I'm curious how much character death comes up in your 5e games. In roughly 5 years of playing weekly-ish, it has come up a few times but not frequently.
Tomb of Annihilation - Tier 2 - sorcerer died in a hallway filled with zombies while separated from the rest of the party. (I was DM)
Ghosts of Saltmarsh at low level in the mansion, my paladin died. The bard was captured, and the other two party members barely escaped with their lives.
Finished Avernus and Rime campaigns with no deaths. One very cherished Kobold NPC died and we were bummed but no PCs died (one PC turned to evil and became an NPC but that was the player working with the DM to switch to a new character in a fun way).
A one shot weekend game of Tomb Of Horror (Tier 3 I think). Kind of expected someone would die and they did. Irony was they died at the hands of another PC who got dominated and rolled a crit with their vorpal sword.
Another one shot (homemade) the same player died in a Tier4 game and they died the same way. A demon dominated another party member who had a vorpal sword. We all said "OMG, what if he crits again" and ... yep it happened again.
Tier 2 game, my Echo Knight died in a big battle with a dragon. He was knocked down and the dragon was sick of his shit and wrecked him before leaving. This death didn't stick because we had a cleric with Revivify and some diamonds.
While these were not spread out evenly they average to about 1/real year, so not very frequent at all (and kind of inflated by the vorpal sword incidents in our one shots). I don't find even in high stakes battles that there is a ton of impending fear of death. The party is fairly careful but the DM doesn't pull punches (enemies will hit a downed PC). We have had a couple narrow misses I suppose as well.
One game I am playing in with a different group has a home-brew rule that death saves are rolled in private which I have noticed ups the tension a bit. But mostly it just prevents people from gaming how long they can wait to offer aid.
It is common enough that I have player's roll a back up character. That character levels up at the same time as their main character. However...
it isn't a factor of the game being "tough" or "hard" so much as it is player decisions.
Not all encounters in my game are at a level the PC's can take on -- they usually run, but once in a while (usually because there are points for it) they will try to turn and face down something more than they can take. Other times, they run out of spells after a long day.
There are a lot of things going on in any game as well -- disease is out there, we have a strong fatigue system, environmental dangers, and for some reason death saves are always unlucky rolls.
I did reduce the general game design's odds of survival from 70% to closer to 50%. The base game is designed to give characters a 70% chance of survival overall, so as a whole the game leans towards not killing characters.
I go to great lengths to avoid killing a character that becomes super well loved, either by the party as a whole or by the player behind them. Attachment is a big deal for us. Fudged die rolls, DM Fiat, similar things. But even still, death is a thing in my games. My last campaign started with the blunt statement that if I did it well enough, most of the characters would die in the final fight, sacrificing themselves for others and their own reasons.
And they did. They also still won, and I didn't have to fudge any of it (not usually needed at 20th level, lol)
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Hmm... about once a real year seems about right for the games I'm DMing. I am barely ahead of my players for player character kills though. In the current campaign we've only had once PC death and that was because I set up (and told them it was) a Greed vs. Self-Preservation scenario. They got to (randomly roll) grab from an ancient brass dragon's horde as an action but the automated defenses were closing in on them to cut off escape. One guy just decided to grab one too many times.
I was in one campaign on a homebrew world where PC deaths were almost once per month unless we called in for NPC reinforcements. But in his world death was meant to be the equivalent to stubbing a toe. We eventually complained about the beyond beyond deadly encounters he was creating for us and he toned it down to something more reasonable.
Not all encounters in my game are at a level the PC's can take on -- they usually run, but once in a while (usually because there are points for it) they will try to turn and face down something more than they can take. Other times, they run out of spells after a long day.
Yeah this is something I see vary across games quite a bit. Some games I've been in/run the party is "looking for a fight" and will get into combat even against nearly impossible enemies. We even had one scenario where one player was picking a fight and the rest of the party had to basically take them out so they could retreat (it was a nearly guaranteed TPK if they stood their ground).
