D&D 5E Why my friends hate talking to me about 5e.

[EzekielRaiden]

As I said above, that works great, for everything except combat. I just can't see it being any fun without risk.

Why is death the only form of risk?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I believe you said in another thread that you haven't played D&D in 5 or 6 years. You might mention this in discussions so there isn't such a disconnect with other posters - like here with this being a 5e thread and all.

You do realize this has no impact on whether I've played 5e, right? It's been out for eight years. I have, in fact, attempted to play in multiple 5e campaigns. All of them didn't last long, and the ones I played with people I actually knew crashed and burned. Hard. I haven't run 5e, of course, but that's beside the point.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I mean… In my opinion they should be. Ability checks can fail and failure has consequences. Having to make a check is absolutely the soft fail state of an action. Of course, lots of DMs call for checks even when failure has no consequences, so that will change the dynamic.

You really think players should be paranoid about making rolls? I struggle to see how this would be an enjoyable play experience, but I suppose different strokes for different folks.

This just comes across to me as complaining that tanks exist in WoW even though taking damage is bad in that game. There is value in having a character type who’s shtick is being good at a part of the game everyone else wants to avoid.

Should Fighters also have more they can do outside of combat? Yes, absolutely.

Then...you're agreeing with my core point. Because my core point is not and has never been "people shouldn't have features for dealing with undesirable events." As I've explicitly said. My position is, and has always been, "Isn't this a problem given that we already have a class specifically designed to ONLY contribute to the thing that isn't supposed to ever happen, while (nearly) everyone else gets stuff for all the other things, which are supposed to happen?"

You avoid falling to 0 by taking your enemies down to 0 first, and by retreating when your health starts to get low. But, yes, it is inevitable that someone will eventually fall to 0. The point of a rule like this is to make that the point where you shift focus away from delving further into the dungeon for more treasure towards trying to get back to safety with the treasure you’ve acquired.

Then you are actively fighting against 5e design. As in, you will need to redesign monsters so that this can play out effectively. Otherwise, you're literally just forcing the players into a meatgrinder, forever, and you're going to have lots of dead characters. Like, frequent and regular dead characters. Which is what I said. The amount of damage output from creatures in 5e is such that falling to 0 is not merely inevitable, it is going to happen frequently. And as you say, as soon as it does, either it's paranoia time, escape escape escape, run way and hide until you're better, or accept that you're probably gonna die.

That's not particularly heroic. And I don't really see the point of playing D&D (as opposed to some other game) if you aren't going to be either big damn heroes, ambiguous Han Solo-esque puckish rogues (whether heroic, neutral, or barely-justified), or villain protagonists. The game isn't, and has never really been, made for much of anything else. I do enough running away from things in real life as it is.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Again, what again? I certainly didn't act like that...

Yeah, you kind of did. And do.

Like a lot.

People seem to dislike when I say I don't like a certain play style, so maybe being straight up insulting with this 'Candyland' crap isn't a way, yeah? It's not challenging, it's just confrontational.

Actually, any one any time trying to 'challenge' people in a discussion are actually just trying to justify being unnecessarily aggressive. It's on par with 'I'm just doing a social experiment' or 'I'm just asking innocent questions'.

 

[Charlaquin]

You really think players should be paranoid about making rolls? I struggle to see how this would be an enjoyable play experience, but I suppose different strokes for different folks.

Paranoid? No. But it should be an undesirable outcome. You should describe actions with the intent of succeeding without a roll. When a roll is necessary, it should be tense, because as mentioned before, rolls can fail and failure has consequences. That said, you have skills and other proficiencies as failsafes for when you do inevitably end up needing to roll.

Then...you're agreeing with my core point. Because my core point is not and has never been "people shouldn't have features for dealing with undesirable events." As I've explicitly said. My position is, and has always been, "Isn't this a problem given that we already have a class specifically designed to ONLY contribute to the thing that isn't supposed to ever happen, while (nearly) everyone else gets stuff for all the other things, which are supposed to happen?"

