mistwell said above... the rogue had Cunning Action disengages or dashes available, if the rogue was 5th level they'd have an Uncanny Dodge at their disposal, and who knows whatever other clever ideas the player might have been able to bust out.

So just re-run it from that point in time and see what happens. If both ettins are still able to pound the rogue unconscious and the goblins then pounce on the body and knock off all his death saves then at least the rogue player had a chance to react to the situation to do something (even if the same result occurred.) But if the rogue was able to survive and get away from the ettins (and then run back to the rest of the party)... then you can say that the rogue was a part of whatever the party's result of the combat was and survived.

Obviously some people can't stand that kind of retcon... but the fact you are asking our opinions tells me that you are willing to at least entertain the notion. So do whatever you think is right.

 

[Blue]

Hopefully this has been settled during either explicitly during your Session 0 or via action in sessions since. If a PC is considered there and can contribute when the player isn't there, they they are there and be captured, killed, be blamed legally for breaking into a noble's mansion, use spell slots, or have any other repercussions.

Especially in the case where the player was there and actively got them into a bad situation.

On the other hand, if you have already shown by action that if a player doesn't show then their character doesn't contribute but also doesn't suffer penalties, then in general no. But since the player left them in the middle of that situation, start next time with them captured or something. Repercussions for what they did do while there.

 

[Krachek]

the ettins knocked him out, but there were STARVING goblins who went after his body and killed him...

...even if that player was present, he wouldnt have got a turn to act before the goblins chomped at him...

If you control monsters like that, PC dying will be usual in your games, so players should start to get used to it right now!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In general, I would not do this to a player. But I also try to avoid situations where a character death is absolutely required by the fiction so that I never NEED to be in a situation like this.

Personally? I'd say (1) take this as a DM lesson learned, and (2) offer the player an easier means to get back to life than you normally would. Maybe a friendly NPC just happens to have a useful one-use ritual scroll on hand, that's been collecting dust because they don't have many friends doing particularly deadly things. Or something.

 

[Unwise]

I know I'm in the minority here, but I'd kill the PC.

Not being at the table is not a protective ward against consequences. What happened was a direct consequence of actions that they took while they were 100% in control of their character.

The only bit I would retcon is, I'd tell them what happened, ask if they have some deus ex machina I don't remember, then give them a chance to have their final words, death scene.

What I do not like to do, is have a PC face fatal consequences of somebody else's decisions or rolls. I don't want the rogue dying because they were scouting ahead, rolled badly and a dragon ate them. Even if those exact decisions/rolls would have happened if they were at the table. So IMO there is a limited protective aura around absent PCs, but it is not as all-powerful as the vast majority of people in this thread are suggesting.

 

[Klaudius Rex]

In general, I would not do this to a player. But I also try to avoid situations where a character death is absolutely required by the fiction so that I never NEED to be in a situation like this.

Personally? I'd say (1) take this as a DM lesson learned, and (2) offer the player an easier means to get back to life than you normally would. Maybe a friendly NPC just happens to have a useful one-use ritual scroll on hand, that's been collecting dust because they don't have many friends doing particularly deadly things. Or something.

yeah...i still cant believe i killed a PC while they wernt there...even in these circumstances, its a HUGE sin as a DM, and lesson learned

 

[Dragonsbane]

Killing a PC who is absent, no matter the reason for not being there, is the total opposite of player agency. Terrible DM decision, reverse now and apologize for poor judgement, move on.