D&D 5E (2024) Effects that kill you at 0 hp

[Maxperson]

I don't like them in 5e because yes its shocking, as it always will if common rules suddenly don't apply anymore. And I think that is the part that icks me a bit. I have no problems with more deadlier games, but if players don't know that such abilities exist, they are making uninformed choices when fighting against a monster that has such an ability. They make tactical choices under the assumption of death rules they think they can rely on. For abilities with a lesser effect this might make a cool surprise moment, but I think as a player I would be pissed if I decide to tank the guy, because my cleric will heal me, but than my char suddenly dies in an instant.

I think you either need to inform players before that such monsters exist or you need to demonstrate this ability on an NPC - which is weird again, because normally NPCs die immediately anyway. So you kinda have to implement death saving throws for NPCs to make the demonstration valuable.

It doesn't fit 5e vibe over all. If you want instant death be a part of your game, you are better off with an OSR game or other games that have stricter death rules than 5e.

edit: I just remembered that AFAIK most monsters in 5e with such abilities are higher CR and the party often has reviving capabilities. This weakens my point to a degree. So maybe don't use such monsters/spells in Tier 1, but in higher Tiers its less problematic IMO.

D&D is and always has been an exceptions based system. X is always this way, unless Y makes itself an exception to it.

How the DM chooses to telegraph exceptions will vary, and in some cases not telegraph them at all. My personal view is that if an exception will cause death, permanent turning to stone, etc., it should be telegraphed somehow. It doesn't have to be in your face obvious, but it should be obvious enough that if the players don't pick up on it, they will realize that it was telegraphed after the fact.

 

[James Gasik]

No. There are other ways to resolve conflict than hitting it over the head repeatedly.

Also, in the words of Qui Gonn, "There's always a bigger fish." If the Ranger can ginsu an enemy, he should expect there are creatures that can do the same back to him - and probably worse. (I also have to ask, was the Ranger taking this in melee solo, instead of with a friend who might be able to absorb half the attacks or so?).

He won initiative and so was the first to act in the encounter, before the enemies. He had no way of knowing how dangerous the weretiger was (as there were other opponents). If he waits for his allies, then he's ceding the advantage initiative gives him, and in fact, if he hadn't rushed the weretiger, the weretiger has a 40' speed and a pounce maneuver that they can use if they move 10' before attacking, so whoever ended up being targeted would have been in a worse situation (most likely the Bard or Sorcerer). Or alternately, if you read their multiattack again, the weretiger could have just as easily used their longbow attack four times at any target they wished to if no one had closed to melee.

Could he have readied an action? Sure, but at the cost of two of his own attacks. Basically, most of the ways he could have avoided the beatdown would have run counter to the character he wanted to play (a dual wielding skirmisher) and would have likely opened up someone else to that same beatdown.

If his luck had been a little better he wouldn't have gone to 0 outright, but the fact is, he did, and I don't think "moving to attack in melee" should be considered something nobody should ever do- because what then? I'm reminded of a 4e encounter I had once with a dracolich. Our Defender moved to attack and mark the enemy, hoping to disincentivize it from attacking freely. As he entered it's reach, he got by a reaction tail attack that stunned him, ending his turn on the spot.

There was little way for him to have known that the creature could do that (sure, his allies can roll monster knowledge checks and maybe find out, but the DM was fairly strict and only allowed them after you actually observe a monster do something- a not uncommon scenario, and likely the main reason why 5e doesn't have dedicated monster knowledge rules- at least, that I know of).

I'm not saying that there isn't a school of thought that says the first turn of every battle should be to back up, dodge, dive for cover, what have you, but there's a counter for every such strategy- you want to bunch up to benefit from your Paladin's aura? Get fireballed. You want to dive behind cover? The enemy can do the same, or Hide, or maybe they're a rushdown monster that's faster than you and is armed with the special senses needed to find you (said weretiger's ability to pinpoint the location of characters within 60' just being one example).

And there are enemy monsters like archers and casters that you very much want to close with and pin to the ground. When they later fought the Sorcerer, they were, in fact, more cautious, and that just resulted them in being caught in a sleet storm. Different fights require different tactics, and that requires some way to know what your opponents are going to do. Unless you're somehow precognitive, that means that your scissors will inevitably encounter the enemy's rock, and saying "well, you could have chosen paper" without knowing there was a rock is incredibly unfair.

