D&D 5E Perma-Death At Your Table: How Possible Is It?

[R_J_K75]

just drop a cooler of Zima next to his chair

Thats a sure way to hold up the game while I run to the store for anything but Zima and get you permakilled once the game resumes. Do they even still make that garbage?

 

[S'mon]

"Perma-Death" is a shorthand term for the permanent death of your character. You failed 3 death saves, you fell into a sphere of annihilation, you were disintegrated, whatever the cause, your character is now beyond the reach of healing magic. It's game over. You aren't pining for the fjords, you have ceased to be. You are bereft of life, you rest in peace. You have shuffled off your mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the Choir Invisible...you are an ex-hero.

How often does that happen at your gaming table, and why? There are no wrong answers.

OBVIOUSLY this poll is not nuanced enough to capture every possible answer, and no poll will ever be. So please pick whatever is closest and then leave a comment below. The point of this exercise is to encourage discussion, after all.

I'd say my players' perception is #2 "Characters could die at any moment; we carry blank character sheets." My own perception is close to #3 "It happens, but not very often...usually because of bad luck" but I decided to vote for #2 as there are definitely periods of frequent PC perma-death, and some players are on their third PC.

 

[cbwjm]

Thats a sure way to hold up the game while I run to the store for anything but Zima and get you permakilled once the game resumes. Do they even still make that garbage?

Made by Coors, small wonder it's bad.

 

[R_J_K75]

Made by Coors, small wonder it's bad.

Ironically, I have a case of Coors Banquet (hand grenade bottles) in my fridge for our next game I'm DMing Wednesday. As living mortals travelling through the Underworld, I wonder what will happen if one of the PCs "dies"?

 

[S'mon]

I gotta know how you get 5E that lethal without house ruling things. Do you always confirm kills? Target low AC and HP targets first? Focus fire? Beef up encounters? Because it the whole time we played 5E straight, we had two deaths and both due to metagame reasons.

I mostly GM sandboxes and tend to use status-quo encounters with threat level defined more by the region, I don't build encounters on an XP budget. NPC enemies will often CDG, especially if they have seen fallen PCs get back up again. They certainly tend to try to target squishy PCs, all else being equal, and they certainly tend to focus fire where possible, but they are rarely a perfect combat machine any more than the PC groups are. The average NPC group IMCs is probably a bit less well coordinated than a well coordinated PC group, but some NPC groups are better coordinated than some PC groups. Fighting veteran human mercenaries feels different from fighting a clan of low-INT hill giants or ogres.

One well-coordinated PC group was defeated and lost two PCs when they were ambushed while deep in a dungeon and low on resources. One not very well coordinated PC group lost two PCs when they failed to pull off a fighting withdrawal while rescuing prisoners; their rear guard hung around too long and was overrun. They did get the prisoners out successfully.

A frequent cause of PC death & defeat is enemy spellcasters equipped with AoE, especially Fireball, who have time to set up a coordinated defence and get more than one spell off. I see the same with PCs defending a position against NPC attack; with AoE they can kill huge numbers of attackers.

 

[aco175]

In the 5e times, it rarely happens- mostly with player consent. I guess there is a couple moving parts to the logic. As the DM, you want the players to take the game somewhat seriously and death to mean something and be 'on the table' most of the time. You also want to payers to enjoy the game and be heroic with their PCs, which may lead to death. I'm kind of meh on the difference between having a player roll up a new PC that is the level of the party and for me to find a way to introduce the new PC. Or, for me to find a way to bring back the dead PC.

The PCs are in the Dungeon of Death and a PC dies. I may likely ask the player what he wants. I can make up a temple room dedicated to the PCs god and have a miracle happen, with maybe a favor owed, or somehow have a new PC wander into the dungeon and be found if he was captured, or show up to aid the PCs in a battle and just join the group. Either option pushed believability a bit. I never liked to have the player sit for the night while the others finish the dungeon and can travel back to town.

