D&D 5E (2014) Is it worth taking damage in order to do your stuff?

[Aribar]

Would there have been any way to do some acrobatics or climbing to get around the brambles?

 

[Shiroiken]

There are two ways to look at the situation (not just this one, but all similar ones): character and player perspectives.

A character, unless brash or foolish, is unlikely to just rush into a hazardous area. There are sometimes alternatives, such as climbing the walls in your example, that may be slower, but more safe. If it looks survivable, a character may take the damage in order to achieve his goals.

As a player, the smartest thing would be to figure out how much damage you'll take, and compare it to how much damage it'll allow you to deal. If you can deal more damage, then it's generally a better option to suck it up, because it'll end the fight sooner, dealing less damage overall. Of course, I also know players who'd take the damage regardless, because they detest the notion of doing nothing on their turn.

 

[jodyjohnson]

I like to run a combination of 'HP as Plot Armor/Stamina/Luck' and Lingering Injuries so 'damage' is usually just loss of HP (a quickly regenerating resource). Heroes can usually 'take damage' as part of a challenge and not actually suffer injuries. Whereas on criticals, failed saves with a '1', and dropping to 0 they suffer some form of Lingering Injury.

In that case, since a spell doesn't require that 'damage' is an injury I would assume that one could run the stairway with the understanding that it might cause injury but that skill and luck would allow one to avoid it (most of the time). It would be done in a way that worked in the story such as acrobatics or armor allowing one to pass without harm.

This requires most spells and sources of 'damage' to not be unavoidable walls of harmful effects but rather swirling flames or spaced blades/laser beams that one might avoid through skill or luck.

I realize most players prefer to treat successful attacks (or unsuccessful saves) as 'hits' and loss of HP as 'damage' but I find treating them differently allows us to match the combat mechanics with the HP recovery mechanics in a way that simulates 'story'.

 

[Jaelommiss]

There are certainly times where risking damage is perfectly acceptable to accomplish something.

I'll give you an example. Recently my players got into a fight with some bugbears and worgs, supported by a sorcerer who flung spells at the party from a distance. The bugbears and worgs tied up the melee characters while the sorcerer dropped the ranged characters in short order (they were in their last legs going into the fight). Both the fighter and barbarian weighed the risk of a couple opportunity attacks vs letting the sorcerer bombard them with impunity, and in the end decided that it was worth the risk*.

Like anything in combat, the player (either by their own assessment or how they believe the character would think) needs to weigh the risk (likelihood and significance of setback) and reward for a course of action. From my point of view, the rogue acted correctly given that there was certain damage that could have been extremely high, would have exposed the rogue to further risk by entering the fight, and would at best end the fight a single round sooner. In this situation I would likely try to find another way up (running outside and climbing the wall to a window) or find something else to do (such as throwing oil flasks blindly up the stairs or watching for flanking enemies).

To illustrate this another way, consider a wizard fighting an adjacent ogre. Making an attack with Ray of Frost at disadvantage would be safe, so long is the ogre will not survive to its next turn. Risking an AoO to eliminate disadvantage could very well kill the wizard, depending on the wizard's level and HP. Swap the ogre for a goblin and suddenly risking the AoO to remove disadvantage is far more sensible. Suppose that the wizard is maintaining a concentration spell. This makes the goblin far more dangerous given the chance of losing that spell on a successful hit.

Or consider an evil wizard that has created a Wall of Fire between himself and the party. The fighter and cleric might not want to risk running through it, but the gold dragonborn and raging totem barbarian see it as a reasonable risk in order to break the wizard's concentration.


I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is no definite answer for this question. Sometimes it is worth taking the damage, sometimes it is not, and most of the time there is no clear answer and players will need to assess the situation before deciding for themselves.



*Two out of three AoO ended up being crits. My dice were rolling hot that day. Regardless, I still think they made the correct tactical decision. Were it not for extreme bad luck it would have paid off greatly.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

HP is a resource like any other. Spending it to accomplish a task is just a risk-reward calculation, not a real decision point.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This situation came up on our last session:
Enemy casts spike growth into a staircase, making it so that everyone except rogue was in the area (he was way back). This became a problem as the rogue didn't want to move forward because he would've received damage, and was too far behind in order to see into the stairway. He was with full hp. he lost like 3-5 rounds of combat.

question is: did he do smart or stupid? should a character take some damage in order to participate into the combat and end it quicker?

PS: the rogue was in my control so I am not calling anyone else but me stupid. My main character Druid was tanking the situation and taking it like a boss.

PPS: I want to have a discussion about the topic generally as well.

