D&D 5E Making Combat Mean Something [+]

[TheSword]

Indeed. That combat means you may not live past it makes it concerning; it does not make it matter. It is the things which give value to survival that matter. Conflating meaning with utility is a lamentably common mistake.


A character dying every ten weeks would mean that by the end of the year, you'd have practically a brand new party.

No, I don't think 2-3 deaths in a year is low. I think it is quite high. Especially since this is 2-3 extra deaths, completely separate from deaths due to failing death saves or other effects that kill characters. 2-3 deaths a year means literally any investment I might put into my fellow characters is pointless; either my character will die, and thus nothing they cared about will matter, or most of their friends will die, and thus it won't matter that they were friends. Death is the ultimate investment killer. Why bother when you can be almost certain it'll all be gone in a few months?

Or to use Dorothy Jones Heydt's "eight deadly words": "I don't care what happens to these people."

We play monthly for the record. Live for the moment.

For the record I mentioned earlier I’m leaning to 2d6-1 exhaustion levels under 1D&D so a one in 36 chance of a fresh PC dying instantly.

 

[TheSword]

Will your players still be able to conga line through healing spirit?

I’m not sure healing spirit works like that anymore.

Though to be honest - I find HP for PCs long term to be a very trivial thing to replenish. Spending HD usually gets most PCs healed unless they were very badly damaged.

I just don’t see clerics being needed to do large amounts of in combat healing.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

We play monthly for the record. Live for the moment.

For the record I mentioned earlier I’m leaning to 2d6-1 exhaustion levels under 1D&D so a one in 36 chance of a fresh PC dying instantly.

Er...what? 2d6-1 would have 6 levels of exhaustion as the most common result. Unless you mean something else or have expanded it to 11 levels of exhaustion...?

 

[Bill Zebub]

So it will be no secret that I have long been looking for a way to make combat more meaningful - instead of the whack-a-mole - sacks of hit points that opponents turn into in 5e. I want their to be a real risk of dying and not just because the GM targeted a fallen PC. I want PCs to view combat as a risk and think about ways to improve their odds or avoid it all together.

I’d like to recreate the danger of combat with three simple rules which I hope in combination will make combat far more meaningful - and interesting to me as a DM.

- Firstly dropping to 0 hp doesn’t mean unconscious. It means a serious wound - a real medical emergency but not completely out. They still take death saves as normal but when on 0 hp characters can’t rise from prone but can take a single bonus action, a single action, or move (but not stand up). Taking any action or move forces them to make an additional death save.

- Secondly, I’ll be using the slow healing rules. Spending HD is the only way to regain wounds, which represent bandaging and rest. No spending 8 hours to wake fresh as a daisy.

- Thirdly, and this is the doozy, I want dropping to 0 hp to cause the Pc to gain 1d6 levels of exhaustion. Yes the PC has a 1/6 chance of dying instantly when dropped to 0 hp. When their head gets lopped off. The exhaustion represents their wound - which they are free to describe as they like. When their exhaustion is gone (through the normal means) their wound is gone.

I agree that a lot of monsters can seem like ‘bags of hit points’, both because of how a lot of them are designed and because of how how combat is sometimes DM’d.

I also agree that there should be more and better reasons to avoid going to zero HP.

But I’m confused because I don’t see the relationship between the two. How does making zero HP more undesirable change the ‘big bag of hit points’ nature of combat itself?

 

[Stormonu]

Are you changing non-rest-based healing (spells and similar) to adjust for the increased deadliness of being dropped? Currently a healer burning all of their slots can't generally match the incoming damage of most encounters. With these rules, there will be a lot more incentive to just nova as hard as you can at the beginning of a fight to reduce the number of combatants and therefore incoming damage unless using those resources to heal during the fight is made more realistic. The reduces number of encounters per day will also encourage, and increase the ability to nova for those classes with repeated nova capability.

As a side note, in my games, I've trained the players into leaning heavily into using HD between combats and rarely use healing spells or healing potions (healing potions are extremely rare in my games, and the party sees them as real treasures). I haven't quite figured out what to do with Paladin lay on hands (considering making it 2 hp/level healing), but then again no one tends to play paladins in my game for some odd reason.

