D&D 5E Do You Think Spare the Dying is a Problem?

[Majoru Oakheart]

Indeed, 5e by default is pretty much tailored for players who never want to die. "Unless you do something incredibly stupid" is a trite formula that means nothing.

Why does it mean nothing? It's our groups philosophy and it works pretty well. To us, if your group chose not to have a cleric in it in order to cast the spell, that's one mistake. If you fight monsters in such a way that you get below 0 hitpoints in the first place(either because you chose to fight monsters that were way too powerful for you or you used tactics that allowed them to get the upper hand on you) then that's another mistake. Then you need to ignore the dying person for a number of rounds and they have to get hit a couple of times or fail a couple of saves.

If you make all those mistakes, one of the party members should die. If you make smarter decisions, you get to live.

The game editors should have just acknowledged that players who never want to die just need a rule in the game that says they cannot die (and the DM comes up with other penalties or consequences).

That is just not satisfactory at all. We want people to die. A game that said "You cannot die" wouldn't satisfy me at all. On the other hand a game that says "If the party gets attacked by a really nasty encounter that prevents them from helping their dying companion the companion dies. But this should happen very rarely" is great.

I think the main difference is that a crit that happens to do enough damage to kill someone outright will happen randomly and none of the players or the DM can predict it. Also, sometimes a number of bad die rolls in a row will end up dropping a PC when the monster probably shouldn't have been all that dangerous.

When you drop there is at least a little bit of added tension. What happens if all the enemies decide to turn on me next round? 3 hits and I die. What happens if I fail my saving throws and the party decides not to heal me because they are busy fighting off the monsters on them? I could die.

Even if 99% of all combats end up with nobody dying, at least there is that 1% chance. Which means each combat has to be taken seriously because this combat COULD be the 1 in 100 where someone dies. Without it, even running the combat seems pointless since the result is already a foregone conclusion.

In fact, it's precisely because it happens to rarely that it adds the tension it does to the game. No one has died...does that mean it's just a matter of time?

If this is left entirely up to DM fiat then every time someone dies it just feels mean and vindictive. We don't want to end up hating each other at the end of the game, so that's just not an option.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Spare The Dying's only real issue is that it highlights player's egos.

As a DM, you can ban the cantrip. But your ego has to accept the idea that your players might not appreciate you doing it.

As a player of a cleric, you can just not take it. But your ego has to accept the idea that your fellow players think you aren't "playing smart".

As a player of some other class, you can acknowledge it not being available to the party. But your ego has to accept the idea that you're choosing to go with character narrative first, and not all min-maxing yourselves to make the game as easy as possible.

Basically, if your ego can accept the idea that even though the cantrip exists you don't have to have it available to your group... then your game is good and can be what you want. But I think too many players can't handle that. They think they're playing badly if strong choices are available and they refuse to take them. They want any potentially really good choices stricken from the game altogether so that they can min-max to their heart's content (and make it feel like they're playing really smart) without "breaking the game" for themselves.

 

[tuxgeo]

I think it needs a bit of work, but it has not been a problem in play so far.

Changes needed: Rename to "Cure Minor Wounds," and change school to Conjuration. I wouldn't worry about the "Swift" casting time: anyone choosing this cantrip should have one or two good weapon attacks available anyway, on general principles. (Those who don't are effectively making it "Casting time: one action" for themselves.)

 

[Storminator]

I haven't played very much Next, but if there's really a problem with this spell, it has to be in the dying rules. The spell itself is pretty mild.

PS

 

[Jester David]

There's a similar spell in Pathfinder which manages to not break that game while also being a cantrip.

Really, this is a two part problem.
Spare the dying isn't broken or a problem in itself, as it's a touch spell so you need to get close enough to use the spell. Which isn't so bad in 5e due to the lack of opportunity attacks and the like. And without a firm grid, it's often easy to get those extra 5-10 feet and cast the spell.
There's also the dying rules which, like in 4e, almost always give you two or three rounds of hanging onto life. Autodeath is rare, especially at higher levels where you have to take a staggering amount of damage in a single hit to die. So the cleric always has at least two rounds to cross the battlefield.

Change the dynamic of any of the factors involved and it's significantly less problematic. If it's easy to be killed outright, or die faster, or harder to get to the fallen, or risker to cast the spare the dying becomes less an issue.

