D&D 5E More swingy combat

[THEMNGMNT]

Having played a campaign up through level 20, my observation is that combat can be dangerous at any level. At higher levels it can slow down and get grindy, but it's still dangerous. I've got 3 clean kills among five characters playing from 1st through 20th level, evenly spread out across low, mid, and high levels. For me, that's about the right level of lethality. That said, if I wanted to make combat more swingy, I'd have PCs take average hit points and make monster hits do fixed but max damage. That would dial up the intensity.

 

[Asisreo]

Having played a campaign up through level 20, my observation is that combat can be dangerous at any level. At higher levels it can slow down and get grindy, but it's still dangerous. I've got 3 clean kills among five characters playing from 1st through 20th level, evenly spread out across low, mid, and high levels. For me, that's about the right level of lethality. That said, if I wanted to make combat more swingy, I'd have PCs take average hit points and make monster hits do fixed but max damage. That would dial up the intensity.

You bring up a good point. Past level 4, I don't think players will typically want their characters to die. They might want to retire one, but dying isn't favorable for a character you put over 50+ hours into. But of course, that danger is available.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

In our recently started West Marches Curse of Strahd campaign, we’ve modified the Death Save rules slightly. Death Save failures only reset after 3 Death Save Successes, stabilization with a Healer’s Kit, or a Long Rest. Doesn’t completely stop whack-a-mole (which doesn’t really bother our group anyway) but the players are that much more terrified about their PCs getting knocked out. One of the 4 PC deaths so far (in 8 sessions) was hastened due to this rule. Two others were attacked when knocked out before they could be healed. Anyway, maybe that house rule could help towards achieving the goal of more “swingy” combat.

 

[Azuresun]

Please, not this again.

It unfairly penalizes the players who play front line melee - those willing to protect the rest of the party - for the (lack of) action from the party's healer(s).

Plus exhaustion is exactly the wrong type of penalty to give out for failure in combat because the first level of it gives you disadvantage on all skill checks - in other words the combat penalty is sucking at everything except combat. That's an inappropriate penalty.

And the more that "restore HP before 0" is a good tactic, the more druids and clerics will be looking at all the awesome things they could be doing with their turn, sighing wistfully and going back to being a hit point vending machine.

 

[Guest 6948803]

And the more that "restore HP before 0" is a good tactic, the more druids and clerics will be looking at all the awesome things they could be doing with their turn, sighing wistfully and going back to being a hit point vending machine.

If we go this way far enough, we'll get to the point, where in the name of "doing awesome things" we hand wave everything that get in the player characters way. Some games support this play style, asking to generate and resolve endless complications without risk of depriving players of their goal or crippling them seriously unless they agree on it. We tried this more than once and it's definitely not for us. My group (well, actually, both my groups) are more traditional.

Besides, some people like playing support (me included). Knowing when to stop doing "awesome things" and keep friends up and kicking is an important contribution and makes for nice little decision making process.

In the end, thanks everyone who took their time to say something on the topic. I like 5e as is (more or less) but I am always willing to tweak rules to make game more fun for my players.