The rules are clear in the section above the "Monsters and Death" one that is being quoted. The section titled "Stabilizing a Creature" gives the actual "rule" for creatures. This rule technically applies to every thing in the game that is categorized as the "Creature" type. But the PHB very quickly clarifies that MOST DMs do not apply this rule to every creature. That's not a "rule"... it's a very widely used homebrew that the PHB points out so that players who are reading the book know that they don't need to coup-de-grâce every single creature they fight.
an apparent conflict of interests: the agency of the player as opposed to the convenience of the DM.
Player agency is not the freedom to bend the rules of the world. It's the freedom to fully control how your character reacts to the world that the DM sets up. If a necromancer in my game wanted to go around draining the remaining sparks of life from unconscious enemies, they could certainly do so. They just wouldn't get any healing from it (and thus wouldn't need to cast VT in the first place). It can still be a flavor thing that can have character/story/intra-party consequences without any need to change the rules.
Well the point is that in this case they aren't bending the rules that WotC have established for the game, just the home rules you have decided to establish vis a vis death and dying of NPCs. To put it another way, you could allow this use of Vampiric Touch without overriding the official rule set in any way since the official rule set, apparently, have left almost everything up to the DM to decide about how they want NPCs' death and dying to function. At that point then you are just telling the player that their cool idea for how to make the most of an otherwise pretty underpowered spell is not going to be allowed because you don't want them to be able to do that.
As we all know, as a DM, D&D has given you the right to do that whenever you want, but it might be hard to keep players in your group if you flex your power in that way too often. For my part, I pretty much always rule in favor of the player's interpretation unless I can find a specific rule that opposes it; this way the decision to thwart their ambition / fun is seen as objective and fair.
As a final point on this, since it seems like a lot of commenters are reacting negatively from the perspective of this being an untenable mechanic in game, let me just point out, you can compromise and do both. Don't bother to track death saves of fallen enemies, just leave them on the battlefield. When the end of the battle comes, and your Vampiric Touch Wizard wants to begin reaping excess life, then just come up with an ad hoc mechanic to determine how many of the knocked out bad guys are still alive and unconscious. This can be as simple as just assuming 1/2, or you can autoroll 5d20 for each fallen creature and determine it randomly. It's really not that hard to say "Yes, And" in this case.
It's not really about the rules (although again, it's not really a home rule). By the rules, players can cart imprisoned enemies behind them for Vampiric Touch purposes as well, or the bag of rats that was mentioned. It's about not just caring whether you could, but also whether you should. No offense, but painting this as 'DMs flexing their power' is entirely too dismissive of DMs just trying to do what's best for the game. I'd hazard to say this is not what's best for many games - it's certainly not what's best for mine. The implication that anything players come up with is a cool idea and any time a DM chooses to "thwart their ambition/fun" without hard rule to justify the decision that's unfair and not objective, that implication rubs me the wrong way too.
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The rules are clear in the section above the "Monsters and Death" one that is being quoted. The section titled "Stabilizing a Creature" gives the actual "rule" for creatures. This rule technically applies to every thing in the game that is categorized as the "Creature" type. But the PHB very quickly clarifies that MOST DMs do not apply this rule to every creature. That's not a "rule"... it's a very widely used homebrew that the PHB points out so that players who are reading the book know that they don't need to coup-de-grâce every single creature they fight.
I don't agree. This rule about stabilising a creature only applies if you allow said creature not to instantly die at 0 HP. But that rule is clearly established as being a player character only rule, which you can allow as an exception (and this is specifically noted) to apply to some other creatures as well: "Mighty villains and special nonplayer characters are common exceptions; the DM might have them fall unconscious and follow the same rules as player characters."
Where in the PHB is it clearly stated that it is a player character only rule? Btw, this topic has been discussed at length in the Rules & Mechanics forum as well as other online forums. As for the "Monsters and Death" section, that's not a rule. No actual rules would use "Most" and "Might". It's either a rule or it's not. Explaining how something might or might not work from table to table is, by definition, a homebrew rule.
