D&D 5E Player angry about enemies climbing rope with Rope Trick

[ECMO3]

This kind of statement bothers me for several reasons.

First, I have killed PCs in at least 5 editions of D&D, 6 if you count 3 and 3.5 separately, and it is not significantly more difficult to do so in 5e if that is your goal.

Second, DMs who make statements like this usually don't really use the rest and/or death saves mechanics properly. Remember, you only regain up to half your HD on a long rest, making several days of tough battles linked together significantly more difficult. Similarly, striking a creature that is already down is 2 automatic failed death saves. In a world where PCs are known to bounce back easily, why wouldn't you make an effort to land a couple de gras? It's what you would have done in the "good old days."

It is pretty easy to kill PCs as long as you keep attacking them while they are down. As a DM I always do that for intelligent enemies. Once a PC goes down the enemies try to get to him or her and kill him before another PC can bring him back. I have even had an enemy take an AOO so he could go kill a PC who was down.

A lot of DMs don't do that and concentrate on players that are still up. That is a tactical mistake though because downed PCs are almost always brought back into the fight before the next turn even comes around, often without the party even losing an action, and intelligent enemies should realize this is going to happen.

It is kind of like when you are watching a horror movie and the BBEG goes down and the protagonists hug and cry or run away instead of taking the shovel they just downed him with and bashing his head into a bloody pulp with it while he is on the ground. My monsters are not dumb like that.

 

[ECMO3]

Which is another point everyone is missing here. The Ranger is apparently only able to do this using Spell Storing. Now, where did he get access to that I wonder?

Rope Trick is on the Gloomstalker subclass spell list and casting time is 1 action.

 

[tetrasodium]

This kind of statement bothers me for several reasons.

First, I have killed PCs in at least 5 editions of D&D, 6 if you count 3 and 3.5 separately, and it is not significantly more difficult to do so in 5e if that is your goal.

Second, DMs who make statements like this usually don't really use the rest and/or death saves mechanics properly. Remember, you only regain up to half your HD on a long rest, making several days of tough battles linked together significantly more difficult. Similarly, striking a creature that is already down is 2 automatic failed death saves. In a world where PCs are known to bounce back easily, why wouldn't you make an effort to land a couple de gras? It's what you would have done in the "good old days."

Third, why is your goal to kill the PCs? Do you frame the character sheets of fallen PCs and hang them in your mom's basement like some sort of serial killer? Can you drink diet coke instead of the tears of your players? Isn't there something better you can try, like telling a story or spending a few hours in some mutual escapism?

Try enforcing that bolded bit. On top of the trivialized healing & design assumptions with encounter expectations that are leagues beyond how people actually play all but the grindiest of grindfests it's almost impossible to tax the short rest hd+con mod recovery in ways that a long rest's recover all spell slots all abilities all hp some amount of magic item charges & half hitdice in any meaningful way unless the GM engages in a grindfest slog multiple days in a row. Getting to the point where only getting half hitdice back is much like playing a wargame like risk till the last man falls in total conquest no surrender no forfeit combat. I may have been willing to play a single game of risk like that as a kid after hurricane andrew when nothing had power for miles around & national guard folks might glowstick you for being out too late but the average game of d&d is very much not played under those conditions.

@overgeeked replacing the death saves with fate style taken out at zero is terrifying even without lethality since dropping to zero can be anything including "let me see your sheet" where literally anything could be done tempered with fate style conceeds for running away at a negotiated loss works well for risk without having to fight too much use of other rules to detour around any patches made to the nonlethality of 5e. It's still not perfect because of the 6-8 encounter expectations but being at half health starts looking like a thing very much worthy of nail biting like being low health in old editions caused.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Rope Trick casting time is 1 action (no Spell Storing needed)
Tiny Hut casting time is 1 minute

Ah, so the issue remains the fact that this was (from how the OP reads) a grudge kill for using a freely-available spell instead of talking it over rather than an issue of whether the monsters know how the spell works because they were empowered to carry out the DM's intent.

 

[Krachek]

It is pretty easy to kill PCs as long as you keep attacking them while they are down. As a DM I always do that for intelligent enemies. Once a PC goes down the enemies try to get to him or her and kill him before another PC can bring him back. I have even had an enemy take an AOO so he could go kill a PC who was down.

A lot of DMs don't do that and concentrate on players that are still up. That is a tactical mistake though because downed PCs are almost always brought back into the fight before the next turn even comes around, often without the party even losing an action, and intelligent enemies should realize this is going to happen.

It is kind of like when you are watching a horror movie and the BBEG goes down and the protagonists hug and cry or run away instead of taking the shovel they just downed him with and bashing his head into a bloody pulp with it while he is on the ground. My monsters are not dumb like that.

Not attacking down PC is more related to play style than tactical efficiency.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, so, the character didn't get the Ring under my watch, but they had it from some adventure or another (this being an AL game). At the time, I was told that since the spell was previously cast, then activating would require nothing more than a standard action. I was dubious about this, because the ring states you "cast" the spell. I had a thread about this on these forums (gobbled up apparently) for clarification. Since then, I have heard people say that the Ring does not change the casting time of the spell.

