D&D 5E Let 'em live or die?

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah, I claim it's always possible. Again, because make-believe in a fantasy world. It's a skill.

Your claim may hold true for some games, but not all, since you can't claim to know the quality of all games. One doesn't even need to worry about whether a monster has any "in-combat" way to determine if a PC is unconscious or actually dead. It doesn't really matter. The ghoul feasts. The iced up frost giant tweaks. The berserker goes berserk. The cultist pulls out entrails in the name of their horrible godling. And on and on.

To be clear, I have never claimed that all enemies should always attack downed PCs. Only that they could and that one can establish why as needed.

That you're admitting my claim "may hold true for some games" means your claim of "always" is false. There's no more to it. So that's fine.

And any attacking of downed PCs where only PCs who are downed, not dead, are attacked is going to involve metagaming. I mean, why would the berserker stop hacking at the PC because the PC was no longer making death saves? Why would he not hack at an already-dead PC? Metagaming is why. Otherwise he'd keep hacking for an indefinite period, maybe a few seconds more, maybe until his axe breaks - or he might get bored of hacking before he's done. You can put a dress on metagaming by saying why in-fiction, but it's still metagaming when you rely on attacking downed targets to delete death saves and stop as soon as you have. Why would the ghoul stop feasting? Metagaming. But in fiction, ghouls often wouldn't stop when someone was dead, they'd keep going. Before you start claiming the players do the same, they actually can't, because they don't know if monsters have secret rules that let them get back up. They have to guess, and often make mistakes. Whereas with death saves, it's pure, known metagaming, because the DM tracks that - even if the PCs hid it, it's a matter of counting to 3.

 

[iserith]

That you're admitting my claim "may hold true for some games" means your claim of "always" is false. There's no more to it. So that's fine.

And any attacking of downed PCs where only PCs who are downed, not dead, are attacked is going to involve metagaming. I mean, why would the berserker stop hacking at the PC because the PC was no longer making death saves? Why would he not hack at an already-dead PC? Metagaming is why. Otherwise he'd keep hacking for an indefinite period, maybe a few seconds more, maybe until his axe breaks - or he might get bored of hacking before he's done. You can put a dress on metagaming by saying why in-fiction, but it's still metagaming when you rely on attacking downed targets to delete death saves and stop as soon as you have. Why would the ghoul stop feasting? Metagaming. But in fiction, ghouls often wouldn't stop when someone was dead, they'd keep going. Before you start claiming the players do the same, they actually can't, because they don't know if monsters have secret rules that let them get back up. They have to guess, and often make mistakes. Whereas with death saves, it's pure, known metagaming, because the DM tracks that - even if the PCs hid it, it's a matter of counting to 3.

"Metagaming" is irrelevant. The DM can make decisions for the game for any reason - for example to increase difficulty and tension of a challenge - then justify that reason in the fiction as needed. See if you can find any mention of "metagaming" in D&D 5e.

You claim is that it can't be done for all situations. I claim that it can. Some people, apparently, lack the skill to do that. But that doesn't make it impossible. I wish you well in working on that skill, if that's something you wish to pursue, and certainly hope you will consider abandoning these notions of "metagaming," particularly as it relates to the DM. Everyone I know that has, including myself, has found it to be very freeing and makes the game a lot better.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

"Metagaming" is irrelevant. The DM can make decisions for the game for any reason - for example to increase difficulty and tension of a challenge - then justify that reason in the fiction as needed. See if you can find any mention of "metagaming" in D&D 5e.

You claim is that it can't be done for all situations. I claim that it can. Some people, apparently, lack the skill to do that. But that doesn't make it impossible. I wish you well in working on that skill, if that's something you wish to pursue, and certainly hope you will consider abandoning these notions of "metagaming," particularly as it relates to the DM. Everyone I know that has, including myself, has found it to be very freeing and makes the game a lot better.

Yeah I get that you're still trying to neg me like a pimply PUA dude at his first nightclub, but it ain't gonna happen, bro.