Hmm... about once a real year seems about right for the games I'm DMing. I am barely ahead of my players for player character kills though. In the current campaign we've only had once PC death and that was because I set up (and told them it was) a Greed vs. Self-Preservation scenario. They got to (randomly roll) grab from an ancient brass dragon's horde as an action but the automated defenses were closing in on them to cut off escape. One guy just decided to grab one too many times.
I was in one campaign on a homebrew world where PC deaths were almost once per month unless we called in for NPC reinforcements. But in his world death was meant to be the equivalent to stubbing a toe. We eventually complained about the beyond beyond deadly encounters he was creating for us and he toned it down to something more reasonable.
In a perfect world, PC deaths are a result of their own mistakes. Players are typically risk-averse and overplan, so it's unlikely for them to find themselves in a permanently fatal situation. I can think of two separate examples, one in Curse of Strahd and one in Rime of the Frostmaiden, where it's possible for players to instantly lose their PC, but it's still a result of a choice they make.
The only time in 5e I can think of losing a PC to combat damage, outside of overtuned one-shots for fun, is a particular player in our group that regularly doesn't play tanky characters but almost always puts themselves in a position to be hit so much that it's kind of a running meme.
I prefer medium difficulty for my campaign which means most encounters are medium or hard, with few easy or deadly ones. Also usually only but the most ravenous monsters or evil NPC attack unconscious character in combat, prefering to focus on those still posing a threat to them instead. This result in character death being relatively rare past level 1, mostly only occuring during hard or deadly encounters with many powerful foes or a solo BBEG.
On the other hand, i have characters dropping to 0 hit points a lot more frequently, which is enought to maintain the fear of dying ever present and possible.
More frequently since I started playing 5e. I'm the DM and the party would lose a character probably once a year? Depends on their decision making skills. I tend to lean toward scaling down monsters of it looks like the party will lose, but I also let the dice decide outcomes. With death throws your pretty much in favour of living. Unconsciousness doesn't (usually) occur in the first round, usually later in the combat. So there is a reasonable chance the combat is going to finish in the three rounds your KO'd and someone can stabilize you. Depends I guess whether said monster is brutal and continues to savage a player when they are down, or whether they are intelligent enough to target another conscious threat. Many, many variables.
The only time I remember a character in a 5E game I was in actually dying (instead of just hitting 0 HP) it was an incident of the player's stupidity in provoking a fight they obviously couldn't win with an NPC that they had no need to fight in the first place.
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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 happens maybe once every 5-6 sessions. I intentionally make the dungeons dangerous to try to fully clear, with a daily budget x3 (you can calculate the daily budget for your party using the encounters tool) worth of monsters, traps and hazards dispersed through the place.
I’ve found this amount of difficulty will create the right amount of tension to where the players need to decide if they want to continue exploring to complete the quest objectives or for more treasure, or if they want to leave before it could get ugly.
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I'm curious how much character death comes up in your 5e games. In roughly 5 years of playing weekly-ish, it has come up a few times but not frequently.
While these were not spread out evenly they average to about 1/real year, so not very frequent at all (and kind of inflated by the vorpal sword incidents in our one shots). I don't find even in high stakes battles that there is a ton of impending fear of death. The party is fairly careful but the DM doesn't pull punches (enemies will hit a downed PC). We have had a couple narrow misses I suppose as well.
One game I am playing in with a different group has a home-brew rule that death saves are rolled in private which I have noticed ups the tension a bit. But mostly it just prevents people from gaming how long they can wait to offer aid.
It is common enough that I have player's roll a back up character. That character levels up at the same time as their main character. However...
it isn't a factor of the game being "tough" or "hard" so much as it is player decisions.
Not all encounters in my game are at a level the PC's can take on -- they usually run, but once in a while (usually because there are points for it) they will try to turn and face down something more than they can take. Other times, they run out of spells after a long day.
