D&D 5E Not dying?

[Guest 6801718]

I don't go out of my way to kill PCs, but our group recognizes that it can happen. If the group gets in over their heads or does something really stupid, I may make it rough but give them opportunity to escape. It's up to them to take it. My villains have their goals and interfering with those goals carries risk. Some of the most memorable combats are the ones where the group almost doesn't make it. To get into an armed fight without the risk of deaths doesn't make much sense to us. Now, we'd never do anything unfair against the PCs. Though I will fudge dice rolls in their favor if it's a really bad turn of luck or something beyond anyone's control. Not very often, mind you. I can count on one hand the number of times I've done it in all my years gaming. I do want some level of risk in combat though.

Besides, with the magical raising, death isn't much of a consequence when you hit a certain level. You can be raised either by the party cleric or you have enough money to hire a cleric. The consequences that really scare my players are the plot or adventure failures. When there could be a lasting impact on the campaign if they lose, things get tense. Unless someone dies really early on, the only time character death seems permanent in my group is if the player simply wants to try something else. Plus, if the group can't raise the fallen PC it can present a good adventure opportunity or a way to throw in some fun complications.

So to sum up, I'm not gunning for the PCs or anything but death can happen. That's how I prefer it when I'm a player too. I like having some risk in combat and don't mind if my character dies, provided it's all done fairly. If things don't go my way with dice rolls or I make a poor choice and die for it, so be it. If the DM ends up being unfair or purposely tries to kill the group, I'm more than happy to find another group. Risk is fun, being unfair isn't.

 

[Bradley Hindman]

This is pretty much my starting point for handling PC deaths.

I do not need to house rule the death & dying rules to achieve this, or fudge rolls. In fact, I do not even need to stress too much about balancing encounters. Instead, I simply do so that when a PC "dies", we decide together (player and me, with input from anyone else in the group) what really happens to her. It could be anything from just staying unconscious for a while, be captured, suffer a temporary or permanent disability, lose equipment, trigger a side quest, or truly die. It depends on the player's ability to deal with her PC's death, on what the group think it's fair*, and on what makes for a satisfying story. If someone abuses the idea, it becomes unsatisfying and the players just correct themselves. But at the (very low) mortality rate of 5e, this is unlikely to happen.

This is exactly how I approach the issue. The table decides the character's fate, with of course the player and the DM (me) having a bit more say. This has led to far more satisfying outcomes than just death. Often the players decide that death is appropriate but then add an interesting twist.

1) A shaman who died in the final stages of the campaign by devouring the spirit that had plagued the heroes from the start of the campaign. This led to him being trapped in the underworld (long story), effectively becoming an NPC that was occasionally contacted (via spell and other means) during the next campaign.

2) One player decided that his character (who was in the process of atonement) had died but was kicked back into play by the god who was demanding the atonement. He showed up 6 months later crawling out of his own (shallow) grave. In the meantime, the player played a new character.

3) A character in Curse of Strahd who was killed by a Cone of Cold (the players severely underestimated Victor in Vallaki). The spirits of Rose and Thorn (from the starting Death House adventure) guided him back to his body. The character is now always cold and wears furs even in the hottest of rooms.

 

[Sacrosanct]

As many others have said, I don't go out of my way to kill PCs, but I don't change things to keep them alive either. Without risk of your PC dying, it's just story time. Why bother to roll the dice if the end result doesn't matter?

With that said, I find that PC die MUCH more infrequently in 5e than they did in AD&D (which I played from 1981 to 2012). That's not to say they don't though. I've had 3 PCs die, and I am rarely the player lol. Now that I think about it, No one else has ever had more than 1 PC die....Hm.....

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Sorry but I have read your posts for years and I do not believe that you really can't think of any adventurecoutcomes other than death or success. There are just so many ways to fail a quest without dying!

Just like you can insert time constraints to solve the resting problem, you can introduce consequences other than death. It just feels silly and contrived if you rely on such things too often. Complexity penalties.

Finding some way to lure Superman away, so you can challenge the rest of the Justice League without having him steamroll the problem, works occasionally. When Superman gets lured away every time, it feels silly and contrived.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Sorry but I have read your posts for years and I do not believe that you really can't think of any adventurecoutcomes other than death or success. There are just so many ways to fail a quest without dying!

There are certainly more ways to fail than simply dying, just as there are many things to do (and succeed or fail in the attempt) besides combat. I am speaking only of combat scenarios in which the participants are indeed trying to kill one another, not any and all adventuring situations.

Exploration adventuring can fail due to the inability to find something or becoming lost. Social situations can be failed by failing to obtain information, offending someone important, or other embarrassing behavior that results in a setback.

In actuality, even a great deal of combats wouldn't end in massive amounts of carnage. Barring mindless constructs & undead, most creatures would seek to flee or surrender if being overwhelmed rather than fight to the death. Morale is sadly lacking in 5E as written. Reasonable morale rules and survival instincts implemented go a long way toward making even most combat encounters less of victory or death proposition.

 

[Gradine]

Reasonable morale rules and survival instincts implemented go a long way toward making even most combat encounters less of victory or death proposition.

Why does there need to be a rule to model this? Why not ask the DM to play intelligence or instinctual creatures as if they had intelligence and/or instincts and act accordingly?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Why does there need to be a rule to model this? Why not ask the DM to play intelligence or instinctual creatures as if they had intelligence and/or instincts and act accordingly?

Quite simply because many gamers these days, especially ones new to the game have difficulty in the absence of an outlined procedure. I find that the B/X morale rolls are super simple and still work. It also adds that game element of the unknown. Will the orcs fight on to avenge their fallen chief or flee in terror? Who knows-roll the dice and see.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Quite simply because many gamers these days, especially ones new to the game have difficulty in the absence of an outlined procedure. I find that the B/X morale rolls are super simple and still work. It also adds that game element of the unknown. Will the orcs fight on to avenge their fallen chief or flee in terror? Who knows-roll the dice and see.

I prefer to adjudicate morale as the DM. Players would not appreciate me saying when they lose morale, why should an abstract rule set do so for NPCs?

 

[Li Shenron]

Just like you can insert time constraints to solve the resting problem, you can introduce consequences other than death. It just feels silly and contrived if you rely on such things too often.

Too often? In 5e?

 

[ExploderWizard]

I prefer to adjudicate morale as the DM. Players would not appreciate me saying when they lose morale, why should an abstract rule set do so for NPCs?

Morale rolls are are always subordinate to the DMs notes. If there are fanatics who always fight to the death and are noted as such then no roll would be made of course. The dice and morale procedure are an aid to DM prep, not a replacement for it.