So I wanted to get some opinions on this topic as it is a sensitive one and does warrant some discussion.
The drawback if you ask me is the obvious fact that it is profoundly unfun to be attacked when you are already down. Never having a chance to roll you death saves can feel like you are being cheated or picked on. And unless you are the sadistic type, it is also quite unfun for the DM as well, honestly. They don’t want to look like the bad guy.
On the other hand, refrained from attacking downed players is unrealistic and cheapens the fight in a way, as well as makes things far too easy. A hungry monster, for instance, isn’t going to just stop attacking a player after all. It is going to keep attacking and rip that player apart to start feeding or whatever. More intelligent foes are going to recognize immediately that they need to eliminate a downed player ASAP in order to remove that threat of them getting back in the fight, ESPECIALLY after they pop back up after a healing spell.
So how do you handle this in your games? There is no good answer it seems.
Generally, a predator isn't going to stop and try chowing down on something while it's still being attacked. It's also hard to concentrate on stabbing someone who's on the ground when their buddy is waving a sword in your face.
Unless a monster is particularly sadistic, I tend to have them mostly ignore unconscious targets as long as there are active targets left.
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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.
Generally, a predator isn't going to stop and try chowing down on something while it's still being attacked. It's also hard to concentrate on stabbing someone who's on the ground when their buddy is waving a sword in your face.
Unless a monster is particularly sadistic, I tend to have them mostly ignore unconscious targets as long as there are active targets left.
Unless you have a Total Party Kill, there will be someone to chase away the enemies and keep them from killing everyone off. It doesn't take a whole lot to get someone back up and at least able to run away. Characters are entirely unhindered with 1 hit point. Intelligent enemies might finish people off, if they are tough enough to survive while everyone else is attacking them. This tends to set off a kind of "arms race". The DM murders you, you start making sure to finish off all your enemies. Or the players start with the killing, the DM loses an NPC they wanted to keep, and they punish them for it.
Don't finish off Player Characters unless you're really sure you want that critter (and possible yourself) hated. I wouldn't do it, but I can see where some DM's might, with a villain they want to reoccur or the Big Evil Bad Guy. Still in all, remember that if your Reoccurring Villain finishes someone off, the players aren't going to let him reoccur again if they can help it, and that will apply to all enemies from then on.
In our group, it depends on the intelligence of the creature we're fighting. If they are a bad guy out to kill our group, then yes they will attack a downed PC. But if it's just a wolf or animal, then no, they will not be relentless. We've had 4 PC deaths (edited to add: from 3 different campaigns, spanning 4+ years) and no one at my table has gotten mad and we actually enjoy that it makes certain fights more serious and difficult because we know they are coming for blood. Also, we like the RP that comes from a player death and there is also always resurrection at later levels. They are gone but not forgotten!
Generally, a predator isn't going to stop and try chowing down on something while it's still being attacked. It's also hard to concentrate on stabbing someone who's on the ground when their buddy is waving a sword in your face.
Unless a monster is particularly sadistic, I tend to have them mostly ignore unconscious targets as long as there are active targets left.
Agree
Don’t agree.
Now, I’m not here to argue about how you or I or any DM runs their monsters. Everyone is going to have different internal logic governing how they play their monsters, if there is any to begin with.
Personally, I see it this way: a low intelligence monster such as an owlbear or elemental is going to hone in on a particular item of prey, in this case a particular PC, and continue to bite and claw and smash until that prey is a messy pile of gore. That is the extent of their thought process and only death is going to dissuade them.
As for more intelligent enemies that have the capability of understanding their surroundings in battle in a tactical way, yes I would agree with your example. If someone is actively waving a sword at them that would give pause to them. However that is not always the case. In fact it usually is not. If there is no ally within 5 feet to save the downed PC, the enemy will take 6 seconds to stab them in the throat several times to make sure they don’t get back up. In particular if there is evidence to suggest they will.
I’m not saying one way or the other that this is how you should run your monsters, don’t get me wrong. That discussion is the point of this thread.
A low intelligence monster is certainly capable of recognizing a threat. Even a dog or cat will run away from someone who raises a big stick. Most critters have an intelligence greater than 1, and will run if threatened or even just yelled at. An Owlbear wouldn't run, as they are especially vicious, but an Elemental has a 5 or 6 int and could certainly assess a threat and retreat if they thought they were in danger. Even things like Constructs have intelligence. I wasn't able to find anything with a zero int, but I didn't look very hard. There's no way to filter the monster entries for that.
