D&D 5E Dying House Rule

[The Crimson Binome]

Well, actually they didn't really. My memory of od&d and ad&d is one where I can't remember the name of any character I played, because becoming invested in a character was a futile exercise. Life was cheap, and characters survived more through luck than through having control of their destiny.

Moreso than any other edition, AD&D was a time where your experience was going to vary heavily between tables. No two DMs ran AD&D the same way, and since there was no internet yet, it was impossible for everyone to come to a group consensus on anything. It was probably the last time that a DM could get away with using significant house rules, and players would willingly accept them, since every table had them and there weren't a ton of alternatives.

I will say that the penalty for death did backfire in at least one way: Since dying was so terrible, it made many players too paranoid to do anything for fear of failure, which meant that some DMs turned to paranoia monsters that would kill everyone regardless (see your first point about it not being the player's fault), since that was the only way to challenge a player who was unwilling to take unnecessary risks. If you're unwilling to charge the ogre, because it might kill you, then every treasure chest is going to be a mimic full of rot grubs. It was a vicious cycle.

By making death an acceptable consequence, at least it encourages players to engage with enemies, so that you don't need to resort to rot grubs everywhere. Of course, I would argue (and the premise of this thread is) that they've gone too far - the consequences of combat are too trivial, and even the worst-case scenario is recoverable without much hassle. Fifth edition is a time where I can't care about any character I play, because it feels like none of their actions have any consequences. The only consequence which is more than trivially inconvenient is a TPK. It just doesn't feel real or believable for me to not fear the giant monster, because I know that it can't really hurt me in any way.

 

[Ganymede81]

Here's one way to handle the whack-a-mole aspect of 0 HP...

Allow magical healing to automatically stabilize a downed PC, but don't actually allow him or her to regain consciousness unless he or she was recovered to at least one half (or one quarter) of max HP.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Your memory for 2E is better than my own. I remember a thing called Thac0 and another thing called system shock, along with that wacky 'ol dual classing system. Other than that, 17 years has faded my memory of most of the details. My comparison was with 3E. 2E would be a more difficult comparison since you also didn't have quite as many hit points in 2E as I recall, so less healing didn't necessarily equate to less effective healing, though again, as I said I simply don't recall. I will say that I remember a Heal spell that recovered all your hit points rather than the jippo 5E version.

My memory isn't so great as all that--turns out I wildly overestimated 2nd edition healing. Instead of 150ish HP healed at 10th level, you'd instead get 4 x Cure Light Wounds (1d8) + 3 x Cure Serious Wounds (2d8+1) + 2 x Cure Critical Wounds (3d8+3) for a grand total of 81 HP of Healing per day. If you were lucky enough to roll high Wisdom you could get a bit more: with 18 Wisdom you'd get an extra 19 HP. It was not at all uncommon to have to stop and rest for multiple days in a row to heal a party after a nasty battle even if you did have clerics.

When it comes to HP comparisons between editions, I tend to think of 10 HP in 5E as roughly equivalent to 3 HP. E.g. Trolls, 33 HP w/ 3 HP/round regen after the first couple of rounds, vs. 84 HP w/ 10 HP/round regen. Or an 85 HP Great Wyrm White Dragon in 2nd edition vs. a 330 HP Ancient White Dragon in 5E. Or a 19 HP Ogre in 2nd edition vs. a 59 HP Ogre in 5E. This comparison BTW makes it clear why 5E Fireballs/Lightning Bolts/etc. seem so anemic: in 2nd edition terms, they're basically doing 3d6 damage now instead of 10d6.

But you're correct that Heal was better in 2nd edition. Whereas in 5E it heals 70 HP, in 2nd edition it was likely to also heal about 70 HP--but in inflation-adjusted terms that was more like 210 5E HP. There was just a quantum leap in capability between 5th level healing (3d8+3) and 6th level healing (Heal). You did however have to roll a 17 or better Wisdom to cast Heal--your average Cleric would never be able to ever cast Heal at all.

Ah, those were the days.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

By making death an acceptable consequence, at least it encourages players to engage with enemies, so that you don't need to resort to rot grubs everywhere. Of course, I would argue (and the premise of this thread is) that they've gone too far - the consequences of combat are too trivial, and even the worst-case scenario is recoverable without much hassle. Fifth edition is a time where I can't care about any character I play, because it feels like none of their actions have any consequences. The only consequence which is more than trivially inconvenient is a TPK. It just doesn't feel real or believable for me to not fear the giant monster, because I know that it can't really hurt me in any way.

If "risk" is defined as "there is some probability of failure/disaster," and "uncertainty" is defined as "not knowing what the odds are", then I can meaningfully say: I like to run a game with lots of uncertainty.

You can fear my giant monster because it might be able to mess you up really badly. All you know right now is that it's a big giant lizard-toad thing with two four-foot-long horns and fire breath. Only if you kill it and inspect the body with Arcana/Medicine will I tell you all of its stats, including the fact that it was CR 5 with only 98 HP.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Fifth edition is a time where I can't care about any character I play, because it feels like none of their actions have any consequences. The only consequence which is more than trivially inconvenient is a TPK.

Then you're playing in a campaign where all monsters either TPK you or you win, where the only win condition is killing the monster? That would seem to me to be the problem.

It just doesn't feel real or believable for me to not fear the giant monster, because I know that it can't really hurt me in any way.

