D&D 5E Banshee Wail: 0 hp and stable or 0 hp and dying?

[Nebulous]

Is that a third party product? If so, who sells it?

It's on the DMs Guild. It goes through every monster in the core MM and expands on them with variants, much like 4e did. It's what WotC should have done with a MM2. I believe there are 6 or 7 types of ogre now instead of the boring entry in the core book.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

For me at least, there's a lot more tension when PC(s) are unconscious and the rest of the party is scrambling to save them. This will often play out over several rounds, or RL minutes, creating a lot of tension at the table as the party struggles to stay alive and save their friend. I should mention that I wrote a program that randomizes initiative every round, that way no one knows if the healing will arrive in time, which certainly helps with this.

That reflects my experience as well. One PC insta-dying is annoying rather than scary, I mean the threat is scary initially but as soon as it actually happens, it becomes an inconvenience, meaning either a time out (usually undeserved, unlike many HP drop deaths) whilst you wait on a res, or rolling a new PC, which, depending on the edition and your previous PC may be anything from a mild relief to a huge time-waster. A 1000 word backstory and months of play has never changed it from "Ugh" to actually scary.

Whereas 0HP in 4E and 5E has produced numerous high tension situations and made deaths feel far more earned and lead to much more "What could we have done better?!" soul-searching from PCs. Being on 0HP or even 4HP is terrifying because its ongoing and might be fixed or not. Dropping straight to dead is just like "Well that happened...".

 

[Shiroiken]

A banshee to me should be the powerful undead. I get that it's still got some bite, but it's waaaay diminished from prior editions.

Many creatures that were "save or die" have become lower CR monsters than you'd expect, because they made it harder to actually die from the effect. The cockatrice, basilisk, and medusa got the same treatment IMO.

 

[Maxperson]

Many creatures that were "save or die" have become lower CR monsters than you'd expect, because they made it harder to actually die from the effect. The cockatrice, basilisk, and medusa got the same treatment IMO.

Yeah. I get that it would be weaker, but it seems to me that they could have bumped the numbers and made it a CR 9 or 10, rather than a 4.

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah. I get that it would be weaker, but it seems to me that they could have bumped the numbers and made it a CR 9 or 10, rather than a 4.

Well a quick fix for you would be to drastically raise the Con DC from 13 to 18 to avoid the death wail. Although I doubt a party of five fully healthy PCs would enjoy all going to 0 hit points immediately. But sure, scary!

 

[Nebulous]

Many creatures that were "save or die" have become lower CR monsters than you'd expect, because they made it harder to actually die from the effect. The cockatrice, basilisk, and medusa got the same treatment IMO.

Catobplepas too. Although rolling poorly can still insta-kill you, but it's less likely to happen.