 

[toucanbuzz]

I honestly don't think all that much thought needs to go into whether a monster attacks a downed PC...

And any attacking of downed PCs where only PCs who are downed, not dead, are attacked is going to involve metagaming. I mean, why would the berserker stop hacking at the PC because the PC was no longer making death saves?

Off topic from the original post concept, but altering how Death Saves work affected the death of the PC. In our homebrew, death saves are replaced with the option to keep fighting at 0hp, albeit with severe penalty. Any further damage goes to your actual "hit points" (aka the actual damage your body can take, we call it "vitality"). In this case, it removed the metagaming feature of enemies continuing to hack away at a downed PC. Players can still "drop," but they run the risk of an intelligent enemy applying the finishing touch, or a ghoul stopping to feast, etc.

The enemies were aiming to kill. The PCs (1) invaded their lair, (2) killed their comrades, (3) destroyed their sacred centipede hatchery (they revere vermin), (4) insulted their god, and (5) all in front of their chieftain who wasn't going to let that stand. The PC kept fighting until her heart stopped beating, which fit her Glory Paladin concept...except the part where the stories she was told about Glory didn't come true.

 

[Helldritch]

I think that presents a totally unrealistic take on how common that kind of magic is, and worse it's definitely metagaming of a clear and undeniable nature, because none of these monsters/NPCs know that it takes 3 hits doing any amount of damage, to finish a PC and prevent them from getting up again. So you either have to have a situation where NPCs frequently make mistakes, because they don't know how many hits it actually takes to prevent healing etc., sometimes hitting too few, sometimes hitting too many times, if you're staying in the setting, or you have to have them basically not do it and avoid opening the can of worms.

If you keep having NPCs go around and neatly use the correct number of hits to use up the death saves, that's pure, uncut, 100% metagaming.

There's no non-magical way a normal NPC or monster can tell when a player is so injured that they can't be brought up by Healing Word or the like. They don't know what death saves are. They don't know that any three sources of damage will do. You seem to going with PCs laying there moaning or something, but they're not - they're unconscious at 0HP. So if someone wants to lay into them, they can, but they can't tell when they're done unless it's crazy overkill.

What I suspect you're thinking is fine is a situation like, you have six guards around a downed PC, you decide to kill him, first three guards attack and hit, and because you, metagaming, know he's dead, the other three move off and attack other targets.

It's a ridiculously metagame situation. In the fiction, one guard would likely stab him, and the rest would move off (or none would). In an earlier edition, one guard would CdG, which would make sense. Not so in 5E though.

Of course they don't know it takes three hits. But on the third hit, have a member removed, a head chopped off/smashed, the heart is cut (insert any narrative you want in here). Once they see a PC coming back from apparent death, the foes will make sure that if the fallen comes back, it will be crippled. Do your PC put trolls to the torch? Of course they do! Yet, when the "monsters" apply the same logic, you say it is BS?

You're too much into the game's mechanic. It is a way to explain things. Sure. But narratively, it makes sense. Foes do not want to have a threat coming back at them. So they will apply the troll trick. Remove the head, put the body to fire or anything else. If a PC comes back from apparent death in the middle of combat, foes will act accordingly.

And if the 3 death saves is too much. Just go for the old -10 treshold. Or make it that healing word does not wake you up. It just stabilizes the fallen character. Anything but the whack a mole.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Of course they don't know it takes three hits. But on the third hit, have a member removed, a head chopped off/smashed, the heart is cut (insert any narrative you want in here). Once they see a PC coming back from apparent death, the foes will make sure that if the fallen comes back, it will be crippled. Do your PC put trolls to the torch? Of course they do! Yet, when the "monsters" apply the same logic, you say it is BS?

Yes, I absolutely say it's naughty word.

You're confusing in-game with out-of-game knowledge.

In-game, people know that trolls can get up if you don't set them on fire.

In-game, people know that healing magic exists - but what they don't know is whether a body on the ground is unconscious or dead (in combat), nor how many hits it takes to make someone dead as opposed to unconscious. They have no idea about any of that. In fact, what they know is, there's no easy way to prevent healing magic. There's no simple thing like fire. Maybe there should be, but here isn't.