Clerics also only get three cantrips. Out of the current list of 6 that's not a hard choice, but I imagine we'll see more. If the group really doesn't want to die then the cleric can take that spell and it's a choice. If being able to do other things is more important the cleric might opt for thaumaturgy or sacred flame​.

 

[DMZ2112]

I am surprisingly okay with the idea of a ruleset that minimizes the possibility of death as a consequence of routine combat. Death in those circumstances is almost always more disruptive than it is meaningful, and while I do prefer a less "heroic" style to my D&D, I do like PC death to bear weight.

I would much rather see a game where the unconsciousness to death threshold is very high than a game where the consciousness to unconsciousness threshold is very high.

Personally I like this oldie but goodie:

- Incapacitated at 0 HP, Dying at -1 HP, Dead at (negative Con score) HP
- Dying characters make a DC 10 Con save every round or lose 1 HP

Simple to explain, simple to execute. I'll probably keep Spare the Dying as a swift cantrip but limit it to stabilizing rather than healing to 1 HP. This is in line with my attitude about the healer's kit, which is that it should be a full round action to stabilize unless the user has proficiency, in which case it's a standard action.

I think a tough random encounter ought to end with PCs on the floor, but if they can't get up again it's a logistical nightmare.

 

[Mistwell]

Interesting. 31 responses to the poll right now (other than the "secret flame" answer). 17 of those, a majority, are "it's not a problem".

And yet an overwhelming majority of the comments in the thread are that it is a problem.

It's a good microcosm of the problem Mearls highlighted early on in his articles - the majority of people don't agree with those who actually post to the message boards complaining about things in the game...complainers post much more than those who like the direction the game is going in.

Anyway, we've played with it, and not found it to be a problem. When someone goes down, they usually are in a spot the Cleric cannot get to, to touch them, unless he wants to face death himself.

 

[Li Shenron]

Why does it mean nothing? It's our groups philosophy and it works pretty well. To us, if your group chose not to have a cleric in it in order to cast the spell, that's one mistake. If you fight monsters in such a way that you get below 0 hitpoints in the first place(either because you chose to fight monsters that were way too powerful for you or you used tactics that allowed them to get the upper hand on you) then that's another mistake. Then you need to ignore the dying person for a number of rounds and they have to get hit a couple of times or fail a couple of saves.

If you make all those mistakes, one of the party members should die. If you make smarter decisions, you get to live.

It means nothing because it's subjective.

Not having a cleric in the party is a mistake only if the rules make them so.
And if the rules make them so it's because someone decided that not having a cleric should be mistake.

But even assuming that is fine, you're just describing playing badly, not "doing something incredibly stupid".

That is just not satisfactory at all. We want people to die. A game that said "You cannot die" wouldn't satisfy me at all.

...

I think the main difference is that a crit that happens to do enough damage to kill someone outright will happen randomly and none of the players or the DM can predict it. Also, sometimes a number of bad die rolls in a row will end up dropping a PC when the monster probably shouldn't have been all that dangerous.

...

Even if 99% of all combats end up with nobody dying, at least there is that 1% chance. Which means each combat has to be taken seriously because this combat COULD be the 1 in 100 where someone dies. Without it, even running the combat seems pointless since the result is already a foregone conclusion.

Fine, you're describing your preferred gamestyle. If you mean that other gamestyles should not be supported, then we have nothing to say to each other. Just let me know, and I'll stop replying... otherwise continue to read.

IMXP I've seen players mostly divided in two camps: those who don't mind character death, and those who hate it. Probabilities won't help the latter much in the end, because it doesn't matter to them if they died because of a "mistake" (which in many cases is really "not guessing something right") or because of bad dice rolls. For these gaming groups, I suggest just to have a rule that PCs cannot die unless the player and DM together decide it's good for the story. That's not your case. Such rule doesn't have to be the "default" rule, in fact it shouldn't, but my point is that it is so much better to be upfront and tell those players they should not be ashamed if they don't want to play a game where PCs can die, just acknowledge that. World of Warcraft is a game like that, and see how many people play it.

The first camp is that of players who want a chance of death. Here it won't be useful to discuss what this chance should be... your 1% (let's say, in a year of gaming) is just as fine as someone else's 50% in a single adventure (e.g. Tomb of Horror-style). Designers have to make a compromise, and I understand they'd rather keep it close to your 1% than to anything higher.