Are there parties who insist on slowly creeping their way forward during adventures, using stealth as much as possible? Sure! But there's a risk there too, of one straggler getting away to set the whole dungeon on alert. Or running into a monster with a special sense that foils stealth. Some adventures are on clocks, and you can't take that kind of time. The list goes on.

If a DM wants to reinforce certain kinds of play, like "don't run into melee", that's fine. But if you're not setting out to do that, then I don't think the system should be punishing you for it. OR, alternately, if the system does this it should tell the players straight up what is expected of them. "Enter melee and drop to 0" is a pretty harsh lesson. And if the consequence for dropping to 0 is instant death, well, that character didn't learn anything.

I've had similar discussions in threads about penalizing people for dropping to 0, like taking levels of exhaustion, and while that might work fine for some, all I've ever seen out of similar things (like wound penalties or "death spiral" mechanics) is it makes nobody want to enter melee, because they can go from high hit points to 0 between one turn and the next without being able to do a thing about it.

And given that there are entire classes devoted to this concept (looking at you, Barbarian), I think it's disingenuous to disincentivize someone from being a member of said class. That said, I know the dissenting crowd is already ready lining up comments such as "play smarter not harder" and "git gud", lol.

As for me? I'm going to be a lot more careful with my encounter design going forward.

 

[AlViking]

He won initiative and so was the first to act in the encounter, before the enemies. He had no way of knowing how dangerous the weretiger was (as there were other opponents). If he waits for his allies, then he's ceding the advantage initiative gives him, and in fact, if he hadn't rushed the weretiger, the weretiger has a 40' speed and a pounce maneuver that they can use if they move 10' before attacking, so whoever ended up being targeted would have been in a worse situation (most likely the Bard or Sorcerer). Or alternately, if you read their multiattack again, the weretiger could have just as easily used their longbow attack four times at any target they wished to if no one had closed to melee.

Could he have readied an action? Sure, but at the cost of two of his own attacks. Basically, most of the ways he could have avoided the beatdown would have run counter to the character he wanted to play (a dual wielding skirmisher) and would have likely opened up someone else to that same beatdown.

If his luck had been a little better he wouldn't have gone to 0 outright, but the fact is, he did, and I don't think "moving to attack in melee" should be considered something nobody should ever do- because what then? I'm reminded of a 4e encounter I had once with a dracolich. Our Defender moved to attack and mark the enemy, hoping to disincentivize it from attacking freely. As he entered it's reach, he got by a reaction tail attack that stunned him, ending his turn on the spot.

There was little way for him to have known that the creature could do that (sure, his allies can roll monster knowledge checks and maybe find out, but the DM was fairly strict and only allowed them after you actually observe a monster do something- a not uncommon scenario, and likely the main reason why 5e doesn't have dedicated monster knowledge rules- at least, that I know of).

I'm not saying that there isn't a school of thought that says the first turn of every battle should be to back up, dodge, dive for cover, what have you, but there's a counter for every such strategy- you want to bunch up to benefit from your Paladin's aura? Get fireballed. You want to dive behind cover? The enemy can do the same, or Hide, or maybe they're a rushdown monster that's faster than you and is armed with the special senses needed to find you (said weretiger's ability to pinpoint the location of characters within 60' just being one example).

And there are enemy monsters like archers and casters that you very much want to close with and pin to the ground. When they later fought the Sorcerer, they were, in fact, more cautious, and that just resulted them in being caught in a sleet storm. Different fights require different tactics, and that requires some way to know what your opponents are going to do. Unless you're somehow precognitive, that means that your scissors will inevitably encounter the enemy's rock, and saying "well, you could have chosen paper" without knowing there was a rock is incredibly unfair.

Are there parties who insist on slowly creeping their way forward during adventures, using stealth as much as possible? Sure! But there's a risk there too, of one straggler getting away to set the whole dungeon on alert. Or running into a monster with a special sense that foils stealth. Some adventures are on clocks, and you can't take that kind of time. The list goes on.