I believe that an enemy needs to attack *twice* to take out a character who has just dropped. They clear two of the three death saves with the first. That's a bit more time to save an ally unless they have multiple attacks of some sort. All it takes is a Healing Word spell from as much as 60 feet away to save them.
I agree, it really depends on the DM's interpretation of what the monster would do, and would have to be figured out case by case.
The other thing to bear in mind is area effects and ongoing damage; whether or not the monsters specifically attack downed PCs, they're unlikely to make special effort to keep them alive. A damaging zone like Spirit Guardians will kill downed PCs quite fast and greatly limit the effectiveness of minor healing spells as they'll just go down again at start of turn.
See now that really depends on the monster. Most animals won't go after something on the ground if there's something standing- ever see a bear fighting with a pack of wolves? Owlbears are ridiculously aggressive, but I still have trouble seeing them being willing to let something bite their ankles while they continue to attack something that's not moving. Other creatures are different: fiends will almost certainly try to finish a fallen foe off unless they're specifically trying to take them alive.
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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.
A low intelligence monster is certainly capable of recognizing a threat. Even a dog or cat will run away from someone who raises a big stick. Most critters have an intelligence greater than 1, and will run if threatened or even just yelled at. An Owlbear wouldn't run, as they are especially vicious, but an Elemental has a 5 or 6 int and could certainly assess a threat and retreat if they thought they were in danger. Even things like Constructs have intelligence. I wasn't able to find anything with a zero int, but I didn't look very hard. There's no way to filter the monster entries for that.
I believe that an enemy needs to attack *twice* to take out a character who has just dropped. They clear two of the three death saves with the first. That's a bit more time to save an ally unless they have multiple attacks of some sort. All it takes is a Healing Word spell from as much as 60 feet away to save them.
I agree, it really depends on the DM's interpretation of what the monster would do, and would have to be figured out case by case.
Sure.
And again, I’m not here to argue if you or I or any DM should or shouldn’t run the monster in this or that way, based on this or that logic.
Point is, if that logic whatever it might be, DOES lead you to conclude yes this monster would pummel this downed PC, would you pull your punch or not? Yes? No? Maybe?
I use creatures attacking already downed NPC's is for very specific and difficult encounters that are designed to be extremely deadly. Things like bosses.
As you, and others, have said it feels really bad for a player to just die outright. In the event that a creature is smart/experienced enough they will attack the PC when they are unconscious to kill them if that aligns with their goals. Much less intelligent creatures (like a bear or something) would be much more likely to attempt to drag a potential meal away from any active threat. This will give the PC's time to get the downed PC away from the creature as well as allow the downed PC to make saves and potentially return to consciousness and have the option to escape from the threat.
I believe that PC's are the only things within the game RAW that are allowed to make death saves, so to me it makes a lot of sense that most things would assume that once something had been brought to unconsiousness via their wounds there would be no reason to assume that said thing will come back to life without some sort of magic involved. Given that, only individuals that are used to things getting back up would check to make sure something is dead, say if you were to lose to a big bad who left you unconscious but you recovered so next time they are going to make sure you are dead. It doesn't make much sense to me that if a hungry animal is being attacked by 6 people and knocks one of them unconscious that it would start eating while still actively being killed. There is at least some level of survival instinct at work to make sure whatever creature doesn't get killed in the process of hunting.
Thus the point about deciding on a case-by-case manner. Almost everything has enough intelligence to assess the situation. A Construct might keep right on attacking someone until they go down, but only finish them off if so ordered, and those orders will need to be pretty exacting. How does a Construct know if something is mortally wounded? A trigger like "dropping prone" means they might try to finish off someone who dropped voluntarily, who might resist quite effectively.
As a general rule, I'd say don't kill off Player Characters. I wouldn't like it, and I don't inflict things on my players that I wouldn't want on myself. Other players might be onboard with it. Then it becomes one of the ever expanding list of topics for Session Zero.
I think of the enemy and what the characters have available. Some fights are not meant to be winnable - If I've spent several sessions telling them they're not yet strong enough for the enemy but they go fight them anyway - well, they chose that. I'll try and spare them. However, some enemies are in it for the kill, and so yes, they'll kill the PCs. I usually prefer waiting until the party has access to resurrection before this, though.
