D&D 5E D&D 5e death and consequences?

[Stalker0]

Many groups have their "thing", that one core thing that just never jives with them. For some its the healing rules, others the frequency of magic items.

For me its the default Raise Dead rules. They are always crazy easy in my eyes.

My games res always requires the old "unfinished destiny" routine...aka it is something special that players cannot expect. Generally dead is dead.


But that said, very easy for me to houserule.

 

[Syntallah]

Many groups have their "thing", that one core thing that just never jives with them. For some its the healing rules, others the frequency of magic items.

For me its the default Raise Dead rules. They are always crazy easy in my eyes.

My games res always requires the old "unfinished destiny" routine...aka it is something special that players cannot expect. Generally dead is dead.


But that said, very easy for me to houserule.

Stalker0 can you elaborate on the unfinished destiny thing? I rolled three critical hits Friday night: two of those resulted in deaths. One of those belonged to a player who has lost two characters in our first five Games of 5E (through no major fault of his own), and he had a bit of a meltdown.

I was going to fudge the availability of a raise dead scroll in the nearest town, but would love to have some sort of story element attached to it...

 

[Thank Dog]

Many groups have their "thing", that one core thing that just never jives with them. For some its the healing rules, others the frequency of magic items.

Dual wielding hand crossbows.

 

[Stalker0]

Stalker0 can you elaborate on the unfinished destiny thing?

In my games, my players generally know that raise dead is not possible. Even for Adventurers, you die, you dead.

But once in a while if it makes sense in story, I will let a player come back. The party may get a vision, hear from his ghost, aka they get some kind of message that the character needs to come back to "finish what he started".

 

[KarinsDad]

Just a sec....



Wow. Thats a good one.

There was a monster in there! We HAD to charge in and fight it. The DM made us!!!!

This only makes sense if the players are led around by the nose and told whom to fight, and where and when.

As a player, if you put up with that then the PC wasn't really yours to control anyway so who cares if it dies?

Not quite true and not totally objective.

On Friday night, our group of 6 3rd level PCs took on 2 higher level fighter types (2 attacks per round) in plate armor riding on warhorses in plate (who could trample PCs and knock prone), 2 higher level archer types (two attacks per round, hiding in trees firing long bows from far away), 4 dogs (mastiffs or some such), and 2 skirmishers (not sure of level, but it took 2 or 3 hits to take them out and they had pack tactics, hence, advantage).


This was not us being led around by the nose at all. It was our third fight at the rear guard camp (HotDQ). Fight #1, we took out the rear guard. Fight #2, we ambushed the group sent to check out no response from the camp. Fight #3, we tried to ambush the second group sent, but they ended up mostly ambushing us. Not only were we not really able to detect their presence until they were right on top of us (my wizard was watching long range with his familiar hawk along with two PCs in the woods watching for them), but when they did show up, the DM played them very smart (i.e. they did not go anywhere near our trap). If they looked too powerful and/or numerous, we had originally planned to avoid the fight completely, but the DM never gave us a chance to do that. We were basically forced to fight or die.

So, we were outnumbered 12 to 6 with at least four higher level foes and multiple foes with mega-powerful attacks. I don't know exactly how much more powerful they were than us, but it did garner us 350 XP each.

We ended up winning the fight, but it was obviously heavily stacked against us by the DM and it could have easily led to a PC death or more. As it turned out, our fighter and cleric are now wearing plate armor. Woo Hoo!


So yes, the DM does create the encounters and decides the NPC actions, so the DM is partially responsible for what happens at the table. He is not solely responsible for what happens at the table, just like no one other player is solely responsible for what happens at the table. But, anyone who does not think that the DM is partially responsible for what happens at the table is not being objective.

By making Raise Dead excessively punitive, a DM is just adding insult to injury.

Most PC deaths are caused by random bad luck, not by player stupidly (at least at our table). And some PC deaths are caused by DM stupidity (i.e. Oops, I made that fight too tough or that trap too lethal or didn't realize how much synergy these two monsters had together). So punishing players every time with harsh Raise Dead houserules seems a bit petty. Death already has consequences.

 

[Henrix]

How a role-playing group handles character death is up to each group.

There is no right way or wrong way, just your way.

Which is why it is not good to have an extreme position hard coded into the PHB.
It gives players (including DMs) a feeling that it must be so - it is in the rules. it can be used to force the DM to allow easy access to Raise even if it does not suit the setting.

 

[aramis erak]

Which is why it is not good to have an extreme position hard coded into the PHB.
It gives players (including DMs) a feeling that it must be so - it is in the rules. it can be used to force the DM to allow easy access to Raise even if it does not suit the setting.