You keep saying stuff like "chop off the head" like it's trivial. That's completely ridiculous. How, exactly, are you going to "chop the head off" a dude in full plate (or really any kind of serious armour), lying on muddy ground, in the middle of a goddamn battle? That would take you MULTIPLE rounds. Not six seconds. Probably 20 or more, even if you had a weapon which could do it (it would be extremely hard with anything except some kind of axe - even a sword would be bad because of the angle). On top of that, if you have monsters do that, Revivfy doesn't work, so you're not just killing PCs - you're going the next level and killing them so hard only really serious res spells can work on them. Which, okay, I guess if that's what you want to do, but it's pretty wild.

As for the rest of what you're saying - yeah I agree that whack-a-mole is arguably a problem - but crude metagaming is not a good solution to that problem. Your other solutions are better (-10 is too small given 5E's inflated damage, but same idea different number could work). The point is though, humans aren't trolls. You simply cannot, in a magical world, be 100% certain that no-one is going to cast a spell that gets people back up. Metagaming is a shoddy way to deal with that. Monsters being ready for it to happen is a better solution than metagaming body-whacking with dubious RP excuses.

 

[Helldritch]

Yes, I absolutely say it's naughty word.

You're confusing in-game with out-of-game knowledge.

In-game, people know that trolls can get up if you don't set them on fire.

In-game, people know that healing magic exists - but what they don't know is whether a body on the ground is unconscious or dead (in combat), nor how many hits it takes to make someone dead as opposed to unconscious. They have no idea about any of that. In fact, what they know is, there's no easy way to prevent healing magic. There's no simple thing like fire. Maybe there should be, but here isn't.

You keep saying stuff like "chop off the head" like it's trivial. That's completely ridiculous. How, exactly, are you going to "chop the head off" a dude in full plate (or really any kind of serious armour), lying on muddy ground, in the middle of a goddamn battle? That would take you MULTIPLE rounds. Not six seconds. Probably 20 or more, even if you had a weapon which could do it (it would be extremely hard with anything except some kind of axe - even a sword would be bad because of the angle). On top of that, if you have monsters do that, Revivfy doesn't work, so you're not just killing PCs - you're going the next level and killing them so hard only really serious res spells can work on them. Which, okay, I guess if that's what you want to do, but it's pretty wild.

As for the rest of what you're saying - yeah I agree that whack-a-mole is arguably a problem - but crude metagaming is not a good solution to that problem. Your other solutions are better (-10 is too small given 5E's inflated damage, but same idea different number could work). The point is though, humans aren't trolls. You simply cannot, in a magical world, be 100% certain that no-one is going to cast a spell that gets people back up. Metagaming is a shoddy way to deal with that. Monsters being ready for it to happen is a better solution than metagaming body-whacking with dubious RP excuses.

Crude meta gaming? Let me laugh. If the players can do it so can the monsters.

To make sure that someone is dead, a nice hit on the head is always a good thing. Why do you think it takes three hits? To exactly represent the difficulty of "finishing" someone for good. Three hits means three combatants (or some opponents with multiple attacks). A maul on the head, is pretty good sure way. But you take everything too litteral. Chop the head off? Or Crush it underfoot, or Putting that sword through the brain, Putting that pike exactly on the heart, or whatever narrative you want or need or that situation calls for to make it believable.

And remember, I only do this once the players have shown their opponents that getting one of them down is not a sure way to end the threat of that character. So I do not go out of my way to make sure that the players will lose characters. But I play the monsters/foes up to their intelligence. Doing anything less would not do justice to my players or to the game. Yes, it does mean that revivify might not work or might leave a character crippled. That is why such spells as regenerate exists. Playing this way is not pretty wild. It is gritty realism in a fantasy world. Of course, it depends on what kind of players you have. With children, when I initiate some of them to RPG, I wear very soft gloves, it is almost a carebear approach. With teenagers, the carebear is already out. But I play more of a super heroic game style. With older teenagers and adults, I go for gritty realism. No holds barred.