But if it ends up being a TPK or near enough, and first time this campaign? And the dice favour this? Sure. They die. And so their main story arc is on hiatus as we now journey in the afterlife as they struggle to find a way back to the realm of the living.
Why people think TPK = end of campaign is beyond me. Multiple official books with content to use, and plenty of room to make up your own content. Death is an open door to new adventures. Why would I be so silly as to ignore that?
"Point is, if that logic whatever it might be, DOES lead you to conclude yes this monster would pummel this downed PC, would you pull your punch or not? Yes? No? Maybe?"
I would not finish off a Player Character unless the plot required it, and even then it would have to be something like the climax of the story arc. If I did kill them, I'd make sure the players could easily get the character back again, and getting it done later would not be sufficient. I expect my players to have goals and I doubt any of them would want to put their character on hold for who knows how long before getting them back. The other players are getting to Do Stuff presumably. How do I make that up to the recently dead one?
It's still a matter of DM whimsey, informed by player desires. Some might be fine with dying and waiting to be brought back. Give them an alternate character in the mean time, or let them play one of the Sidekicks or allies. Perhaps they will be just dandy with a brand new character to play. Another case-by-case Session Zero thing to discuss.
So how do you handle this in your games? There is no good answer it seems.
If you want to eliminate whac-a-mole combat, add house rules to making bringing downed characters back into the fight harder.
We do this! At all of our games there is a rule that if you get knocked to 0hp and brought back up, you suffer 1 level of exhaustion.
This has led to the inside joke of "Exhaustion is just a resource!"
I used a similar system for a little while
Know a days a incorporate into the stress system (seeing a creature fail a death save or failing a death save yourself inflicts a level of stress which enough will degrade your ability scores a tad)
"It's what the monster would do," may be true, but it comes off sounding like the rogue who insists he needs to try to steal from his teammates every long rest. It's the Wangrod defense.
For predator-type creatures, I will often have them grapple the downed PC and drag it away as far as they can. They want to eat, but also won't just sit there trying to chow down while hostile creatures are fighting it.
This feels like the most realistic behavior to me, especially if it is two sizes bigger and can drag with no speed penalty. And it preserves the urgency of the situation without feeling like a personal attack.
I generally do not attack downed characters. In my view, they are down. The enemy can't tell whether they are dead or just unconscious, and stopping to "make sure" by wasting a blow on a person already out of the fight, is, IMO, foolish. The characters who are standing there are a much bigger threat than the one who is on the ground (possibly) making death saves. You take care of them *after* the battle is over and you can then apply the coup de grace if necessary.
The only way a character on Death Saves gets back into the fight anyway is if a buddy heals him, so it's better to take out the buddies, than to leave the buddies up and attacking you while you hammer on someone who, perhaps, is already dead anyway, and certainly in no position to hit back.
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BioWizard
I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
So I wanted to get some opinions on this topic as it is a sensitive one and does warrant some discussion.
The drawback if you ask me is the obvious fact that it is profoundly unfun to be attacked when you are already down. Never having a chance to roll you death saves can feel like you are being cheated or picked on. And unless you are the sadistic type, it is also quite unfun for the DM as well, honestly. They don’t want to look like the bad guy.
On the other hand, refrained from attacking downed players is unrealistic and cheapens the fight in a way, as well as makes things far too easy. A hungry monster, for instance, isn’t going to just stop attacking a player after all. It is going to keep attacking and rip that player apart to start feeding or whatever. More intelligent foes are going to recognize immediately that they need to eliminate a downed player ASAP in order to remove that threat of them getting back in the fight, ESPECIALLY after they pop back up after a healing spell.
So how do you handle this in your games? There is no good answer it seems.
Generally, a predator isn't going to stop and try chowing down on something while it's still being attacked. It's also hard to concentrate on stabbing someone who's on the ground when their buddy is waving a sword in your face.
Unless a monster is particularly sadistic, I tend to have them mostly ignore unconscious targets as long as there are active targets left.
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.
Agree
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
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Unless you have a Total Party Kill, there will be someone to chase away the enemies and keep them from killing everyone off. It doesn't take a whole lot to get someone back up and at least able to run away. Characters are entirely unhindered with 1 hit point. Intelligent enemies might finish people off, if they are tough enough to survive while everyone else is attacking them. This tends to set off a kind of "arms race". The DM murders you, you start making sure to finish off all your enemies. Or the players start with the killing, the DM loses an NPC they wanted to keep, and they punish them for it.