 

[James Gasik]

In the 5e times, it rarely happens- mostly with player consent. I guess there is a couple moving parts to the logic. As the DM, you want the players to take the game somewhat seriously and death to mean something and be 'on the table' most of the time. You also want to payers to enjoy the game and be heroic with their PCs, which may lead to death. I'm kind of meh on the difference between having a player roll up a new PC that is the level of the party and for me to find a way to introduce the new PC. Or, for me to find a way to bring back the dead PC.

The PCs are in the Dungeon of Death and a PC dies. I may likely ask the player what he wants. I can make up a temple room dedicated to the PCs god and have a miracle happen, with maybe a favor owed, or somehow have a new PC wander into the dungeon and be found if he was captured, or show up to aid the PCs in a battle and just join the group. Either option pushed believability a bit. I never liked to have the player sit for the night while the others finish the dungeon and can travel back to town.

Yeah, in contrast to a lot of DM's I know, I feel player death is to be avoided just because it can bring the night's adventure to a screeching halt. Even if they have a backup character, you have to figure out how to drop them in (it's rare that the PC's have more than one NPC follower because tracking all those bodies in combat gets tough for me).

This is why I tend not to use time sensitive missions. You have 5 encounters lined up for the session and they have to save the princess? Bad luck in fight 3 kills the Cleric, and not even a short rest will get the party to high enough hit points to have a prayer of winning fight 5.

I could remove numbers from fight 5, but now I have to figure out what to do with the Cleric player, and the other players are demoralized and thoroughly beaten.

And I feel like I did something wrong because nobody looks like they're having any fun.

It's the same reason I don't overuse effects that take someone out of the fight. "Wow, it'd be great if I could play instead of being Held by that shaman!"

Not a great feeling, and the instant someone starts looking at their phone, you know you've lost them. That having been said, I roll in the open and don't fudge things.

Ran with too many DM's back in the day who would "just happen to crit" or consistently make saves from behind their screen...or the dreaded "how many hit points do you have left?".

Give it to me straight, man. It might suck, but I can take it as long as I feel like I had a chance. Or if I didn't have a chance, at least telegraph that in advance!

 

[Oofta]

I selected: It happens, but not very often...usually because of bad luck.

But what I wanted to select is that is happens due to rampant stupidity, not bad luck. As GM I normally find away around PC death, except where they have done something really silly. If you plaster over stupidity, then it cheapens every 'win' in the game.

- One character died diving into the ocean and trying to grapple a merman underwater. He did not have water-breathing.

- One tried to pickpocket the Arch Duke, while facing him and without other distractions. Failed. Drew his weapon when the guards went to grab him. Then complained that the other PCs did not throw their lives away trying to kill everybody in the throneroom and escape. The guards were not even going to do much to him until he started stabbing.

I've had similar. Rogue walks into a store, I tell him that the store-keeper is watching him like a hawk. Even hint that there's magical protections against shoplifting because it's a jeweler. He still tried to steal something right in front of the store-keeper. Then when guards showed up another PC decided to escalate and the two of them started killing guards. What would have been a fine and/or a minor side quest ended in two executions.

No matter how much I tell people there will be consequences to their actions, some just have to push it.

 

[James Gasik]

Man, at that point I wouldn't even bother. A merchant in a fantasy game isn't going to find ways to protect his inventory? As if!

I'm reminded of Morgan Freeman's line from The Dark Knight. "So let me get this straight. You think your employer dresses up like a bat to fight criminals. And your plan is, you want to blackmail this person?"

 

[Laurefindel]

« Death could happen at any point; bring a blank character sheet » is strongly implied but in reality, death has yet to happen (although there were many close calls!), so in the end I voted option 3.

and to be frank, that’s the way I like it; character pushed to their limits, players fully aware that death is on the table and definitely will happen given reckless behaviour, but death in itself rarely occurs.