If a DM wants to reinforce certain kinds of play, like "don't run into melee", that's fine. But if you're not setting out to do that, then I don't think the system should be punishing you for it. OR, alternately, if the system does this it should tell the players straight up what is expected of them. "Enter melee and drop to 0" is a pretty harsh lesson. And if the consequence for dropping to 0 is instant death, well, that character didn't learn anything.

I've had similar discussions in threads about penalizing people for dropping to 0, like taking levels of exhaustion, and while that might work fine for some, all I've ever seen out of similar things (like wound penalties or "death spiral" mechanics) is it makes nobody want to enter melee, because they can go from high hit points to 0 between one turn and the next without being able to do a thing about it.

And given that there are entire classes devoted to this concept (looking at you, Barbarian), I think it's disingenuous to disincentivize someone from being a member of said class. That said, I know the dissenting crowd is already ready lining up comments such as "play smarter not harder" and "git gud", lol.

As for me? I'm going to be a lot more careful with my encounter design going forward.

I was playing in my wife's game recently and my paladin rushed to the defense of an innocent. The enemies then proceeded to focus fire on my paladin, which made sense and I had half expected to take a beatdown but I had a really good AC and while there were numerous enemies we knew they weren't particularly high level. Several crits, no rolls below the 15(?) they needed to hit and I had taken over 60 points of damage in one round and was dropped to 0. I wouldn't have been upset if my character had died but I would have felt like I was being punished for the type of character I was playing. I had fully expected to risk significant damage, I had not expected 5 critical hits.

 

[tetrasodium]

I have been very specific in what I'm talking about. I never said a character should be able to Leroy Jenkins and survive every encounter.

All I've said is that if every front line fighter faces a significant chance of death every combat no one will want to be a front line fighter. If no one is a front line fighter, everyone is a front line fighter.

Charge of the light brigade is about a distraction not anything that might be called "front line fighters".

 

[AlViking]

Charge of the light brigade is about a distraction not anything that might be called "front line fighters".

What does charge of the light brigade have to do with anything I've talked about?

 

[billd91]

As for me? I'm going to be a lot more careful with my encounter design going forward.

Or, you know, if you're on a hot streak with the dice and a player is paying a brutal price for it... ease off. Ignore the crit results. I mean that weretiger had a 50% chance to miss the ranger but rolled well enough to beat the odds and go 4 for 4 instead of a more expectable 2 for 4. Or you could have omitted the rend when you realized the weretiger was on a hot streak and just gone with the 4 attacks hitting.

I mean, yeah, it's a game and the random element can really eff people over and you have to kind of expect that might happen. So you either live with it or do something about it when you see it happening.

 

[James Gasik]

Or, you know, if you're on a hot streak with the dice and a player is paying a brutal price for it... ease off. Ignore the crit results. I mean that weretiger had a 50% chance to miss the ranger but rolled well enough to beat the odds and go 4 for 4 instead of a more expectable 2 for 4. Or you could have omitted the rend when you realized the weretiger was on a hot streak and just gone with the 4 attacks hitting.

I mean, yeah, it's a game and the random element can really eff people over and you have to kind of expect that might happen. So you either live with it or do something about it when you see it happening.

You're not wrong, and I've occasionally done this in the past, but in the moment, I don't always realize that this is when I should fudge a result. I also roll openly, so it's pretty obvious to my players if I were to fudge.

Anyways, it's a learning moment. Slightly new system (ToV), slightly new approach to encounter design.

As an aside, one thing I am struggling with is the system's Doom mechanic (it's optional, but one of my players has a trait that keys off of it, and they seem pretty excited to get a bonus whenever I use Doom). Basically it allows me to reroll a failed attack on my side or force a player to reroll a save- most of the time, this feels extra cruel, and I keep ending up with leftover Doom points at the end of adventures. I hate using it when the players are already struggling!

 

[tetrasodium]

He won initiative and so was the first to act in the encounter, before the enemies. He had no way of knowing how dangerous the weretiger was (as there were other opponents). If he waits for his allies, then he's ceding the advantage initiative gives him, and in fact, if he hadn't rushed the weretiger, the weretiger has a 40' speed and a pounce maneuver that they can use if they move 10' before attacking, so whoever ended up being targeted would have been in a worse situation (most likely the Bard or Sorcerer). Or alternately, if you read their multiattack again, the weretiger could have just as easily used their longbow attack four times at any target they wished to if no one had closed to melee.