The cleric & druid players enjoy this because they get to use their more interesting spells instead of having to load up on every type of healing spell that comes along.

As far as dropping to 0 HP in a fight, for my own games I'm not so worried about that initial drop to 0. However, I keep a table for when that first death save is failed for "lingering injuries". It consists of scars, broken bones, torn muscles and other injuries that potions and cure magic simply can't fix. They all have a progression for a subsequent second failed death save - for example, the broken leg is actually also crushed and even if it heals you may always have a limp. Get to 3 failed death saves but get brought back revivify*? Well, you may be alive once again, but it may be that leg is gone...

This also has consequences if the PC happens to fixed back up and drop again. Could be the first time it was their leg. Second time maybe their sword arm. A third? Possibly a concussion. It also gives some reasons why old war veterans and adventurers might be missing an eye, walk with a limp or sport other old wounds that are a testimony to such a dangerous life.

* I also have a mundane system that allows those who have failed 3 death saves to be "brought back", but usually at the cost of a permanent scar or other side effect at their brush with death. Though just as many times I'd have players prefer to stat up a new character rather than bring the old back to life.

 

[Bill Zebub]

If you first insist on changing rules, how about having the characters panic at 0 rather than fall unconcious and die? Much more embarrassing, keeps the balance of the game similar, and avoids the pain of having to go trough the motions of constructing a new character.

That’s an interesting idea.

Although, since I believe in agency, I would make it a choice you make at zero HP. Maybe between unconscious (as per rules), a level of exhaustion, or panic. Or something like that.

 

[TheSword]

Er...what? 2d6-1 would have 6 levels of exhaustion as the most common result. Unless you mean something else or have expanded it to 11 levels of exhaustion...?

One D&D has 10 levels of exhaustion. Each one adding -1 to a number of rolls. You die at 11.

 

[TheSword]

I agree that a lot of monsters can seem like ‘bags of hit points’, both because of how a lot of them are designed and because of how how combat is sometimes DM’d.

I also agree that there should be more and better reasons to avoid going to zero HP.

But I’m confused because I don’t see the relationship between the two. How does making zero HP more undesirable change the ‘big bag of hit points’ nature of combat itself?

The issue for me is that the big bag doesn’t really mean anything when it empties, because folks spring back up like whack-a-mole. So not only is it a resource it doesn’t make much difference when it runs out. By having 0 mean something, now every HP counts.

 

[Blue]

You win EnWorld Thread Bingo! We’ll done. I’ve been playing D&D for 30+ years I get to decide if it’s for me.

Tweaking rules to make the game work better for you is part of the joy of being a long time player, gaming with friends. What I’m interested in (note + thread) are what are the consequences or the other tweaks needed.

I was trying to help, not everyone has a lot of experience outside of D&D. No insult was intended.

If you're looking for a Battletech experience, and decide that Poker is the game for you - well, I'm sure you can tweak it enough make it work. But that doesn't mean that another system might not be designed foundation-up to better fit what you are looking for.

You can stay with Poker. All I said was that there may be others ones that fit.

 

[Andvari]

And no, I don't think 2-3 deaths in a year is low. I think it is quite high. Especially since this is 2-3 extra deaths, completely separate from deaths due to failing death saves or other effects that kill characters (that is, petrification, the "chunky salsa" rule, etc.) 2-3

Fair point as I was thinking in total deaths, in which case 2-3 deaths total in a year as quite mild if you play every week. But you're right that those 2-3 deaths would be in addition to deaths by means other than being reduced to 0 hit points.

My current group has only had 1 death in 24 sessions, but they've had 5 close calls in total and had they not been quite lucky on 2 of those occasions, they would have suffered 3 deaths. The character that died had his own "side quest" based on his backstory, but the rest of the party is still pursuing it as they are invested in seeing it through. But even if they weren't, introducing a new character into the main adventure is easy.

They're nearly level 5 by now. And in a few levels, if they set some gold aside, they'll be able to pay the local temple to resurrect a dead character. Not sure if TheSword allows for raise dead and the like, but it's not uncommon to remove those spells. One of the players even requested no resurrection, but the rest of us were less enthusiastic about that one.