There are a lot of things going on in any game as well -- disease is out there, we have a strong fatigue system, environmental dangers, and for some reason death saves are always unlucky rolls.
I did reduce the general game design's odds of survival from 70% to closer to 50%. The base game is designed to give characters a 70% chance of survival overall, so as a whole the game leans towards not killing characters.
I go to great lengths to avoid killing a character that becomes super well loved, either by the party as a whole or by the player behind them. Attachment is a big deal for us. Fudged die rolls, DM Fiat, similar things. But even still, death is a thing in my games. My last campaign started with the blunt statement that if I did it well enough, most of the characters would die in the final fight, sacrificing themselves for others and their own reasons.
And they did. They also still won, and I didn't have to fudge any of it (not usually needed at 20th level, lol)
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Hmm... about once a real year seems about right for the games I'm DMing. I am barely ahead of my players for player character kills though. In the current campaign we've only had once PC death and that was because I set up (and told them it was) a Greed vs. Self-Preservation scenario. They got to (randomly roll) grab from an ancient brass dragon's horde as an action but the automated defenses were closing in on them to cut off escape. One guy just decided to grab one too many times.
I was in one campaign on a homebrew world where PC deaths were almost once per month unless we called in for NPC reinforcements. But in his world death was meant to be the equivalent to stubbing a toe. We eventually complained about the beyond beyond deadly encounters he was creating for us and he toned it down to something more reasonable.
Yeah this is something I see vary across games quite a bit. Some games I've been in/run the party is "looking for a fight" and will get into combat even against nearly impossible enemies. We even had one scenario where one player was picking a fight and the rest of the party had to basically take them out so they could retreat (it was a nearly guaranteed TPK if they stood their ground).
Oof that's rough - killed by your own greed!
In a perfect world, PC deaths are a result of their own mistakes. Players are typically risk-averse and overplan, so it's unlikely for them to find themselves in a permanently fatal situation. I can think of two separate examples, one in Curse of Strahd and one in Rime of the Frostmaiden, where it's possible for players to instantly lose their PC, but it's still a result of a choice they make.
The only time in 5e I can think of losing a PC to combat damage, outside of overtuned one-shots for fun, is a particular player in our group that regularly doesn't play tanky characters but almost always puts themselves in a position to be hit so much that it's kind of a running meme.
I prefer medium difficulty for my campaign which means most encounters are medium or hard, with few easy or deadly ones. Also usually only but the most ravenous monsters or evil NPC attack unconscious character in combat, prefering to focus on those still posing a threat to them instead. This result in character death being relatively rare past level 1, mostly only occuring during hard or deadly encounters with many powerful foes or a solo BBEG.
On the other hand, i have characters dropping to 0 hit points a lot more frequently, which is enought to maintain the fear of dying ever present and possible.
More frequently since I started playing 5e. I'm the DM and the party would lose a character probably once a year? Depends on their decision making skills. I tend to lean toward scaling down monsters of it looks like the party will lose, but I also let the dice decide outcomes. With death throws your pretty much in favour of living. Unconsciousness doesn't (usually) occur in the first round, usually later in the combat. So there is a reasonable chance the combat is going to finish in the three rounds your KO'd and someone can stabilize you. Depends I guess whether said monster is brutal and continues to savage a player when they are down, or whether they are intelligent enough to target another conscious threat. Many, many variables.
The only time I remember a character in a 5E game I was in actually dying (instead of just hitting 0 HP) it was an incident of the player's stupidity in provoking a fight they obviously couldn't win with an NPC that they had no need to fight in the first place.
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 happens maybe once every 5-6 sessions. I intentionally make the dungeons dangerous to try to fully clear, with a daily budget x3 (you can calculate the daily budget for your party using the encounters tool) worth of monsters, traps and hazards dispersed through the place.
I’ve found this amount of difficulty will create the right amount of tension to where the players need to decide if they want to continue exploring to complete the quest objectives or for more treasure, or if they want to leave before it could get ugly.