D&D 5E How many PCs have you had die?

[S'mon]

I've killed I think 5 PCs in my 5e Wilderlands online game in a year of weekly play, 68 sessions - 2 Fighters, a Warlock, a T-Rex and a Behir (my game is a bit weird). Only the Warlock was a major PC (player had played PC up from 1st to 8th level over umpteen sessions).

I haven't killed any PCs in 12 sessions of my tabletop 5e game, though 1 PC was within 1 hp of death, being slobbered on by an advanced grey ooze.

I play PCs in a couple 5e games, neither have died - both currently 3rd level, one of them I've been playing for a year! Another guy's PC died but we got him brought back - took quite a quest.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Permanent like. Going to zero HP and making death saves don't count.

I've had two so far. An 8th level shadow monk, and a 2nd level fighter. I guess that makes me around a 20% death rate, which is far less than it was in AD&D (my edition I played from 81 to 2012).

*Edit* Sorry if I was unclear. I'm referring to 5e mainly here.

At my table, as a DM, I think probably between five and ten since 5E came out. I can only think of four off the top of my head but I think there have been more that I've lost track of.

As a player, I can think of three.

There have also been some PCs retired.

 

[DeanP]

I primarily DM, and we've had a few character deaths in 5e.

Three out of four characters died escaping from the dungeons of the slave lords (converted 1e module, which I never ran with this bunch, despite gaming with them since I was a teen). It was really a case of poor decision, followed by poor decision. When all four of the characters dropped against the escaping slave lords, I decided that they might survive the eruption of the volcano destroying the slave lord city. Bad decisions were followed by awful rolls (two players were done in by rolls of "1" during their death saves). One of the four survived, only to venture into a cavern that was the home of a basilisk (he didn't have to enter, but, curiosity got the better of him), and through another succession of poor rolls, was turned to stone. The dice giveth and the dice taketh away.

During a different story, one character, an elven ranger, accepted the single challenge of an Orc champion. It was a fierce battle but my "dice fu" was strong, and back to back 20s dropped him, and the Orc, promising to take his head prior to the start of the battle, did just that.

The most recent death, a character pressed his luck against a strange, stone guardian. The immobile guardian fired a disentergration spell, and the player failed his save and the character was ashed.

 

[werecorpse]

3 deaths running 2 groups of 7 characters. They are all 3rd level now except 2 who are 4th. I give out only 40% exp so they level up slowly

1. First level character - crit 19 damage killed outright (brought back by DM fiat for story reasons)
2. 3rd level character failed first death save then rolled a 1. A heroic death - player happy
3 3rd level character reduced to 0 then was in the area effect of a fireball, auto fail save, did enough damage to kill. My (GM) mistake to put him in that situation, an ignominious death.

 

[cheezitmojo]

None yet in 5e, although I have had one retire. Also, I've only played two so far. The next one will be starting in the next month, though, and his odds aren't good. Low level wizard with a 13 Con.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I've killed 2 as of Monday, in Hoard of the Dragon Queen: a melee cleric and a fighter.

Both were in pretty huge fights, so I'm pretty OK with that.

I've died once myself - RIP, D&D's most enjoyable minotaur bard - in a significantly less heroic context. But not for lack of trying - my gnome wild mage has a pretty high survival rate so far...

Overall, not too lethal!

 

[Imaculata]

I've never lost a PC of my own, but I have killed perhaps one or two characters as a DM. But they were evil characters in an evil campaign, so it was to be expected.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Thus far I have seen about 30 PCs in various campaigns I've run in 5th edition, and zero of them have died.

Only 3 characters have even been in "dying" territory as of yet, and they pulled through fine.

The cause of this great non-lethal streak is part that I don't roll damage except dice added on a crit so there aren't any sudden unexpected spike damage deaths, and part that the enemies going for the kill weren't the ones that got any PCs down to 0 hp so there haven't been forced failed death saves.

I plan on tuning up the lethality a bit by implementing some massive damage and lingering injury rules once my group gets a campaign in the Scarred Lands setting up and running. I also expect I'll see more (temporarily) dead PCs in upcoming sessions where the PCs are 13-level and higher so there are more death effects in play.

 

[Shiroiken]

As a player, I've only had 1 PC die. OotA, 1st level Wizard, planning on going into Bladesinger. During the first adventure, the Wild Mage summons a Fireball on us, killing us both. Needless to say, we don't like Wild Mages.

As a DM, I've killed 3 PCs. Revivify was used by the Cleric to save 2 of them, but when he died the bard tried to use a Scroll of Raise Dead, failing the check.

Edit: I forgot about an introductory one-shot. Lost Mines of Phandelver for new players at my FLGS. They were nearing closing time, and the party decided to fight a green dragon (some of them were 4E players, who assumed nothing existed that was outside of their ability to defeat). I went ahead and let them meet up with the dragon, and it was nearly a TPK (7 of 8 dead). The sole survivor was the PC who was against the idea in the first place. He was in the back, and so didn't get hit with the breath weapon. When he fled, I decided the dragon wanted him to escape and spread word of his ferocity. If it wasn't a one shot, I *might* have been more lenient. Maybe

 

[pming]

Hiya!

... ...

Er...ahem. You guys seem to be having extremely soft games from how I run my campaigns...as my poor, beleaguered players will attest, I'm sure!

We started playing 5e a month or so after the Starter Set came out (I guess that would make it September 2014?) During that time...gosh...let me figure...uh...maybe...hmmmm.... *quick calculations and guessing*... maybe around 40? Of those, maybe half were "Doing fine...just keep him there, I'll...*GRRRK!*" [insta-death, below full HP past 0, do not pass go, do not collect 200gp]. My group is about 5 strong each week. Sometimes only 3 or 4, sometimes 6.

I do have one player, however, that can't roll a successful Death Save to...er...save his life. I think out of all his characters who have hit 0 or lower HP, he has failed to save all but twice (as in, twice he got to 3 successful saves first). If it ever goes to 3 saves, he's almost always dead. It's kind of amusing, even to the player. Just last Sundays session he did this. Three death rolls, three rolls 10 or under. Never got to a fourth roll.

Anyway, I guess I am what today would be a "killer DM" I suppose. I don't coddle my players nor their characters. If you get a character to level 5 in my games...that is an accomplishment you can be proud of! My players, for the most part, enjoy this sort of challenge (although they can get cranky when they go through a character or two a session for two or three sessions). We "know" all of the characters any of our group has played up to 4th, 5th or higher level... Rain, Petra, Bearkiller, etc, etc. Not many, but everyone remembers and knows who that is when a player says "Oh, can I bring out Rain? "...we all know how she is, what she is like, her personality, her goals, her capabilities, and all that other stuff. IMHO, this beats the "Oh, can I bring out that elf chick I played a few months ago?"... where we all go, "Huh? Who? Uh, sure, I guess...".

So... yeah, lots of dead PC's. But those PC's are what we call "dungeon dressing" (where do you think the bad guy got that cool skill with the candles melting on top of it? ... ). It's not how many dead characters we remember playing...it's how many SUCCESSFUL characters we remember playing that makes the game fun!

^_^

Paul L. Ming