D&D 5E Finding 5th edition too "safe".

[Libramarian]

The best way to use THAC0 is the player announces a hit if the attack roll result is ≥ THAC0 and the DM announces a hit if the result is ≤ the monster's AC. This is actually superior to d20 + attack bonus vs. ascending AC.

 

[dave2008]

In another thread I discussed about our group wanting to switch back to 2nd edition and one of the reasons that came up for all of us was that we feel 5th edition is just a bit too safe.

Now what I mean by this is the actual danger that the old edition used to give us. I really miss the lethality of that edition. I just feel like 5th edition, while fun, is just a bit too safe with the amount of hit points and HD healing. One thing I can do is become really attached to my characters and be very upset if they die but be okay with it. It's the fact that I could lose this character anytime because of either bad decisions or just plain bad luck with the dice. This enhances the play aspect for myself and my group and it's something I feel 5th edition lacks.

I can see why people would not like the game to be that lethal because some people become really attached to characters and they just don't want to see them die unless they jump through several hurdles to the point where the characters death was just meant to be. Personally I'm not even one who has to have his character's death be dramatic or mean something. I accept the fact that things happen and this gives a bit of realism for me and my group.

Now I will say that 5th edition feels less safe than 4th edition but just not enough to give us that sense of danger and loss.

Sorry if this has already been covered (I'm coming to this thread late), but there are RAW ways to make the game more lethal and east house rules as well.

The DMG provides variant healing and rest rules which mostly address the healing issue you mentioned. In addition, I boost monster damage starting at CR 10 to make them more deadly. You can easily dial-in the amount of deadliness you want with some combination of those 3 options.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I think people make too big a deal out of Thac0. I don't remember it being too big a hassle at the time, and nobody I gamed with ever felt the need to do anything about it. That being said, it seems ridiculous to go back to it now but it takes a whole 60 seconds to translate the entire game from Thac0 and descending armor class into what we use today. I don't really get what all the fuss was about.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Personally, the old school "everyone make three generic disposable characters for Tomb of Horrors" style of play seems really empty to me. Sure, there should be risk to create drama, but if I don't have any emotional attachment to the character then I don't really care whether they live or die. After all, I can just create another generic character in 5 minutes so what's there to be afraid of?

I'm not sure if you're talking ONLY about Tomb of Horror one-shots or also about longer campaigns, but in a longer campaign you will grow attached to the PCs through play experiences. Also, if they die you lose all their XP and magic items.

I saw an interesting variant recently wherein the player can write a will dedicating his stuff to a beneficiary whose relationship to him, name, and class are all specified. If he dies the beneficiary becomes the new PC with all his stuff, but only then do you roll up the PC's stats, and you can't change the class. It's an interesting risk/reward tradeoff.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Not deadly enough? Ok, go back and use 2e's HP/HD. I mean, there is nothing stopping anyone from saying "Wizards, Sorcerers, etc all have d4 HD. Fighters and Barbarians get d10. ...etc". Toss in "And maximum of 10 HD)". Not enough? Ok, "Healing is but a single HD per full rest, not 'poof, you're healed'". Still want more? "We're going to use the Lingering Wounds rules in the DMG". Basically, I could go on and on coming up with rules to use, rules to make up, or rules to cannibalize from other games. That is one of the many great things about 5e....it was designed to be modular. This means ripping out something and replacing it with something else is fairly trivial.

Obligatory THAC0 comment. Easy stuff for me. That said, my group and I kind of fell in love with how Dark Dungeons (a BECMI/RC clone) handled it. The player rolls his dice, add all his stuff and tells you. You, the DM, add the creatures AC to that number. If it is 20+, the character hit. If you trust your players not to act on meta-game knowledge, you can just tell them "The goblins are AC 7" and let them add that to their rolls, telling you if they hit or not.

Example: PC with +4 to hit is fighting a Goblin with AC 7. The player rolls his d20, adds +4, then adds 7 for the goblins AC. If the total is 20+, the goblin is hit. What if it's a low AC creature, like AC -3? No difference. Roll d20, add +4, then -3; if the total is 20+, he hits.

We found this method to be very fast and easy. Yes, there was that whole "multiple 20's needed when you get really low negative AC's...but we just ignore that because, honestly, we never see those AC's in play. And if we do/did? We'll just ignore it because, honestly, speed and ease of play trumps that level of granularity for us. No harm, no foul.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[S'mon]

You're not seriously arguing that anybody wasted time with item saves. Everybody tried item saves once or twice, quickly realized it was either a waste of time or just far too punitive, and just ignored them. Except for a few one-shots with pregens, I never played with a DM that made items roll saves except in cases where the item was unattended or you were targeting the item.

Not only does the target have to fail his save first, you only roll saves for items that could conceivably be damaged by the attack, and even then items get bonuses to saves. Few DMs care about destroying single use items like potions or scrolls, and fewer still are interested in rewarding players only to take the items away a few encounters later. It's a whole lot of pointless dice rolling. Worse, if you do roll item saves, then you should conceivably roll item saves for mundane items, too, and that's just very boring until you get to something absurd, like the Wizard's spellbook. And you should roll items for objects carried by NPCs, and that's just a weapons race most DMs aren't interested in playing.

As far as I can recall, I did roll item saves whenever a PC failed their save vs fireball/dragon breath etc, which was quite rare.

 

[Hjorimir]

I think it all depends on how you run your campaign. I don't necessarily build encounters with the PC's victory in mind - and they've been warned to that fact many times. In one campaign, I've had two character deaths over two session, albeit they were 2nd level characters. In another campaign, 4 (of 6) 4th level characters died when they opened a chained sarcophagus and released a skeletal warrior - despite all warnings not to. Altogether in six sessions between two campaigns and we've had 6 character deaths. The players are reeling a little bit right now as they struggle to let go of their cavalier attitude they've had about monsters and dungeons from campaigns past for the "new normal" I'm running these days.

 

[Oofta]

I've already dealt with the "getting back from the dead is too easy" by enforcing rules that make sense for my world/mythos.

I may have to bring back item saves myself, maybe only if people fail their save by 5 or more.

No one game system is going to work for everyone of course, but I really appreciate how easy it is to make minor tweaks to 5E to address these types of issues.

 

[S'mon]

With my high level (12-14) 5e game, I definitely am finding that increasing MM monster damage a bit is very helpful to get a decent threat level. Eg with the PCs fighting dozens of skeletons on Wednesday I just gave them d8 longswords & longbows instead of shortswords & shortbows. I had the minotaur skels do an extra d12/2d8 of damage and boosted their CR +1 to compensate. Very quick, very easy.

 

[Libramarian]

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] based on your experience, what do you think of 0 HP = dead in the 2nd tier, with no revivify and new PCs coming in at level 5?