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

[tetrasodium]

The USA is one of the richest countries on the entire planet, and we live in the richest era of human history.

Calling it "crazy rich" is pretty reasonable. If D&D looks at all, I mean at all, like the middle ages, which is the default, yes the USA is crazy rich.

(And that was the median house hold income divided by the average household size, not the median household income. There are going to be countries whose median household income is higher than the USA, but all of them will either be small or they'll be "first world" industrial countries. All of which are "crazy rich".)

cars in other countries with different safety standards fuel economy & tax requirement tend to be priced within reach of the locals. You can see a bunch of zero star crasg test results & writeups on from 2500-3000$USD indian cars if you look around as an example I know of

 

[ad_hoc]

The USA is one of the richest countries on the entire planet, and we live in the richest era of human history.

Calling it "crazy rich" is pretty reasonable. If D&D looks at all, I mean at all, like the middle ages, which is the default, yes the USA is crazy rich.

(And that was the median house hold income divided by the average household size, not the median household income. There are going to be countries whose median household income is higher than the USA, but all of them will either be small or they'll be "first world" industrial countries. All of which are "crazy rich".)

Healing potions are able to be created by independent people in small settlements.

Trying to compare us to them just isn't going to work.

I think they are much easier to get than you're giving credit for. I can live quite comfortably on $1500 use/mth. I make an average salary for my country and it is much higher than that. I could easily buy one in this scenario after 2 months of saving while living comfortably. Not a decade or a year.

 

[NotAYakk]

Healing potions are able to be created by independent people in small settlements.

Trying to compare us to them just isn't going to work.

I think they are much easier to get than you're giving credit for. I can live quite comfortably on $1500 use/mth. I make an average salary for my country and it is much higher than that. I could easily buy one in this scenario after 2 months of saving while living comfortably. Not a decade or a year.

Except for the majority of human history, most people didn't have incomes that massively exceeded their costs.

Instead, most people had direct access to food (because they where farmers), and little access to coin. They usually paid their taxes in a share of food. Savings where invested in having more food or animals and better food and kids who had better nutrition, not coins. They might have specialists, but they might pay the specialists in food, or in tally sticks, not coin.

The rich, people with liquid assets, whose survival expenses are far below their income, where extremely rare.

Not having enough food to not be hungry was common. Saving money instead of buying more food so you aren't hungry was a challenge, and often sub optimal, because food is energy and health. Scraping up enough savings to represent literally months of middle class living expenses is a bit crazy.

Take a world where there are 1% upper class, 5% middle class, 24% lower class, and 70% poor, where I define "poor" as "doesn't have enough money to avoid chronic undernourishment". The lower class has regular hunger, but it isn't always.

Here, I'll define middle class is defined as people who can usually afford the 1 gp/day standard of living.

In modern day, take someone living in relative poverty. How many of them can save up for a single purchase that represents about 2 months of a top-5% of population living expenses? Even if mathematically possible, such a purchase would be really extreme.

(There isn't a financial system to make buying that potion on an installment plan possible without usurious interest rates. Although, I expect that to happen; a local moneylender willing to take title to your farm animals and a 5 gp (or a donkey or equivalent animal) per month in exchange for an emergency healing potion.)

 

[ad_hoc]

Except for the majority of human history, most people didn't have incomes that massively exceeded their costs.

Instead, most people had direct access to food (because they where farmers), and little access to coin. They usually paid their taxes in a share of food. Savings where invested in having more food or animals and better food and kids who had better nutrition, not coins. They might have specialists, but they might pay the specialists in food, or in tally sticks, not coin.

The rich, people with liquid assets, whose survival expenses are far below their income, where extremely rare.

Not having enough food to not be hungry was common. Saving money instead of buying more food so you aren't hungry was a challenge, and often sub optimal, because food is energy and health. Scraping up enough savings to represent literally months of middle class living expenses is a bit crazy.

Take a world where there are 1% upper class, 5% middle class, 24% lower class, and 70% poor, where I define "poor" as "doesn't have enough money to avoid chronic undernourishment". The lower class has regular hunger, but it isn't always.

Here, I'll define middle class is defined as people who can usually afford the 1 gp/day standard of living.

In modern day, take someone living in relative poverty. How many of them can save up for a single purchase that represents about 2 months of a top-5% of population living expenses? Even if mathematically possible, such a purchase would be really extreme.

