D&D 5E Instant Death. Am I the only one who experienced this or what?

[DND_Reborn]

The instant-death (at negative max HP) happened once in all my 5E. I was DMing, first session, first encounter, first round:

A player's dragonborn sorcerer with 9 HP was hit by two orcs' javelins, the second a critical, and was dead.

What few PC deaths we've had since then can be attributed to stupid play by the players typically, but occasionally a bad roll as well. I've said it before and I will never say otherwise, 5E (as designed) is easy once you get to 5th level. Too easy to recover HP, too easy to revive, etc. But, that is what house-rules are for.

 

[Dr Magister]

I see people claim that it's almost impossible to die in 5e, and I assume we're playing different games. I've seen so many character deaths, and experienced them as a player, and not just at very low levels. I recently had a 6th level barbarian taken out by a group of orcs and a couple of unlucky death saves, and a level 10 fighter/cleric killed a while back.

When I ran Lost Mines of Phandelver, my party of four players had five PC deaths between them, and I was by no means trying to kill them, nor are they bad or inexperienced players.

On the other hand, the only instant death I've seen is during another campaign when the party's pet baby owlbear was caught in the blast of a fireball...

 

[billd91]

You're correct that you can target Mindblast, but Dispel Magic only affects spells itself. Even though Mindblast is a valid target, the spell would basically do nothing but waste the turn and slot. That's why I gave them a second chance on their action.

Kudos for giving him the do-over. But I don't think I'd even agree that dispel magic could affect the mindblast. Dispel magic depends on there being a level for the magical effect - at or below the casting level of the dispel is an auto success, spellcasting ability check DC 10+spell level if above. But the spell level of the mindblast is undefined as far as I can tell. That pretty much tells me that it's outside the realm of what dispel magic affects.

 

[Stalker0]

I do think it’s much more common at PC levels 1-4.

At 5+ levels PC durability starts to outstrip monster damage on a given rough, reducing the chance of insta kill

 

[pogre]

Yes, it was a mindflayer. Its not a super-duper strong encounter for a level 7 party but it was actually quite potent.

Round 1

<snip>

My players would have loved this. They seem to take great joy in these kind of encounters. They're weird They howl and complain any time they think I am pulling punches. Very tactical bunch of folks.

I have yet to have a TPK in 5e, but we have had a few deaths - many through insta-kills.

 

[Asisreo]

My players would have loved this. They seem to take great joy in these kind of encounters. They're weird They howl and complain any time they think I am pulling punches. Very tactical bunch of folks.

I have yet to have a TPK in 5e, but we have had a few deaths - many through insta-kills.

My players also enjoy tactical combat but only when they win. Its a struggle for them.

 

[p_johnston]

The only time I killed a character due to massive damage was because the player asked me to. Level Three and he was fleeing from a burning warehouse full of gunpowder and alchemist fire. He had to remind me of the rule and didn't take the out I gave his character.

As a general rule I don't like killing individual characters if I can avoid it. I find it tends to mess with the development of the story trying to introduce new characters with new ties to the plot. I find it much preferable to either have the entire party live or die together.

Edit: Also I just straight up ignore Massive damage until level three. It's already to easy to murder low level players. I don't need any additional help there.

 

[Charlaquin]

That reminds me of another death we had at around 7th level - disintegrated by an undead beholder in Undermountain! Poor wizard.

And I take no pleasure in PC deaths when DMing - but we all roll in the open and let the dice fall where they may. This is the Way.

You gotta at least take a little pleasure in it though, right?

 

[Dausuul]

I do technically play with the rule, but it pretty much never comes up, because I don't want it to (and I make choices, like average damage for monsters and not attacking downed PCs, that minimize the chances of it).

My campaigns have strong overarching plots, and my players always have more character ideas they want to try. When a PC dies, the player just whips out the next concept in their personal idea file, but I have to figure out how to work the new guy's character hooks into the ongoing story and it's a real PITA. I don't want a lot of random death in my games; if one PC is unconscious, I want the other PCs to have the opportunity to save them.

If you do something suicidal, of course, you die, and if your party members can't be bothered to save you, you also die. But otherwise, the threat of death is collective rather than individual. If the party really, truly screws up and can't think of a creative way out, they TPK and the campaign is over and I don't have to work anybody into anything.

I have been thinking about trying a more "episodic" approach with stand-alone adventures lasting maybe 3-4 sessions, and one of the attractions is that it reduces the hassle for me when new PCs join the group. (Also, it allows me to run an adventure or two and then step back and let someone else DM for a while.) I might crank up the lethality for that.

 

[Dausuul]

I concur that the result of the mindflayer battle was the combination of the mistaken ruling that Dispel Magic wouldn't work...

It's not a mistaken ruling. This is the sum total of what dispel magic does:

"Any spell of 3rd level or lower on the target ends. For each spell of 4th level or higher on the target, make an ability check using your spellcasting ability. The DC equals 10 + the spell's level. On a successful check, the spell ends."

That's it. That is the whole effect of dispel magic. You are allowed to target "magical effects," and I suppose you could target a non-spell effect if you wanted, but the spell offers no way to actually remove such effects.

Anyway... this sounds like a combination of an extra-nasty monster, bad luck, and poor tactics. The party was failing to coordinate at all and the spellcasters were making poor choices--which isn't uncommon, I see both things fairly often, but in this case the monster's abilities were absolutely unforgiving of those errors. (The wizard's gambles with hypnotic pattern were bad bets against a "caster monster," but could at least have paid off big, and the wizard had no way to know the flayer was magic resistant. The cleric made the worst mistakes, first by not moving next to the monster so the rogue could Sneak Attack, and second by casting bless in the clutch moment instead of something that could have damaged the flayer and/or extricated the paladin.)