D&D 5E (2014) It's so hard to die!

[Asisreo]

Typically, I don't even get the opportunity to try to save them.
They lose the first few turns of initiative and the party wallops on them. They get one round of action to try to do something cool. Then the rest of the party wallops on them. Then the second round starts, and by the time the enemy's second turn comes up, it's all over - or the party is just mopping up the dregs that are left.
That's a typical 5e combat for me.

This sounds like either a highly optimized party or encounters well below what they are expected of.

 

[MichaelSomething]

What? How is this related to what I just said?

One reason that 5E PCs have so much durability is so that they can survive adventuring for a not short amount of time. That means, a single average encounter is unlikely to kill a PC.

You can reduce durability to increase deadliness, but that can create seperate issues. A PC on the verge of death may not want to continue adventuring. They may want to rest instead.

 

[jgsugden]

It is a heroic game, so we don't want PCs dying too easily ....

But I've killed a lot of PCs in 5E, and done it across the spectrum of levels. There were times the dice went against the PCs and they were just overwhelmed. There were times the PCs all went down at once to a Dragon Breath that rolled high on the damage. There were times a PC went down and an adjacent monster went next - and had every reason to finish off the PC with a multiattack. Power Word: Kill. PC over the cliff, into the lava, or into the elemental plane of fire.

And as a player, I've seen a lot of death. Low level PCs in 5E have died a lot. My monk just watched his entire party get wiped out (but he escaped). When DMs have intelligent and evil monsters use their full spectrum of tools ... well, it can be very hard for the PCs to survive.

 

[Nefermandias]

One reason that 5E PCs have so much durability is so that they can survive adventuring for a not short amount of time. That means, a single average encounter is unlikely to kill a PC.

You can reduce durability to increase deadliness, but that can create seperate issues. A PC on the verge of death may not want to continue adventuring. They may want to rest instead.

4e had it solved with the Healing Surge mechanic. My point is, healing word is not to blame here. The spell is just out of place, like many other things 5e inherited from older editions without much thought.

 

[Krachek]

I don't think heading Word is the Culprit. It's just a first level spell that can be cast at a distance with a bonus action. Back in 4e, Healing Word used to be okay because healing were limited to healing surges anyway and death saves only reseted after a short rest. Yo-yo healing wasn't nearly as much of a problem as it is right now.
5e player's apparent immortality is caused by a combination of factors. Healing Word is the least offender.

Indeed it’s a combination of factor. One of the firsts are the Xp budget formulas that are made for a vanilla entry level mode. In 5ed adding MC, feats, giving magical item, adding new options from other books than phb make PC stronger. Players experience and coordination make PC stonger. If DM keep following Xp budget standard it will go for more and more easy vanilla entry level fight.

 

[tetrasodium]

4e had it solved with the Healing Surge mechanic. My point is, healing word is not to blame here. The spell is just out of place, like many other things 5e inherited from older editions without much thought.

the way it interacts with phb197& how so much of the system math is designed around the expectation of being able to combine it with healing word shouldn't be ignored though.

Just removing healing word points a spotlight at the poor scaling of heal spells no longer able to keep up or the ineffectiveness of armor no longer able to avoid enough attacks.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Nah. I'm all about upping the challenge of 5e, but I'll walk away from a game that uses the "gritty rest variant," because it demonstrates that the DM either has poor grasp of the rules or doesn't care about the fun of all the players. It unfairly penalizes casters while other characters such as rogues and fighters are untouched. Simply put, it's not fun to get 1-2 spells per week at 1st level. Even the hardest of hardcore editions of the game don't do that.

I beg to differ. I use it in all my games now and it runs a whole of a lot better. The players are having fun as well. And it allows to actually fit in the 6-8 encounters between long rests the game is built around. (I assume you know that, throwing around "poor grasp of the rules" and such)

 

[QuentinGeorge]

You do you, but that seems to be extremely short sighted. Have you ever tried it? Because I use it in my game and aim for 5-10 encounters between long rests which, yes, require a week of downtime. I find that it simply suits the pace of the story better. It does means spellcasters don't go nova every encounter, how is that a bad thing? My players seem to enjoy it and it really does help balance things out between casters and non-casters. But I guess you know better than I or my players do.

I do tweak durations a bit, any spell that lasts a half hour or more the duration gets multiplied by 5.

Yes it seems odd that a solution requiring spellcasters to make difficult choices and judicious use of their resources is criticised for... requiring spellcasters to make difficult choices and judicious use of their resources.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Nah. I'm all about upping the challenge of 5e, but I'll walk away from a game that uses the "gritty rest variant," because it demonstrates that the DM either has poor grasp of the rules or doesn't care about the fun of all the players. It unfairly penalizes casters while other characters such as rogues and fighters are untouched. Simply put, it's not fun to get 1-2 spells per week at 1st level. Even the hardest of hardcore editions of the game don't do that.

The expectation of 5e is that there are 6-8 encounters per day. Do you really find that it makes that much difference to your spellcasters that they are avoiding casting their spells in about four encounters in a day or about four encounters in a week? Or are you ignoring the expected pacing of 5e and making sure the spellcasters are always topped off when the explicitly stated intent of the game is that resource management should be a thing?

The practical point of the gritty rest mechanic is so the DM doesn't have to throw entire waves of monsters at the PCs every day. My variant of it is that you can also take a long rest in a designated and aligned holy place; in practice this means that in a dungeon you only need to rest for a night - while wilderness adventuring takes longer because it's far slower paced.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yes it seems odd that a solution requiring spellcasters to make difficult choices and judicious use of their resources is criticised for... requiring spellcasters to make difficult choices and judicious use of their resources.

The spells themselves &number of spell slots aren't tuned to that notch on the dial is the problem. Correcting that is s very nontrivial problem