D&D 5E Need a safety net for 1st level characters -- it's complicated

[BoldItalic]

Make it so that death is not permanent, but the death of a PC is extremely inconvenient for the whole party. That way, they will be more inclined to pull together to prevent it happening.

For example, if a PC dies the rest of the party can opt to carry his corpse and all his equipment around with them (counts against encumbrance, and possibly fatigue rules) until the next long rest, knowing that he will then wake up at 1hp. Or, they can leave him behind knowing that he will wake up after 24 hours minus all his belongings (his unguarded corpse will be looted) and have the problem of trying to get back and rejoin the party, or at least get back to civilization on his own where he can beg, borrow or steal some new clothes (having no money). The downside of leaving him behind, from the other players' point of view, is that their play will be held up while his predicament is worked through and that can get a bit boring for them.

As long as the players know in advance what their options are, they can play accordingly.

 

[jrowland]

Suggestions?

I'd go with a magic item. Perhaps a gem embedded in each character (for some story reason or another) that they don't know what it is or why. When they "die", the gem sheds a bright flash of light and the character is raised. However, the lustre of the gem fades, or it cracks, or some other indication that it is "weakening".

Essentially, the Magic Item is a Deus Ex Machina Plot Device that allows you as DM to "fudge" but keep the versimilitude. It could be the key to your planar-hopping idea as well, fading with each jump. You could have a "recharge" moment at some critical point and the item is renewed.

They key, however, to maintaining a gritty campaign, is to always make it seem like the next raise dead or planar jump is the last, so they don't game your magic item. In my experience, players hoard such powerful, consumable, resources, and even more so when the number of uses is not known, so it should work just fine. But if the start to feel invincible and act as if they have a "free life", send an "Marut inevitable" after them (level appropriate of course) as punishment.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think having a magic item that can raise the dead will work counter to the gritty feel of the game. Death will just be a matter of hitting them with the Undeadening Stick, as it were, to reverse it.

Using creatures that would have the goal to just knock out the PCs would work. But that limits you somewhat as to the creatures you can regularly use.

Another idea would be the Paranoia route and have everyone have a set number of clones waiting in vats.

 

[Syntallah]

I think having a magic item that can raise the dead will work counter to the gritty feel of the game. Death will just be a matter of hitting them with the Undeadening Stick, as it were, to reverse it.

snip.

I have to agree with this assessment. Why in the world would you go to the trouble of making a campaign of gritty realism, and then throw the PCs a magic item waaaaaaaay beyond their power level that defeats that very same gritty realism?!

 

[Imaculata]

Here's my suggestion: No safety net. Death is permanent, and resurrection does not exist.

However, as a DM you make sure there are no gotcha traps or monsters in the campaign. If the players are low level, and about to do something really stupid and really fatal, be sure to foreshadow this clearly. Lots of foreshadowing.

And if the players are about to do something dangerous, allow them to make an insight check first.

 

[empireofchaos]

I'm trying to figure out a safety net to keep PCs from disappearing from the campaign for a long time if they die at very low level. First, some background.

The players are starting with 1st level characters and, for a few different reasons, there isn't any possibility of a PC being permanently removed from the game (unless the player chooses so).

However, I'm running things rather gritty and simulationist (in 5e), and I'm slowing down level advancement significantly. Basically, they are going to be running around as 1st and 2nd level characters for quite some time.

To my mind, 5e has cut down on the time characters stay at low levels too much (though I understand the designers' motivation), especially for those of us whose mindset was formed by, well, AD&D, in my case. I like low fantasy settings, and I dislike the 4e healing surges (which have survived into 5e as spending hit dice after short rests), so I use the "gritty" variant from the DMG - spending hit dice only after long rests, and recovering hit dice after a week.

I've been running a game for 4 characters. We started in January of this year, with all of the characters at 1st level, and we run once every 2-3 weeks, so it's been almost 20 sessions. The characters are well into 3rd level, and some are on the cusp of 4th.

The way I've avoided turning the game into a 1e-type meat grinder is simply to cut down on combat. That means prioritizing investigation, RP, and intrigue. I don't thrust combat into the character's faces at every turn, but if they themselves choose it, I don't hold back. So far, that's been a workable approach.

 

[mflayermonk]

How much of a change to the current system do you want?

