Level Up (A5E) Removing Pointless Death (+)

[Retreater]

One struggle I've had as a GM is the pressure of building thrilling, challenging encounters that aren't too over-tuned that they risk TPKs at every turn. Invariably, it happens, and my campaign comes to a screeching halt. This isn't just "the occasional TPK" or "they made bad decisions." This is literally every campaign I've run since around the year 2000. Even my first Level Up campaign stumbled before the characters could reach 3rd level.

I don't fudge dice rolls and I roll in the open so it's hard to keep characters alive in standard d20 games without having every enemy take prisoners; making suboptimal tactical decisions to favor the players; running easy and boring fights.

Running and playing games like Daggerheart and Fabula Ultima - which put the decision of character death in the hands of the players - has removed a load of stress from me. I'd like to add something similar to my next Level Up campaign.

Blaze of Glory
Drop to 0 HP, immediately have an epic final stand (work with the GM on details). Die at the end of the action.

Permanent Injury
Drop to 0 HP. You'll automatically stabilize and survive the battle. Pick one of your 6 ability scores. You'll have permanent disadvantage on skill checks with that ability. You'll be required to retire the character after obtaining injuries in every ability score.

Call on Fate
Roll a d20. 1-9, you die. 10+, you regain HP as if you spent all your Hit Dice.

How do these look?

 

[GMMichael]

Running and playing games like Daggerheart and Fabula Ultima - which put the decision of character death in the hands of the players - has removed a load of stress from me. I'd like to add something similar to my next Level Up campaign.

How do those games put the decision in player-hands? What if the GM wants them to die . . .

Blaze of Glory
Drop to 0 HP, immediately have an epic final stand (work with the GM on details). Die at the end of the action.

Not going to solve your TPK problem.

Permanent Injury
Drop to 0 HP. You'll automatically stabilize and survive the battle. Pick one of your 6 ability scores. You'll have permanent disadvantage on skill checks with that ability. You'll be required to retire the character after obtaining injuries in every ability score.

I hear the "death spiral" calls coming . . . "Auto-stabilize and survive" sounds like a bit of a plot armor hazard. Auto-survival, by the way, might introduce the problem that respawn does in video games: the mentality that survival is granted which can promote heroic and/or suicidal behaviors.

In my games, characters always have a "flaw." Hitting 0 HP is a good excuse to assign another one, which is only as cumbersome as the PC and GM make it. But it's almost always interesting.

Call on Fate
Roll a d20. 1-9, you die. 10+, you regain HP as if you spent all your Hit Dice.

Not going to solve your TPK problem. You might switch it to: die on 10, spend all Hit Dice on 1-9.

 

[BookTenTiger]

In my own little system each character has three Near Deaths. They check one off when they reach 0 HP. Each Near Death grants a different bonus:

Inspiring: You tell unconscious and everyone else gets a bunch of temporary hit points.

Heroic: Before you fall unconscious you can make one last attack or cast one last spell, attacks have advantage and are an auto-crit if they hit.

Vengeful: You fall unconscious and everyone else gets advantage on attacks for the rest of combat.

Once a character has checked off all 3 Near Deaths, the next time they fall to 0 HP they die.

 

[javierrivera]

How do those games put the decision in player-hands? What if the GM wants them to die . . .

This is inspired on Daggerhearth. The player chooses which one of the three options apply.

So they can choose to die but basically autowin the encounter. Stabilize but be out of it. Or just risk everything in a die roll.

 

[Retreater]

How do those games put the decision in player-hands? What if the GM wants them to die . . .

Fabula Ultima makes it impossible for a character to die without being in a pivotal scene with a major villain. If a character is defeated, the player decides to go out with a blaze of glory or to take a "campaign setback" (which is discussed with the GM.)

Daggerheart uses a very similar method to what I described for Level Up.

I guess if it's an especially lethal situation, the GM has the power to say "no - you can't get out lucky with this one. You fell in a volcano."

Not going to solve your TPK problem.

Here's how it will solve TPK. We'll have one character that dies and the player is ready for it. Going out in the blaze of glory will likely sacrifice so the rest of the party wins (or at least escapes). No TPKs.

I hear the "death spiral" calls coming . . . "Auto-stabilize and survive" sounds like a bit of a plot armor hazard. Auto-survival, by the way, might introduce the problem that respawn does in video games: the mentality that survival is granted which can promote heroic and/or suicidal behaviors.

Well, they're still getting permanent disadvantage on an ability score, which is limited to 6.
In the fiction, it might look like if you tank Wisdom you get reckless after surviving a close call. Dexterity could be a permanent limp. Etc.

Not going to solve your TPK problem. You might switch it to: die on 10, spend all Hit Dice on 1-9.

Even if everyone drops to 0 AND everyone takes this option, it's unlikely that everyone misses this save. So you have someone who can escape.

 

[Willie the Duck]

In all honesty, I have never had a problem with "'dead' now means 'defeated.' You are unconscious (and normal in-system ways of getting back on your feet when unconscious will not work). Your survival now depends on the context of where and how you dropped." I don't see people whine. I don't see plot armor hazards. I don't seem to need permanent injuries or the like to make things work (the risk of something important happening while you have no control over the situation is usually enough of a disincentive).

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Permanent Injury
Drop to 0 HP. You'll automatically stabilize and survive the battle. Pick one of your 6 ability scores. You'll have permanent disadvantage on skill checks with that ability. You'll be required to retire the character after obtaining injuries in every ability score.

somehow this is simultaneously extremely punishing and barely punishing at all. like, on the one hand, disadvantage practically makes a skill useless just due to the insane swinginess, but on the other...pick con the first time, no debuff at all. pick strength the second time, barely a debuff. you're probably not the party's main skill roller for dex, int, wis, AND cha skills, so pick whichever one you never roll, and if you go down more then that you're probably doing something wrong.

 

[Deset Gled]

Do you have anything against introducing a meta currency? Give everyone one meta point/plot point/magic doodad point that can be cashed in to avoid death once. It refills on some sort of trigger that you (the DM) chooses.

There are dozens of implementations of this sort of thing. I'm sure you can find one that fits your needs without reinventing the wheel if you want a more detailed system.

 

[zakael19]

"no - you can't get out lucky with this one. You fell in a volcano."

This is, in fact, how Daggerheart also describes it (if you weren't doing that consciously that's the literal example the game uses). You make a Death Move in all cases where like, you didn't do something stupid where the stakes were communicated to you that "You Die Right Now" was a probable or certain result of the fictional outcome here.

 

[Retreater]

[snip] .... and if you go down more then that you're probably doing something wrong.

You've never played in one of my games.

Yeah, I was wondering if there was another way to handle it? I was feeling inspired by Dragonbane and the Year Zero Engine games to attack the ability scores.

I could permanently drain a Hit Die each time. If you're at 0 HD and go down - that's the end. But it might unduly punish 1st level characters.

Do you have anything against introducing a meta currency? Give everyone one meta point/plot point/magic doodad point that can be cashed in to avoid death once. It refills on some sort of trigger that you (the DM) chooses.

There are dozens of implementations of this sort of thing. I'm sure you can find one that fits your needs without reinventing the wheel if you want a more detailed system.

Yeah. Because then it's my fault if I didn't award the doodads often enough and I'm back to being a Killer DM.