D&D 5E First 5E PC Deaths

[Blue]

Haven't lost a 5e character yet. Actually, haven't lost a character since ... 2ed? Well, had a total-party-capture in 3.5, I guess that counts since we could have been dead.

That's actually far too long.

 

[Lancelot]

138 permanent deaths! Wow! How many sessions have you played?

Hmm... good questions. My 5e records also include D&D Next, so let's call it about 3.5 years of play. We play every Thursday night, for about 5 hours... and every other Saturday for about 7 hours. So, let's call it 17 hours every two weeks. If the "typical" D&D session is 4 hours, then that's the equivalent of 2 sessions per week. Multiply by 200 weeks, and we have approximately 400 sessions.

So, our rate-of-loss is approximately one character every three sessions. That sounds about right. Bear in mind that my group has had about a dozen TPKs, which means there are sessions where they'll lose 4-5 characters in a single go. That skews the numbers. It means we could go a dozen sessions without loss, and suddenly lose a bunch.

There are some things to keep in mind, which might explain differences with other groups...

1) I strictly control access to diamonds in our games, so revivify and raise dead are almost never available. If a character dies, they're usually dead. Diamonds, or scrolls of life-restoring spells, are treated as special rewards or can only be purchased at extremely high prices.

2) I control access to magic items, and there are no item-crafting rules or magic item shops. Many PCs won't have a magic weapon at 8th level, which makes damage resistances meaningful.

3) I roll all dice in front of the players, so no fudging to keep anyone alive.

4) I play the monsters appropriately according to their intelligence. I'll use ambush, hit-and-run attacks, summoned minions, mixed groups, disarms, grapples, target-the-casters, silence spells, grab-and-fly-into-the-air, separate the party, and any other tactic I can think of other than just stand toe-to-toe and trade attacks. Particularly smart opponents will use flight, terrain obstacles (underwater, crawl-spaces, lava pools), magic (wall spells, passwall to open pits beneath characters, etc) or minions to split the party then tear them apart piecemeal. And, once a PC is down, the smarter monsters will usually keep them down. Take out the healers first, put at least one attack on any character that has just received a healing spell to restore their consciousness (usually, they're on low HP and prone, so can be taken out quickly again), and (if any PC is healed-from-unconscious twice in the same combat) coup de grace them the next time they go down.

So, yeah. We choose to make our D&D fairly challenging. And, also, my players tend to be extreme risk-takers. It's a shame when someone loses a character, but it's only really disappointing when they TPK. That almost always means the end of a campaign. Any non-TPK death is simply an opportunity to try out another concept, which can be a lot of fun.

 

[S'mon]

My Varisia 5e campaign has moderately frequent deaths - last session the Barbarian got killed by 3 chain devils - but in 12 levels & 45 sessions there's only been 1 permanent PC death. Generally they get revivified, occasionally raised or reincarnated (current party has a Druid but no Cleric).

My current 5e Wilderlands game has had 1 PC death in 19 sessions & 5 levels (online - equivalent to around 9 tabletop sessions). Previous Wilderlands game had several perma-deaths in 84 sessions. Weirdly there has never been a PC raised in these campaigns that I can recall, though several NPCs have been raised.

 

[Rhenny]

When we first played LMoP, I was playing the Wizard pregen. When we got to the Wolve's den in the goblin cave, my PC climbed up the tube, but made a bit of noise. The bugbear up the tube heard me and brought his massive club down upon my head, but I was able to cast Shield. Instead of dying from the bugbear attack, I lost my footing/hand hold on the tube and slid down taking nearly enough to knock me unconscious. So, I didn't die.

A short while after, we made it to the cave where the bugbear was waiting in ambush. The fighter stepped up to fight the brute, hacking into it with his sword, but then..smash. The bugbear unloaded on the fighter (critical hit), and the fighter was pulverized (instant death).

The fighter player was a great sport, celebrating the death in glorious fashion. Then he rolled up a new character and we continued our exploits.

Dying at 1st and 2nd level is pretty awesome. It gets harder to stomach at higher levels.