D&D 5E Super Deadly 5E?

[Coroc]

I know a lot of players enjoy the appeal of 5E's high survivability rate, and much of it depends greatly on the DM's style, etc. but...

I find that, especially after tier 1, character deaths are few and far between, almost unheard of, and of course when they do occur recovering from them in many 5E games seems pretty simple with spells like Revivify. Even stabilizing is not that hard (the given mechanic is about 60% survival IIRC, even without aid). Exceeding your maximum HP after lower levels seems almost impossible in most situations for the insta-kill mechanic.

I've considered ways to make the game feel more deadly, such as imposing a level of exhaustion when you go to 0 HP, or giving a level for each failed death save (so even if you recover, you will need strong magic or some long rests to remove the penalties).

I was curious if anyone plays in a style of with house-rules that makes 5E more lethal to them?

Combat will near full HP should not be a terrifying experience (for the player anyway), but as HP dwindle and that 0 approaches, the player should understand their character is in danger and consider their options.

You do not need houserules per se to make 5e more deadly, what you do need is a good grip on how dangerous mobs with given abilities e.g.
attack chance / damage potential,
defense especially AC and HP and to some extent immunities,
tactics (how intelligent does a (group of) mob(s) act out,
offensive spellcasting ((AE/single target) blast or debuff/disable)

is to your given group. That includes knowledge on how your group mostly acts, do they go all in or do they often try to save resources. Do they have potions or other independent resources in addition to their character abilities. Do they ever flee and if yes will they leave party members behind.

In short, you need DM experience and a degree of system mastery.

Everybody just relying on the official guidelines is likely to either make things to easy or to hard, and this is ironically a weakness partially caused by one of the biggest overall strengths of 5E bound accuracy.

While bound accuracy keeps everything in line on one hand, one big boon or malus on whatever side weighs in the more. It is not the +1 to hit which will unbalance things nor the +3 to damage.
It is the mob/player gaining advantage almost all the time, or the +3 armor, or the heavy melee hitter with multiattack but a low CR despite of it which can ruin your fun.

Unfortunately I cannot give you any good hints on how to make 5e more or less deadly because it is all so relative and context driven.
For me personally as a DM I did my job right, if at least one party member is close to zero, and I did it best if one or more is in the death saves, but the party still wins the fight.
Not for every trash mob fight but for the big ones.
I rather reduce number of fights but make them meaningful.

 

[Helldritch]

Ok About the Reincarnate spell.
It can be a bit overwhelming but the spell is there to be used. Remember that it is a one hour ritual that costs 1000gp. This is a lot (at least in my campaign). If I check the DMG for treasure and the treasure we see in published adventures this is not a small amount of money if you consider 9-11th level party. More than probably, each character will have spent a lot of gold into potions, scrolls and other personal endeavors. Hell, my players barely have enough money among themselve for the diamond required for a raise dead and they are 10th level.

If your campaign is generous with magic items and money, then you should increase either the penalty for a spell, its costs or the way it is cast. You might even consider to create some restrictions/penalties.

I.E. In my worlds, a cleric can not raise a non follower of his deity (unless the deity approves, an augury is sufficient to know if the god approves but if you want to bargain, a commune spell might be needed). Otherwise the spell will simply fail.

If the character is not exemplary in his faith, it will be to the god of death to judge if he allows such a soul to go back to the world of the living. The character might even have to bargain with the god for a return. That bargain could be a quest that will put the morality or goals of the character in jeopardy. Not doing the quest/service is a sure way to be refused a return to life the next time.

As for bards, casting the raise dead will bring questions from the god(s) of the deceased if any. If not, again the god of death, if it is willing, will strike a bargain or a quest with the character, at the same conditions above. And if the character isn't exemplary in his alignment and belief; it is entirely possible that the spell fails. Raising the dead isn't a joker you can just get out of your sleeve with a HA HA! GOTCHA! The same applies with reincarnate.

The only spell I do not question, is revivify. I consider it a kind of defibrilation and since it does not restore lost body part, it won't work on a body with a severed/squashed head...

I know it is not RAW or even RAI. Some might consider this a houserule. Personally, I consider this a world feature.

If raise dead and reincarnate are such a nuisance in your campaign, the above might be a solution.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In our current game, we only had a character reincarnated once, and that was because the druid in our party had made friends with an Archdruid (random encounter, FWIW) we had encountered and helped. A simple Sending spell, and he came to use to pay us back for the assistance we lent him.

Later on, the druid in the party had reached 9th (he is now 13th) so it is always an option.

By the time the party has a 9th level cleric or druid or whatever to raise or reincarnate, 1000 gp is not an issue at any table IME and with the ability to teleport (in earlier editions) and similar magics now, and with Gentle repose the 10 days is never an issue either.