From a tactical optimization standpoint, it's impossible to say without more info. What were the ACs of other PCs, and how many were there? How much spiked ground would you have had to cross to get to the stairwell? Etc. Without knowing that info, I'd spitball a guess: it was probably smart to wait. Spiked Growth is a monstrously powerful spell, and soaking 20 points of damage crossing it in order to add (say) 50 points of damage over 5 rounds of combat that would have saved the Moon Druid from taking some hits... that's just a waste of 20 Rogue hit points. Choosing to wait gives the other PCs someone watching their rear (always a good thing) and gives the other PCs the choice of bringing you in as backup if they need to just by hitting the enemy to break his concentration on Spike Growth... at which point you come into play, not down 20 hit points and ready to tank with Uncanny Dodge.

If Spike Growth weren't so damaging, or if the party were struggling to the point where they needed you nownownow, the decision would be more difficult. But in this case it sounds like sitting things out was a smart move under the circumstances.

The willingness of 5E characters to shrug off grievous injuries because HP heal every day bugs me. I've considered keeping track of pain and scars even after HP is healed. E.g. "you can tell from his scars that this guy has taken well over 2000 HP of damage over the course of his life." Similarly, I could say that taking HP damage causes pain for at least a week, even if the HP damage goes away and is no longer life-threatening after a night's rest. This results in NPCs who act in ways that are more familiar to us from real life (will surrender when mugged rather than fighting the guy with a knife), rather than just treating wounds as absolutely trivial.

 

[Sunseeker]

Typically speaking, there's a reasonable balance between how much damage you can dish and how much damage you can take and still succeed. If the damage you take due to area effects is low enough compared to how much damage you would deal by putting yourself at risk then it's a good trade. But this measure is different for every character and every situation, so was it the good move in this situation? Well it sounds like the party won, so I guess it worked out!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It depends on the mindset of your group. Because, lets be honest. Your character isn't "taking damage," they're being injured and inflicting pain on themselves. It takes a lot for people to willingly hurt themselves so obviously. From a role playing perspective, I think that willingly hurting yourself in such a fasion is rather unusual. "Should I lose HP while running over to fight and drain resources" is a very meta-game way of thinking of things.

That's how I see it, too. Even if you know with absolute certainty that you can survive something like that, it still takes a heroic effort to actually go through with it. It's the main reason why high-level fighters still bother to take the stairs, instead of always opting for the express route to the ground floor. Save the heroics for when it's absolutely necessary.

Of course, when a night of sleep will get you back up to full, that makes the situation a little bit harder to intuit. It's hard to encompass the duality of something being both dangerous/painful and incapable of hurting you beyond what you can sleep off.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

First of, let me preface by just saying...oh man, how I loath "in-depth" meta-game thinking! Now that you know where I'm coming from...

Meta-Game Thinking: I have X hp's, it does X damage...is that less than Y damage he may do to me/my group if I stay put?

Character Thinking: Nope. That could kill me! Are you crazy? I have to find a better way...

Personally, as DM, I have used meta-gaming players that "meta-game" too much against them...usually with hilarious death of their PC ensuing. I don't feel bad at all when I do that. Not one whit. [golum voice]Cruel DM! It burns! It bites! It..freezes! [/golum voice]

Now, I don't just whip out the "I can meta-game better than you" card at the drop of a hat. It takes a LOT for me to get to that point, but when I do, my point is usually made; do what you think your character would do and you'll be better off. I, as DM, "place" monsters as they would logically be; I don't "build encounters" based on the PC's, I "build encounters" based on the game world and as the campaign setting dictates. For example, a fen that is known to be infested with goblins will be infested with goblins...even of the PC's decide to head in there and they are all 14th level. The goblins are about to have a real bad day! If a mountain pass is shunned because of the rather savage stone giants that live in them...and the PC's decide to risk going through the pass, they can easily encounter stone giants...even if the PC's are only 3rd level. I don't factor in the PC's class make up, racial make up, or levels to any serious degree. A bit, sure, it is a game after all...a game that is hard to play when everyone is dead and constantly making new characters...but that consideration is secondary to the campaign as a whole. Because of this mentality, I believe my players can think "in character" to better effect than "meta-game" thinking.

Anyway...in the OP's post... *shrug*. I could see a brave and emotional thief risking pain, suffering and death for his beloved friends and companions, but I can't see a thief risking the same because the player is thinking "I have X hp's, it does Y damage; it's probably worth it...". I'd rank that right up there with "My guy kills himself after taking off all his magic items, telling the party to give it to the next thief they hire. Oh, here's my new guy, he's a thief...so he can join the party". >:|

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[mellored]

it depends on how much damage you take, how many hit points you had, and how much your allies took by you not killing things. if you would of taken a 50 damage, had 60 HP, and only saved your ally 10 damage, then it was probably smart to stay back.

but given you where at full HP, and your allies seemingly took 30 damage by you not being there, it was probably a bad move. but it's hard to say.

thoigh a possibly better move would of been for your allies to run away, then your party would of been together. brambles work both ways.