Not sure if this is the case or not, but it would be a good ruling with regards to Ritual spells.

I kinda disagree, in that the whole point of spell-storing devices is that you spend the time (and components, if needed) earlier such that if and when you really need it, you have the spell right now.

Otherwise, if all the spell-storing device does is give you an extra spell to cast, that's pretty lame.

 

[James Gasik]

Well the important benefit is that you can give a spell to someone else to cast who normally could not, and they can maintain concentration on it. This could be useful for a buff a Fighter could place on themselves, that no one else would, since they have other things to spend concentration on.

I admit that ruling seems reasonable to me only because I saw a Ring of Spell Storing massively abused at AL games where you could fill it with spells between adventures during downtime, and even have other, higher-level characters fill it up with spells for your character.

 

[Mistwell]

Nope. So how many characters actually died? Not just dropped to zero then were fine the next day?

Just two so far but the adventure is growing more difficult over time so I would not be surprised if more died. It's easy to get in over your head in this one.

Most deaths come from a PC going down to the first melee attack of a creature with multi-attack: three attacks (like Claw, Claw, Bite). So the first attack puts them to 0 hit points. The second attack is made at advantage (because you're unconscious and in 5 feet) and an automatic critical hit (because you are unconscious) which counts as two death saves gone automatically. And the third attack is automatic death if they hit, which, again is done at advantage and counts as two more death saves gone.

So a PC can go from low on hit points but OK to dead in a single series of attacks, and unless another PC has a way to use their reaction to intervene in some way there isn't much others can do to stop it.

It can even happen with two different creatures without three attacks, just with two. One creature takes you down, then hits again for auto-crit which is two death saves down. Then another creature attacks you again, and even if you made a single death save in-between you're still dead as you just got two more death saves automatically down.

And in Tomb of Annihilation, that's roll up a new PC time, because raise dead and similar magic doesn't work.

So yeah, it really isn't that hard to die in 5e in my experience, though obviously the raise dead issue is unique to this adventure (though it existed in all prior editions of D&D too). As you start to get into the mid-levels, stuff has lots of attacks. And of course there are save-or-suck spells which can take you down quick too.

But again, that's just my experience. If yours differs, I understand and I am not saying you have not experienced this easy-mode issue you're talking about. But it's not my experience.

 

[overgeeked]

Just two so far but the adventure is growing more difficult over time so I would not be surprised if more died. It's easy to get in over your head in this one.

That's good.

Most deaths come from a PC going down to the first melee attack of a creature with multi-attack: three attacks (like Claw, Claw, Bite). So the first attack puts them to 0 hit points. The second attack is made at advantage (because you're unconscious and in 5 feet) and an automatic critical hit (because you are unconscious) which counts as two death saves gone automatically. And the third attack is automatic death if they hit, which, again is done at advantage and counts as two more death saves gone.

That's an edge case though. Close enough to zero hp that one hit will drop them, the first hit drops them, then the monster with two more attacks just keeps attacking the same, downed target. That's a string of if, then statements that's not going to line up all that often. It's possible, obviously...but yikes.

It can even happen with two different creatures without three attacks, just with two. One creature takes you down, then hits again for auto-crit which is two death saves down. Then another creature attacks you again, and even if you made a single death save in-between you're still dead as you just got two more death saves automatically down.

Sure. But the default is one monster against a party of four. If you have more PCs and are running more monsters, it can work. Or more monsters that are lower CR, but they'll also do less damage and have fewer attacks, less likely to hit, etc.

And in Tomb of Annihilation, that's roll up a new PC time, because raise dead and similar magic doesn't work.

Right. That's the rules for that module, not the default game.

So yeah, it really isn't that hard to die in 5e in my experience, though obviously the raise dead issue is unique to this adventure (though it existed in all prior editions of D&D too). As you start to get into the mid-levels, stuff has lots of attacks. And of course there are save-or-suck spells which can take you down quick too.

That's still a string of if, then to down a PC. It's possible. I never said it wasn't. It's just incredibly unlikely. And much less likely than other editions.

But again, that's just my experience. If yours differs, I understand and I am not saying you have not experienced this easy-mode issue you're talking about. But it's not my experience.

Sure. And everyone's experience is different. Even when players try to die, they don't.

 

[Redwizard007]

Sure. But the default is one monster against a party of four. If you have more PCs and are running more monsters, it can work. Or more monsters that are lower CR, but they'll also do less damage and have fewer attacks, less likely to hit, etc.

Is that in the rules somewhere? Have I been doing it wrong when I grab a bunch of mooks, a sub-leader or 2, and dial my encounters to "deadly?"
Probably also worth pointing out that Bounded Accuracy, that much maligned, but oh so wonderful mechanic, allows me to use a dozen goblins instead of a single (whatever would be the CR equivalent monster to 12 goblins,) and still consistently deal substantial damage to my PCs. In fact, our most recent PC death was to a bunch of crossbow wielding mooks. Maybe that's the trick. Larger groups have been a bigger threat to my players than solo or small group encounters. Maybe that's specific to our table. Maybe it's worth trying for DMs that have had difficulty challenging their players.