D&D 5E Automatic Damage from Features??

[Krachek]

Power word kill and other power word has this kind of effect if you qualify.

 

[Shiroiken]

Maddening Hex deals Cha mod psychic damage to the target and others of your choice within 5 ft. It's not much, but automatic damage with a bonus action is pretty useful.

 

[Stoutstien]

Well, the monsters the PCs faces use minions, of course, but the monsters rarely face PC "minions", since the PCs don't use them...

Otherwise, I suppose it would be.

Familiars, conjure X, hirelings, animate dead, ..

 

[DND_Reborn]

Familiars, conjure X, hirelings, animate dead, ..

Right... again, they really don't use them. I think we've had just one familiar. The closest thing was a bag of tricks we had which a sorcerer would use, but typically only 1-2 animals were really of any use, and of course easily destroyed.

 

[Quartz]

Damage auras can be used to warn PCs that this is a serious challenge, maybe one beyond them. For instance if you have the critter wade through mooks killing them all it gives the PCs a round or two to prepare - or flee.

 

[Stoutstien]

Right... again, they really don't use them. I think we've had just one familiar. The closest thing was a bag of tricks we had which a sorcerer would use, but typically only 1-2 animals were really of any use, and of course easily destroyed.

In that case if it's not worth the table time then cut it or replace it with something that is. You can even still keep the same effect by just having a line that says that any creature below a certain CR just dies if they were within a certain distance. Same for the auto hitting attack like options.
No reason to waste prep or table time on something that's not going going to be noticable unless it serves a bigger purpose than a handful of damage.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts. I'm still not a big supporter of it, but those are good points.

For me, a pet peeve is small damage. The fire type auras and such which deal minor (relatively) damage is a hassle for bookkeeping and a waste of time, period, but I can understand the other side, too.

It raises the stakes when someone drops to 0Hp in the aura though.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Flames of Phlegethos too.

I'm mixed on auto-damage. It's fine if telegraphed, but it interacts annoyingly with the concentration mechanic. That's not really the fault of auto-damage though.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Aasimar PC Radiant Consumption ability.

Bounded accuracy makes autohit abilities much less significant than they were in certain other editions anyway.