(There isn't a financial system to make buying that potion on an installment plan possible without usurious interest rates. Although, I expect that to happen; a local moneylender willing to take title to your farm animals and a 5 gp (or a donkey or equivalent animal) per month in exchange for an emergency healing potion.)

We are talking about a magical world full of elves and dragons and healing potions.

This isn't the middle ages.

 

[Sithlord]

Come to my group. We kill a player every week or two. No multiclassing and zero hp is dead. And no revivify spell or healing word. Other than pretty much by the book.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Except for the majority of human history, most people didn't have incomes that massively exceeded their costs.

Instead, most people had direct access to food (because they where farmers), and little access to coin. They usually paid their taxes in a share of food. Savings where invested in having more food or animals and better food and kids who had better nutrition, not coins. They might have specialists, but they might pay the specialists in food, or in tally sticks, not coin.

The rich, people with liquid assets, whose survival expenses are far below their income, where extremely rare.

Not having enough food to not be hungry was common. Saving money instead of buying more food so you aren't hungry was a challenge, and often sub optimal, because food is energy and health. Scraping up enough savings to represent literally months of middle class living expenses is a bit crazy.

Take a world where there are 1% upper class, 5% middle class, 24% lower class, and 70% poor, where I define "poor" as "doesn't have enough money to avoid chronic undernourishment". The lower class has regular hunger, but it isn't always.

Here, I'll define middle class is defined as people who can usually afford the 1 gp/day standard of living.

In modern day, take someone living in relative poverty. How many of them can save up for a single purchase that represents about 2 months of a top-5% of population living expenses? Even if mathematically possible, such a purchase would be really extreme.

(There isn't a financial system to make buying that potion on an installment plan possible without usurious interest rates. Although, I expect that to happen; a local moneylender willing to take title to your farm animals and a 5 gp (or a donkey or equivalent animal) per month in exchange for an emergency healing potion.)

People in medieval europe didn't have a lot of liquid assets, but were not at all close to chronic undernourishment. They were healthier and better fed than people from the Roman era. In fact things seemed to be pretty good, food supply reliable enough that the malnourishment during the Great Famine didn't seem to kick in until a few years in.

 

[Oofta]

People in medieval europe didn't have a lot of liquid assets, but were not at all close to chronic undernourishment. They were healthier and better fed than people from the Roman era. In fact things seemed to be pretty good, food supply reliable enough that the malnourishment during the Great Famine didn't seem to kick in until a few years in.

When you're talking about an era of a thousand years that spanned Europe, general statements don't really apply. Some people had abundance, some people starved to death.

On the other hand medieval Europe was depicted as far darker than it was because we rely on inaccurate historical depictions.

 

[Flamestrike]

Our deaths have always come not just from going to zero and failing death saves, but from going to zero and foes continuing to hit your prone body repeatedly after that. Each hit causes one negative death save result. Do that enough before other players with healing can respond, and you die.

Attacks against creatures with 0 HP are made with advantage, and are automatic critical hits if successful.

Thats because at 0HP you're unconscious (as per the condition)

Meaning it's 2 failed death saves from one attack.

 

[NotAYakk]

Here we have various Malthusian traps.

Basically, as population grows, income drops, resulting in high population periods with starvation and low population periods with abundance.

Wealth is literally halved during the high population periods. The product of population times wealth is close to constant.

A first phase change happens in the 18th century in fortunate areas, where a different baseline develops with a spike in wealth and population growth. Then population keeps growing, and wealth per person drops.

Finally, the industrial revolution kicks in, and the singularity-like modern era starts.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

In my last campaign I killed a 19th level player character. It wasn't easy...but it is possible. We had five players and I think six or seven characters under their control. Lots of hit points to grind through! Here's how it happened:

First, I had a few ancient dragons come at the PCs. They were quickly dispatched. Second, the PCs had to rescue an NPC, but the devils guarding him were illusory, so the PCs wasted some resources. Third, the real devils appeared and hit hard. They were led by Bel (CR 26 from Descent Into Avernus). Bel is a tough sonuvabitch. His ice devils managed to isolate the party ranger and trap him in a dome of ice. Then Bel teleported into the dome. Outmatched, the ranger fell. Bel teleported the ranger to his lair 500 miles away. The hordes of devils in the lair swarmed the ranger and killed him. Next session, the ranger was rescued and resurrected.

That encounter was an ambushed planned by the villains, who had gotten sick of getting consistently stomped by the PCs.