D&D 5E The Mainstreaming of D&D

[Hexmage-EN]

Yeah, in my experience, this Matt Mercer style of intense theatrics but minimal mechanical risk of character death is what I think the majority of players want from the game. Players tend to like their characters and don’t want them to die, they just want the feeling of their character being in danger, so they can overcome that danger and feel like awesome heroes. An occasional character death can be acceptable of course, but it should feel dramatically appropriate when it happens.

Characters died pretty often in Critical Role's first campaign, actually. It's just that it's easy to resurrect characters in D&D (despite Matt Mercer actually introducing house rules to make it more difficult to successfully bring someone back from the dead). The party of the second campaign, in contrast, had two clerics and died much less often because of it.

Death DC
When a creature is resurrected, a roll is made against a DC, which begins at 10. For each time the creature dies, their death DC is increased by 1.
Rapid Resurrection
When a creature is targeted by the spell Revivify, the caster makes a spellcasting ability check against the target's death DC. On a success, the spell takes hold and the creature is resurrected. On a failure, the creature's death DC is increased by 1, and they can't be resurrected until they are resurrected by a spell with a casting time longer than one action.
Resurrection Ritual
When a creature is targeted by a resurrection spell with a casting time longer than one action, such as Raise Dead or Resurrection, a ritual is initiated in which up to three creatures can contribute in order to call the creature's soul back to their body. The creature makes an ability check with a skill the DM deems appropriate for the action, against a DC that the DM also determines.
For each successful check, the creature's death DC is lowered by 3 for this ritual. For each failure, it increases by 1 for this ritual. The DM makes the final roll against this DC. On a success, the creature is returned to life if its soul is willing. On a failure, the creature's soul is lost, and further resurrection rituals fail automatically.
Only the strongest of magic can bypass this ritual, in the form the True Resurrection or Wish spells. These spells can also return to life a creature whose soul was lost from a failed ritual.

Campaign 1 PC Deaths
Pike Trickfoot: 1
Grog Strongjaw: 2
Vex'ahlia: 4
Percival de Rolo: 2
Scanlan Shorthalt: 2
Keyleth: 1
Vax'ildan: 4 (became a revenant in service to the Raven Queen after being disintegrated by Vecna and died permanently at the end of the campaign, his purpose as a revenant complete)

Campaign 2 PC Deaths

 

[Parmandur]

Given the number of threads here that find 5E's approach to combat dull and repetitive, or caster vs non-caster balance, I'd count that as significant. WOTC has acknowledged most people don't run 6-8 encounters per day. Maybe it's time to start figuring out what they can do to fix it. Because the solution to boring, low risk MMO trash fights isn't to force us to run more boring MMO trash fights. I'm an adult with responsibilities, I don't have time to waste on rolling initiative and tracking HP on some puds whose sole purpose is to eat a paltry amount resources (and repeat pud fight 3 more times!) before we get to the fireworks factory.

Then don't, the game works fine at low lethality if a challenge is not desired.

There are a few thread out there, but do they represent a "significant" percentage of 50 million players? Do they even represent a significant percentage of the several thousand posters on this board, or Reddit? What numbers do you have to demonstrate statistical significance?

 

[Charlaquin]

When we played Death House I think it took 2 (or maybe 2.5) sessions. There were interesting things about it, but not the

Spoiler

grindy animated armor and ghoul combats

.

2 sessions is about right for Death House. A group could probably get through it in 1 if they were moving at a really fast clip, but I think that would hurt the spooky mood it’s supposed to have. Death House is kind of a weird module because it’s torn between wanting to be a moody haunted house and a traditional D&D dungeon. A lot of the encounters feel forced, and I would design the whole thing as more of an exploration challenge with some light combat here and there.

I think when people criticize the encounter design in 5e it's more an indication that the 6-8 encounters style of play is not something they want. What they do want is an interesting question--probably for combat to feel cinematic with high narrative stakes.

Probably true for a lot of players.

I haven't played any of the later modules, but do these modules stick to 6-8 encounter adventuring days?

Not really. I’ve observed an interesting trend though of the first chapter of many adventure paths following this guideline pretty closely, and then dropping it afterwards.

 

[Parmandur]

Characters die pretty often in Critical Role, actually. It's just that it's easy to resurrect characters in D&D (despite Matt Mercer actually introducing house rules to make it more difficult to successfully bring someone back from the dead).

