L1 characters getting insta-killed by a crit shows poor encounter design - using a monster whose crit damage is enough to insta-kill?!
We've played D&D since the early '90s without fudging any dice rolls. PC deaths do occur - otherwise where's the real sense of risk in the game?
We've had game session where one player has missed every single attack, and the others where the DM or player has been rolling high rolls every single attack. Most just add to the enjoyment of the session.
L1 characters getting insta-killed by a crit shows poor encounter design - using a monster whose crit damage is enough to insta-kill?!
It's not ridiculous to use a orc or bugbear or half-ogre against a level 1 party.
Also, combat is generally well underway by the time the DM realizes the encounter is overtuned. It’s not like the DM can just stop everything, admit they messed up and rewind time for a mulligan with a different monster. They’ve got to find a way to get through the overtuned encounter without wiping the party. If you insist on slavish observance of dice rolls, hopefully you’re willing to fudge other things to help out when the characters are in dire straits and the dice gods are on a rampage: reduce the monster’s HP pool, don’t bring in those reinforcements, have the monster make poor tactical choices etc.
I only fudge dice rolls if enough damage would be done to kill a PC that might be more important in a campaign. I don't do this every time though since my party cleric knows the revivify spell.
I also love d̶̡̼̥̻͙̣̼̿͂͐͘ę̴̢̨̛̼̙̤̻̞̠̗̳̝̦̹̹̦͍̉̏͛̽͠͠sţ̵̢̼̹̭̖͔͎̞̪͇͚̞̇̀̇̀̒͂̇̍͊̏ru̸̮̭̪̠͆̑̍́̈́̑̾̒̑̂̕ͅc̶̢̜͓̮̩͎͕̄́͑̃̈͋̈͌̑̽͠ͅͅţ̵̢̼̹̭̖͔͎̞̪͇͚̞̇̀̇̀̒͂̇̍͊̏io̵̪̭̞̗̝͙̝̬̥͕̒ͅn̸̨͖̳͓͍̜̬̗̪̜̪̗̺͆̏̆̊́̈́̿̎̅̈͠͝͝ in my campaigns! In other words, i'm an evil DM.
I never fudge and roll everything in the open. I feel like this enhance the game aspect of it. Everything in my playstyle aims to enhance this aspect, I let players know Saving Throw DCs out of the gate, I reveal AC, I am very clear on how monsters stand in terms of hit points (Not give exact numbers, but saying that if they're bloodied they are half health and if they're ****ed up the are one swing away from dying).
I play everything by the rules and all house rules are clear to players since Session 0.
I personally dislike both DMing and playing with hidden rolls.
That said, I am, also, very generous with Ability Scores (Players roll the AS and, if the sum is not 70, they can roll again until it hits 70 - and even if they hit 70, but they look terribly distributed, I allow rerolls) and other aspects of character creation (I often give free feats at lv 1), not only that, but I tailor the encounters and the game to the party composition (E.g: You don't have a healer, you will find extra healing potions that can be used on yourself as bonus actions).
Also, this is something that I say in every session 0: the game can be deadly and random, so the players need to approach it with the mindset that there is not going to be a Deus Ex Machina to save you if you **** up.
If it works for your group, it works. However personally I'd advise against giving players access to healing just because they don't have a Cleric or Paladin. Personally I think that doing so undermines the role of a healer. If you provide everything the party is missing, the missing aspects are no longer valuable.
I fudge dice rolls sometimes. Though I believe it to be generally a bad practice. If the party is 1st-level, I might change a crit to a normal hit, or if the party is simply close to dying I might have a monster fail a saving throw, but I usually avoid fudging dice. Also, I'm terrible at bluffing.
I don't fudge my rolls. I think the dice bring some amazing moments, either hype or dreadful. I've seen hilarious nat ones on enemies and horrifying nat 20's from them. Plus, the dread of an enemy critical can bring hype for when the players do win. I once had a player duel a very strong opponent, and it was very close, the player a the time slightly winning... and then the enemy double crit with multiattack bringing the PC down to a few HP left. The PC ended up being able to deal just enough damage on their turn to bring them down... and by not wearing kid gloves, the fight turned out a lot cooler. I've only "fudged" rolls twice, none of them a d20 roll. Both were damage rolls on a "half damage on successful save" where the PC succeeded by a lot, but they would be knocked to 0. Instead I knocked them to 1 hp.
I admit I did it when a player dad died I fuged a few saves of the the monster he turned it into a cat I don't regret doing it we been friends for so long he needed a win and some cheering up that day.
