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

[ThomasDiSantare]

I don't really like this policy, but everyone's business

 

[Imaculata]

I don't really like this policy, but everyone's business

Well, I think it also depends how the DM runs their campaigns. While death in my campaigns is permanent and unforgiving, I pay extra attention to foreshadowing of threats, and making challenges fair and balanced according to the level of the party.

This makes deaths less random and less sudden. I give my players a big heads up before a potentially deadly battle, so they can prepare accordingly.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It seems a bit unfair to refuse to contrive another scenario where the PC might be brought back into play. I would feel obligated, having done it once. This is partly why I don't do this in the first place. Either you can die in my games or you can't.

If death is going to be a thing, then I prefer to let the dice fall where they may and let the players know this. If I don't want it to be a thing, then I set that expectation as well, and death is no longer on the table in favor of other forms of failure.

Generally agree, though there is a middle ground where death is on the table, but only where it's essentially accepted/desired by the player. Some RPGs work this way - Heart for example (which is basically Darkest Dungeon, the TT RPG, in a lot of ways). My experience with this is that it leads to obviously fewer deaths, but more dramatically appropriate and memorable ones and less "Okay come back with the same dude but with II after his name". YMMV.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I just ask the player what they want to happen to their character. If your players are mature enough they'll have an opinion that you won't need to question. If they still want to play that character, then I contrive a reason for them to either not die or be restored from death. D&D is a world where death isn't the end, and if players still have stories they want to play out then I'm not going to tell them they can't if it makes any sense.

Personally, however, I find that PC death at low level just isn't fun, so I generally assume any PC who drops before level 3 is dropped unconscious. You make a point that xvarts are smart, but xvarts are also extremely greedy. If they had any suspicion that the PCs might be able to lead them to greater wealth if left alive, they would be willing to risk keeping the PC alive long enough to question them.

Yeah this is my experience as well re: players being mature enough. Everyone I'm playing with atm is 30+ and reasonable, and sometimes it's the right time for a character to die. I had one player go through like three characters in a campaign this way, but the party still talks about those deaths, where a bunch of people who died boringly/annoyingly are either forgotten or remembered with a curse to the system that did it, not a dramatic memory of the circumstances.

And yeah below level 3 I think it's almost always the case that the deaths are boring, and usually the player still had big plans for the character.

There's also the issue that deaths are very often either extremely bad dice-luck, or particularly in 5E, a failure of the group (or more rarely, the DM essentially deciding to murder a PC by forcing failed death saves by repeatedly attacking a downed PC - again which is rarely the fault of the player - not never - but rarely), but only one player is taking all the pain for that, which seems messed-up when you think about it.

 

[iserith]

Generally agree, though there is a middle ground where death is on the table, but only where it's essentially accepted/desired by the player. Some RPGs work this way - Heart for example (which is basically Darkest Dungeon, the TT RPG, in a lot of ways). My experience with this is that it leads to obviously fewer deaths, but more dramatically appropriate and memorable ones and less "Okay come back with the same dude but with II after his name". YMMV.

Yes, that's basically what I do, but it's fairly rare. For example, we did this in my pulp action Eberron game "Serial Hero" because it's thematically appropriate. But for my old schoolish hex crawl, you just die.

 

[Imaculata]

There's also the issue that deaths are very often either extremely bad dice-luck, or particularly in 5E, a failure of the group (or more rarely, the DM essentially deciding to murder a PC by forcing failed death saves by repeatedly attacking a downed PC - again which is rarely the fault of the player - not never - but rarely), but only one player is taking all the pain for that, which seems messed-up when you think about it.

I have my monsters attack downed pc's if it makes sense for them to do so given their motives, and if the players are no longer low level.

A beast of low intelligence may be fooled into thinking a downed pc is no longer a threat, especially if I want to go easy on the players. And it might be more interesting for the cannibal to capture a pc and eat them later, than to outright kill them.

But a smart opponent goes in for the kill.

 

[iserith]

I have my monsters attack downed pc's if it makes sense for them to so given their motives, and if the players are no longer low level.

A beast of low intelligence may be fooled into thinking a downed pc is no longer a threat, especially if I want to go easy on the players. And it might be more interesting for the cannibal to capture a pc and eat them later, than to outright kill them.

Yeah, I just telegraph when a monster is going to do this at the outset by way of description. That puts the players on notice that if they go down, the monster's going for the kill. They can plan their tactics accordingly.

 

[iserith]

Duplicate post.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I have my monsters attack downed pc's if it makes sense for them to so given their motives, and if the players are no longer low level.

I think the issue I have with this is that some DMs ideas of "when it makes sense" to do that are, like, kinda metagame-y. Like, I'm sorry, if the NPCs are fighting for their lives, and the combat is on a knife's edge, I'm not really buying that a bunch of them are going to waste their attacks on a downed guy, esp. if they haven't seem him get up already. But that's a DM/party interface issue, and one you can discuss (and if you can't don't play with that guy).

The other issue is that it's ridiculously easy for some monsters to do this, especially those with multiple attacks - and there's essentially nothing the players can do in 5E if the initiative order means they can't act before the multi-attacker. I saw a DM do this a while back - the initiative was like (made up numbers but correct order), Monster A goes on 16, PC goes on 12, Monster B goes on 6, and the rest of the PCs had already gone that round. Monster A got a lucky crit and dropped the PC just barely to 0 HP from well over half, PC missed his turn because he's unconscious, succeeds on death save but doesn't get 20, Monster B uses a low-damage multi-attack, but it's three hits (easy because he has Advantage because the PC is prone and he's in melee) so the PC auto-dies. It made little sense, and was utterly un-dramatic, and very lame, but there you are.

I guess maybe I feel like a monster should only be able to force-fail one death save per round, regardless of number of attacks.

 

[Imaculata]

The thing is, in my view a player should be wise enough to retreat from a meatgrinder when they are getting low on hitpoints, and if they don't, it is up to the party to protect their ally. If they die, it really is their own fault. Sure, a monster could get a few lucky rolls. But a pc rarely just drops to 0 hp out of nowhere. There are usually many poor decisions leading up to that death.

For example, my players faced off against a bunch of crocodile soldiers, that were evil paladins. I rolled a crit on a smite good for one of the monsters, which in one round drastically dropped the HP of one of my players. He had the common sense to anticipate that his character would not survive another attack like that, and wisely retreated from battle. As a DM, I ruled that my crocodile soldiers could tell he was wounded, so they all specifically targeted him in an attempt to make sure he would not survive the round. Fortunately for him, there were a few fumbles and a lot of misses.

But just as my players are trying to win, so are my monsters. I play them to the best of their capabilities, and focus on any perceived weaknesses of the party. I think that this makes combat very exciting. The players, knowing this, apply a lot more strategy to combat. They know that every big battle could be their last. And they know that it is dangerous for them to continue fighting when low on resources.