This, however, is an actual 5e rule: "A stable creature doesn't make death saving throws, even though it has 0 hit points, but it does remain unconscious. The creature stops being stable, and must start making death saving throws again, if it takes any damage. A stable creature that isn't healed regains 1 hit point after 1d4 hours." It applies to every creature in the game. It does not distinguish between PC, NPC, monster, etc.
The rule applies to precisely who the GM determines it applies to. Most GMs choose not to apply it to NPCs or monsters. That's a perfectly valid interpretation of the rules. As a player, it's important to remember that just because you've got a "really coo" idea for something doesn't automatically entitle you to be able to do it. Especially if it's something that requires an unusual interpretation of the rules to function.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
"It's entirely up to the DM—and often invisible to players—whether a monster dies at 0 hp or hangs on. #DnD"
Forgive me, but if it is entirely up to the DM, then how can this be any form of a rule other than a rule which says, it is at the DM's discretion how to handle the death and dying of NPC creatures? If you consider that a rule, then I would say that our disagreement is purely semantic.
This is the kind of thing I would have expected from a player in my 3.5 group back in college, we'll call him Dave. Dave was a classic min-maxing, rules lawyering, powergaming munchkin. Pretty much the exact kind of "oppressive player" that Lyxen mentioned. Had this kind of thing occurred to Dave (or, more likely, had he read a thread such as this where someone else suggested it), he would have waited until we were playing a game where he was not DMing (three of us took turns as DM) and he would not have mentioned it until he announced that he was actually doing it. Then he would have argued for a half hour if the DM told him "no" (I would do so, the other DM, his girlfriend, probably wouldn't have) and spent the rest of the campaign pouting about it. It's also worth noting that, as DM, Dave would instantly cling to the "DM's word is law" rule any time I used my own encyclopedic knowledge of the system to outmunch his munched out monsters, like the time he ruled that I couldn't do something that the RAW explicitly said I could because it would have meant I solo killed his dragon that scared away the other PCs by taking advantage of it's tactically stupid position and the wording of Meteor Swarm.
It has also been stated that both Vampiric Touch and Life Transference are full action spells, so if the DM allows a player to drain the nonexistent abstract life force from creatures on the verge of death in the first place, as soon as they decided to pass on their munchkinized boon of vitality, said PC would be that much more vulnerable to being targeted by all remaining enemies who just saw this person picking the proverbial low hanging fruit by coldheartedly executing their defenseless allies.
Don't be like Dave. That's just not fun for anybody but Dave and nobody but Dave likes the Davelike behavior.
This is the kind of thing I would have expected from a player in my 3.5 group back in college, we'll call him Dave. Dave was a classic min-maxing, rules lawyering, powergaming munchkin. Pretty much the exact kind of "oppressive player" that Lyxen mentioned. Had this kind of thing occurred to Dave (or, more likely, had he read a thread such as this where someone else suggested it), he would have waited until we were playing a game where he was not DMing (three of us took turns as DM) and he would not have mentioned it until he announced that he was actually doing it. Then he would have argued for a half hour if the DM told him "no" (I would do so, the other DM, his girlfriend, probably wouldn't have) and spent the rest of the campaign pouting about it. It's also worth noting that, as DM, Dave would instantly cling to the "DM's word is law" rule any time I used my own encyclopedic knowledge of the system to outmunch his munched out monsters, like the time he ruled that I couldn't do something that the RAW explicitly said I could because it would have meant I solo killed his dragon that scared away the other PCs by taking advantage of it's tactically stupid position and the wording of Meteor Swarm.
It has also been stated that both Vampiric Touch and Life Transference are full action spells, so if the DM allows a player to drain the nonexistent abstract life force from creatures on the verge of death in the first place, as soon as they decided to pass on their munchkinized boon of vitality, said PC would be that much more vulnerable to being targeted by all remaining enemies who just saw this person picking the proverbial low hanging fruit by coldheartedly executing their defenseless allies.
Don't be like Dave. That's just not fun for anybody but Dave and nobody but Dave likes the Davelike behavior.
Also they are wasting so many resources for almost no benefit.