Literally the only time I have done it is if I personally really messed something up earlier in a combat and do some course correcting without stopping the battle to ret-con things.
Example. Running a battle one of the enemies had an arch mage statblock. I used fireball which was a devastating spell for a party of that level to get hit with. At some point I read that the NPC has the stat block of an archmage but doesn't cast spells above 2nd level....
Rather than rewind the fireball, and totally messing up any emersion in the game I kind of winged it and tried to compensate for the fact that nuke went off that never should have.
If you are ever in a game where you feel like the DM is fudging a good amount, it just feels bad. Doesn't matter if it's to help or hurt the party, it just feels like you aren't playing a game and your decisions don't really matter.
I never fudge and roll everything in the open. I feel like this enhance the game aspect of it. Everything in my playstyle aims to enhance this aspect, I let players know Saving Throw DCs out of the gate, I reveal AC, I am very clear on how monsters stand in terms of hit points (Not give exact numbers, but saying that if they're bloodied they are half health and if they're ****ed up the are one swing away from dying).
I play everything by the rules and all house rules are clear to players since Session 0.
I personally dislike both DMing and playing with hidden rolls.
That said, I am, also, very generous with Ability Scores (Players roll the AS and, if the sum is not 70, they can roll again until it hits 70 - and even if they hit 70, but they look terribly distributed, I allow rerolls) and other aspects of character creation (I often give free feats at lv 1), not only that, but I tailor the encounters and the game to the party composition (E.g: You don't have a healer, you will find extra healing potions that can be used on yourself as bonus actions).
Also, this is something that I say in every session 0: the game can be deadly and random, so the players need to approach it with the mindset that there is not going to be a Deus Ex Machina to save you if you **** up.
If it works for your group, it works. However personally I'd advise against giving players access to healing just because they don't have a Cleric or Paladin. Personally I think that doing so undermines the role of a healer. If you provide everything the party is missing, the missing aspects are no longer valuable.
What do you mean? If they don't have a healer, who is being undermined? The concept of a healer? If the party is missing healing, and they have extra healing potions, why is it no longer valuable? Isn't it even more valuable to the party?
Your advice is that if the party wants to play a wonky comp of 3 Wizards and a Rogue, that I should just steamroll them so that they understand the concept of a role?
L1 characters getting insta-killed by a crit shows poor encounter design - using a monster whose crit damage is enough to insta-kill?!
It's not ridiculous to use a orc or bugbear or half-ogre against a level 1 party.
All three of those have high average damage which are likely to deck a L1 character at first level even without a crit (dmg 9, 11, 14). CR 1/2 individual creatures are tough vs a L1 party.
I never fudge and roll everything in the open. I feel like this enhance the game aspect of it. Everything in my playstyle aims to enhance this aspect, I let players know Saving Throw DCs out of the gate, I reveal AC, I am very clear on how monsters stand in terms of hit points (Not give exact numbers, but saying that if they're bloodied they are half health and if they're ****ed up the are one swing away from dying).
I play everything by the rules and all house rules are clear to players since Session 0.
I personally dislike both DMing and playing with hidden rolls.
That said, I am, also, very generous with Ability Scores (Players roll the AS and, if the sum is not 70, they can roll again until it hits 70 - and even if they hit 70, but they look terribly distributed, I allow rerolls) and other aspects of character creation (I often give free feats at lv 1), not only that, but I tailor the encounters and the game to the party composition (E.g: You don't have a healer, you will find extra healing potions that can be used on yourself as bonus actions).
Also, this is something that I say in every session 0: the game can be deadly and random, so the players need to approach it with the mindset that there is not going to be a Deus Ex Machina to save you if you **** up.
If it works for your group, it works. However personally I'd advise against giving players access to healing just because they don't have a Cleric or Paladin. Personally I think that doing so undermines the role of a healer. If you provide everything the party is missing, the missing aspects are no longer valuable.
What do you mean? If they don't have a healer, who is being undermined? The concept of a healer? If the party is missing healing, and they have extra healing potions, why is it no longer valuable? Isn't it even more valuable to the party?
Your advice is that if the party wants to play a wonky comp of 3 Wizards and a Rogue, that I should just steamroll them so that they understand the concept of a role?
I mean, kinda. Giving the party more potions of healing in the absence of a healer means that the healer's job is filled in, thus the party has no need for a healer, therefore having a healer in the party is pointless.