I bring up Reincarnate because as an answer to the situations others have posed where returning a dead companion to life was not supposed to be possible (or at least very hard). It isn't hard really once you get past the lower levels.

People seem to be missing the point that killing PC's isn't hard. Any DM can do it, we all know that. Re-read the OP, I acknowledged that for survivability rate, "much of it depends greatly on the DM's style"

Unless you decide to run your game at session 0 that money will be tight, magic is rare, departed souls don't come back easily, or whatever, the problem is keeping them dead. None of those options work for me because that isn't my style of game that I generally like to run. And, if players know as per the game coming back is pretty easy after those harder lower levels, "death" isn't really a threat.

In 1E, things like having to make a resurrection survival check was part of the game, losing a level was a hefty price for dying and coming back (not to mention the XP for not being in the game, unless the DM felt awarding the 1000 XP was justifiable), and so on. Of course I can house-rule something like this as well.

The point of the OP was asking what do others do that make the game and fear of hitting 0 hp and possibly dying more of a concern to the player. Many people have offered some good suggestions and house-rules they use, some of which I found appealing and good for the type of game I want to run, and others not so.

If anyone has other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

The Archdruid story sounds pretty amazing actually, great use of a resource by the party.

If the problem is keeping them dead, then you can do one of two things in my opinion.

Steal the ritual raise dead idea from Matt Mercer. He makes it a long process where the players contribute rolls to the success of the ritual, then he makes a roll based on the modifier generated against a DC that increases every time you raise dead. This makes it uncertain and slowly increases the chance of people not coming back.

Or, just get rid of resurrection magic. I remember you saying you didn't want to do this for some reason, but frankly if your problem is PCs don't stay dead when you kill them, then you don't seem to want resurrection magic anyways. Frankly, 1,000 gp is signifigant by 10th level even in the campaigns I've been the richest in, so that combined with changing race would seem to be big deterrants for my tables, but I don't see value in making Raise Dead have even more penalties. It already gives -4 to everything. And Revivify is nice, but that minute time limit combined with the fact that there are a lot of great 3rd level spells clerics will want to cast makes it still sting to keep prepped.

But, I think that is the solution you really want, because lowering their max hp by overflow damage? Doesn't keep the PC dead. It just makes them less likely to continue fighting after they drop, because the party will retreat. But, if they die, then it does nothing to change anything you are talking about.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I'd be careful about this. The penalties for higher levels of exhaustion are deeply unpleasant (in the sense they tend to render characters incompetent) and have the distinct whiff of a death-spiral to them, if the characters need to keep going in spite of the exhaustion.

This is what we do in the current game our DM is running, which is why I was going to continue it. The death-spiral is in effect, but that was what the goal was. A level or two gets us sweating, LOL, and if one or two characters reach that point, retreat and rest becomes a priority since survival is harder.

And I'll point out that if whatever might be killing the characters (or the environment around whatever might be killing them) is eating souls, it's not just fluff keeping them from coming back. The soul needs to be free--that's in the spell description, and therefore mechanical.

Sorry, I meant more mechanical in the sense of a die roll, etc. But AFAIK, there is no monster that does that, although I know I could always make something up, but to me that is no different than a house-rule really.

Characters who die and come back as undead can't be raised per RAW, so being killed by wraiths etc ought to be scary. Shadows can easily kill PCs via STR drain and make them non-raisable.

Good idea, but when we've encountered them before, the drain was never even close enough to kill someone. I can see it being a threat at low levels, but not middle and higher ones. I'll look into it more and thanks.

 

[prabe]

This is what we do in the current game our DM is running, which is why I was going to continue it. The death-spiral is in effect, but that was what the goal was. A level or two gets us sweating, LOL, and if one or two characters reach that point, retreat and rest becomes a priority since survival is harder.

If it's already at the table, then y'all are somewhat accustomed to it. I was concerned that people might not like having their characters reduced that way, but either that's not a problem for y'all or it's been addressed.

Sorry, I meant more mechanical in the sense of a die roll, etc. But AFAIK, there is no monster that does that, although I know I could always make something up, but to me that is no different than a house-rule really.

I haven't read the adventure, but it's my understanding there's some effect built into Tomb of Annihilation that at least makes being brought back less reliable, and I have a niggling notion that there might be some monster that renders its victims unraisable. The former seems close to what you seem ot be looking for, and the latter certainly seems like a reasonable ability for something big and nasty to have, but if there's not a model it'd definitely be homebrew.

 

[Oofta]

That's why my initial idea was to continue with imposing a level of exhaustion whenever hp reaches 0. Exhaustion is not easy to get rid of without time generally. At higher levels, it isn't as bad of course, but if a couple characters go down in a fight, the immediate effect if they come back for the same fight, they will have penalties.

