D&D 5E How the game changes when a DM starts to target downed PC's?

[FrogReaver]

For my group this was actually a Session 10 kind of thing. Since a lot of my players were first-timers, I just by default played the monsters a little easy. After ten or so sessions, we then had a talk about how dangerous we wanted the campaign to be!

And there's also an exception to every rule

 

[Maxperson]

And there's also an exception to every rule

I don't see a problem with it happening midway through a campaign. Provided the DM isn't like whack "Sorry Dave, Tom-Tom is dead." The DM should talk to the players first. If something isn't working out well, adjusting needs to happen.

 

[Hussar]

Wouldn't the simplest solution be a slight change to the "Unconscious at 0" rule?

Instead of unconscious, which makes you incapacitated plus additional effects, you are "Wounded" or something like that. The exact term doesn't matter so long as it's not "Unconscious". So, you're down, but, obviously not dead, can't act or anything like that. Probably rolling around on the ground, groaning, obviously moving in some fashion.

Thus it becomes very easy to tell dead from dying. And, it has the added bonus of being fairly realistic. Dying things don't gently fall asleep and then die. They thrash around, blood spurting, twitching and all that good stuff. We're not talking about a choking victim that has fallen unconscious so you can't really tell just by looking at them if they are dead or not. We're talking about characters who have just received very violent violations of their body.

Being able to tell the difference between dying and dead should actually be pretty easy. If it's still moving, it's not dead. And a coup de grace style attack on a fallen opponent is hardly out of place. Just watch virtually any movie and you see the guy stabbing down at the dude on the ground all the time.

The basic problem here is that the rules describe dying as this very peaceful journey where you fall down, having a nice nap until you gently shuffle off the mortal coil. That is very, very rarely how people die from injury. Targets at 0 may not be able to speak coherently, but, they should be screaming, burbling and all sorts of goodness that lets everyone around know that, nope, he ain't dead yet.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I don't, for one second, believe that, in-fiction, a warrior can see whether someone he just downed, who is likely covered in armour and robes, and possibly in bad lighting conditions, or with bright flashes from spells, and so on, is breathing or not, in far less than six seconds. It's hard enough to tell in real life that people take special measures to check if people are alive, like checking pulses, fogging mirrors, and so on. And you have to be able to do this whilst being under attack yourselves. Humans are remarkably bad at telling if people are dead or not.

This is true, but it is also true that people that are on death’s door and bleeding out generally aren’t back at 100% attacking capacity simply because a Healing Word staunched the worst wound and gave them 4 hp out of 26.

Deciding where you draw the line on verisimilitude tends to have consequences, that favor certain play styles or classes over others.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I can't imagine that. It's totally untrue IRL. Provably, demonstrably, as a matter of fact not opinion untrue. People are terrible at differentiating dead and unconscious, even in the very best circumstances, without doing stuff like finding a pulse or listening for a heartbeat. Sometimes even then, as various horrible-but-true incidents indicate. I regularly play with two people with MDs, several others with significant first aid training. They'd look at me like I was completely insane if I said it was possible to perceive this.

So there's no fictional justification for normal mortals with human-like characteristics doing this.

Now, there are easy fantasy solutions - one obvious one is that people can see spirits leaving bodies. This is true in a small subset of fantasy. If it's normal to be able to perceive that, like there's a flash of light, or an actual spirit floats out, or something, then suddenly you have 100% fictional justification, but it's not right to suggest humans can conventionally perceive this, and that's demonstrable medical/scientific fact.

So I'd suggest you go with something where spirits can be seen leaving the body, or maybe the spirits in all sentient creatures can sense the echo of other spirits or something (raises a lot of questions though, whereas seeing them leave is obvious).

Of course, it could go the other way too. Downing a NPC opponent leaves no guarantee that they're really dead, but in practice they almost always are. It's one of many ways combat is weighted in favor of PCs (combat as performance, as has been suggested in another thread). If you want combat to be more dangerous, let the enemy make death saves or have healers.

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't usually target downed unconscious PCs.

Battles are very diverse. In many cases the enemies don't even care if you are dead or alive as long as they get what they want. When they want you dead, they still don't want to die or be destroyed, and anyway don't like being hurt, so IMHO it still makes more sense they switch to focus on active threats. No reason to waste time overkilling someone unless you SEE that it is actually coming back.

A special case might be an actual assassination attempt on a PC, but even then the assassin will have to be mindless or very confident he can take punishment while overkilling and still be able to flee.

1) Foes will not terminate a character unless one has got up first.

2) Foes will behave differently if they are intelligent or not.

3) Once a downed PC gets back up. Intelligent foes will target the cleric or the healer in priority.

Yes good, although I am not sure how intelligent those foe will really be if they don't win the battle at the end. There's too many variables.

Wouldn't the simplest solution be a slight change to the "Unconscious at 0" rule?

Well certainly the default rule is pretty limiting to the narrative. Technically you can't have a "last dying words" moment, a final gunshot before dropping dead, a wounded character struggling to keep fighting or who has to be carried after the battle.

 

[Helldritch]

I don't usually target downed unconscious PCs.

1) Battles are very diverse. In many cases the enemies don't even care if you are dead or alive as long as they get what they want. When they want you dead, they still don't want to die or be destroyed, and anyway don't like being hurt, so IMHO it still makes more sense they switch to focus on active threats. No reason to waste time overkilling someone unless you SEE that it is actually coming back.

2) A special case might be an actual assassination attempt on a PC, but even then the assassin will have to be mindless or very confident he can take punishment while overkilling and still be able to flee.

3) Yes good, although I am not sure how intelligent those foe will really be if they don't win the battle at the end. There's too many variables.

1) that is exactly what I am doing. No focus on downed PC unless one got up first.

2) If the assassin succeed on killing a PC, it means that no one is aware that the PC is dead. Then, by logical conclusion, the assassin will make sure that the downed PCs will ne dead for good with an additional stab or two.

3) To win an engagement, you need to remove treath. If a removed treath comes back, it would be poor tactic not to make sure that the next time you do not make sure that the treath will not come back to haunt you and turn the tide of a battle.

I compare the coming back of a character to plan to queen in chess. When you get a queen from a pawn in chess it is usually a win. And the foes in D&D know that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is true, but it is also true that people that are on death’s door and bleeding out generally aren’t back at 100% attacking capacity simply because a Healing Word staunched the worst wound and gave them 4 hp out of 26.

Deciding where you draw the line on verisimilitude tends to have consequences, that favor certain play styles or classes over others.

Oh for sure, but one thing I know, from real life, from being a human, is impossible, and that's spotting if people are unconscious or fully dead in a battle, in under six seconds, whilst dodging arrows and spells and spells are going off and so on.

On the other hand, I have no idea what a magic spell is capable of. If you're telling me I can instantly spring back to my feet and leap back into the fray, well I pretty much have to believe you on that.

So it's hard-impossible vs. merely implausible.

Though this issue does raise another solution - maybe get rid of whack-a-mole by simply not letting people get up the first round they're back or something (or just have it stabilize initially, as another person suggested).

 

[Hussar]

Or, again, just make "Unconcious" not be "peacefully sleeping as you shuffle off the mortal coil". Downed characters thrash, scream, bleed, etc. If you are wounded to the point where you're actually unconscious and unresponsive, you are likely either dead or very, very close to it. Otherwise, wounded but incapacitated characters are noisy.

 

[jayoungr]

So what downstream impacts does shifting to this 'attack downed PCs' playstyle accomplish?

Out of curiosity, are you speaking from personal play experience here, or are the changes that you list theoretical only?