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Do you think 5e is deadly enough and do you finish off downed characters?
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8414267" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>Unfortunately, I think the game of D&D 5E is built to have what feels like this disparity between combat deadliness and requiring the need to attack downed characters. Because the amount of work it takes to challenge a party to suffer the effects of combat versus the ease at which it takes to kill someone after they start feeling the effects is just too great.</p><p></p><p>What I mean by this is that a party at full health after like level 3 has just so much hit points, healing, and abilities available to them-- plus the fact that they suffer absolutely no degradation of those abilities UNTIL they reach 0 HP... means that any combat they get into will usually require lots of rounds of combat and lots of monsters and lots of effort by the DM to get the party to the point where the combat ultimately feels like it was a "challenge" to them. But once that "challenge" has been reached-- usually by one or more PCs reaching 0 HP-- going off and KILLING that PC is super-easy (if the DM chooses to do it.) I think it ends up not <em>feeling</em> right on all account when it happens. That gap between feeling the effects of combat to then dying from that combat is just too small.</p><p></p><p>I think this is why low-level combat feels much deadlier (and might I say more "challenging") to players? Because at level 1... a monster might only need ONE hit to knock a PC to 0 HP and "feel the effects" of combat... but then it requires TWO MORE hits to actually kill them (via the 3 death save mechanics.) Killing the PC is actually harder than making them feel the effects of the combat. But counter that to adventuring parties with hundreds of HP and dozens of potential healing spells apiece-- the amount of grind it takes a DM to actually get one of them to 0 HP can be long, painful, and repetitive. And I know for my personally... I've occasionally gotten so annoyed at just how much it took to make the combat "challenging" (because like it or not, so long as a PC has their full suite of abilities and are suffering no ill-effects-- which in 5E means everyone who still has at least 1 hit point)... I've swatted downed PCs just out of spite. I ain't proud of it... and usually this is an issue of my own making based on the numbers of players I've allowed into the group and the rewards I've given them up to that point... but I've done it in the moment.</p><p></p><p>And it feels bad. The easy of that punishment doesn't fit the difficulty of the crime.</p><p></p><p>So I know for me... the way to fix this situation is to change the balance on this. In my opinion PCs should "feel the effects" of combat on a much more equal level to getting from feeling the effects to being killed. Which means either having PCs suffer combat effects while they lose hit points before hitting 0 (the Bloodied condition giving combat penalties for example)... or widening the amount of work it takes to kill someone after they've hit 0 HP. Or even both.</p><p></p><p>My personally? This is precisely why I've gone the "replace 3 death saves with the Exhaustion chart" route. Because getting someone to 0 HP then requires 6 "failures" to die, rather than 3. Thus I can hit unconscious characters and not feel bad about it, because its still going to require two or three total hits of that sort to kill them that way. But at the same token, PCs are going to suffer the effects of going to 0 and gaining Exhaustion levels in future combats even if they didn't die (because of the penalties exhaustion puts upon them.) What this means is that Death is no longer the punishment for combat... it's all the issues that come with Exhaustion that will "challenge" them in the future.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 8414267, member: 7006"] Unfortunately, I think the game of D&D 5E is built to have what feels like this disparity between combat deadliness and requiring the need to attack downed characters. Because the amount of work it takes to challenge a party to suffer the effects of combat versus the ease at which it takes to kill someone after they start feeling the effects is just too great. What I mean by this is that a party at full health after like level 3 has just so much hit points, healing, and abilities available to them-- plus the fact that they suffer absolutely no degradation of those abilities UNTIL they reach 0 HP... means that any combat they get into will usually require lots of rounds of combat and lots of monsters and lots of effort by the DM to get the party to the point where the combat ultimately feels like it was a "challenge" to them. But once that "challenge" has been reached-- usually by one or more PCs reaching 0 HP-- going off and KILLING that PC is super-easy (if the DM chooses to do it.) I think it ends up not [I]feeling[/I] right on all account when it happens. That gap between feeling the effects of combat to then dying from that combat is just too small. I think this is why low-level combat feels much deadlier (and might I say more "challenging") to players? Because at level 1... a monster might only need ONE hit to knock a PC to 0 HP and "feel the effects" of combat... but then it requires TWO MORE hits to actually kill them (via the 3 death save mechanics.) Killing the PC is actually harder than making them feel the effects of the combat. But counter that to adventuring parties with hundreds of HP and dozens of potential healing spells apiece-- the amount of grind it takes a DM to actually get one of them to 0 HP can be long, painful, and repetitive. And I know for my personally... I've occasionally gotten so annoyed at just how much it took to make the combat "challenging" (because like it or not, so long as a PC has their full suite of abilities and are suffering no ill-effects-- which in 5E means everyone who still has at least 1 hit point)... I've swatted downed PCs just out of spite. I ain't proud of it... and usually this is an issue of my own making based on the numbers of players I've allowed into the group and the rewards I've given them up to that point... but I've done it in the moment. And it feels bad. The easy of that punishment doesn't fit the difficulty of the crime. So I know for me... the way to fix this situation is to change the balance on this. In my opinion PCs should "feel the effects" of combat on a much more equal level to getting from feeling the effects to being killed. Which means either having PCs suffer combat effects while they lose hit points before hitting 0 (the Bloodied condition giving combat penalties for example)... or widening the amount of work it takes to kill someone after they've hit 0 HP. Or even both. My personally? This is precisely why I've gone the "replace 3 death saves with the Exhaustion chart" route. Because getting someone to 0 HP then requires 6 "failures" to die, rather than 3. Thus I can hit unconscious characters and not feel bad about it, because its still going to require two or three total hits of that sort to kill them that way. But at the same token, PCs are going to suffer the effects of going to 0 and gaining Exhaustion levels in future combats even if they didn't die (because of the penalties exhaustion puts upon them.) What this means is that Death is no longer the punishment for combat... it's all the issues that come with Exhaustion that will "challenge" them in the future. [/QUOTE]
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