So in a world where a PC can get knocked unconscious X number of times per day, be pummeled to a pulp, hacked into mince-meat, and/or blasted to a scorched cinder, but just keep popping back-up like a whac-a-mole by means of healing words, 1 hour self-healing breaks and, ultimately, be topped up back to max HP by the elixir of life itself, 6 hours of minimally interrupted sleep, this is a world where we reject as patently silly and defying of logic that a creature outside of an arbitrary group of 3-7 individuals and their mythical arch-enemies, would possess any potential to claw their way back to consciousness, or indeed have any remaining vestige of vitality after taking one too many beans to the noggin?
So in a world where a PC can get knocked unconscious X number of times per day, be pummeled to a pulp, hacked into mince-meat, and/or blasted to a scorched cinder, but just keep popping back-up like a whac-a-mole by means of healing words, 1 hour self-healing breaks and, ultimately, be topped up back to max HP by the elixir of life itself, 6 hours of minimally interrupted sleep, this is a world where we reject as patently silly and defying of logic that a creature outside of an arbitrary group of 3-7 individuals and their mythical arch-enemies, would possess any potential to claw their way back to consciousness, or indeed have any remaining vestige of vitality after taking one too many beans to the noggin?
It's not really just megaboss type NPCs, at least not in my case. It's any NPC for which it's better for the campaign that they can come back from the brink on their own or can be brought back by someone else. That's what matters, not some theoretical rationale that in practice has no real bearing on the game.
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the rule to let normal monsters die isn't there to break immersion, but to keep tracking things to a minimum. If you put 30 creatures on a board and you would need to check all 30 for their vitality as DM and keep track of all of the saves and and fails etc - you drag the game to a halt by trying to keep it the same for everybody.
Players nowadays know that if they want to keep a NPC alive after combat that they have a couple of options. And most DM's that get introduced to the fact that a certain NPC is on the list for the PCs to get captured usually isn't an ass and tries to sabotage his own game unless the players fall over their own feet. :D
The necromancer/wizard being able to heal the group through Life Transference/Vampire Touch isn't anything new btw - its kind of really old. It was never a really effective way of doing so, but rather a good tool for emergencies (healer down, no potions etc., no rest option). I like it thematically a lot and with some good roleplay very fitting.
Same goes for the new Dhampire lineage - having a little "toy" with you to charge up your vampire bite (and get like +20 to your next ability check or attack role) sounds cool :)
So in a world where a PC can get knocked unconscious X number of times per day, be pummeled to a pulp, hacked into mince-meat, and/or blasted to a scorched cinder, but just keep popping back-up like a whac-a-mole by means of healing words, 1 hour self-healing breaks and, ultimately, be topped up back to max HP by the elixir of life itself, 6 hours of minimally interrupted sleep, this is a world where we reject as patently silly and defying of logic that a creature outside of an arbitrary group of 3-7 individuals and their mythical arch-enemies, would possess any potential to claw their way back to consciousness, or indeed have any remaining vestige of vitality after taking one too many beans to the noggin?
Yup.
Those 3-7 people plus arch villain are important to the story. Goblin No. 4 is not. It’s the way pretty much every work of fiction works.
Try DMing a campaign or two. See how smoothly it goes for you to make death saves for every single creature. I’m sure you and your players both will enjoy watching you spend a few minutes every round rolling dice and making notes tracking that one creature is on the third round of death saves, while another is on their first. And making sure you know which is which. And then when the fight ends, the characters get to run around heroically stabbing the unconscious to make sure they don’t get back up.
In hope that repetition will air understanding, yes, the player characters are special. And also, as pointed out numerous times already, the DM pausing the other ten to twenty things they are keeping track of (which is absolutely not an exaggeration and may even be an understatement in a battle that's still ongoing with enough downed foes to make this cheesemunch tactic actually viable) in order to make and notate death saves for every downed individual from a weenie wave mob that the party cleaves down would significantly lengthen an already time consuming process, slowing the game and definitely not helping player immersion or the general feel/excitement of the action.
