Hello all, I'm about to start my Space D&D campaign with three players, and I've never been able to completely kill off any of my player's characters in past games that I've DM'd (Maim, yes, I've had a blind and wheelchair bound Dwarf that used to be the heaviest hitter on the team before a particularly nasty Kraken fight. It was actually really interesting to see him go from a heavy-hitter to more of a tactician role where he would make good suggestions to the other players based on their skills, but I digress). Anyway, I recently had a conversation with a veteran player who enlightened me as to why PC death should be a very real possibility in nearly every encounter--because without danger, any rewards the PCs get will feel hollow. These players that I'm about to start the campaign with are all much more experienced than my old group which was made up of high school friends and was our collective starting point with D&D. My new group firmly wants the possibility of death and consequences for failure and poor decisions to exist, and I'm on board with it too. With that being said, this is such a far-out homebrew and I've modified the systems so much already, I'm not sure how to best incorporate the possibility of death. I know some rules incorporate saving throws when HP reaches 0, and other hardcore rulesets that kills you when you hit 0. I would lean towards the former, but that still feels a little too soft for me and still doesn't feel dangerous enough. Does anyone here have any suggestions for a PC death system that's somewhere in the middle? Where death isn't nearly impossible, and also not 100% going to happen without any chances of survival when that special little number hits 0?
TL;DR: I'm looking for suggestions about a PC death system that will be both dangerous and fair. Ideally, death should be very possible, but not always assured. Suggestions?
What they said. It's really hard to die by RAW in this edition, and still, it happened several times in my last campaign. Looking at you, rolls a 1 after already having one failed death save. And also at you, multi-attack critting twice. And you massive damage. And I think a couple others.
TL;DR Death save system RAW is good for me, but I adjust the strategy of the baddies to account for it. The more clever and evil a baddie is, and depending on the context, the more likely it is they will take advantage of the death save system to make sure you die in 1-2 rounds, as opposed to maybe in 3-5, after reaching 0 hp. Threat of death corresponds with enemy competence.
In the Dragon Heist campaign I just ran, the biggest indicator of whether you died when you were reduced to 0 hit points? Who your enemies were.
Nonintelligent traps? Your allies could probably drag you to safety and resuscitate you.
Professional assassin? One guy next to him is unconscious and making death saving throws, and the assassin has 3 hp at the start of his turn and is clearly going to die? Well, he's a professional and his intelligence score is good enough. So he knows that if he's going out, he's taking the unconscious guy with him. The assassin used his action to stab the poor drow PC in the heart, making him automatically fail 2 death saving throws, and then the poison on the assassin's blade made him fail another 2, meaning 4 in total and instant death. Then the rest of the party made sure the assassin died quickly. They later revived the drow, but still.
Professional mafioso, in the heat of battle and trying not to get killed himself? Well once you get knocked down to 0 hp he probably will focus on your buddies and leave you on the ground to bleed out. He doesn't have the time to spare to make sure you die. But depending on the context, he may use his action to curbstomp you as necessary.
In general, I found that when my party faced big threats, they respected said threats appropriately. I like the death save system because it makes it so that if your enemies are clever enough and evil enough, or if your luck is bad enough, you can still be killed quickly. But it does give you a little bit of breathing room in cases like traps, where you could potentially drag someone to safety. It went well for my group.
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Hello all, I'm about to start my Space D&D campaign with three players, and I've never been able to completely kill off any of my player's characters in past games that I've DM'd (Maim, yes, I've had a blind and wheelchair bound Dwarf that used to be the heaviest hitter on the team before a particularly nasty Kraken fight. It was actually really interesting to see him go from a heavy-hitter to more of a tactician role where he would make good suggestions to the other players based on their skills, but I digress). Anyway, I recently had a conversation with a veteran player who enlightened me as to why PC death should be a very real possibility in nearly every encounter--because without danger, any rewards the PCs get will feel hollow. These players that I'm about to start the campaign with are all much more experienced than my old group which was made up of high school friends and was our collective starting point with D&D. My new group firmly wants the possibility of death and consequences for failure and poor decisions to exist, and I'm on board with it too. With that being said, this is such a far-out homebrew and I've modified the systems so much already, I'm not sure how to best incorporate the possibility of death. I know some rules incorporate saving throws when HP reaches 0, and other hardcore rulesets that kills you when you hit 0. I would lean towards the former, but that still feels a little too soft for me and still doesn't feel dangerous enough. Does anyone here have any suggestions for a PC death system that's somewhere in the middle? Where death isn't nearly impossible, and also not 100% going to happen without any chances of survival when that special little number hits 0?
TL;DR: I'm looking for suggestions about a PC death system that will be both dangerous and fair. Ideally, death should be very possible, but not always assured. Suggestions?
Just follow the rules of S&D and guidelines in the DMG and it will happen all by itself.
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Don't fudge rolls. Sooner or later bad luck will kill someone.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
What they said. It's really hard to die by RAW in this edition, and still, it happened several times in my last campaign. Looking at you, rolls a 1 after already having one failed death save. And also at you, multi-attack critting twice. And you massive damage. And I think a couple others.
TL;DR Death save system RAW is good for me, but I adjust the strategy of the baddies to account for it. The more clever and evil a baddie is, and depending on the context, the more likely it is they will take advantage of the death save system to make sure you die in 1-2 rounds, as opposed to maybe in 3-5, after reaching 0 hp. Threat of death corresponds with enemy competence.
In the Dragon Heist campaign I just ran, the biggest indicator of whether you died when you were reduced to 0 hit points? Who your enemies were.
Nonintelligent traps? Your allies could probably drag you to safety and resuscitate you.
Professional assassin? One guy next to him is unconscious and making death saving throws, and the assassin has 3 hp at the start of his turn and is clearly going to die? Well, he's a professional and his intelligence score is good enough. So he knows that if he's going out, he's taking the unconscious guy with him. The assassin used his action to stab the poor drow PC in the heart, making him automatically fail 2 death saving throws, and then the poison on the assassin's blade made him fail another 2, meaning 4 in total and instant death. Then the rest of the party made sure the assassin died quickly. They later revived the drow, but still.
Professional mafioso, in the heat of battle and trying not to get killed himself? Well once you get knocked down to 0 hp he probably will focus on your buddies and leave you on the ground to bleed out. He doesn't have the time to spare to make sure you die. But depending on the context, he may use his action to curbstomp you as necessary.
In general, I found that when my party faced big threats, they respected said threats appropriately. I like the death save system because it makes it so that if your enemies are clever enough and evil enough, or if your luck is bad enough, you can still be killed quickly. But it does give you a little bit of breathing room in cases like traps, where you could potentially drag someone to safety. It went well for my group.