Character death can and does happen...but, if you crunch the numbers on any fight Mercer throws at the crew, and then look at the adventuring day any given day...he is not pushing them, or anywhere in the same solar system of pushing them, most of the time. But he does usually succeed in scaring them them, even if the CR is heavily in their favor.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, they are guidelines for a maximal experience, not the only way the game functions. Matt Mercer essentially never throws fights at the Critical Role crew that aren't cakewalks, because 7 PCs with no resource grind are basically unbeatable: but he still gives his players a fun time. He puts the fear of God into them with theatrics, rather than pushing the characters to their actual mechanical limits. The game plays fine that way, but yes without grinding PCs resources it will be hard to kill them.

I see no particular reason to suspect one or another about what newer players are doing with the grindiness: I see these complaints more on forums where more experienced players who like involved wargame scenarios are talking about the game. I think newbies are doing fine, whether they are pushing the resource limits or not.

I tend to throw 4-10 fights between long rests (I use the alternate rest rules), how many fights I have really depends on story and what the players want to do. I find having a different number of fights between long rests doesn't necessarily make it that much more difficult to balance but fewer fights does benefit some classes more than others.

As far as CR I just watched an episode where multiple people were at 0, one was swallowed and if it hadn't been for an NPC coming to their aid it would have been a TPK. Let's not forget the controversy that erupted after he killed a PC. So while he doesn't push the party to their limits as often as I tend to, he does push them to their limits at least occasionally.

 

[Parmandur]

I tend to throw 4-10 fights between long rests (I use the alternate rest rules), how many fights I have really depends on story and what the players want to do. I find having a different number of fights between long rests doesn't necessarily make it that much more difficult to balance but fewer fights does benefit some classes more than others.

As far as CR I just watched an episode where multiple people were at 0, one was swallowed and if it hadn't been for an NPC coming to their aid it would have been a TPK. Let's not forget the controversy that erupted after he killed a PC. So while he doesn't push the party to their limits as often as I tend to, he does push them to their limits at least occasionally.

It's not a "never" situation, but it is not Mercer's norm. And the game is still fun.

Class balance does go out the window when the party isn't pushed, but if everyone is having a good time, that really doesn't matter at all. The game works at max pressure, but fun can still be had if people don't want to push it.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

When we played Death House I think it took 2 (or maybe 2.5) sessions. There were interesting things about it, but not the

Spoiler

grindy animated armor and ghoul combats

. I think when people criticize the encounter design in 5e it's more an indication that the 6-8 encounters style of play is not something they want. What they do want is an interesting question--probably for combat to feel cinematic with high narrative stakes.

I haven't played any of the later modules, but do these modules stick to 6-8 encounter adventuring days?

They do not.

 

[Parmandur]

Not really. I’ve observed an interesting trend though of the first chapter of many adventure paths following this guideline pretty closely, and then dropping it afterwards.

They do not.

No really sure why y'all say that: looking at Chapter 7 of Rime of the Frost Maiden, just as a random selection, it probably pushes the limit to the absolute brink if played as written. The adventure books do not always push to the max, but when they do, they push hard.

 

[Malmuria]

In my experience characters die quite easily if you observe the 6-8 encounter adventuring day guidelines.

Getting back to this point, is this true in your experience at all levels?

The other thing that works to prevent PC death are death saves. There have been times that I had a character that I felt really should have died but did not. Moreover, it seems there was some intentionality with that design that the game wouldn't be so lethal, or even that it would feel lethal but the characters were in less risk than it seemed.

Anyway, I'm not sure if a lack of lethality is what helped the game become more mainstream, except insofar as it suggests that character death be rare and meaningful.

 

[Parmandur]

Getting back to this point, is this true in your experience at all levels?

The other thing that works to prevent PC death are death saves. There have been times that I had a character that I felt really should have died but did not. Moreover, it seems there was some intentionality with that design that the game wouldn't be so lethal, or even that it would feel lethal but the characters were in less risk than it seemed.

Anyway, I'm not sure if a lack of lethality is what helped the game become more mainstream, except insofar as it suggests that character death be rare and meaningful.

No, the designers definitely wanted to make characters more robust than earlier Editions: MEarls compared it to Casinos, with the players being the House, and the House always wins in the long run. My one experience with AD&D 2E involved a TPK from a single rat. That isn't happening in 5E. But if the limits are pushed, characters will die.