D&D 5E Revivify - where did that come from?!?

[Wuzzard]

Just think, a level 1 version could revive someone who's only mostly dead.

Can we get that in pill form?

 

[jrowland]

Can we get that in pill form?

It is in pill form. However, market-testing found users unwilling to administer it and people needlessly died. It was a rectally administered pill. It's back in R&D for further testing.

 

[Rune]

But beyond low levels, that's a pointless rule. Short of a Palentar critting on your corpse (which it probably wouldn't do anyway) most hits are going to deal somewhere in the range of 20-30 damage. That's, for most people, level 4 and below. Once you're past that benchmark, you're basically one-hit-unkillable, since nothing is going to deal that level of damage to you short of a breath weapon.

Yup. It's safely ignorable. Doesn't get much simpler than that!

 

[KahlessNestor]

It is in pill form. However, market-testing found users unwilling to administer it and people needlessly died. It was a rectally administered pill. It's back in R&D for further testing.

If symptoms persist after 4 hours, see a doctor.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Hello

So as I'm reading through the forum I saw in passing a comment here and there about this spell. It took a while for me to catch on that this spell was *important* and I looked it up.



Did this spell originate in 5e or does it come from a previous edition?

So from a purely "magic" logical point of view, I have to concede that the spell makes sense. If a level 7 spell can turn back someone to life after years of being dad, and level 5 spell after days, then perhaps a level 3 spell can revive someone just after a few short moments of death. If a level 3 spell can create a fireball, it makes sense that a level 1 spell makes a burning hand. And we also know that well, with modern medicine someone who is dead might be brought back with emergency care if this death occurred but moments ago.

That being said, the *impact* is has on the game is huge. When someone drops to zero it's a big, dramatic moment. The injured PC has to be shielded from vindictive enemies that may perform a coup de grace on him/her, and must be healed/stabilized before death follows. But with this... eh just leave him/her, let's deal with the enemies and we'll revivify him/her right after. The dramatic tension is removed, and the overall risk are also reduced.

Is it just me?

It's not just you. Default 5e is very much "easy mode" - full overnight healing and spells like revivify. First thing we did was remove revivify, raise dead, etc from the game (along with leomunds magic hut). Then swap in slow overnight healing for normal overnight healing. Then add lingering injuries (or preferably some variant of it). Remove the -5/+10 mechanic from GWM and SS. At that point things should be significantly more difficult.

I seem to remember at least one of the devs indicating they went with "hard to die" by default, because they thought "easy to die" default might inadvertently scare off/annoy new players.

 

[Psikerlord#]

As mentioned, Revivify goes back to late 3E / early 3.5, but it's been getting less-and-less restrictive with each passing edition.

The other big game-changer in terms of instant saves is Healing Word, which does go back only to 4E, but can stabilize an ally (and return them to the fight) from across the room as a bonus action.

Yes, this is also awful. Healing should be touch only, to at least make positioning slightly important. I also think it should cost a whole action, which can kinda start a death spiral, but hey, that's dangerous battle for ya! Hmmm possibly - bonus action while target above 0 hp, but if target reduced to zero hp, then spell takes longer to work/cast, and requires a normal action. That would at least encourage healing while someone is on their feet, rather than waiting for them to drop, then whack-a-mole heal.

In fact, I would prefer if zero hp, then all cure spells take 1d3 minutes to work (you stop making death saves in the interim), but if above zero hp, then the healing is instant. That way, if reduced to zero, you are out of that fight, and dropping to zero becomes very dangerous - not because you might die, you probably wont with 3 death saves - but because that is one less PC hammering on the bad guys and soaking hits. Will also encourage mid combat healing. No-one will want to drop to zero hp (if for no other reason than it is often boring to sit out the rest of the fight).

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I seem to remember at least one of the devs indicating they went with "hard to die" by default, because they thought "easy to die" default might inadvertently scare off/annoy new players.

And long-time players too.

Most of the gamers I've ever had personal experience with, and even most of the gamers I have had online conversations with, tend to take games with "easy to die" default and turn them into "hard to die" (at least by comparison to the default) through house-rules and/or play-style choices - especially if it takes any considerable amount of time to build a character for the system.

 

[DeanP]

"Hard to die" is different from "easy to bring back from death". I've no problem with hard to die, but it's "get out of death free" spells that are problematic. Entire religions are founded on people coming back from the dead. The several spells of returning from the dead cheapen the enormity of the power. I also wonder what's the point of gods of death? Or the weight of selling one's soul if the soul can escape it's fate regularly?

 

[Psikerlord#]

And long-time players too.

Most of the gamers I've ever had personal experience with, and even most of the gamers I have had online conversations with, tend to take games with "easy to die" default and turn them into "hard to die" (at least by comparison to the default) through house-rules and/or play-style choices - especially if it takes any considerable amount of time to build a character for the system.

Yeah, very easy to die stuff like when hp 0 = death is too severe imo. But 5e is the other end of the scale. Sometime in between would be my preference. Eg, when hit zero hp, you get a single death save after the fight, to see if you are all dead, or just mostly dead (also known as slightly alive). If you fail the death save, maybe you can permanently burn a point of Con to make a single reroll. Something like that.

 

[mlund]

Can we get that in pill form?

I hear a chocolate coating helps it go down easier.O

On a more serious note, D&D originally didn't have a functional definition of "Down" distinct from "Dead" because of its war gaming roots. Casualties were casualties - there was no functional difference in most cases between being dead and incapacitated. In retrospect from a RPG purist perspective, it seems kind of absurd. "Knocked out of the fight," is a pile of adventure tropes in its own right. "Dead unless immediately resuscitated," is likewise something rather common in source media though pretty much alien to pure war games and board games.

In that regard I only put Revivify in the same category as Raise Dead for meta-game organizational purposes. In a role-playing situation it wouldn't be significantly different from reviving someone who drowned or had their heart stopped by modern medical means. It's "dead" in the sense that someone who doesn't get the paddles in time "died" when their heart stopped, only more fanciful.