Could he have readied an action? Sure, but at the cost of two of his own attacks. Basically, most of the ways he could have avoided the beatdown would have run counter to the character he wanted to play (a dual wielding skirmisher) and would have likely opened up someone else to that same beatdown.

If his luck had been a little better he wouldn't have gone to 0 outright, but the fact is, he did, and I don't think "moving to attack in melee" should be considered something nobody should ever do- because what then? I'm reminded of a 4e encounter I had once with a dracolich. Our Defender moved to attack and mark the enemy, hoping to disincentivize it from attacking freely. As he entered it's reach, he got by a reaction tail attack that stunned him, ending his turn on the spot.

There was little way for him to have known that the creature could do that (sure, his allies can roll monster knowledge checks and maybe find out, but the DM was fairly strict and only allowed them after you actually observe a monster do something- a not uncommon scenario, and likely the main reason why 5e doesn't have dedicated monster knowledge rules- at least, that I know of).

I'm not saying that there isn't a school of thought that says the first turn of every battle should be to back up, dodge, dive for cover, what have you, but there's a counter for every such strategy- you want to bunch up to benefit from your Paladin's aura? Get fireballed. You want to dive behind cover? The enemy can do the same, or Hide, or maybe they're a rushdown monster that's faster than you and is armed with the special senses needed to find you (said weretiger's ability to pinpoint the location of characters within 60' just being one example).

And there are enemy monsters like archers and casters that you very much want to close with and pin to the ground. When they later fought the Sorcerer, they were, in fact, more cautious, and that just resulted them in being caught in a sleet storm. Different fights require different tactics, and that requires some way to know what your opponents are going to do. Unless you're somehow precognitive, that means that your scissors will inevitably encounter the enemy's rock, and saying "well, you could have chosen paper" without knowing there was a rock is incredibly unfair.

Are there parties who insist on slowly creeping their way forward during adventures, using stealth as much as possible? Sure! But there's a risk there too, of one straggler getting away to set the whole dungeon on alert. Or running into a monster with a special sense that foils stealth. Some adventures are on clocks, and you can't take that kind of time. The list goes on.

If a DM wants to reinforce certain kinds of play, like "don't run into melee", that's fine. But if you're not setting out to do that, then I don't think the system should be punishing you for it. OR, alternately, if the system does this it should tell the players straight up what is expected of them. "Enter melee and drop to 0" is a pretty harsh lesson. And if the consequence for dropping to 0 is instant death, well, that character didn't learn anything.

I've had similar discussions in threads about penalizing people for dropping to 0, like taking levels of exhaustion, and while that might work fine for some, all I've ever seen out of similar things (like wound penalties or "death spiral" mechanics) is it makes nobody want to enter melee, because they can go from high hit points to 0 between one turn and the next without being able to do a thing about it.

And given that there are entire classes devoted to this concept (looking at you, Barbarian), I think it's disingenuous to disincentivize someone from being a member of said class. That said, I know the dissenting crowd is already ready lining up comments such as "play smarter not harder" and "git gud", lol.

As for me? I'm going to be a lot more careful with my encounter design going forward.

I have couple relevant questions to shift some of the discussion towards a thing that can be discussed rather than guessed. Most of them are related to opening up things raised originally that lacked enough details for anything but coulda shoulda stuff and I don't think any of them are a slight against anyone who might have been at that table.

∆did you/the GM believe that they made/chose what is within the general area of a level appropriate adventure?

∆was there some alternate means if approach like a second entrance or better time of day that shifted the odds?

∆was this more of a hex crawl or some other story/adventure arc style campaign? This one is important because it's totally normal and expected that players can go places they are in no way ready for with a hex crawl and making sure you don't stumble into one of those cases is part of the fun.

∆how did the players find out about the were tigers? This one is important because there is a big difference between something like their regular patron type or obvious "bite this hook so we can play" quest giver and checking from a adventurer guild job board/finding rumors and choosing one at random because it sounds cool has a good reward or whatever.

∆did the players find out [were tigers be here] before initiating combat? Rumors quest giver dead victim that started the quest/etc

∆ was there anyone in the party who could have taken the answer that last question and asked if their character knows weather or not the party was ready to take on were tigers based on their knowledge of [skill] or whatever like consulting some NPC.