You would be surprised at how the mechanics of the game changes once you go gritty realism where monsters will do their best to kill the players for good. From the whack a mole, I have seen players (and not only my groups, but many others) start using actions such as help and dodge, they started healing way before the 911 point is reached, and even spells such as warding bond start to get serious usage when expecting a hard fight. By playing this way, the whack a mole is no longer a problem in my games (it was for about 10 sessions or about 5 sessions with each groups. Then we had a talk together on how to correct this and this was the concensus that was reached... my 12 players and me.)

Before the Covid, our friday nights dungeons at the hobby store were watched and many young gamers (read here teenagers around 15 to 17) were surprised to see my players using such tactics but once they saw the monsters using the tactic of "making sure" for them it made sense. Yes, we had to explain a bit as many were playing like "super" heroes, but once the concept sinks in, it is surprisingly logical. With the threat of death, and perma death, the players are much more cautious. Try hitting a Plate and shield warrior who's actively dodging and keeps his reaction to cast a F****ing shield spell... That is an equivalent AC of 30 (31 with warding bond in effect)! Even a paladin with shield of faith, warding bond and a single +1 shield get go as high as an equivalent AC of 28 when dodging. I only hit them on a 20 most of the time. And when one of the wall of steel finally goes down it gets back up with a single word and you would not make the monsters make sure that the wall of steel won't make it back again? Come on! No one in its right mind would let that happen twice. And if the monsters dare to ignore the walls of steel, then the walls of steel attacks! Smites, Green Flame blades (or booming blades) are not to be ignored either. Nope, I do not over do it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Crude meta gaming? Let me laugh. If the players can do it so can the monsters.

To make sure that someone is dead, a nice hit on the head is always a good thing. Why do you think it takes three hits? To exactly represent the difficulty of "finishing" someone for good. Three hits means three combatants (or some opponents with multiple attacks). A maul on the head, is pretty good sure way. But you take everything too litteral. Chop the head off? Or Crush it underfoot, or Putting that sword through the brain, Putting that pike exactly on the heart, or whatever narrative you want or need or that situation calls for to make it believable.

And remember, I only do this once the players have shown their opponents that getting one of them down is not a sure way to end the threat of that character. So I do not go out of my way to make sure that the players will lose characters. But I play the monsters/foes up to their intelligence. Doing anything less would not do justice to my players or to the game. Yes, it does mean that revivify might not work or might leave a character crippled. That is why such spells as regenerate exists. Playing this way is not pretty wild. It is gritty realism in a fantasy world. Of course, it depends on what kind of players you have. With children, when I initiate some of them to RPG, I wear very soft gloves, it is almost a carebear approach. With teenagers, the carebear is already out. But I play more of a super heroic game style. With older teenagers and adults, I go for gritty realism. No holds barred.

You would be surprised at how the mechanics of the game changes once you go gritty realism where monsters will do their best to kill the players for good. From the whack a mole, I have seen players (and not only my groups, but many others) start using actions such as help and dodge, they started healing way before the 911 point is reached, and even spells such as warding bond start to get serious usage when expecting a hard fight. By playing this way, the whack a mole is no longer a problem in my games (it was for about 10 sessions or about 5 sessions with each groups. Then we had a talk together on how to correct this and this was the concensus that was reached... my 12 players and me.)

Before the Covid, our friday nights dungeons at the hobby store were watched and many young gamers (read here teenagers around 15 to 17) were surprised to see my players using such tactics but once they saw the monsters using the tactic of "making sure" for them it made sense. Yes, we had to explain a bit as many were playing like "super" heroes, but once the concept sinks in, it is surprisingly logical. With the threat of death, and perma death, the players are much more cautious. Try hitting a Plate and shield warrior who's actively dodging and keeps his reaction to cast a F****ing shield spell... That is an equivalent AC of 30 (31 with warding bond in effect)! Even a paladin with shield of faith, warding bond and a single +1 shield get go as high as an equivalent AC of 28 when dodging. I only hit them on a 20 most of the time. And when one of the wall of steel finally goes down it gets back up with a single word and you would not make the monsters make sure that the wall of steel won't make it back again? Come on! No one in its right mind would let that happen twice. And if the monsters dare to ignore the walls of steel, then the walls of steel attacks! Smites, Green Flame blades (or booming blades) are not to be ignored either. Nope, I do not over do it.