My answer to the bolded portion is no, that isn’t a problem. First of all, combat is supposed to happen, it’s just something you’re supposed to want to avoid when you can. Second of all, it is ok to have a class whose shtick is helping the party survive when combat does break out despite their best efforts to the contrary. But, additionally, it would be nice if fighters had more abilities that were useful outside of combat.

Then you are actively fighting against 5e design. As in, you will need to redesign monsters so that this can play out effectively. Otherwise, you're literally just forcing the players into a meatgrinder, forever, and you're going to have lots of dead characters. Like, frequent and regular dead characters. Which is what I said.

I don’t have a problem with character death being a fairly common occurrence. That said, I think even with a rule like this, character death is pretty avoidable, so long as you take precautions, and most importantly, retreat to a safe location to rest when things start to go south. This is precisely the sort of gameplay a rule like this is designed to encourage.

The amount of damage output from creatures in 5e is such that falling to 0 is not merely inevitable, it is going to happen frequently. And as you say, as soon as it does, either it's paranoia time, escape escape escape, run way and hide until you're better, or accept that you're probably gonna die.

In my experience, characters dropping to 0 isn’t all that common after like 4th level. And, yes, when it happens, it should absolutely be time to flee back to town to rest.

That's not particularly heroic. And I don't really see the point of playing D&D (as opposed to some other game) if you aren't going to be either big damn heroes, ambiguous Han Solo-esque puckish rogues (whether heroic, neutral, or barely-justified), or villain protagonists. The game isn't, and has never really been, made for much of anything else. I do enough running away from things in real life as it is.

Umm… The game very much has been for something else. Being Big Damn Heroes or whatever is a perfectly valid and fun way to play D&D, but it is far from the only way to play it, either historically or currently. Not knocking it as a playstyle, and I definitely think a house rule like this one is ill-suited to that playstyle. But there are other viable playstyles, including old-school push-your-luck dungeon delves, which a house rule like this is indeed well-suited to.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why is death the only form of risk?

In combat? Yes, death needs to be a risk. Not necessarily the only risk, but it needs to be there. Unless everyone you fight just wants to take you prisoner.

 

[Micah Sweet]

For the same reason people play cards for fun, or do crosswords.

Neither of those activities are intended to be dangerous.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You really think players should be paranoid about making rolls? I struggle to see how this would be an enjoyable play experience, but I suppose different strokes for different folks.


Then...you're agreeing with my core point. Because my core point is not and has never been "people shouldn't have features for dealing with undesirable events." As I've explicitly said. My position is, and has always been, "Isn't this a problem given that we already have a class specifically designed to ONLY contribute to the thing that isn't supposed to ever happen, while (nearly) everyone else gets stuff for all the other things, which are supposed to happen?"


Then you are actively fighting against 5e design. As in, you will need to redesign monsters so that this can play out effectively. Otherwise, you're literally just forcing the players into a meatgrinder, forever, and you're going to have lots of dead characters. Like, frequent and regular dead characters. Which is what I said. The amount of damage output from creatures in 5e is such that falling to 0 is not merely inevitable, it is going to happen frequently. And as you say, as soon as it does, either it's paranoia time, escape escape escape, run way and hide until you're better, or accept that you're probably gonna die.

That's not particularly heroic. And I don't really see the point of playing D&D (as opposed to some other game) if you aren't going to be either big damn heroes, ambiguous Han Solo-esque puckish rogues (whether heroic, neutral, or barely-justified), or villain protagonists. The game isn't, and has never really been, made for much of anything else. I do enough running away from things in real life as it is.

So what you're really saying you don't want to play that way. That's fine.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Paranoid? No. But it should be an undesirable outcome. You should describe actions with the intent of succeeding without a roll. When a roll is necessary, it should be tense, because as mentioned before, rolls can fail and failure has consequences. That said, you have skills and other proficiencies as failsafes for when you do inevitably end up needing to roll.

