D&D 5E How do you kill a 10th level character?

[Nebulous]

Good one, I forgot about that. Thanks!

And it is nasty, and arguably one of the scariest attacks in the game. It makes certain undead rightfully terrifying.

 

[Tormyr]

I don't recall, but is this supposed to be from one attack, or total damage suffered in a round?

For an auto-kill, the character has to go to -max HP in 1 shot. It resets to 0 after each damage source.

 

[SirAntoine]

You can just use the -10 rule if you want, losing 1 hp per round if below 0. That would be much better than trying to decide if you should have monsters attack PC's when they're down.

 

[Tormyr]

If you want something that most characters should be afraid of, have an army of wizard initiates cast magic missile at 1 character. 10 damage per wizard. 13 would kill a character with 100 hp. Have them go off a signal and all the shots hit in the same turn. That is how I lost my first character. Level 4 and there were bits of him everywhere after the 11 wizards shot him.

 

[the Jester]

So let's kill off the 10th level character and have the party run away. The monsters drag him away and eat him. All of him. There's nothing left to raise. The player was enjoying playing that character and now the character is gone forever. Please reroll and I will let you go ahead and make a 10th level character to join the group but, hmm let's see here, because I run a standard campaign, according to the DMG you get no magic items and we'll just use the average and give you 625 gp.

Softy. I start all new pcs at 1st level with standard first-level starting gear.

Oh, by the way, everything I just did there was properly adjudicated so don't be a crybaby about your character dying.

If you can't handle losing a character in a game in which there are rules for losing a character, perhaps you're playing the wrong game. Or perhaps you need to find a group that is more aligned with your playstyle. There's nothing wrong with that.

What's wrong is insisting that yours is the only correct playstyle. Let's just stop that, please.

Does anyone else see a problem with this scenario?

Only that you let new pcs start at 10th level.

Maybe, the reason it is harder to kill a 10th level character is because it's nearly impossible to tell what equipment a 10th level character would have gotten during 10 levels of adventuring so having one die off easily puts a serious crimp on the game.

Not in my (5 editions + basic, 34 year long) experience. Pcs come and go. I've never lost a player this way. Not once. And just about every player I've ever had in my games, with maybe a couple of very short-term players as exceptions, has lost one or more pcs over time.

The fact is, I have had people move to a new town to get back into my game after I relocated. I've got a guy who wants to fly me across the country to run games for him. I've got a waiting list of people wanting in my game, and that's despite the fact that I'm running two separate groups of players and four different groups of pcs concurrently, and I've always had a waiting list, excepting a few months when I was in a new town and hadn't yet built up a network of people.

For my next trick, I'll kill the rest of the party and you can all be 10th level and not have a single magic item in the party. Muhahaha!!

Do you realize that, in the old days, a TPK was the typical way that a given group ended? There wasn't much of the modern "we finished the story, hurray!" stuff until 2e. Before then- for well over a decade- D&D groups played until they dissolved (cuz life) or until they TPKed. And you know what happened then?

Everyone grabbed the dice and rolled new characters. Oh noes! We have to make new pcs! Well, I've always wondered what a dwarf fighter/thief would be like.

 

[SirAntoine]

If you want something that most characters should be afraid of, have an army of wizard initiates cast magic missile at 1 character. 10 damage per wizard. 13 would kill a character with 100 hp. Have them go off a signal and all the shots hit in the same turn. That is how I lost my first character. Level 4 and there were bits of him everywhere after the 11 wizards shot him.

I'm sorry to hear that. You had a really bad DM.

 

[Nebulous]

For an auto-kill, the character has to go to -max HP in 1 shot. It resets to 0 after each damage source.

Ok, so that's just not going to happen at high level D&D, i don't think anything does that much damage even with a crit. Maybe I'm wrong, but in general, it is very unlikely. Like with the 160 hp example above.

 

[SirAntoine]

Softy. I start all new pcs at 1st level with standard first-level starting gear.



If you can't handle losing a character in a game in which there are rules for losing a character, perhaps you're playing the wrong game. Or perhaps you need to find a group that is more aligned with your playstyle. There's nothing wrong with that.

What's wrong is insisting that yours is the only correct playstyle. Let's just stop that, please.



Only that you let new pcs start at 10th level.



Not in my (5 editions + basic, 34 year long) experience. Pcs come and go. I've never lost a player this way. Not once. And just about every player I've ever had in my games, with maybe a couple of very short-term players as exceptions, has lost one or more pcs over time.

The fact is, I have had people move to a new town to get back into my game after I relocated. I've got a guy who wants to fly me across the country to run games for him. I've got a waiting list of people wanting in my game, and that's despite the fact that I'm running two separate groups of players and four different groups of pcs concurrently, and I've always had a waiting list, excepting a few months when I was in a new town and hadn't yet built up a network of people.



Do you realize that, in the old days, a TPK was the typical way that a given group ended? There wasn't much of the modern "we finished the story, hurray!" stuff until 2e. Before then- for well over a decade- D&D groups played until they dissolved (cuz life) or until they TPKed. And you know what happened then?

Everyone grabbed the dice and rolled new characters. Oh noes! We have to make new pcs! Well, I've always wondered what a dwarf fighter/thief would be like.

I'd like you to stop, please. You're giving new players the wrong impression, and you'll ruin the game for some if you don't stop it.

 

[Tormyr]

I'm sorry to hear that. You had a really bad DM.

Naw, he is a really good DM. Funny, good voices, imaginative scenarios. He was just a bit bored with the Wednesday night Encounters scenarios in the Sundering and was a bit bloodthirsty. In the end I took over that group as DM.

 

[Mondas711]

I was actually being tongue in cheek through my last post. But I wasn't lying about the DMG suggestion for a 10th level character. It's on page 38. It suggests 500 + 1d10x25gp and no magic items as the suggestion for starting a 10th level character. Personally, I will give any player that starts a character above 1st level enough magic items to catch up somewhat with the group. I would say to any DM that killing off a mid-level character will open a discourse with the player where problems can occur. If the player doesn't agree with the wealth you provide the new character, you will have to iron fist your decision or compromise with the player. The player may simply redo the character and give it a different name. An inexperienced player might switch to another class and play it poorly because he didn't play the class through the levels. These things can cause complications no matter how well the DM and the players work together. This is also why it's not as easy to do as killing off a first level character. The most important thing to make sure of is that when that 10th level character dies, the player knows exactly what his options will be afterward.