Alright, weird question maybe. I just had a game where one of the players fell into a spiked pitfall trap and died (0 hit points). How am I actually supposed to handle that situation? I don't really usually go for instant death traps, but in that specific situation just going, your friends pull you of the spikes and manage to safe you with a cure wounds (which is actually what i went with in the end) almost seems too lenient in that specific scenario. I'm honestly somewhat split on it though. Any suggestions how to best approach that specific scenario in the future?
If the PC fell to 0 HP but did not incur enough damage to die outright, they would be unconscious but not dead. In that case I think it makes sense to allow someone to pull them out of the pit or at least jump down there and administer aid, depending on the circumstance (how deep is the pit, etc.). I would probably call for one or more checks depending on how they wanted to get down into the pit (try to jump down carefully and avoid spikes, use a rope and lower themselves down, drink a potion of climbing, just jump into the spikes without a care in the world...)
Also if the surviving PCs took their time standing there talking about it I would make the unconscious PC start making death saving thrown to increase the level of urgency. Technically they would be making a death saving throw every 6 seconds of in game time but in my experience time flows kind of different out of combat.
But unless the trap dealt enough damage to take them "negative" by the amount of their max HP, they would not be killed outright.
I don't think you were being too lenient; the scenario as described is a valid way to handle it, as long as someone can heal them through whatever means.
Now as discussed, being killed by massive damage is another story; because as RAW, the only way back is a spell like Revivify (the earliest available spell at 3rd spell level, and requires a 5th level caster, and diamonds. If that were to happen, you could follow RAW and let it happen. Or you could allow a character to do something spectacular with a skill check and a lower spell. Its not in the rules, but a DM can do what they want.
But I personally wouldn't do that, because then there isn't any risk, and a bit of risk reward is part of the game, even if a pit trap killing someone isn't fun. But it can be memorable to the other characters though.
If we assume that the PC died at 0 hp and failed its saving throw, then by the rules, the PC is dead. Otherwise, the PC would get death saving throws, unless at negative max hp from the blow, as described above.
All that aside, I think what the OP is asking more than the technical details of how death saves work, is -- what do we do about it when a PC legit dies to an inanimate object like a trap in a non-dramatic way? The answer is -- it will depend on the table. For me -- the PC is dead, assuming death saves were failed, etc. Maybe you should have checked more carefully for traps...
I would also say, as a DM - do not put a trap into the game that can outright kill your PCs, unless you want to outright kill the PCs with a trap. You could easily have a spiked pit trap that does 1d6 of fall damage and 1d8 of piercing damage, which would not take out anyone but a level 1 or 2 PC, and even them, probably just to death saves and not outright. And the thing with being in death saves is any heals will bring you out of it. So, if you don't want to kill them, don't put in a trap that goes down 100 feet to spikes at the bottom, does 10D6 of falling damage and 12d8 of piercing damage. By simply calibrating the trap, you, the DM, decide if it is liable to outright kill a PC or not.
Now, you can't prevent every possible death. If the PC is at 2 hit points and low level, and is stupid enough with only 12 hp max and 2 hp left to wander around a dungeon in unexplored and possibly-trapped places and fall down the aforementioned 1d6 + 1d8 trap and you roll max, doing 14 hp and putting that PC at -12 (and thus insta-death), well... to some degree players must suffer the consequences of their own actions. But even here, unless you roll in the open, you could stop it by overruling the dice and saying "you take 13 hp of damage, wow, one more and you'd be instant dead.... start making death saves... anyone want to help her?" Etc.
As a DM, you ultimately decide (1) how lethal the trap is, (2) how hard it is to detect, and (3) whether you are going to accept the rolls of the dice. To me, I accept the rolls, and sometimes the trap is deadly and hard to detect -- it is up to the players to figure out how to get out of these things. I generally have no problem with killing a character if the situation calls for it, but I also probably wouldn't put a random spiked pit trap into a random corridor in an unpredictable position within the dungeon and then have that random trap also be hard enough to detect and lethal enough to one-shot kill the party members that it would outright kill characters -- mostly because that's just not very dramatic.
On the other hand if we're in a Raiders of the Lost Ark opening scene with all the pressure plates and poison darts and the PCs just "run across it and screw the traps" well... yeah, they might well die from that. Because that is dramatic, and also a choice of their own making.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
My rule of thumb for character death in modern gaming is "does this make an interesting story?" If the answer is "no", then I find a way to either MAKE it into a story or I find a way to take it a different angle. For my money "you missed your perception check, and I rolled high on fall damage so your character died" is not an interesting or memorable story.
Now "back in the day" we were much more cool with the "oh.. my fighter died. Darn. Good thing I have this cleric ready to go" and we moved on. But the more people put into their characters before the game, the more I feel compelled to make their exits equally as interesting. Even if there is no way to avoid the death, it becomes, to a degree, my job to help make the story memorable anyway, either through efforts to resurrect the character, or recover the body, or something. I also try to avoid the "oh.. failed to checks, I guess you died", kind of situation as well.
That said, if the players are the sort to say "screw it, I run across, I don't care" well, that has the potential to be memorable as well and a good story to tell....
My rule of thumb for character death in modern gaming is "does this make an interesting story?" If the answer is "no", then I find a way to either MAKE it into a story or I find a way to take it a different angle. For my money "you missed your perception check, and I rolled high on fall damage so your character died" is not an interesting or memorable story.
Now "back in the day" we were much more cool with the "oh.. my fighter died. Darn. Good thing I have this cleric ready to go" and we moved on. But the more people put into their characters before the game, the more I feel compelled to make their exits equally as interesting. Even if there is no way to avoid the death, it becomes, to a degree, my job to help make the story memorable anyway, either through efforts to resurrect the character, or recover the body, or something. I also try to avoid the "oh.. failed to checks, I guess you died", kind of situation as well.