Still, adding more and more rules at every iteration, designed to save the PC's arses always a bit more, it gives me the feeling they are trying to cater the "don't ever want to die" crowd at the expense of those who want a fairly significant mortality (especially if it comes with stuff narratively hard to digest, such as easy resurrections or second/third winds) and this is always missing the point that only with really zero chance you'll make the second group happy.

 

[Wulfgar76]

Not a problem at all.

The cleric in my group has it and only uses it when he is out of all other spells. Its effect in the broader context of battle is negligible. It's not all that different from pouring a healing potion in the mouth of a fallen party member.

By the way, isn't there a cantrip in 3e/PF that does something nearly identical?
Perhaps because it's new spell, with a new name, it chafes the hides of the "Infinite Magic Cheapens Magic!" crowd around here.

No guys, infinite cantrips doesn't cheapen magic, having three dozen overpowered, auto-scaling, impossible-to-save-against spells at high level does.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Not having a cleric in the party is a mistake only if the rules make them so.
And if the rules make them so it's because someone decided that not having a cleric should be mistake.

But even assuming that is fine, you're just describing playing badly, not "doing something incredibly stupid".

Yes, it's a mistake because the rules make them mistakes. That's the same way all games work. It's only a mistake to sacrifice your queen in Chess because the rules make it your best piece. If the rules made it your worst piece, it wouldn't be a mistake anymore.

It's only a mistake in Settlers of Catan to place one of your settlements at an intersection of a 2, a 12 and a desert because it's horrible according the rules of the game.

You play a game given the rules of the game. If you make a mistake in your strategy given those rules, you might lose. If you make a REALLY big mistake according to those rules then you should definitely lose.

As for whether a cleric is needed in a party, I think that point is debatable. We've had a group who didn't have a cleric(and a battle or two where the cleric went down in the first round so it was functionally the same). They functioned pretty decently. Though they were less powerful than if they had a cleric. "I cast Spare the Dying" is nearly functionally equivalent to any PC using a Healers Kit to stabilize someone. They won't be up and helping but they aren't going to die. One healing potion does the same thing only slightly better. If someone has the Healer feat they can also bring people back up with one action. Having a cleric around just makes it slightly better yet.

Not having a cleric is a tactical mistake. But you are right, it isn't incredibly stupid, you can work around it. In order to actually die you have to make a number of mistakes in a row, of which not having a cleric is only the first.

Fine, you're describing your preferred gamestyle. If you mean that other gamestyles should not be supported, then we have nothing to say to each other. Just let me know, and I'll stop replying... otherwise continue to read.

No, quite the opposite. I was responding to your comment that people who like character death to exist but be extremely rare should suck it up and either accept that death will happen all the time or force the DM to mete out death only on a whim. I am arguing that the current method is a compromise between the two.

People who like death can be rest assured that it is possible to die using the default rules. If they want it to be more deadly, they can remove Space the Dying, Healer's Kits and the Healer feat. If they want it to be more deadly, they can also change the number of death saves you get, or change how much damage it takes beyond 0 it takes to kill someone.

In the other direction, they can increase the number of death saves or increase the damage it takes to die after getting to 0. They can even go as far as to say that you don't have to make death saves at all, thus making all PCs effectively immortal.

IMXP I've seen players mostly divided in two camps: those who don't mind character death, and those who hate it.

I think the problem with this line of thinking is that there are more than two camps. People are more a spectrum.

"People who hate character death" are consist of such groups as those people who hate it but still want it to happen because their sense of fair play and challenge won't allow them to play a game without the possibility, and those people who hate death only because it causes narrative problems when PCs die in the middle of something that involves them very personally. Sometimes these are even the same people, sometimes they aren't.

Just like "people who don't mind character death" also range from "those people who dislike death but don't hate it as long as it happens only once every campaign" all the way though "people who love to die every session so they can play a new character next time".

Obviously, there isn't one good solution that will help everyone. I think the current one works pretty well as a middle ground.

So far, my second D&D Next campaign just started recently and the Wizard in the group died in one crit while he was low on hitpoints in the first session. During my first campaign I killed 3 or 4 PCs. I certainly don't think the current system prevents PCs from dying at all. It just makes it so it doesn't happen every session.