D&D 5E How Would You Run This? (Multiple Saves)

[jayoungr]

Both of those abilities affect attacks, not fall damage.

Right, I just mean that they're psychologically primed to negate things retroactively, so even if I narrate fall damage, that won't make them think there's no way to prevent it.

 

[Quickleaf]

A question for DMs. Say you're running a published adventure, and it contains a situation something like this: the PCs are crossing a precarious rope bridge across a chasm, and something or other shakes it, trying to make them fall off. The adventure text says that each PC has to make a DC 10 dexterity save or fall off the bridge into the chasm. Some of your PCs make the save, and some don't.

"Bob," you say, "you fall off the rope bridge and plunge into the chasm."

One of the other players then says, "My character was right next to Bob on the bridge. I reach out and try to grab him."

If this happened at your table, would you allow the additional save [made by the second player], and either way, what would be your reasoning?

If you did allow the additional save, what difficulty would you set it at?

This actually came up in a game I ran tonight. I allowed the second save and set the DC at 17, but I'm still not sure about the whole thing. I could see an argument that PCs would want to do everything in their power to save their buddies, and also that I shouldn't be shutting down player solutions to problems presented by the story. (The latter was the main reason I went ahead and allowed it.} But I could also see an argument that the PCs are supposed to be too busy keeping their own balance to help anyone else. Or, from a mechanical standpoint, that it tilts the danger factor too far in the PCs' favor--as written, there was supposed to be only one failed save between a PC and falling damage, and now suddenly there are two.

My first question would be does the adventure readily accommodate the party becoming split by this event?

Because if the adventure is happening entirely above the chasm and there is no description of what's down in the chasm, then maybe I don't even want a possible consequence to be "two PCs fall down, while the other two adventure on." In that case, this is an opportunity – probably during my DM prep speed-reading the adventure – to devise an alternative failure condition.

My second question would be what level is the party, how high is the drop, and how climactic is this scene?

Because I'd want to have a sense of the lethality posed by falling the entire distance. If it's not very climactic and is just a speedbump encounter that – due to the way falling works in D&D – has the potential to be lethal for a party lacking feather fall, then I'd introduce various reaction choices a falling PC could make to save themself, presenting some cost or sacrifice (e.g. dropping everything in their hands to clutch a ledge) in exchange.

Then, once I was satisfied that the Dex save was well placed, the consequences of falling into the chasm suitably accounted for in the adventure, and no falling reactions were necessary...

"Sure, Bob roll again for your Dexterity save at DC 15. If you succeed you manage to reach Jane's hand just in time and you don't fall. But if you fail, you grab Jane's shirt or belt and both of you fall. You still wanted to step toward the ledge and reach out for him, Jane?"