On top of that it's a rules lawyering loophole abuse that reasonable people would only expect from a powergaming munchkin who's primary motivation for playing D&D is to unironically shout "I am IN-VEEEEN-CIBLE!" while flexing like Boris from Goldeneye right before he got frozen solid by the massive blast of liquid nitrogen (or whatever Bond movie rule of cool mumbo jumbo it was, it's been over a decade since I've actually watched it). And what happened to Boris in that reference should be taken as a warning, at least if your DM is anything like me. Don't be like Dave. Let it go. For the good of everyone involved.
On top of that it's a rules lawyering loophole abuse that reasonable people would only expect from a powergaming munchkin who's primary motivation for playing D&D is to unironically shout "I am IN-VEEEEN-CIBLE!".
The cleric is down and failed a death save - medicine checks failed - the fighter is at max HP - the necromancer has a solution to save the cleric.... it really depends on the situation and the amount you use it. On the flipside you could play in a campaign that doesn't have healing spells and the necromancers way is the only way of actually healing someone magically. I think its not a powergamer approach at all - considering its rather mediocre at early levels.
On top of that it's a rules lawyering loophole abuse that reasonable people would only expect from a powergaming munchkin who's primary motivation for playing D&D is to unironically shout "I am IN-VEEEEN-CIBLE!".
The cleric is down and failed a death save - medicine checks failed - the fighter is at max HP - the necromancer has a solution to save the cleric.... it really depends on the situation and the amount you use it. On the flipside you could play in a campaign that doesn't have healing spells and the necromancers way is the only way of actually healing someone magically. I think its not a powergamer approach at all - considering its rather mediocre at early levels.
To be fair, this is totally legit use, to transfer life energy from the fighter to the dying cleric. What everybody is objecting against, is auto-criting already slain enemies for maxing out vampiric touch damage into negative hitpoints.
On top of that it's a rules lawyering loophole abuse that reasonable people would only expect from a powergaming munchkin who's primary motivation for playing D&D is to unironically shout "I am IN-VEEEEN-CIBLE!".
The cleric is down and failed a death save - medicine checks failed - the fighter is at max HP - the necromancer has a solution to save the cleric.... it really depends on the situation and the amount you use it. On the flipside you could play in a campaign that doesn't have healing spells and the necromancers way is the only way of actually healing someone magically. I think its not a powergamer approach at all - considering its rather mediocre at early levels.
To be fair, this is totally legit use, to transfer life energy from the fighter to the dying cleric. What everybody is objecting against, is auto-criting already slain enemies for maxing out vampiric touch damage into negative hitpoints.
Oh i agree that this wouldn't fly at any table i play. At least not if i put it forward like that and don't offer a reasonable explanation or some good reasoning. And unless i'm playing a villainous character - man this action is dark ^^
On top of that it's a rules lawyering loophole abuse that reasonable people would only expect from a powergaming munchkin who's primary motivation for playing D&D is to unironically shout "I am IN-VEEEEN-CIBLE!".
The cleric is down and failed a death save - medicine checks failed - the fighter is at max HP - the necromancer has a solution to save the cleric.... it really depends on the situation and the amount you use it. On the flipside you could play in a campaign that doesn't have healing spells and the necromancers way is the only way of actually healing someone magically. I think its not a powergamer approach at all - considering its rather mediocre at early levels.
Assuming you're talking about draining health from the fighter, either to heal the necromancer so they can heal the cleric (remember each action is a separate spell and the wizard is giving their own HP with life transference) or to heal themselves afterwards, then fine. That is a perfectly acceptable use of those spells and would seem to be in line with what they're intended to do in the first place. That is also not what this thread is talking about. The point of discussion is draining HP from downed foes that are most likely as lifeless as rocks because the DM isn't taking the extra and excessive effort of tracking death saves for them.
the rule to let normal monsters die isn't there to break immersion, but to keep tracking things to a minimum. If you put 30 creatures on a board and you would need to check all 30 for their vitality as DM and keep track of all of the saves and and fails etc - you drag the game to a halt by trying to keep it the same for everybody.