Don't finish off Player Characters unless you're really sure you want that critter (and possible yourself) hated. I wouldn't do it, but I can see where some DM's might, with a villain they want to reoccur or the Big Evil Bad Guy. Still in all, remember that if your Reoccurring Villain finishes someone off, the players aren't going to let him reoccur again if they can help it, and that will apply to all enemies from then on.
<Insert clever signature here>
If you want to eliminate whac-a-mole combat, add house rules to making bringing downed characters back into the fight harder.
In our group, it depends on the intelligence of the creature we're fighting. If they are a bad guy out to kill our group, then yes they will attack a downed PC. But if it's just a wolf or animal, then no, they will not be relentless. We've had 4 PC deaths (edited to add: from 3 different campaigns, spanning 4+ years) and no one at my table has gotten mad and we actually enjoy that it makes certain fights more serious and difficult because we know they are coming for blood. Also, we like the RP that comes from a player death and there is also always resurrection at later levels. They are gone but not forgotten!
We do this! At all of our games there is a rule that if you get knocked to 0hp and brought back up, you suffer 1 level of exhaustion.
This has led to the inside joke of "Exhaustion is just a resource!"
Don’t agree.
Now, I’m not here to argue about how you or I or any DM runs their monsters. Everyone is going to have different internal logic governing how they play their monsters, if there is any to begin with.
Personally, I see it this way: a low intelligence monster such as an owlbear or elemental is going to hone in on a particular item of prey, in this case a particular PC, and continue to bite and claw and smash until that prey is a messy pile of gore. That is the extent of their thought process and only death is going to dissuade them.
As for more intelligent enemies that have the capability of understanding their surroundings in battle in a tactical way, yes I would agree with your example. If someone is actively waving a sword at them that would give pause to them. However that is not always the case. In fact it usually is not. If there is no ally within 5 feet to save the downed PC, the enemy will take 6 seconds to stab them in the throat several times to make sure they don’t get back up. In particular if there is evidence to suggest they will.
I’m not saying one way or the other that this is how you should run your monsters, don’t get me wrong. That discussion is the point of this thread.
A low intelligence monster is certainly capable of recognizing a threat. Even a dog or cat will run away from someone who raises a big stick. Most critters have an intelligence greater than 1, and will run if threatened or even just yelled at. An Owlbear wouldn't run, as they are especially vicious, but an Elemental has a 5 or 6 int and could certainly assess a threat and retreat if they thought they were in danger. Even things like Constructs have intelligence. I wasn't able to find anything with a zero int, but I didn't look very hard. There's no way to filter the monster entries for that.
I believe that an enemy needs to attack *twice* to take out a character who has just dropped. They clear two of the three death saves with the first. That's a bit more time to save an ally unless they have multiple attacks of some sort. All it takes is a Healing Word spell from as much as 60 feet away to save them.
I agree, it really depends on the DM's interpretation of what the monster would do, and would have to be figured out case by case.
<Insert clever signature here>
The other thing to bear in mind is area effects and ongoing damage; whether or not the monsters specifically attack downed PCs, they're unlikely to make special effort to keep them alive. A damaging zone like Spirit Guardians will kill downed PCs quite fast and greatly limit the effectiveness of minor healing spells as they'll just go down again at start of turn.
See now that really depends on the monster. Most animals won't go after something on the ground if there's something standing- ever see a bear fighting with a pack of wolves? Owlbears are ridiculously aggressive, but I still have trouble seeing them being willing to let something bite their ankles while they continue to attack something that's not moving. Other creatures are different: fiends will almost certainly try to finish a fallen foe off unless they're specifically trying to take them alive.
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.
Sure.
And again, I’m not here to argue if you or I or any DM should or shouldn’t run the monster in this or that way, based on this or that logic.
Point is, if that logic whatever it might be, DOES lead you to conclude yes this monster would pummel this downed PC, would you pull your punch or not? Yes? No? Maybe?
I use creatures attacking already downed NPC's is for very specific and difficult encounters that are designed to be extremely deadly. Things like bosses.