Again, it's your group. Feel free to completely ignore me. I don't have any effect on your table.
What do you mean? If they don't have a healer, who is being undermined? The concept of a healer? If the party is missing healing, and they have extra healing potions, why is it no longer valuable? Isn't it even more valuable to the party?
Your advice is that if the party wants to play a wonky comp of 3 Wizards and a Rogue, that I should just steamroll them so that they understand the concept of a role?
There's no guarantees you'll steamroll them. At low level you probably will, but that's mostly because wizards are weak at low levels -- a party of Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue/Wizard will be fine without a dedicated healer.
I myself don't fudge dice rolls. Instead I do something else like conveniently forget to add an effect or bonus dmg or "forget" to use a deadly recharge ability or attack if I realize that I messed up so bad that a hotfix won't be enough to prevent some acute DM disaster.
Oh and I sometimes fudge DC:s and AC:s when needed, if the players don't know them yet. Also I may fudge monster modifiers after rolling, which is probably the same as fudging the roll, except that it's a permanent hotfix.
They make a save or land a hit that they shouldn't and then I realize that I made a mistake with their modifiers.
Or a players rolls really well for their level and I realize the AC is too high or too low for the fight to be balanced and most of all dynamic.
Most often I do it to keep the fight dynamic. It's not very much fun if 3/4 rolls are fails. It's just draggy. 😄
But to me this is fixing my own mistakes in encounter design. If the fight was decently balanced, them I don't intentionally protect my players from death - only from my mistakes.
These happen every now and then. Mostly due to lack of time/energy for designing the game so it's more improv than you'd like. But that's just life. 😄
I never fudge and roll everything in the open. I feel like this enhance the game aspect of it. Everything in my playstyle aims to enhance this aspect, I let players know Saving Throw DCs out of the gate, I reveal AC, I am very clear on how monsters stand in terms of hit points (Not give exact numbers, but saying that if they're bloodied they are half health and if they're ****ed up the are one swing away from dying).
I play everything by the rules and all house rules are clear to players since Session 0.
I personally dislike both DMing and playing with hidden rolls.
That said, I am, also, very generous with Ability Scores (Players roll the AS and, if the sum is not 70, they can roll again until it hits 70 - and even if they hit 70, but they look terribly distributed, I allow rerolls) and other aspects of character creation (I often give free feats at lv 1), not only that, but I tailor the encounters and the game to the party composition (E.g: You don't have a healer, you will find extra healing potions that can be used on yourself as bonus actions).
Also, this is something that I say in every session 0: the game can be deadly and random, so the players need to approach it with the mindset that there is not going to be a Deus Ex Machina to save you if you **** up.
If it works for your group, it works. However personally I'd advise against giving players access to healing just because they don't have a Cleric or Paladin. Personally I think that doing so undermines the role of a healer. If you provide everything the party is missing, the missing aspects are no longer valuable.
To me one of the best things in pprpgs is that it can be whatever we like and we can make interesting characters.
Needing a Healer kinda makes it feel like looking for a World of Warcraft group to run an instance. That's not what rolegames are to me.
So if none of my players want to play a healer, then I'll either give them some other access to healing or design a game that is fun and challenging without healing.
I never fudge and roll everything in the open. I feel like this enhance the game aspect of it. Everything in my playstyle aims to enhance this aspect, I let players know Saving Throw DCs out of the gate, I reveal AC, I am very clear on how monsters stand in terms of hit points (Not give exact numbers, but saying that if they're bloodied they are half health and if they're ****ed up the are one swing away from dying).
I play everything by the rules and all house rules are clear to players since Session 0.
I personally dislike both DMing and playing with hidden rolls.
That said, I am, also, very generous with Ability Scores (Players roll the AS and, if the sum is not 70, they can roll again until it hits 70 - and even if they hit 70, but they look terribly distributed, I allow rerolls) and other aspects of character creation (I often give free feats at lv 1), not only that, but I tailor the encounters and the game to the party composition (E.g: You don't have a healer, you will find extra healing potions that can be used on yourself as bonus actions).
Also, this is something that I say in every session 0: the game can be deadly and random, so the players need to approach it with the mindset that there is not going to be a Deus Ex Machina to save you if you **** up.
If it works for your group, it works. However personally I'd advise against giving players access to healing just because they don't have a Cleric or Paladin. Personally I think that doing so undermines the role of a healer. If you provide everything the party is missing, the missing aspects are no longer valuable.
To me one of the best things in pprpgs is that it can be whatever we like and we can make interesting characters.