Players nowadays know that if they want to keep a NPC alive after combat that they have a couple of options. And most DM's that get introduced to the fact that a certain NPC is on the list for the PCs to get captured usually isn't an ass and tries to sabotage his own game unless the players fall over their own feet. :D
The necromancer/wizard being able to heal the group through Life Transference/Vampire Touch isn't anything new btw - its kind of really old. It was never a really effective way of doing so, but rather a good tool for emergencies (healer down, no potions etc., no rest option). I like it thematically a lot and with some good roleplay very fitting.
Same goes for the new Dhampire lineage - having a little "toy" with you to charge up your vampire bite (and get like +20 to your next ability check or attack role) sounds cool :)
If you had read the entire thread you would have seen my suggestion to get around the practical issue of tracking death saves for multiple foes, which was, simply don't keep track of them, however, leave the tokens for downed enemies (with a suitable icon denoting they are downed) until the end of combat, at which point you can simply autoroll 5d20 x number of downed enemies (if you want to be granular), or make a judgement call based on the nature of the combat (especially, perhaps, in light of how much AOE damage was being dished out), saying that either 1/2, 1/4, or perhaps even 0 of the downed enemies would have been left unconscious. If a Wizard tries to pull this tactic mid-combat (which is very much not optimized play), then you can still simply roll 5d20 for the downed enemy to determine whether they are still alive.
Here's a simple excel formula that can make this determination for you: =
Moreover, since perception checks generally aren't allowed in combat without taking a full action, I would rule that a Wizard attempting to use this on a downed enemy mid-combat would not have time, a priori, to determine whether they are alive or dead and so would have to use their action making the attempt to withdraw excess life, accomplishing nothing if your random roll determines that the enemy is, in fact, already expired.
Also, what game are you playing where you're putting up 30 enemies in a combat? That many enemies will already make your combat moribund, unless you are deploying mass combat rules or have really dialed in macros on Roll20. Regardless, part of my original argument for why this tactic is not broken is that most DM's will generally refrain from putting up more than 10 or so enemies in a given combat, and in most combats limit enemies to one or a few NPC's, meaning that there would almost never be enough blood-meals available at the end of combat to maximize the heals for Vampiric Touch.
If rules are stopping you from having fun with your players you're doing it wrong. Give it a shot and i can guarantee your players with enjoy it more then having to deal with a dude who's favorite saying is "um... actually".
If you had read the entire thread (or just my initial post) you would recall that I am the DM and I'm allowing this in my game.
It's Not against the rules. The "rules" you cite are de facto rules at best rather than de jure rules in that they assert a norm rather than prescribing behavior. From my perspective, they are doing nothing more than setting expectations for players.
The rules may have the intent of being streamlined, but if you have a player who likes power gaming, and makes a reasonable argument that does not actually trespass any hard and fast rules rather than norms of the DM community, then you are simply choosing who's fun matters more, that is, if you cannot manage to accommodate everyone.
It really isn't that much extra work. If you're not familiar with excel, then go to an auto-roller online, or, and I'll say this one more time for the people in the back, make a ballpark estimate!
I did read about Dave, he sounds like an ass, no one at my table is a "Dave", nor do I think all people who value optimization, or the challenge of wringing unintended utility out of the rules of the game as written are necessarily "Daves".
Perhaps you should take into consideration that there is an inherent selection bias to posting in the comments whereby people who disagree are far more likely to comment than those who agree with a position. I would not assume that just because you and a number of other very vocal people disagree with this viewpoint, that all D&D DMs, or even just the DMs that frequent these forums disagree with this position. Moreover, I don't appreciate your attempt to cut off further discussion by assuming to speak for the entire community, or even just the community of people who would or could potentially read this thread. Just because you are a prolific poster does not make you arbiter of this forum.
If you had read the entire thread (or just my initial post) you would recall that I am the DM and I'm allowing this in my game.
It's Not against the rules. The "rules" you cite are de facto rules at best rather than de jure rules in that they assert a norm rather than prescribing behavior. From my perspective, they are doing nothing more than setting expectations for players.
The rules may have the intent of being streamlined, but if you have a player who likes power gaming, and makes a reasonable argument that does not actually trespass any hard and fast rules rather than norms of the DM community, then you are simply choosing who's fun matters more, that is, if you cannot manage to accommodate everyone.