I also really like the idea that the overflow damage when you go to 0 HP reduces your maximum HP until you can get in a long rest. This way you either need strong magic or rest before you can fight at full HP, which discourages players from putting their PCs into the fray then.

Finally, if I keep the death save mechanic, delaying the rolls until someone checks on the unconscious PC keeps metagaming out of it.

As far as stopping PCs from coming back, some sort of penalty/house-rule will have to be used as there is nothing in 5E that stops it as is. While the flavor-aspects don't appeal to me as much personally, returning to more mechanical ones. All-in-all, I just want something "strong" (?) enough that players will finally realize dying might just be the end.

In addition to limiting bringing back the dead I still think you're being dismissive of other options.

• Many creatures such as dragons will destroy the body almost immediately upon being eaten.
• Does the body part need to be more or less whole? What if it's charred, melted from acid or smashed beyond recognition?
• Why not have creatures run away with the body? Have a purple worm kill someone and tunnel away, only to lead to a maze of burrows with no clue which tunnel to follow - or a whole nest of purple worms? Have that wyvern take the body and fly off. The phase spider goes ethereal, etc.
• That giant has been eating a lot lately, good luck finding the right body part.

At a certain level, in my experience it's always been easy to bring somebody back in all editions, especially once they get to the level where they can cast reincarnate or resurrection.

Have the possibility of debilitating permanent damage on death. Or use something other than death as a penalty.

Instead of a death penalty, make any PC that previously died "marked for death". Sprinkle in encounters where the group is repeatedly attacked by undead (especially wraith types) and the PC that was raised is the primary and perhaps only target. Hel is pissed and she wants her soul back, as others have stated once you become undead that's pretty much it.

Of course the easiest is to just tweak the rules so coming back from the dead, or coming back whole and sane, is no guarantee.

 

[DND_Reborn]

The Archdruid story sounds pretty amazing actually, great use of a resource by the party.

If the problem is keeping them dead, then you can do one of two things in my opinion.

Steal the ritual raise dead idea from Matt Mercer. He makes it a long process where the players contribute rolls to the success of the ritual, then he makes a roll based on the modifier generated against a DC that increases every time you raise dead. This makes it uncertain and slowly increases the chance of people not coming back.

Re-introducing a resurrection survival check or a DC of some sort was a house-rule I've been thinking of adding from the feedback I've gotten.

Or, just get rid of resurrection magic. I remember you saying you didn't want to do this for some reason, but frankly if your problem is PCs don't stay dead when you kill them, then you don't seem to want resurrection magic anyways. Frankly, 1,000 gp is signifigant by 10th level even in the campaigns I've been the richest in, so that combined with changing race would seem to be big deterrants for my tables, but I don't see value in making Raise Dead have even more penalties. It already gives -4 to everything. And Revivify is nice, but that minute time limit combined with the fact that there are a lot of great 3rd level spells clerics will want to cast makes it still sting to keep prepped.

LOL I shudder to tell you how much gold our current group has a level 12-13! Most of which we've acquired over the last 5 levels as we're going through AtG in TftYP. Changing race can be strange, but other than switching out racial traits it doesn't affect much.

The penalty for raise dead is good and I like it in the spell, and I think applying it to all raising spells, including reincarnate, would be good. Another thing I am thinking for reincarnate is making the player roll new ability scores (it is a new body, after all).

We always have Revivify prepared. My cleric and our paladin (now that he is high-level) both have it.

But, I think that is the solution you really want, because lowering their max hp by overflow damage? Doesn't keep the PC dead. It just makes them less likely to continue fighting after they drop, because the party will retreat. But, if they die, then it does nothing to change anything you are talking about.

The lowering max HP isn't so much about keeping them dead as it is about making returning to the fray scarier. I doubt it would ever get to the point, but if their max HP goes to zero, IIRC from another thread they can't be raised.

 

[DND_Reborn]

In addition to limiting bringing back the dead I still think you're being dismissive of other options.

• Many creatures such as dragons will destroy the body almost immediately upon being eaten.
• Does the body part need to be more or less whole? What if it's charred, melted from acid or smashed beyond recognition?
• Why not have creatures run away with the body? Have a purple worm kill someone and tunnel away, only to lead to a maze of burrows with no clue which tunnel to follow - or a whole nest of purple worms? Have that wyvern take the body and fly off. The phase spider goes ethereal, etc.
• That giant has been eating a lot lately, good luck finding the right body part.

At a certain level, in my experience it's always been easy to bring somebody back in all editions, especially once they get to the level where they can cast reincarnate or resurrection.

Have the possibility of debilitating permanent damage on death. Or use something other than death as a penalty.