Needing a Healer kinda makes it feel like looking for a World of Warcraft group to run an instance. That's not what rolegames are to me.
So if none of my players want to play a healer, then I'll either give them some other access to healing or design a game that is fun and challenging without healing.
Like I said, feel free to completely disregard anything I've said. Different playstyles work for different groups. In my games, party composition tends to be somewhat important because I want there to be a relatively significant threat of death. That's not to say the party always needs a tank, a glass canon, a healer, and a scout. But I personally wouldn't give the party more healing potions to make up for a lack of healers. Just as I wouldn't give the party all mithril armour because they don't have a Rogue.
At one time, early in my DM experience, I did fudge die rolls. It was fun, players had fun, DM had fun, characters never died.
Then, the players noticed that characters never died. The occasional unlikely and outrageous things the party would attempt became gradually more frequent, the characters would take bigger and bigger risks as the player's realized that whatever they did they weren't likely to die because the DM fudged the outcomes. Eventually, and gradually, it reached a point where neither the players nor the DM were having much fun because there wasn't any real sense of risk. I decided after that experience that it really wasn't worth fudging dice rolls. Rolling dice represents the real risk to the characters during any encounter and that is a source of real tension.
Some groups are exclusively focused on role playing, on creating a joint narrative or story and they know where they want it to go - in those cases, which I find rare, the DM fudging outcomes contributes to the type of game the players want to run.
However, for most players and DMs I have met, they prefer if the story is not predictable, that the players and DM don't entirely control the narrative and storyline. In most of the games I have played or run, some of the most memorable experiences have been due to the vagaries of the dice, when a cool and unlikely attempt at something happens because of an unlikely die roll and not because the DM says it happened.
As an example, my level 4 rogue in a Tomb of Annihilation game was critically bitten by a giant crocodile doing 6d10+5 damage. It came within 1 hit point of instantly killing my character and it was a very memorable event. The character wore the scars of the crocodile bite for the rest of the game even after they recovered. However, it would not have been nearly as exciting if the DM had decided that the croc rolled a 19, did enough damage to leave my rogue at 2 hit points allowing them to use the next turn to bonus action disengage, run away and subsequently shoot the crocodile with the a bow. The player may not realize how reality was edited but eventually they will as nothing "life threatening" really happens in the shared narrative as the DM prevents those events from happening.
So these days, I roll everything in the open.
The bad guy makes a critical save or they don't, crits happen. Encounter balance on the fly can be controlled by the decisions the NPCs make in terms of who they attack and the special abilities they use, whether they are interested in prisoners or not etc,and by adjusting monster hit points or as a last recourse other monster stats. (Orcs for example have 2d8+6 hit points for a range of 8 to 22 for a typical orc with an average of 15 - every creature doesn't have to have average hit points). There are several other techniques including setting up encounters in waves so that the difficulty can be scaled through the encounter. These may constitute the DM "fudging" the encounter but they aren't fudging the die rolls, so luck, both good and bad remains a factor.
P.S. The problem with crits and level 1 characters is most easily mitigated by making them level 2 characters (and higher) so in the games I run, players stay at level 1 for only one or two sessions and the encounters tend to be cautiously built and rely on the party using team work - making individual character deaths less likely but it can still happen. If it does, then the player can craft a new character and they typically aren't as attached to the one that died since they played it for such a short time.
L1 characters getting insta-killed by a crit shows poor encounter design - using a monster whose crit damage is enough to insta-kill?!
We've played D&D since the early '90s without fudging any dice rolls. PC deaths do occur - otherwise where's the real sense of risk in the game?
We've had game session where one player has missed every single attack, and the others where the DM or player has been rolling high rolls every single attack. Most just add to the enjoyment of the session.
Here’s hoping my players don’t read this:
I fudge rolls, and I don’t track HP. My players seem to love it, and have no idea it’s happening.
It's not ridiculous to use a orc or bugbear or half-ogre against a level 1 party.
Also, combat is generally well underway by the time the DM realizes the encounter is overtuned. It’s not like the DM can just stop everything, admit they messed up and rewind time for a mulligan with a different monster. They’ve got to find a way to get through the overtuned encounter without wiping the party. If you insist on slavish observance of dice rolls, hopefully you’re willing to fudge other things to help out when the characters are in dire straits and the dice gods are on a rampage: reduce the monster’s HP pool, don’t bring in those reinforcements, have the monster make poor tactical choices etc.