It really isn't that much extra work. If you're not familiar with excel, then go to an auto-roller online, or, and I'll say this one more time for the people in the back, make a ballpark estimate!
I did read about Dave, he sounds like an ass, no one at my table is a "Dave", nor do I think all people who value optimization, or the challenge of wringing unintended utility out of the rules of the game as written are necessarily "Daves".
Perhaps you should take into consideration that there is an inherent selection bias to posting in the comments whereby people who disagree are far more likely to comment than those who agree with a position. I would not assume that just because you and a number of other very vocal people disagree with this viewpoint, that all D&D DMs, or even just the DMs that frequent these forums disagree with this position. Moreover, I don't appreciate your attempt to cut off further discussion by assuming to speak for the entire community, or even just the community of people who would or could potentially read this thread. Just because you are a prolific poster does not make you arbiter of this forum.
I partially agree.
Also, to everyone else in this thread, this was not posted in the Rules & Game Mechanics forum.
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The rules are clear in the section above the "Monsters and Death" one that is being quoted. The section titled "Stabilizing a Creature" gives the actual "rule" for creatures. This rule technically applies to every thing in the game that is categorized as the "Creature" type. But the PHB very quickly clarifies that MOST DMs do not apply this rule to every creature. That's not a "rule"... it's a very widely used homebrew that the PHB points out so that players who are reading the book know that they don't need to coup-de-grâce every single creature they fight.
It's not really about the rules (although again, it's not really a home rule). By the rules, players can cart imprisoned enemies behind them for Vampiric Touch purposes as well, or the bag of rats that was mentioned. It's about not just caring whether you could, but also whether you should. No offense, but painting this as 'DMs flexing their power' is entirely too dismissive of DMs just trying to do what's best for the game. I'd hazard to say this is not what's best for many games - it's certainly not what's best for mine. The implication that anything players come up with is a cool idea and any time a DM chooses to "thwart their ambition/fun" without hard rule to justify the decision that's unfair and not objective, that implication rubs me the wrong way too.
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Where in the PHB is it clearly stated that it is a player character only rule? Btw, this topic has been discussed at length in the Rules & Mechanics forum as well as other online forums. As for the "Monsters and Death" section, that's not a rule. No actual rules would use "Most" and "Might". It's either a rule or it's not. Explaining how something might or might not work from table to table is, by definition, a homebrew rule.
This, however, is an actual 5e rule: "A stable creature doesn't make death saving throws, even though it has 0 hit points, but it does remain unconscious. The creature stops being stable, and must start making death saving throws again, if it takes any damage. A stable creature that isn't healed regains 1 hit point after 1d4 hours." It applies to every creature in the game. It does not distinguish between PC, NPC, monster, etc.
The rule applies to precisely who the GM determines it applies to. Most GMs choose not to apply it to NPCs or monsters. That's a perfectly valid interpretation of the rules. As a player, it's important to remember that just because you've got a "really coo" idea for something doesn't automatically entitle you to be able to do it. Especially if it's something that requires an unusual interpretation of the rules to function.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
This is from Crawford*:
"It's entirely up to the DM—and often invisible to players—whether a monster dies at 0 hp or hangs on. #DnD"
Forgive me, but if it is entirely up to the DM, then how can this be any form of a rule other than a rule which says, it is at the DM's discretion how to handle the death and dying of NPC creatures? If you consider that a rule, then I would say that our disagreement is purely semantic.
* direct link: twitter link
link with added context / discussion: sage advice: hp lower than 0
This is the kind of thing I would have expected from a player in my 3.5 group back in college, we'll call him Dave. Dave was a classic min-maxing, rules lawyering, powergaming munchkin. Pretty much the exact kind of "oppressive player" that Lyxen mentioned. Had this kind of thing occurred to Dave (or, more likely, had he read a thread such as this where someone else suggested it), he would have waited until we were playing a game where he was not DMing (three of us took turns as DM) and he would not have mentioned it until he announced that he was actually doing it. Then he would have argued for a half hour if the DM told him "no" (I would do so, the other DM, his girlfriend, probably wouldn't have) and spent the rest of the campaign pouting about it. It's also worth noting that, as DM, Dave would instantly cling to the "DM's word is law" rule any time I used my own encyclopedic knowledge of the system to outmunch his munched out monsters, like the time he ruled that I couldn't do something that the RAW explicitly said I could because it would have meant I solo killed his dragon that scared away the other PCs by taking advantage of it's tactically stupid position and the wording of Meteor Swarm.
