D&D 5E The "everyone at full fighting ability at 1 hp" conundrum

[Garthanos]

it lies with the concept of someone being able to do this one day

You chose for that to be what you imagined happening... so that you get a disparity out of not being out of it for months after that is your own choice.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The damage that I've seen people take and survive doesn't match up with what you're suggesting. If they are wearing plate armor they can take hits all day. Chainmail: maybe they'd get some bruises I wouldn't call it significant.

The premise is that a "hit" on the die reflects a significant hit within the narrative, so all of those hits that don't even leave a bruise would still be considered a "miss" within the mechanics, since they aren't significant.

There's a reason why plate gives you +8 to AC, after all. It's hard to hurt someone through armor.

 

[Lanefan]

If you follow the guidelines for encounters per adventuring day, and the guidelines for building easy, moderate, difficult, and deadly encounters, and follow also the guidelines for how often each of those types of encounters should occur, my point is simple: 5E is not deadly once you reach a certain point.

One of the biggest complaints is it is too easy. Of course, the DM can adjust whatever they want to make it more challenging, but the base design presented in the core books is such that the players should win.

In fairness, this has more or less been true since the days of 0e: once you get to a certain level, things are generally tilted in the party's favour assuming a competent DM who reads and follows the game's designed intent.

The difference lies in how severe the tilt is, and at what level it tends to manifest, and how.

In 1e it's not until about 3rd-4th level that things tend to start really favouring the party - and note I said the party; individual characters are always at risk. At 9th when you start seeing Raise Dead in the field, death becomes much less of a concern (though you still have to make that resurrection survival roll; and you'd come back down a Con point). Also, long-term attrition was in play - a party had to manage its resources wisely, and those resources included hit points and cures.

In 3e, if a DM followed the CR-EL guidelines carefully, the party was favoured right from level 1 on up; though again just the party as a whole was favoured, individual characters were again always at risk. Attrition was still a thing, but revival from death was made automatic (no res. survival roll) and with a reduced penalty.

In 4e the tilt was also there right from the start, assuming again that the guidelines were followed, but here came a difference: individual characters weren't at nearly as much risk as before. From all I've seen here, 4e parties tended to rise and fall as a unit; probably an effect of the much-greater availability of in-combat healing. Long-term resource management largely went away due to full overnight recovery. Revival from death still automatic but all penalizing after-effects are gone.

5e has mostly followed the 4e model in this respect; but added Revivify - a low-level, zero-cost revival-from-death spell that made death even less likely to be permanent.

Some say an "easy" low- or no-death game is more fun. Personally, I'd probably enjoy the hell out of it for the first half-dozen sessions and then find it incredibly boring, knowing I was almost invulnerable.

 

[Lanefan]

That never happens because magic.

Perhaps, but take magic out of the equation and what have you got?

That's what I'm trying to focus on: what happens sans magic. This so there's a believable foundation to overlay the magic onto.

 

[Garthanos]

Slightly tangentially, I've been giving some thought to making Cha the key stat for revival from death rather than Con, for just the 'Spiritual Strength' reason.

But only slightly sounds reasonable wait arent you doing a quest ( at least for the first time raise dead)

 

[Lanefan]

You chose for that to be what you imagined happening... so that you get a disparity out of not being out of it for months after that is your own choice.

Er...wha?

You used the words "horrible wounds" - that gives the imagination some pretty clear guidelines as to what's happening to this poor guy. He's not being fatigued to death; and "horrible wounds" should take longer to recover from than just one overnight rest.

 

[Lanefan]

But only slightly sounds reasonable wait arent you doing a quest ( at least for the first time raise dead)

Sometimes I have characters come back to life with a quest on them.

It's one possible result on a home-brew table I've got called "Death Effects" - changes that might happen while dead. Some are beneficial, some aren't, some are neutral; and there's a 50-50 chance nothing unusual happens at all.

 

[Garthanos]

You used the words "horrible wounds"

It was the thing it seems like people are choosing to imagine character is facing its still a choice. The game says not really and the default mechanics treat even a fallen as the hero temporarily succumbing to something that turns out "not as bad as it first looked"

I will resist linking TV tropes ... yay rolled awesome.

"horrible wounds" should take longer to recover from than just one overnight rest.

I think when you hit death save territory regardless of the inducement I maybe I kind of agree ... before that point not so much. I do think there may be some fun to be had which is missed without any long term implications at all.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The premise is that a "hit" on the die reflects a significant hit within the narrative, so all of those hits that don't even leave a bruise would still be considered a "miss" within the mechanics, since they aren't significant.
There's a reason why plate gives you +8 to AC, after all. It's hard to hurt someone through armor.

That's the premise of armor making you harder to hit. Which is also pretty weak, of course, but a whole 'nuther sub-topic among the many deficiencies of D&D decried over the decades and done better by other games since the late 70s.
::
OTHO, the premise of hps making you harder to kill is that whether a "hit" actually so much as touches you or musses your hair - or scratches you, or impales you fatally - is all dependent on the damage roll relative to your hps (and maybe even a poison save).

 

[3catcircus]

That's the premise of armor making you harder to hit. Which is also pretty weak, of course, but a whole 'nuther sub-topic among the many deficiencies of D&D decried over the decades and done better by other games since the late 70s.
::
OTHO, the premise of hps making you harder to kill is that whether a "hit" actually so much as touches you or musses your hair - or scratches you, or impales you fatally - is all dependent on the damage roll relative to your hps (and maybe even a poison save).

I guess my ideal would be the hit points as injury trip points, using hit locations, combined with armor as DR and weapons possibly having a penetration value that either offsets the DR or acts as a multiplier to damage. Every hit is a hit - armor makes some of them glancing blows or cushions the impact or prevents penetration (which is historically why there was an armor vs weapon arms race). It makes helmets useful again. It eliminates the hand-waving of hit points as not really physical damage and the hand-waving of whether or not an attack roll that is successful is a culmination of a bunch of hits of which only one is significant enough to cause damage.

It makes no sense whatsoever that hp can somehow represent a combination of meat, luck, karma, etc. since poisons, environmental damage and energy attacks all currently subtract your hp the same as weapons. Suffocation drops you right to 0 hp, for example. That is totally at odds with poisons that subtract hp or weapons that subtract hp. The suffocation rules in my mind work the way you'd expect - you are instantly incapacitated after you've run out of air and lapse into unconsciousness.

If like to also see about applying the 3ed supplement on poisons that took a real world approach.

Burns, acid, freezing - they ought to have effects you'd expect rather than "the dragon breathes on you, take 60 damage or 30 if you save."

Dragons, giants, a pack of wolves, or a horde of ghouls ought to be a terrifying encounter for low level parties and still be a challenge for high level parties.

The ease of restoring your health through short and long rests after dropping to 0hp quickly becomes boring.

I want mechanics that support things like a PC getting separated during combat, getting knocked senseless and subsequently being drug off screaming by a ghoul dragging him back to his den to eat while the combat is still ongoing. Those same mechanics also need to support a party working together to gang up on an unwary giant, or a fight where either side runs away instead of fighting to the death more often. A goblin raiding party or a hungry tiger ought to run away after taking a few good hits and deciding there are easier pickings elsewhere.