I only fudge dice rolls if enough damage would be done to kill a PC that might be more important in a campaign. I don't do this every time though since my party cleric knows the revivify spell.
Monsters: Brathkal
Weapons: Sword of Ni , Bow of Ni
Spells: Zone of Ni
I also love d̶̡̼̥̻͙̣̼̿͂͐͘ę̴̢̨̛̼̙̤̻̞̠̗̳̝̦̹̹̦͍̉̏͛̽͠͠sţ̵̢̼̹̭̖͔͎̞̪͇͚̞̇̀̇̀̒͂̇̍͊̏ru̸̮̭̪̠͆̑̍́̈́̑̾̒̑̂̕ͅc̶̢̜͓̮̩͎͕̄́͑̃̈͋̈͌̑̽͠ͅͅţ̵̢̼̹̭̖͔͎̞̪͇͚̞̇̀̇̀̒͂̇̍͊̏io̵̪̭̞̗̝͙̝̬̥͕̒ͅn̸̨͖̳͓͍̜̬̗̪̜̪̗̺͆̏̆̊́̈́̿̎̅̈͠͝͝ in my campaigns! In other words, i'm an evil DM.
If it works for your group, it works. However personally I'd advise against giving players access to healing just because they don't have a Cleric or Paladin. Personally I think that doing so undermines the role of a healer. If you provide everything the party is missing, the missing aspects are no longer valuable.
[REDACTED]
I fudge dice rolls sometimes. Though I believe it to be generally a bad practice. If the party is 1st-level, I might change a crit to a normal hit, or if the party is simply close to dying I might have a monster fail a saving throw, but I usually avoid fudging dice. Also, I'm terrible at bluffing.
[REDACTED]
I don't fudge my rolls. I think the dice bring some amazing moments, either hype or dreadful. I've seen hilarious nat ones on enemies and horrifying nat 20's from them. Plus, the dread of an enemy critical can bring hype for when the players do win. I once had a player duel a very strong opponent, and it was very close, the player a the time slightly winning... and then the enemy double crit with multiattack bringing the PC down to a few HP left. The PC ended up being able to deal just enough damage on their turn to bring them down... and by not wearing kid gloves, the fight turned out a lot cooler.
I've only "fudged" rolls twice, none of them a d20 roll. Both were damage rolls on a "half damage on successful save" where the PC succeeded by a lot, but they would be knocked to 0. Instead I knocked them to 1 hp.
I admit I did it when a player dad died I fuged a few saves of the the monster he turned it into a cat I don't regret doing it we been friends for so long he needed a win and some cheering up that day.
Literally the only time I have done it is if I personally really messed something up earlier in a combat and do some course correcting without stopping the battle to ret-con things.
Example.
Running a battle one of the enemies had an arch mage statblock. I used fireball which was a devastating spell for a party of that level to get hit with. At some point I read that the NPC has the stat block of an archmage but doesn't cast spells above 2nd level....
Rather than rewind the fireball, and totally messing up any emersion in the game I kind of winged it and tried to compensate for the fact that nuke went off that never should have.
If you are ever in a game where you feel like the DM is fudging a good amount, it just feels bad. Doesn't matter if it's to help or hurt the party, it just feels like you aren't playing a game and your decisions don't really matter.
What do you mean? If they don't have a healer, who is being undermined? The concept of a healer? If the party is missing healing, and they have extra healing potions, why is it no longer valuable? Isn't it even more valuable to the party?
Your advice is that if the party wants to play a wonky comp of 3 Wizards and a Rogue, that I should just steamroll them so that they understand the concept of a role?
All three of those have high average damage which are likely to deck a L1 character at first level even without a crit (dmg 9, 11, 14). CR 1/2 individual creatures are tough vs a L1 party.
I mean, kinda. Giving the party more potions of healing in the absence of a healer means that the healer's job is filled in, thus the party has no need for a healer, therefore having a healer in the party is pointless.
Again, it's your group. Feel free to completely ignore me. I don't have any effect on your table.
[REDACTED]
There's no guarantees you'll steamroll them. At low level you probably will, but that's mostly because wizards are weak at low levels -- a party of Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue/Wizard will be fine without a dedicated healer.
I myself don't fudge dice rolls. Instead I do something else like conveniently forget to add an effect or bonus dmg or "forget" to use a deadly recharge ability or attack if I realize that I messed up so bad that a hotfix won't be enough to prevent some acute DM disaster.