It has also been stated that both Vampiric Touch and Life Transference are full action spells, so if the DM allows a player to drain the nonexistent abstract life force from creatures on the verge of death in the first place, as soon as they decided to pass on their munchkinized boon of vitality, said PC would be that much more vulnerable to being targeted by all remaining enemies who just saw this person picking the proverbial low hanging fruit by coldheartedly executing their defenseless allies.
Don't be like Dave. That's just not fun for anybody but Dave and nobody but Dave likes the Davelike behavior.
Also they are wasting so many resources for almost no benefit.
So in a world where a PC can get knocked unconscious X number of times per day, be pummeled to a pulp, hacked into mince-meat, and/or blasted to a scorched cinder, but just keep popping back-up like a whac-a-mole by means of healing words, 1 hour self-healing breaks and, ultimately, be topped up back to max HP by the elixir of life itself, 6 hours of minimally interrupted sleep, this is a world where we reject as patently silly and defying of logic that a creature outside of an arbitrary group of 3-7 individuals and their mythical arch-enemies, would possess any potential to claw their way back to consciousness, or indeed have any remaining vestige of vitality after taking one too many beans to the noggin?
It's not really just megaboss type NPCs, at least not in my case. It's any NPC for which it's better for the campaign that they can come back from the brink on their own or can be brought back by someone else. That's what matters, not some theoretical rationale that in practice has no real bearing on the game.
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the rule to let normal monsters die isn't there to break immersion, but to keep tracking things to a minimum. If you put 30 creatures on a board and you would need to check all 30 for their vitality as DM and keep track of all of the saves and and fails etc - you drag the game to a halt by trying to keep it the same for everybody.
Players nowadays know that if they want to keep a NPC alive after combat that they have a couple of options. And most DM's that get introduced to the fact that a certain NPC is on the list for the PCs to get captured usually isn't an ass and tries to sabotage his own game unless the players fall over their own feet. :D
The necromancer/wizard being able to heal the group through Life Transference/Vampire Touch isn't anything new btw - its kind of really old. It was never a really effective way of doing so, but rather a good tool for emergencies (healer down, no potions etc., no rest option). I like it thematically a lot and with some good roleplay very fitting.
Same goes for the new Dhampire lineage - having a little "toy" with you to charge up your vampire bite (and get like +20 to your next ability check or attack role) sounds cool :)
Yup.
Those 3-7 people plus arch villain are important to the story. Goblin No. 4 is not. It’s the way pretty much every work of fiction works.
Try DMing a campaign or two. See how smoothly it goes for you to make death saves for every single creature. I’m sure you and your players both will enjoy watching you spend a few minutes every round rolling dice and making notes tracking that one creature is on the third round of death saves, while another is on their first. And making sure you know which is which. And then when the fight ends, the characters get to run around heroically stabbing the unconscious to make sure they don’t get back up.
In hope that repetition will air understanding, yes, the player characters are special. And also, as pointed out numerous times already, the DM pausing the other ten to twenty things they are keeping track of (which is absolutely not an exaggeration and may even be an understatement in a battle that's still ongoing with enough downed foes to make this cheesemunch tactic actually viable) in order to make and notate death saves for every downed individual from a weenie wave mob that the party cleaves down would significantly lengthen an already time consuming process, slowing the game and definitely not helping player immersion or the general feel/excitement of the action.
On top of that it's a rules lawyering loophole abuse that reasonable people would only expect from a powergaming munchkin who's primary motivation for playing D&D is to unironically shout "I am IN-VEEEEN-CIBLE!" while flexing like Boris from Goldeneye right before he got frozen solid by the massive blast of liquid nitrogen (or whatever Bond movie rule of cool mumbo jumbo it was, it's been over a decade since I've actually watched it). And what happened to Boris in that reference should be taken as a warning, at least if your DM is anything like me. Don't be like Dave. Let it go. For the good of everyone involved.