∆ how experienced with dc20 were the GM and players. This one is important because it reveals where in the "oh [that choice] was a mistake, better choices can be made knowing that" curve everyone is.

∆edit: you mentioned other classes like the bard butnot what they brought to the table. PC builds across the party matters a lot, especially when it comes to "well there's always something you could have done" vrs "we couldn't have done anything better". One of those things is reciprocity vrs the reason why MMO raids start telling dos builds they are full up while actively looking for specialist tank/healing/support builds. Was anyone talking about things like buff debuff and control abilities and how they can help the group of the group works with them as needed for those abilities. Usually those are abilities they chose in their build instead of some dpr or tank type option? Regardless of if they were discussing it, was about trying those things or was everyone pretty much out for themselves expecting everyone eyto do the same instead of working together?

 

[James Gasik]

I have couple relevant questions to shift some of the discussion towards a thing that can be discussed rather than guessed. Most of them are related to opening up things raised originally that lacked enough details for anything but coulda shoulda stuff and I don't think any of them are a slight against anyone who might have been at that table.

The Fighter: Weapon Master (the ToV Battle Master). Sword + Board. High AC, good hit points. Has an ability similar to protection fighting style (bonus action, select an enemy within 5', the first attack that enemy makes each turn against you or an ally within 5' of you has disadvantage so long as the enemy stays within 5' of you). Was out of "stunts" (maneuvers).

The Bard: total support, carries a rapier, doesn't use it often. Had one use remaining of a bardic performance that can be maintained for 1 minute, at the start of the turn, allies who can hear the performance may spend a Hit Die and recover hit points equal to the die result + the Bard's +4 charisma mod. Normally quite useful, but the consequence of this ability is that the players often run out of Hit Dice (I think everyone had a single Hit Die left at this point). The only spells they ended up casting were Cure Wounds. They have an ability to Help as a bonus action.

The Sorcerer: all about cold damage. Has built around being able to turn other spells into cold damage. Favorite spells are Shatter and Magic Missile (and Ray of Frost).

The Mechanist (ToV's answer to the Artificer): can cast utility spells in a roundabout way. Uses a firearm that they can generate infinite ammo for that counts as magical.

-

The initiative went thusly: Minotaur, Ranger, Weretiger, Sorcerer, Mechanist, Bard, Sorcerer, Fighter.

The Minotaur came in with his charge attack first, hitting the fighter with it's gore and greataxe (as he was first in the room). The Ranger saw that the weretiger had a bow, and decided to pin down the archer (he couldn't reach the enemy sorcerer). He could have focused on the Minotaur, but I can't totally fault his logic, especially since the weretiger could make four longbow attacks per turn (not that anyone knew that besides me).

 

[Retros_x]

D&D is and always has been an exceptions based system. X is always this way, unless Y makes itself an exception to it.

Yes, thank you for explaining the specific over general rule. However, it all needs to be measured. The bigger the exception is, the more unpredictable the game becomes for the players and thus they make less informed choices, which is IMO the death of good roleplaying. Extreme example: If my exception is "Against this monster combat gets resolved in one single D20 roll, on a 5-20 the monster wins the fight and kills you all", that is obviously a pretty bad exception and just because the system allows that, doesn't make it good.

Less extreme obviously are 0HP death mechanics, but I still found them more on the bad side of "rules overwrite" ...

How the DM chooses to telegraph exceptions will vary, and in some cases not telegraph them at all. My personal view is that if an exception will cause death, permanent turning to stone, etc., it should be telegraphed somehow. It doesn't have to be in your face obvious, but it should be obvious enough that if the players don't pick up on it, they will realize that it was telegraphed after the fact.

... and they need to be telegraphed clearly, as I was saying in my post before. If it was only realized after the fact its a bad telegraph. Instadeath is not something that should get only a subtle hint, especially not something like "this monster looks really bad", yeah ofc. every monster looks bad and DMs try to narrate most encounters as dangerous and exciting. Players easily misinterpret something like this as the usual "hype" of the DM. For such dangerous abilities I think you need them to demonstrate on NPC, let the players see the effect, see the numbers popping up or just plainly tell them OOC.