As you, and others, have said it feels really bad for a player to just die outright. In the event that a creature is smart/experienced enough they will attack the PC when they are unconscious to kill them if that aligns with their goals. Much less intelligent creatures (like a bear or something) would be much more likely to attempt to drag a potential meal away from any active threat. This will give the PC's time to get the downed PC away from the creature as well as allow the downed PC to make saves and potentially return to consciousness and have the option to escape from the threat.
I believe that PC's are the only things within the game RAW that are allowed to make death saves, so to me it makes a lot of sense that most things would assume that once something had been brought to unconsiousness via their wounds there would be no reason to assume that said thing will come back to life without some sort of magic involved. Given that, only individuals that are used to things getting back up would check to make sure something is dead, say if you were to lose to a big bad who left you unconscious but you recovered so next time they are going to make sure you are dead. It doesn't make much sense to me that if a hungry animal is being attacked by 6 people and knocks one of them unconscious that it would start eating while still actively being killed. There is at least some level of survival instinct at work to make sure whatever creature doesn't get killed in the process of hunting.
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"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."
Thus the point about deciding on a case-by-case manner. Almost everything has enough intelligence to assess the situation. A Construct might keep right on attacking someone until they go down, but only finish them off if so ordered, and those orders will need to be pretty exacting. How does a Construct know if something is mortally wounded? A trigger like "dropping prone" means they might try to finish off someone who dropped voluntarily, who might resist quite effectively.
As a general rule, I'd say don't kill off Player Characters. I wouldn't like it, and I don't inflict things on my players that I wouldn't want on myself. Other players might be onboard with it. Then it becomes one of the ever expanding list of topics for Session Zero.
<Insert clever signature here>
I think of the enemy and what the characters have available. Some fights are not meant to be winnable - If I've spent several sessions telling them they're not yet strong enough for the enemy but they go fight them anyway - well, they chose that. I'll try and spare them. However, some enemies are in it for the kill, and so yes, they'll kill the PCs. I usually prefer waiting until the party has access to resurrection before this, though.
But if it ends up being a TPK or near enough, and first time this campaign? And the dice favour this? Sure. They die. And so their main story arc is on hiatus as we now journey in the afterlife as they struggle to find a way back to the realm of the living.
Why people think TPK = end of campaign is beyond me. Multiple official books with content to use, and plenty of room to make up your own content. Death is an open door to new adventures. Why would I be so silly as to ignore that?
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I would not finish off a Player Character unless the plot required it, and even then it would have to be something like the climax of the story arc. If I did kill them, I'd make sure the players could easily get the character back again, and getting it done later would not be sufficient. I expect my players to have goals and I doubt any of them would want to put their character on hold for who knows how long before getting them back. The other players are getting to Do Stuff presumably. How do I make that up to the recently dead one?
It's still a matter of DM whimsey, informed by player desires. Some might be fine with dying and waiting to be brought back. Give them an alternate character in the mean time, or let them play one of the Sidekicks or allies. Perhaps they will be just dandy with a brand new character to play. Another case-by-case Session Zero thing to discuss.
<Insert clever signature here>
I used a similar system for a little while
Know a days a incorporate into the stress system (seeing a creature fail a death save or failing a death save yourself inflicts a level of stress which enough will degrade your ability scores a tad)
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"It's what the monster would do," may be true, but it comes off sounding like the rogue who insists he needs to try to steal from his teammates every long rest. It's the Wangrod defense.
For predator-type creatures, I will often have them grapple the downed PC and drag it away as far as they can. They want to eat, but also won't just sit there trying to chow down while hostile creatures are fighting it.
This feels like the most realistic behavior to me, especially if it is two sizes bigger and can drag with no speed penalty. And it preserves the urgency of the situation without feeling like a personal attack.
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I generally do not attack downed characters. In my view, they are down. The enemy can't tell whether they are dead or just unconscious, and stopping to "make sure" by wasting a blow on a person already out of the fight, is, IMO, foolish. The characters who are standing there are a much bigger threat than the one who is on the ground (possibly) making death saves. You take care of them *after* the battle is over and you can then apply the coup de grace if necessary.
The only way a character on Death Saves gets back into the fight anyway is if a buddy heals him, so it's better to take out the buddies, than to leave the buddies up and attacking you while you hammer on someone who, perhaps, is already dead anyway, and certainly in no position to hit back.
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Or Nat 20's on the death save.
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