As a general rule, player characters should never die because of bad luck. Dice shouldn't be able to kill PCs, but their own stupidity should. I wouldn't ever kill a PC because one of their enemies scores a critical hit, but if PCs do something really stupid, I might kill them. The exceptions are players who want to change characters and want their old characters to die with a heroic sacrifice. When it comes to death, D&D should be far closer to a movie or novel than to a tactical game. Death should make sense from a narrative perspective.
Ultimately though this is a dice based game, so bad dice will ultimately kill a player. In combat as well poor player tactics, positioning and decision making are more likely to lead to character death then a freak poor dice roll (beyond level 3 I would say).
I suppose this leads to a wider question and I will make a new forum post for this.
Perhaps I jumped in too much the other way! First combat of a new campaign includes a Harpy trying to lure the party into walking off the edge of a tower at the edge of a cliff. There's always the potential that could have been a TPK if they had all failed their saves, but I trusted the dice and only two failed. Now the new team are not only fighting alongside each other but saving each others lives by stopping them jumping to their deaths. So the strong possibility of PC death has led to some great character moments.
As a general rule, player characters should never die because of bad luck. Dice shouldn't be able to kill PCs, but their own stupidity should.
Players decide when they put themselves into danger - any danger in D&D is resolved by rolling dice, thus dice will kill characters that put themselves into a high level of danger.
A DM shouldn't set up a situation where a single die roll will kill a character, but there are plenty of situations where a series of bad dice rolls can end up with a dead character.
I don't necessarily enjoy killing characters and i avoid attacking them when dying except when facing particularly raveneous creatures and otherwise prefer if one meet its denise as a result if its own poor judgement or action. Or swingy dice randomness. Raising spell like Revivify greatly reduce the risk of death in combat once accessible too but i think fear of death must be somewhat part of the game for optimal experience.
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Ultimately though this is a dice based game, so bad dice will ultimately kill a player. In combat as well poor player tactics, positioning and decision making are more likely to lead to character death then a freak poor dice roll (beyond level 3 I would say).
I suppose this leads to a wider question and I will make a new forum post for this.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/148636-do-you-use-the-same-tactics-and-rules-against-your
Perhaps I jumped in too much the other way! First combat of a new campaign includes a Harpy trying to lure the party into walking off the edge of a tower at the edge of a cliff. There's always the potential that could have been a TPK if they had all failed their saves, but I trusted the dice and only two failed. Now the new team are not only fighting alongside each other but saving each others lives by stopping them jumping to their deaths. So the strong possibility of PC death has led to some great character moments.
DM - Storm King's Thunder
DM - Torosevia (WIP homebrew world)
Kelytha Meliamne - Matti Silverstorm - Silver - Star-Setting-In-The-East - Tor Baltos
Players decide when they put themselves into danger - any danger in D&D is resolved by rolling dice, thus dice will kill characters that put themselves into a high level of danger.
A DM shouldn't set up a situation where a single die roll will kill a character, but there are plenty of situations where a series of bad dice rolls can end up with a dead character.
I don't necessarily enjoy killing characters and i avoid attacking them when dying except when facing particularly raveneous creatures and otherwise prefer if one meet its denise as a result if its own poor judgement or action. Or swingy dice randomness. Raising spell like Revivify greatly reduce the risk of death in combat once accessible too but i think fear of death must be somewhat part of the game for optimal experience.