The positions hardcoded into the PH appear to be the defaults for organized play. As such, it's perfectly reasonable to have that position hardcoded, as it's a decent position for organized play, even if it's suboptimal for your home games.

 

[Sadras]

I straight out banned Revivify, Raised Dead and Resurrection for our campaign.
Once when a paladin died, I had the paladin's patron deity come back and asks fellow PCs and family if they would partake in the ritual to bring back her chosen champion, but that the cost would be high.

Anyone partaking in the ritual would lose a permanent hit point, the ones with the highest ability score in each category would permanently lose a point in that specific category, the years of the deceased needed to get repaid (divided equally amongst all those who partook), loss of the most powerful magical item and the PCs were branded on their chests until a quest was done.
Essentially they had to satisfy Hierarchs from the Spheres of Time, Energy, Matter, Thought and Entropy as negotiated by the paladin's patron deity. Steep price, to bring one's own back. So yeah, definitely consequences. Six sessions later the party suffered a TPK. True story.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Not quite true and not totally objective.

On Friday night, our group of 6 3rd level PCs took on 2 higher level fighter types (2 attacks per round) in plate armor riding on warhorses in plate (who could trample PCs and knock prone), 2 higher level archer types (two attacks per round, hiding in trees firing long bows from far away), 4 dogs (mastiffs or some such), and 2 skirmishers (not sure of level, but it took 2 or 3 hits to take them out and they had pack tactics, hence, advantage).


This was not us being led around by the nose at all. It was our third fight at the rear guard camp (HotDQ). Fight #1, we took out the rear guard. Fight #2, we ambushed the group sent to check out no response from the camp. Fight #3, we tried to ambush the second group sent, but they ended up mostly ambushing us. Not only were we not really able to detect their presence until they were right on top of us (my wizard was watching long range with his familiar hawk along with two PCs in the woods watching for them), but when they did show up, the DM played them very smart (i.e. they did not go anywhere near our trap). If they looked too powerful and/or numerous, we had originally planned to avoid the fight completely, but the DM never gave us a chance to do that. We were basically forced to fight or die.

So, we were outnumbered 12 to 6 with at least four higher level foes and multiple foes with mega-powerful attacks. I don't know exactly how much more powerful they were than us, but it did garner us 350 XP each.

We ended up winning the fight, but it was obviously heavily stacked against us by the DM and it could have easily led to a PC death or more. As it turned out, our fighter and cleric are now wearing plate armor. Woo Hoo!

Glad you managed to pull that one off!

The example kind of drives home my point though. HotDQ is very much an adventure path style adventure. As such it assumes certain things, certain basic things like investigate/ attack the camp because the PCs are heroes and that is the adventure.

In these types of adventures not only is the DM partially responsible for the fate of the PCs, he/she is assuming the larger share of that responsibility. To me it seems that no matter how careful your group was, or what precautions were taken, you got ambushed and HAD to fight that group of NPCs because the DM wanted that fight to happen.

If the fights are set piece encounters it is largely the DMs fault if there is a TPK or similar disaster. Removing play at the strategic level from control of the players places a heavier burden on the DM.

So yes, the DM does create the encounters and decides the NPC actions, so the DM is partially responsible for what happens at the table. He is not solely responsible for what happens at the table, just like no one other player is solely responsible for what happens at the table. But, anyone who does not think that the DM is partially responsible for what happens at the table is not being objective.

By making Raise Dead excessively punitive, a DM is just adding insult to injury.

Most PC deaths are caused by random bad luck, not by player stupidly (at least at our table). And some PC deaths are caused by DM stupidity (i.e. Oops, I made that fight too tough or that trap too lethal or didn't realize how much synergy these two monsters had together). So punishing players every time with harsh Raise Dead houserules seems a bit petty. Death already has consequences.

In an open sandbox featuring strategic level control in the hands of the players, the DM isn't really creating specific encounters. The players choose their options, which may or may not lead to combat encounters. The players get to do the majority of determining the nature of combat engagement. With this capability comes the majority of the responsibility of what happens to the party.

Surprises are an exception, but a careful group can take steps to minimize their exposure to ambushes. There is much less weight on the DM in such a campaign which is why I prefer them.

When players have more control over the events that can lead to PC deaths then there is more acceptance of the harsher consequences arising from those deaths.

 

[Henrix]

The positions hardcoded into the PH appear to be the defaults for organized play. As such, it's perfectly reasonable to have that position hardcoded, as it's a decent position for organized play, even if it's suboptimal for your home games.

You raise an interesting question; are the rules primarily written for organized play, or should the organized playing be based on the ordinary rules?