One idea from Torchbearer, is to declare the goal of the combat at the start.
These goals include: Banish, Capture, Convince, Drive Off, Kill.
Conduct the combat as normal and the "loser" gets the goal. If the PCs decide the goal is to kill and then they lose-they get killed.

 

[Blue]

Gritty, simulationist, slow advancement, more expensive to raise, absolutely no fudging or kid gloves ... plus infinite lives (at cost) and a safety net vs. dying at low levels.

These normally would be fairly exclusive. But with what you are describing it for plane hopping and no previous contacts I think you've got some cool concept that you are trying to tailor the rules to model. My guess is that they also prevent replacement characters from easily dropping in. If you let us in a bit more on that, maybe a solution unique to your campaign will come up.

For instance depending on your planar travel hook, maybe you can bring back an earlier incarnation, from when you last arrived on the plane. That would mean loss of XP and memories, and hope that the others were able to retain your items. So with your slow advancement it can be a real penalty, one that is more than in a game with standard advancement rates.

As a side note, I personally am a fan of slow advancement, but in 5e the path from 1st to 3rd to 5th seems to get you up to "ok, now we can start be be real adventurers/heroes" (as well as reduce cherry-picking for multiclassing). The XP chart reflects that. If these are to be heroes and not "advanced commoners", you may want to consider letting them get up to 3 or 5 without too many additional delays. 3rd is like 1st (with more HPs) in many earlier editions, 5th is like 1st in 4e.

 

[Gimul]

I'm trying to figure out a safety net to keep PCs from disappearing from the campaign for a long time if they die at very low level. First, some background.

The players are starting with 1st level characters and, for a few different reasons, there isn't any possibility of a PC being permanently removed from the game (unless the player chooses so).

However, I'm running things rather gritty and simulationist (in 5e), and I'm slowing down level advancement significantly. Basically, they are going to be running around as 1st and 2nd level characters for quite some time.

Plus, I've increased the cost of raise dead to 5,000 gp. (I've also made it take a month for each reduction in the penalty, rather than a long rest.)

So you might see the dilemma. It's entirely likely that someone is going to die before they have any way of paying such an enormous price to get them back.

I'm looking for ways to deal with that possibility with absolutely no fudging or pulling back.

Oh, and they'll also be traveling around to different worlds, so might not have access to any contacts from their past (definitely not their pre-adventuring past).

As I said, it's complicated.

Suggestions?

I suggest you figure out what you are really trying to accomplish. You have a set of contradictory requirements. Gritty, but PC'S are plot immune (to death at least)? 1st or 2nd level for an extended time, but you don't want to fudge die rolls? None of this make any sense.

As best I can tell, what you want is a campaign that is "carebear"* mechanically, but gritty/creepy thematically/tone-wise. This isn't impossible, but requires quality dming and total roleplay buy-in from the players.

My best advice is to greatly lessen the role combat plays in the campaign. Use/build npcs/monsters that do flat damage instead of die rolls; this removes fudging, builds tension throughout as the players know exactly how many more hits they can take, and removes 1 shot potential. Reduce natural, non-magical healing... but give ample, but not guaranteed, downtime between encounters.

*note: not a criticism, no less valid a playstyle than any other.

 

[Rhenny]

I'd try to make it so that the foes they face are intelligent so that they don't necessarily kill. Perhaps they will take prisoners and ransom them back to the civilized world for a price, or maybe they capture them so that they can sell them to a slave market or prepare them for some kind of ritual sacrifice. Therefore, any PC that goes down in combat is less likely to die outright.

Often, when I DM, I like to come up with contingencies for my villains in case they "kill" one of my PCs. If I think about it before hand, I'm never taken off guard so I can weave in a very plausible explanation for why the PC isn't actually dead. Of course, I can only do this a few times before it becomes too obvious that I'm not going to kill them. Sooner or later, someone has to die.

The magic item idea is probably the easiest, but here's another one:

You could have each PC's backstory include some patron diety, high-level wizard/cleric, or supernatural creature who oversees the PC's progression, expecting something in return either now or in the future. This is kind of the idea that Fritz Lieber used for the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd. I like this idea because you can really expand the campaign at any time as specific PCs learn more about their patron, or get called on to perform favors for them. You could make each patron have some ultimate goal that they groom the PC to accomplish. When the PCs find out more about it, there will be a moment of decision...should he/she continue to serve the patron, or should he/she split/rebel. I think that could be a really interesting campaign.