Then your DM is playing softball. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do it in my own game to an extent. The problem seems to be that your DM is playing monsters that have only one path to victory (tpking your party) and apparently are not willing to take the most effective route to that goal, while what you as a player crave is a dark-soulsesque meat grinder. Or something. Because you don't actually want the game to work itself into a campaign ending failure-spiral, merely for one or more players to have to sit out a few hours of play.

You don't fear death in RPGs. You fear failure.

 

[S'mon]

Sorry, but there is nothing peaceful about that - the other characters will do their utmost to prevent that from happening.

And "drag the unconscious PC away" is one thing, and it's fine.

It's the "keep attacking the single character that does not pose a threat" I want gone from the game.

In the end, I added back negative hit points (down to -10). This fixes most of the egregious cases, since now a character must make a serious investment to bring back a fallen comrade (you can't simply "dot" him with a Healing Word or single point of Lay on Hands healing.

The point is to make fallen creatures stay down long enough to make it a non-stupid idea to switch to the still-standing threats, thereby doing away with the "it's smart to kill off fallen foes before switching to new enemies" idea.

It may be "smart" but it also leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I don't want to play a beer and pretzels game like D&D like that.

For my Wilderlands sword & sorcery game I just use negative hp, die at negative max hp. Also death saves are at 1 minute, 10 minutes & 1 hour, 1st save stabilises. That works to do what you want, the fallen are typically ignored.

For my high magic Golarion game I just use the default rules, PCs die a fair bit at high level, but usually get brought back. Had a paladin PC permadeath recently to the (Legendary) Dark Rider/Headless Horseman's 'decapitation at 0 hp' power, but that was because the PC had a DNR order, the player preferred to bring in a new character.
We've played 49 sessions, 2 perma-deaths, both that player's PCs - http://smonscurseofthecrimsonthrone.blogspot.co.uk/ - so I don't think having enemies finish off the
fallen creates excessive lethality.

I do think finishing off the fallen is realistic as well as tactically optimal IRL, so I only avoid it if I
want a lighter feel to the game. My Wilderlands game has a lot of solo adventuring and I wanted a chance for solo PCs to survive being defeated, so I use left-for-dead; characters may be left on the battlefield and
wake up later.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Then your DM is playing softball. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do it in my own game to an extent. The problem seems to be that your DM is playing monsters that have only one path to victory (tpking your party) and apparently are not willing to take the most effective route to that goal, while what you as a player crave is a dark-soulsesque meat grinder. Or something. Because you don't actually want the game to work itself into a campaign ending failure-spiral, merely for one or more players to have to sit out a few hours of play.

No, I don't fear anything in 5E. There is never a point where I am at any risk of discomfort. Either I take some damage and maybe fall unconscious, but I'm fine an hour later, or the entire party is dead and we're talking about the next campaign. I guess if we had powerful magical items, then we could be at risk of losing those, but we can always prevent that from happening by escalating; if I had a +3 sword, then you'd have to kill me in order to take it away from me.

What I want is for there to be some consequence to getting hurt. I want to have some incentive to play cautiously, because being reckless and charging into combat might have a reasonable chance of inconveniencing me for a while. I want the outcome of one combat to influence everything that happens after that combat, such that letting one character get seriously injured early on might throw the whole quest in jeopardy, because that's at least a reason to care about what happens.

 

[CapnZapp]

OD&D- 0hp= dead
B/X- 0hp= dead
AD&D- 0 hp = mandatory week of rest with no adventuring possible.

Zero hp is a pretty big thing historically speaking.

It's only the third example that matches your houserule.

So looked at the other way, you have: "In every single edition of D&D (except one) falling to 0 hp is something the Cleric can fix right there and then, without crippling your character for the rest of the dungeon (say).

Again, not saying this because there's something wrong with your houserule. Just that it is far from a trivial change - it means a huge increase in danger/lethality, so nobody should implement it without knowing what they're doing.

This really remains true regardless of which previous edition did what

That's all. Cheers

 

[CapnZapp]

As I said before in the groups I play it is usual for monsters to attack downed oponents to finish them of, this adds lethlity.

Sure and you should keep doing what works for you.

That is not what I'm discussing here.

What I don't want is rules that encourage monsters to take actions I don't want taken, simply because the rules make that a rational decision.

I want monsters to leave fallen heroes be. I want that to be a reasonably good decision.

So I can't have rules that allow the party to bring back fallen heroes with a single "dot" from the paladin's finger, or a cheap 1st level bonus action "healing word".

 

[CapnZapp]

Cleric abilities like Revivify don't bother me quite as much tbh. Do they feel a bit cheap? Yes...but really, the cleric is way weaker than in 3E and I almost feel as though spells like these give the class a purpose. Healing is weaker than the older editions (unless if you're a life cleric perhaps), raise dead and related spells are largely unnecessary, and the cleric's damage output is fairly low compared to most other classes as well. The cleric has quite a few useful low level spells, but begins to level out and fall off in value by 9th level or so IMO. I guess I figure if a player decided to play a cleric, I should take pity and give him a bit more latitude in his spell use rather than house ruling such spells out.

Me neither.

A third level spell that costs you your action is never a trivial expenditure, like a Healing Word bonus action.

I can add that in playing Out of the Abyss from level 1 to level 16 I believe we had one (1) single case of Revivify.

Compared to "falling to zero" which happened much more often than that, and where "keep counting negative hp down to -10" worked wonderfully.