That said, if the players are the sort to say "screw it, I run across, I don't care" well, that has the potential to be memorable as well and a good story to tell....
Anticlimactic deaths would be pretty cool IMO, but its not for everyone.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"h"
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Alright, weird question maybe. I just had a game where one of the players fell into a spiked pitfall trap and died (0 hit points). How am I actually supposed to handle that situation? I don't really usually go for instant death traps, but in that specific situation just going, your friends pull you of the spikes and manage to safe you with a cure wounds (which is actually what i went with in the end) almost seems too lenient in that specific scenario. I'm honestly somewhat split on it though. Any suggestions how to best approach that specific scenario in the future?
If the PC fell to 0 HP but did not incur enough damage to die outright, they would be unconscious but not dead. In that case I think it makes sense to allow someone to pull them out of the pit or at least jump down there and administer aid, depending on the circumstance (how deep is the pit, etc.). I would probably call for one or more checks depending on how they wanted to get down into the pit (try to jump down carefully and avoid spikes, use a rope and lower themselves down, drink a potion of climbing, just jump into the spikes without a care in the world...)
Also if the surviving PCs took their time standing there talking about it I would make the unconscious PC start making death saving thrown to increase the level of urgency. Technically they would be making a death saving throw every 6 seconds of in game time but in my experience time flows kind of different out of combat.
But unless the trap dealt enough damage to take them "negative" by the amount of their max HP, they would not be killed outright.
I don't think you were being too lenient; the scenario as described is a valid way to handle it, as long as someone can heal them through whatever means.
Now as discussed, being killed by massive damage is another story; because as RAW, the only way back is a spell like Revivify (the earliest available spell at 3rd spell level, and requires a 5th level caster, and diamonds. If that were to happen, you could follow RAW and let it happen. Or you could allow a character to do something spectacular with a skill check and a lower spell. Its not in the rules, but a DM can do what they want.
But I personally wouldn't do that, because then there isn't any risk, and a bit of risk reward is part of the game, even if a pit trap killing someone isn't fun. But it can be memorable to the other characters though.
If we assume that the PC died at 0 hp and failed its saving throw, then by the rules, the PC is dead. Otherwise, the PC would get death saving throws, unless at negative max hp from the blow, as described above.
All that aside, I think what the OP is asking more than the technical details of how death saves work, is -- what do we do about it when a PC legit dies to an inanimate object like a trap in a non-dramatic way? The answer is -- it will depend on the table. For me -- the PC is dead, assuming death saves were failed, etc. Maybe you should have checked more carefully for traps...
I would also say, as a DM - do not put a trap into the game that can outright kill your PCs, unless you want to outright kill the PCs with a trap. You could easily have a spiked pit trap that does 1d6 of fall damage and 1d8 of piercing damage, which would not take out anyone but a level 1 or 2 PC, and even them, probably just to death saves and not outright. And the thing with being in death saves is any heals will bring you out of it. So, if you don't want to kill them, don't put in a trap that goes down 100 feet to spikes at the bottom, does 10D6 of falling damage and 12d8 of piercing damage. By simply calibrating the trap, you, the DM, decide if it is liable to outright kill a PC or not.
Now, you can't prevent every possible death. If the PC is at 2 hit points and low level, and is stupid enough with only 12 hp max and 2 hp left to wander around a dungeon in unexplored and possibly-trapped places and fall down the aforementioned 1d6 + 1d8 trap and you roll max, doing 14 hp and putting that PC at -12 (and thus insta-death), well... to some degree players must suffer the consequences of their own actions. But even here, unless you roll in the open, you could stop it by overruling the dice and saying "you take 13 hp of damage, wow, one more and you'd be instant dead.... start making death saves... anyone want to help her?" Etc.
As a DM, you ultimately decide (1) how lethal the trap is, (2) how hard it is to detect, and (3) whether you are going to accept the rolls of the dice. To me, I accept the rolls, and sometimes the trap is deadly and hard to detect -- it is up to the players to figure out how to get out of these things. I generally have no problem with killing a character if the situation calls for it, but I also probably wouldn't put a random spiked pit trap into a random corridor in an unpredictable position within the dungeon and then have that random trap also be hard enough to detect and lethal enough to one-shot kill the party members that it would outright kill characters -- mostly because that's just not very dramatic.
On the other hand if we're in a Raiders of the Lost Ark opening scene with all the pressure plates and poison darts and the PCs just "run across it and screw the traps" well... yeah, they might well die from that. Because that is dramatic, and also a choice of their own making.
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.
My rule of thumb for character death in modern gaming is "does this make an interesting story?" If the answer is "no", then I find a way to either MAKE it into a story or I find a way to take it a different angle. For my money "you missed your perception check, and I rolled high on fall damage so your character died" is not an interesting or memorable story.
Now "back in the day" we were much more cool with the "oh.. my fighter died. Darn. Good thing I have this cleric ready to go" and we moved on. But the more people put into their characters before the game, the more I feel compelled to make their exits equally as interesting. Even if there is no way to avoid the death, it becomes, to a degree, my job to help make the story memorable anyway, either through efforts to resurrect the character, or recover the body, or something. I also try to avoid the "oh.. failed to checks, I guess you died", kind of situation as well.
That said, if the players are the sort to say "screw it, I run across, I don't care" well, that has the potential to be memorable as well and a good story to tell....
"Teller of tales, dreamer of dreams"
Tips, Tricks, Maps: Lantern Noir Presents
**Streams hosted at at twitch.tv/LaternNoir
Anticlimactic deaths would be pretty cool IMO, but its not for everyone.
"h"