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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6797211" data-attributes="member: 2067">I'll concentrate on the points where we disagree below, but I think we agree more than we disagree. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Just thinking through this thought experiment: the Fighter/Fighter/Rogue/Rogue/Barbarian party with no in-combat healing (though we both agree that healing potions are something a non-magical party might still be comfortable with). They get ambushed by a Medium-difficulty encounter. The enemy uses fairly optimal tactics, and so they render a lightly-armored rogue PC unconscious in the first round (possibly the thief, since the assassin's combat abilities are mostly overcome by getting ambushed in the first place). Most encounters, they won't be able to drop more than one PC, even during a well-coordinated surprise round. Even at Hard, or Deadly, knocking out two PC's (three of whom have HP's well into the double digits from 1st level) would be a very exceptionally auspicious start! The rest of the party goes nova and ends the combat after 1-2 rounds. 3 if the party whiffs a lot. You might get another PC dropping, especially if they didn't start the combat fully healed, but the party will likely emerge victorious even with their unconscious allies. The nova potential FAR outweighs the death-spiral, and can even be applied defensively (of of the fighters Action Surges to take the Dodge action, for instance), negating hits that would otherwise happen.  It takes a downed PC ~6 rounds to be fully dead on average, so there's little chance of permanent death (not impossible, just not "average"). Afterwards, the party retreats and takes a Short Rest.I can see a few ways this can go south, but mostly it would rely on low-level characters and really, REALLY bad luck. These ways would affect a party with a cleric in it equally - the cleric is the one made unconscious during that surprise round with fairly optimal tactics. Yeah, if the entire party is ambushed three times between rests by Deadly encounters and enemies who concentrate on killing unconscious characters, they won't make it, but neither would a party WITH a dedicated healer.</blockquote>

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