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

[Krachek]

At the base assumption DnD is a cooperative and heroic game.
Target down PC can help sometime rise up the feeling of danger, and thus create a more heroic feeling for the characters.
If use systematically, players will adapt their play but on the long run it will narrow the play style and party choice.
The real question is, do the DM still have a cooperative and heroic mind set?

 

[Necrozius]

The only time I did this was in a horror campaign in which the PCs were fighting Ghouls who, mindless in their lust for flesh, would pounce upon downed protagonists.

However I did this first to a downed NPC ally, quickly changing the mood of the fight. You can bet that the players got serious after that. They did fine, but I was glad that the fight went from “meh, just another fight” to “oh crap, naughty word just got real, bring out the big guns”.

 

[Umbran]

I also believe there's a strong way to fictionally justify attacking downed PC's so that you don't have to feel like the 'bad guy' for doing so. Just tell the players the enemies can perceive if you are dead or not, but simply don't know how long you are going to stay down if you are still living and so finishing you off before you have a chance to potentially get back up is typically their best course of action. Now they know they are going to be targeted and can plan accordingly.

It is an interesting thought on tactics, but rationalizations you give the players do not change what's happening. I think a more honest, "Guys, I'm having a hard time challenging you in fights, so I'm making this change..." is a better bet. Especially because the "issues" you cite are not universally considered problems.

You might want to consider using one of the death saves variants going around of the form, "After reaching 0 HP, the PC cannot take actions or cast spells, makes a death save every round, but can move 10'/round." I mean, the character is still moving, so yeah, it is clear they aren't dead! But the PC also gets the chance to get out of the way - and force the enemy to use movement to chase them down if they really want to do that.

3. Because no one wants to be downed due to risk of death being high when downed then whack-a-mole is completely eliminated - and midcombat healing before allies drop becomes a thing.

If the central issue is whack-a-mole, there's probably a better solution:

"If your character has not stabilized, healing stabilizes, but adds no hit points." It then requires at least two actions to apply healing - and actually gives a reason to have medicine skill, come to think of it! Medicine to stabilize, then apply healing, but you've now used two rounds of actions.

There could be a special reason that you might hit on downed PC(depending on initiative order), but in addition to trying to eliminate still active target, you also force downed PC companions to spend non optimal actions.

Well, "optimal" is context-dependent. Having folks not die seems pretty optimal.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

@Umbran has some good suggestions there - the still moving one is great, and would allow PCs to not move and maybe make a Deception check to "play dead", too.

Another approach to solve whack-a-mole might be to charge 2 Hit Dice every time you're magically healed when on 0 HP. If you can pay, you go to the appropriate HP value, if you can't, you merely stabilize. I say 2 because the numbers PCs get get pretty high, and they're only used out-of-combat otherwise. It's important to note that, RAW, you only get 50% of your HD back on a long rest, so this could be a serious constraint to whack-a-mole pretty quickly.

(You could also steal Worlds Without Number's System Strain approach entirely and have all magical healing cost 1HD - obviously short-rest healing wouldn't increase in price, you're already spending HD to get HP there)

 

[TrueAlphaGamer]

EDIT - Oh and multi-attacking monsters become waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay bigger threats than a single-attacking monster dealing the same sort of DPR, because a multi-attacker with 3 attacks doing say 1d4+2/1d4+2/1d3+2 can wipe out three Death Saves, potentially, but a single attack who hits for, say, 4d12+12 can only wipe out one.

Worthwhile to note that melee attackers while a character is unconscious are particularly deadly, and only really need to get (at most) two hits off after a character gets downed, since:

"If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill you, you fall unconscious (PHB 197)," where the unconscious status then means that attack rolls against you have advantage, and attacks within 5 ft. are automatically a critical hit if they do hit (PHB 292). We then see that any hit from a melee attacker gives the player two death saving throw failures, as:

"Damage at 0 Hit Points. : If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. (PHB 197)"

I guess luckily the prone condition also helps against ranged attacks, but most monsters enjoy melee.

 

[the Jester]

I have never not targeted downed PCs - it depends on the monster. Things like ghouls will always try to eat downed foes, and smart enemies will try to take them out if they think healing words might be flying about. In between, enemies will attack what they think (possibly incorrectly) is the biggest immediate threat, which may cause them to leave downed enemies alone.

The effect? None.

But if you have never not targeted downed pcs, how are you able to recognize any effect it might have, since you don't have the baseline to compare it to?

 

[the Jester]

For those of you arguing that monsters shouldn't be able to automatically tell if a downed pc is alive or dead, do you extend this ruling to pcs? In other words, before I cast healing word or cure wounds, what do I have to do to determine if the target is still alive?

Good for the goose, good for the gander, and all that. At least if you favor a playstyle that treats pcs no differently than the rest of the world.

 

[Sithlord]

I don’t target downed PC’s unless there is a reason like it’s animal that hunts them for food. An owlbear or tiger will unless it is being attacked by someone else.
my NPC’s don’t understand magic enough or see it enough to think about countering it, unless the there is a spellcaster in the group.

 

[Moorcrys]

I have some monsters do it - particularly ‘hungry’ undead - ghouls, spectres, wraiths, shadows, vampires etc. Liches and fiends might go out of their way to make sure that a particularly and personally dangerous or irritating PC stays permanently out of the fight (paladins, clerics, mouthy bards and rogues ) Also predators and more instinctual monsters who are only attacking to feed. They like to drag downed PCs away.

It tends to make the undead encounters a lot more frightening and encounters with large predators more interesting.

Otherwise, it’s unusual.

It definitely changes the dynamic of a fight/how certain monsters are perceived and makes certain creatures more frightening. I don’t think I overuse it but it’s valuable and get players to change tactics.

 

[el-remmen]

I have definitely had foes do this when it made sense to do this (and have had PCs take the time to check if someone is really dead, b/c I have had foes roll a 20 on a death save and pop up and flee or try to surreptitiously drink a potion or something).

I also think spending an action to check someone's pulse or breathing is fine (maybe in reality it'd take longer, but so should using the medicine skill to stabilize someone - in our 3E house rules it took 1d10 rounds - which even then was kinda quick from a "real world" perspective). Lots of things are handwaved in D&D.

I think one of the ways combats in my game remain dynamic and tactical is that there are frequently things both PCs and monsters have to or choose to do that draw them away from using actions for just attacking/combat spellcasting, stuff like putting themselves in position to do those more optimal actions, for example. Or blocking exits, getting to exits and holding them in case the PCs need to retreat, healing or picking up/dragging unconscious companions out of the middle of the scrum (don't want them there when the AoE damage spells go off!), stuff like that. This has the added benefit of mitigating the (weird to me) idea that "every action must be the most optimal one or it is wasted"

Anyway, not too long ago I had an NPC opponent pick up the stabilized but still unconscious PC gnome to use as a shield and hold a dagger to his neck. There was momentary stand-off (we even stopped the session there as a cliffhanger) while the two sides talked - but then when the barbarian charged anyway, the PC gnome took a critical hit and auto failed two death saves - but luckily this did not pass his max. damage threshold - so he survived that round and luckily the party druid was able to heal him before the next.

I do like Ruin's idea of people at 0 being able to move 10'. Maybe you can do that until you fail your first death save, and then you are really unconscious and can't act or move.