You're using "gritty realism" in a pretty silly way there, as it is synonymous with "no holds barred". There's some overlap, but what you're describing isn't very realistic, just very aggressive. So it is "no holds barred", but not "gritty realism" the way 95% of people use the term.

And because you're making the opponents able to metagame in a way the players can't, it remains crude metagaming.

 

[iserith]

The whole concept of "metagaming" is bunk. Free yourself from its shackles!

 

[Helldritch]

You're using "gritty realism" in a pretty silly way there, as it is synonymous with "no holds barred". There's some overlap, but what you're describing isn't very realistic, just very aggressive. So it is "no holds barred", but not "gritty realism" the way 95% of people use the term.

And because you're making the opponents able to metagame in a way the players can't, it remains crude metagaming.

The players can and will use the same tactics. You accuse me of crude metagaming where I should accuse you of carebear(ing) your players.
As per the rules, monsters and foes die at 0hp. So yes, in a sense, the players can't because the monsters is surely dead. But with regenerative monsters, unless you apply fire or acid or whatever, they are not dead and as such, an extra step must be taken by the players to "finish" these monsters. If I were to follow your logic, I should not allow the application of fire on a troll as it is a crude unfair metagaming towards the troll...

"No Bob, you can't apply fire to the troll unless its allies are downed too. It would be Metagaming you know that." Do you realize how silly this sounds????? Players can apply fire to the troll, using a precious action. Monsters has to do this 3 times over to make the same assumption. Who's advantaged by the rules here?

As for your accusation of gritty realism. BS! I know and you do too, that it is way more than this single aspect. Accusing me of considering only one aspect and claiming that I do not what it is... Relax! You should broaden your perspective and stop narrowing the other to the pin point aspect you wish for to make you "right". It is not because the no holds barred is one of the aspects of gritty realism that it is the only one! Assuming that the person in front of you do not know that is demeaning. Assume that it is one aspect of the gritty realism that is used and the end of it all. You assume a lot more that what is written and gleefully ignored the rest.

The narrative and the logic behind it all is solid, not meta and rule abiding. Take this example.
The giants are happy to have finally fell Sir WallofSteel. A powerful cheer comes for the 5 giants at once! You're next! One of them says as he points Fastfingers the rogue that has been pestering him with hurtful cuts on his legs.
Not so! says Bandaid the Cleric! And with a single word, Sir Wallof Steel is up to the dismay of the giants. With a look of horror, they see Sir WallofSteel's wounds close before their very eyes as he invokes the power of his god to heal himself! The fight goes on again, and afters a few exchange of blows, one fire giant goes down with a powerful smite and Sir WallofSteel falls again to a lucky blow from one of the giant. The three remaining giants do not cheer this time. They know that Sir WallofSteel might come back from what should have been a mortal wound. One of them try to strike Sir WallofSteel with it's great sword but misses twice because it is still attacked by Fastfingers (the giant hits but only causes two failed death save). The second crushes Sir WallofSteel's head under its foot to the absolute horror of the group. "Try to get back up from that! Insect!" Yells the giant. The last one, moves in on Fastfingers and throws its last boulder at her but misses. The other three eye Bandaid suspiciously and start to close in on him. Jack the Sorcerer Supreme starts and other invokation of cone of cold...

Do you really consider that metagaming? The giants react and act very plausibly. I know that I'd do the same if I were in their place. The guy got back up and killed one of them. In this case, you make sure that your opponent will not come back. Imagine now if Sir WallofSteel has a ring of regeneration...