The cleric is down and failed a death save - medicine checks failed - the fighter is at max HP - the necromancer has a solution to save the cleric.... it really depends on the situation and the amount you use it. On the flipside you could play in a campaign that doesn't have healing spells and the necromancers way is the only way of actually healing someone magically.
I think its not a powergamer approach at all - considering its rather mediocre at early levels.
To be fair, this is totally legit use, to transfer life energy from the fighter to the dying cleric. What everybody is objecting against, is auto-criting already slain enemies for maxing out vampiric touch damage into negative hitpoints.
Oh i agree that this wouldn't fly at any table i play. At least not if i put it forward like that and don't offer a reasonable explanation or some good reasoning. And unless i'm playing a villainous character - man this action is dark ^^
Assuming you're talking about draining health from the fighter, either to heal the necromancer so they can heal the cleric (remember each action is a separate spell and the wizard is giving their own HP with life transference) or to heal themselves afterwards, then fine. That is a perfectly acceptable use of those spells and would seem to be in line with what they're intended to do in the first place. That is also not what this thread is talking about. The point of discussion is draining HP from downed foes that are most likely as lifeless as rocks because the DM isn't taking the extra and excessive effort of tracking death saves for them.
If you had read the entire thread you would have seen my suggestion to get around the practical issue of tracking death saves for multiple foes, which was, simply don't keep track of them, however, leave the tokens for downed enemies (with a suitable icon denoting they are downed) until the end of combat, at which point you can simply autoroll 5d20 x number of downed enemies (if you want to be granular), or make a judgement call based on the nature of the combat (especially, perhaps, in light of how much AOE damage was being dished out), saying that either 1/2, 1/4, or perhaps even 0 of the downed enemies would have been left unconscious. If a Wizard tries to pull this tactic mid-combat (which is very much not optimized play), then you can still simply roll 5d20 for the downed enemy to determine whether they are still alive.
Here's a simple excel formula that can make this determination for you: =
=if(sum(if(rand()*20>=10,1,0),if(rand()*20>=10,1,0),if(rand()*20>=10,1,0),if(rand()*20>=10,1,0),if(rand()*20>=10,1,0))>2,"Stable","Dead")
Moreover, since perception checks generally aren't allowed in combat without taking a full action, I would rule that a Wizard attempting to use this on a downed enemy mid-combat would not have time, a priori, to determine whether they are alive or dead and so would have to use their action making the attempt to withdraw excess life, accomplishing nothing if your random roll determines that the enemy is, in fact, already expired.
Also, what game are you playing where you're putting up 30 enemies in a combat? That many enemies will already make your combat moribund, unless you are deploying mass combat rules or have really dialed in macros on Roll20. Regardless, part of my original argument for why this tactic is not broken is that most DM's will generally refrain from putting up more than 10 or so enemies in a given combat, and in most combats limit enemies to one or a few NPC's, meaning that there would almost never be enough blood-meals available at the end of combat to maximize the heals for Vampiric Touch.
If rules are stopping you from having fun with your players you're doing it wrong. Give it a shot and i can guarantee your players with enjoy it more then having to deal with a dude who's favorite saying is "um... actually".
If you had read the entire thread (or just my initial post) you would recall that I am the DM and I'm allowing this in my game.
Perhaps you should take into consideration that there is an inherent selection bias to posting in the comments whereby people who disagree are far more likely to comment than those who agree with a position. I would not assume that just because you and a number of other very vocal people disagree with this viewpoint, that all D&D DMs, or even just the DMs that frequent these forums disagree with this position. Moreover, I don't appreciate your attempt to cut off further discussion by assuming to speak for the entire community, or even just the community of people who would or could potentially read this thread. Just because you are a prolific poster does not make you arbiter of this forum.
I partially agree.
Also, to everyone else in this thread, this was not posted in the Rules & Game Mechanics forum.