This whole concept is just bizarre to me. Rolls are needed whenever anything is in doubt. To treat that as a "failure" condition is just...you're literally saying using the rules ever, for any reason, is a failure condition. If it is a failure to need the rules, why are we even playing a game at all?

My answer to the bolded portion is no, that isn’t a problem. First of all, combat is supposed to happen, it’s just something you’re supposed to want to avoid when you can. Second of all, It is ok to have a class whose shtick is helping the party survive when combat does break out despite their best efforts to the contrary. But, additionally, it would be nice if fighters had more abilities that were useful outside of combat.

If it's supposed to happen, it's not a failure state. If it's a failure state, it's not supposed to happen. Like, that's literally what a "failure state" means! If it's supposed to happen, it is at least in some way intended. If it's a failure state, it occurring means something went wrong.

What else could those words in that combination mean?

In my experience, characters dropping to 0 isn’t all that common after like 4th level. And, yes, when it happens, it should absolutely be time to flee back to town to rest.

In my experience, it is, though I admit I don't have quite as much experience with those levels as I have with the earlier levels. Where characters dropping to 0 (and then outright dying) happened. A lot. Repeatedly. It ruined several games as a result. Hence why I am so skeptical about a rule like this. When four totally different DMs have each caused undesired and campaign-ending TPKs at early levels, yeah, I take rather seriously that death lurks around every corner.

Umm… The game very much has been for something else. Being Big Damn Heroes or whatever is a perfectly valid and fun way to play D&D, but it is far from the only way to play it, either historically or currently. Not knocking it as a playstyle, and I definitely think a house rule like this one is ill-suited to that playstyle. But there are other viable playstyles, including old-school push-your-luck dungeon delves, which a house rule like this is indeed well-suited to.

The bolded bit is covered by the puckish rogues or, for the darkest versions, villain protagonists. Like, that's the whole point of being a murderhobo diving into a murder-hole. You're supposed to take big risks for big reward. You aren't supposed to respond with fear to the murder-hole. Constantly running away leads to rather dull gameplay in the Gygaxian dungeon-heist model. Which is why I said what I said.

In combat? Yes, death needs to be a risk. Not necessarily the only risk, but it needs to be there. Unless everyone you fight just wants to take you prisoner.

Let me rephrase:

Why is random, permanent, irrevocable character death the only form of risk?

I already said death can happen in my game. It hasn't yet (because my players are extremely cautious...frankly, cautious to a fault despite my assurances), but it can happen. The only guarantee I offer is that I won't take away a player's character. If a character dies, then their death will either be an agreement between us, or it will only be temporary, or it can be reversed later but that will require effort from the players.

Neither of those activities are intended to be dangerous.

Rock climbing, football, and being an astronaut are all dangerous. No one looks forward (or, rather, should look forward) to the possibility of dying from them. But, as stated, it is totally possible that a character could die in my game--they just either won't stay that way, or will pass on because the player thinks that's for the best. The quest to save a friend from death becomes one of the main consequences, which is dramatically more interesting than "welp, guess they're dead and never getting any resolution about anything ever, what do you want to roll up now?"

So what you're really saying you don't want to play that way. That's fine.

I'm saying the game is fundamentally designed not to be played that way, and stuff needs to be done to adjust it so that it can actually work for that goal. The Fighter being an absolute desert for anything except combat features is one of those things that needs adjustment. Monster design is another.

I legit don't care if people want to use a rule like this or not. I'm solely pointing out that going for a rule like this without changing anything else to match it is a recipe for upset players and poor experiences.

 

[Slit518]

This reminds me of a homebrew rule where players suffer 1 level of exhaustion each time they drop to 0 hit points.

Her rule just adds another level for each failed Death Save, but you're conscious.