Instead of a death penalty, make any PC that previously died "marked for death". Sprinkle in encounters where the group is repeatedly attacked by undead (especially wraith types) and the PC that was raised is the primary and perhaps only target. Hel is pissed and she wants her soul back, as others have stated once you become undead that's pretty much it.

Of course the easiest is to just tweak the rules so coming back from the dead, or coming back whole and sane, is no guarantee.

While situational hindrances might work for revivify and raise dead, reincarnate still works as we've already gone over. I don't see any point in rehashing those.

In 1E and 2E, it wasn't hard either, but their was a chance it didn't work--and there were big penalties for it (level loss and CON loss IIRC). 5E has nothing like that and because of that, dying isn't as big a deal IME.

We use lingering injuries as well, and when we start at level 1 again those will have more impact. In our game now they are just a minor nuisance.

 

[S'mon]

Good idea, but when we've encountered them before, the drain was never even close enough to kill someone. I can see it being a threat at low levels, but not middle and higher ones. I'll look into it more and thanks.

It just needs a decent number of undead per PC - rem the incorporeals can fly, so you can easily get 9+ Shadows etc on one PC.
I saw a Wiz-5 elf princess PC insta-killed by a single hit from a Wraith that took her hp straight from full to 0 hp. She became his spectre-bride.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Survivability is relative to what I throw at my party.

But, I do use a few house rules to pump up a more realistic threat of death:

• Variable initiative. You can't predict turns.
• Vitality. Replaced death saves with a pool of vitality points to reflect actual damage body takes (if you actually got hit with a giant's club, ever, you'd be dead). This creates a real danger zone when 0 hit points are reached (1 hit from a giant will kill you, unlike death saves), and a real danger if a character repeatedly goes down (and up) in combat. In more detail:

Spoiler

When you hit 0 hit points and don't die outright, you opt to gain the Staggered condition or go Unconscious.
Until you have positive hit points, all further damage comes from your Vitality points, which are equal to your 1st level hit points. These never change over time, except if your CON modifier changes. Hit points reflect your ability to avoid fatal blows, not take them. Vitality reflects the body itself. A sword to the heart kills a 20th level man just as easy as 1st level.

If you become Staggered, you are still on your feet, gain 1 death point, and all your rolls are made with disadvantage. All enemy rolls against your abilities are made with advantage. You have no movement (you can still move but must use the Dash action, and because you have 0 movement, you can't dodge or disengage).

If you have 2 death points, you gain a lingering injury (DMG 272). If you have 3, you die (optional rule for a glorious death, to roleplay something that gives a bonus to another player). This condition goes away if you gain at least 1 hit point. If an enemy opts to knock you unconscious, you cannot choose this option. This allows players to act but in a very risky way. In a whack-a-mole battle, death points can very quickly accumulate, a lingering injury may be no laughing matter, especially if you get a missing limb or have to make a save to take a combat action, and that pool of vitality is relatively shallow.

If you go Unconscious, you lose 1 vitality and make a DC10 death save to stabilize. Failure you are bleeding out, taking 1 vitality damage at the start of your turn. A natural 1 increases this to 1d4 damage. You avoid accumulating death points this way but if you've taken vitality damage already, this may still kill you.

Death Points go away 1 per long rest. Vitality restores at your CON modifier (minimum 1) per long rest. In play, when a player goes down or even gets staggered, it's been an all out alarm to get that person out of danger and healed, when possible. With unpredictable turns, it's not a guarantee.

Vitality cannot be magically healed unless hit points are max. Even then, they heal at 1 per 10 points of healing (calculated as if the healing effect did maximum, so a potion of healing (2d4+2, max 10) would heal 1 vitality to a character at full hit points, but a 1st level healing word spell (1d4+4, max 8) would do nothing .

• Resurrection survival chance. The AD&D table from the CON page works pretty well and gives another layer to the CON score, or the Matt Colville "ritual" where people can try to affect the roll is also interesting. However, it's all moot if no one is ever threatened.
• Modified monsters. It's DM fiat, but I was not a fan of 75% of the monster manual making creatures nothing more than big bags of hit points. This means adding spells back to demons, restoring golems to magic immune, and so on, to provide a greater challenge.

With all that, I still don't have anywhere near the body count of prior editions, especially AD&D (had a player's character die so often and come back that her followers began to revere her as a deity.) I'm okay with that; I just want the threat there so players don't automatically assume that every situation is meant to be solved with hack n slash. In AD&D, with auto-kill or save-or-die situations abundant, often you were looking for clever ways to avoid direct combat, which led to innovation and creative ideas. I do worry D&D has morphed that a bit: by reducing threat to characters we're reducing the need to be innovative and avoid trouble.

Anyways, don't want to get too far off topic on a design philosophy debate, but it does go a bit hand in hand.