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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaculata" data-source="post: 8098258" data-attributes="member: 6801286">In life or death situations, I tell my players what they need to roll to succeed. Plus there's no changing a 1 or a 20. If that powerful foe confirms his crit on one of the players with his smite attack, you know the players are in for a world of hurt (and it might spell the end of one of the pc's). And if that BBEG rolls miserably on his save, no bonus in the world is going to save him from a miserable defeat.I remember a session where a druid-pc had to stop a ghost ship from ramming his ship with his love interest tied to the bow. He summoned a water elemental, but the ghost ship opened fire on the elemental, quickly reducing its hitpoints. I straight up told him that he had 1 more round before the ghost ship would collide with their ship. The water elemental was able to reach his love interest, but the cannons managed to reduce the water elemental's hp to exactly 1, which was just enough to save his love interest before the ghost ship smashed into them. Ever since that event, I let the dice fall where they may, because you never know what might happen. It is great when these things are out of the DM's hands.Letting go of the outcome of dice may sound scary to some DM's. What if a campaign that has lasted for years, suddenly ends with a crit from a monster that outright kills a player-character? Not during some climactic boss battle, but during a simple encounter? It happens. And yes, that is always a shocking and sad moment, to lose a player character that has been around for so long. But it is also what makes playing D&D so exciting. I've seen this exact scenario happen, but you know what? The player in question was okay with it. He even appreciated the fact that the rest of the group was so upset about it; that they liked his character so much. They asked if they could redcon the session, but the player refused. My character is dead, he said, and to undo that would ruin the journey and the point of the game.</blockquote>

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