Oh and I sometimes fudge DC:s and AC:s when needed, if the players don't know them yet. Also I may fudge monster modifiers after rolling, which is probably the same as fudging the roll, except that it's a permanent hotfix.
They make a save or land a hit that they shouldn't and then I realize that I made a mistake with their modifiers.
Or a players rolls really well for their level and I realize the AC is too high or too low for the fight to be balanced and most of all dynamic.
Most often I do it to keep the fight dynamic. It's not very much fun if 3/4 rolls are fails. It's just draggy. 😄
But to me this is fixing my own mistakes in encounter design. If the fight was decently balanced, them I don't intentionally protect my players from death - only from my mistakes.
These happen every now and then. Mostly due to lack of time/energy for designing the game so it's more improv than you'd like. But that's just life. 😄
Finland GMT/UTC +2
To me one of the best things in pprpgs is that it can be whatever we like and we can make interesting characters.
Needing a Healer kinda makes it feel like looking for a World of Warcraft group to run an instance. That's not what rolegames are to me.
So if none of my players want to play a healer, then I'll either give them some other access to healing or design a game that is fun and challenging without healing.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Like I said, feel free to completely disregard anything I've said. Different playstyles work for different groups. In my games, party composition tends to be somewhat important because I want there to be a relatively significant threat of death. That's not to say the party always needs a tank, a glass canon, a healer, and a scout. But I personally wouldn't give the party more healing potions to make up for a lack of healers. Just as I wouldn't give the party all mithril armour because they don't have a Rogue.
[REDACTED]
Dice rolls should never be fudged. The game is designed to let what happens happen.
Monsters die and players get death saving throws and several spells to bring back to life if they do die.
If players find out you fudge they can never really trust what else you might or might not fudge.
It should be noted that in the PBP forums it is bothersome and obvious to fudge rolls
Attack: 18 Damage: 11
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
At one time, early in my DM experience, I did fudge die rolls. It was fun, players had fun, DM had fun, characters never died.
Then, the players noticed that characters never died. The occasional unlikely and outrageous things the party would attempt became gradually more frequent, the characters would take bigger and bigger risks as the player's realized that whatever they did they weren't likely to die because the DM fudged the outcomes. Eventually, and gradually, it reached a point where neither the players nor the DM were having much fun because there wasn't any real sense of risk. I decided after that experience that it really wasn't worth fudging dice rolls. Rolling dice represents the real risk to the characters during any encounter and that is a source of real tension.
Some groups are exclusively focused on role playing, on creating a joint narrative or story and they know where they want it to go - in those cases, which I find rare, the DM fudging outcomes contributes to the type of game the players want to run.
However, for most players and DMs I have met, they prefer if the story is not predictable, that the players and DM don't entirely control the narrative and storyline. In most of the games I have played or run, some of the most memorable experiences have been due to the vagaries of the dice, when a cool and unlikely attempt at something happens because of an unlikely die roll and not because the DM says it happened.
As an example, my level 4 rogue in a Tomb of Annihilation game was critically bitten by a giant crocodile doing 6d10+5 damage. It came within 1 hit point of instantly killing my character and it was a very memorable event. The character wore the scars of the crocodile bite for the rest of the game even after they recovered. However, it would not have been nearly as exciting if the DM had decided that the croc rolled a 19, did enough damage to leave my rogue at 2 hit points allowing them to use the next turn to bonus action disengage, run away and subsequently shoot the crocodile with the a bow. The player may not realize how reality was edited but eventually they will as nothing "life threatening" really happens in the shared narrative as the DM prevents those events from happening.
So these days, I roll everything in the open.
The bad guy makes a critical save or they don't, crits happen. Encounter balance on the fly can be controlled by the decisions the NPCs make in terms of who they attack and the special abilities they use, whether they are interested in prisoners or not etc,and by adjusting monster hit points or as a last recourse other monster stats. (Orcs for example have 2d8+6 hit points for a range of 8 to 22 for a typical orc with an average of 15 - every creature doesn't have to have average hit points). There are several other techniques including setting up encounters in waves so that the difficulty can be scaled through the encounter. These may constitute the DM "fudging" the encounter but they aren't fudging the die rolls, so luck, both good and bad remains a factor.
P.S. The problem with crits and level 1 characters is most easily mitigated by making them level 2 characters (and higher) so in the games I run, players stay at level 1 for only one or two sessions and the encounters tend to be cautiously built and rely on the party using team work - making individual character deaths less likely but it can still happen. If it does, then the player can craft a new character and they typically aren't as attached to the one that died since they played it for such a short time.