The town has been hit by a demon rising from the depths.  The ground is splitting as lava rises between the breaks.  Sections drop into the molten rock, vaporizing anything or anyone unfortunate enough to be trapped.  Sections rise upwards, stranding innocent townsfolk.  The players party spots a small boy on one of these rising pillars of rock.  The bard takes off at a sprint to leap over the lava and onto the rising column.  There is no doubt, however, lava will kill you upon contact.  Her plan is to scoop up the kid, and then leap back down from the higher platform.  She makes her skill check for the leap and...

Rolls a 2.

How should she die?

 EDIT TO CLARIFY SCENARIO:

The lava is sufficiently deep that a falling character will become submerged and possibly be unable to surface.  Similarly at 18D10 damage for submersion, a typical damage roll will be in the ballpark of 90 HP damage.  For the sake of argument this particular bard cannot soak 90 damage. :)

Also, if she disappears into the lava stream it's unlikely a body will be recovered.

I voted for top option. Party already had their chance to stop her when she announced she was doing it for that.

dont be afraid to kill characters.

barring ridiculous mods to a “2” roll... I don’t think her roll is even close enough to the DC to essentially hit the side for like a strength save to hold on tight kinda thing.

she basically did all but a Charlie Brown flip as he whiffs on kicking a football.

Have her roll to catch herself, but don't let her off completely. If she does, maybe it can be a side quest to ressurrect her.

Mmm... I wouldn't go for player death here on a unlucky roll on a heroic action to save a kid... perfect situation to make it super dramatic and memorable though... like to think I would have gone for " As you run to make the leap it seems as if the demons have the strings of fate firmly in there grips the ground shakes and shatters beneath your feet and gouts of flame shoot up just as you are pushing off take 2D8 flame damage and your leap lands short you are clinging to the side of rising pillar of rock with the kid on it, the lava bubbling and spitting menacingly below you... make a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check to climb up "  

The DMG lists damage from lava in its improvised damage table...10d10 for wading in a lava stream (I would assume per turn) and 18d10 for being submerged (again, assumed per turn).  That’s a lot, but not potentially fatal if the PC level is high enough. It might give her another chance to get out of there

Also, how long was the leap?  Is it less than the normal long jump distance or more?  If less You could make the roll be to land right rather than for the leap itself.  You could injure the PC while still letting them live

Agreed. I would roll for damage from the lava which would possibly give her a round to get out of the lava and survive. Maybe she’d die in the first round and maybe she wouldn’t. 

I would (at least in my ideal world) have:

1. Made it very clear before she jumps that this might put her in a lethal situation. (And remind her of any inspiration etc she might use).
2. If she choose to jump and roll a 2: I would put her in a worse situation. For instance - you can choose between 1.) landing in the lava and dying, but possibly save the boy because he can use you as a bridge, or 2.) landing on the pillar, knocking the boy into the lava.
   1. If she chooses to sacrifices herself, I would let the boy survive. No more throws!
   2. If she knocks of the boy, she has to get back to land. I would expect the other players to help her.

If however I as a DM had stated before she jumps that this is either "make it or die", I think I would still have allowed the other players to try to come up with different ways to save/help her. If no-one manages, she would die.

And to those who just made the lava less dangerous - that wasn't part of this challenge as I saw it. I think the dilemma the OP wanted to discuss was: what do you do when a player does something where failure means certain death.

Quote from GodrickGreat >>

 

And to those who just made the lava less dangerous - that wasn't part of this challenge as I saw it. I think the dilemma the OP wanted to discuss was: what do you do when a player does something where failure means certain death.

Heya Godrick, good to see you over here.  I'm guess you can surmise where this particular thought experiment arose from.  

And yes I did want to see what other DM's took as their thought on this particular scenario.  I'm not a huge fan of "Appeal to the Masses" but I confess a certain affinity to know if I'm alone in the left field bleachers or if there are other kindred spirits.

My vote was the "give the party all a chance to either stop her or help her once they realize she isn't going to make it".  Maybe everyone is having a crap night and she's gonna die.  But then again, maybe when the halfling slide tackles her, that leads to some really awesome character moments. "I saved your life!"  "No you didn't, I would have made it!" and back and forth.

I do think that the emphasis on "hey, we're talking lethal damage, are you sure?" is important but I'd still want my players to come up with a plan or a test run anyway.  What I wouldn't want them to do is to walk away with a shrug of "That looks too dangerous, we should move on".  The only thing worse than that would be for her to roll, fail, die and say "Meh... whatever.  Should I roll up a rogue now?"

To the mod’s point:

I will clarify my vote for the horrible failing.

is, if the player moved 30 feet or more for the jump. That’s a minimum of 6 seconds the party already had to react. So they chose not to react at all during the 6 seconds (possibly more).

the 2 roll. That’s pretty bad. Even assuming a bard, expertise acrobatics, +5 dex. Which I don’t think is case, but even assuming that. That’s somewhere between an 11-19 on the roll depending on their level.

goven the scenario you painted I assume it’s a DC check of around 15 to make it safely.

so if the miss rate is far from the DC. For example. A 4 after mods to the acrobatics check for the 2 roll.

i don’t think that should be rewarded as a “you hit the column halfway up, try to grab”, I do agree with the mods point of, if the heroism is in line with their traits and flaws giving them inspiration for it.

but that could be seen as a weird view by others and set a weird expectation for future scenarios where natural selection needed to run its course- if you did that. Modify it to where they could add a bardic inspiration die roll to their roll instead maybe. As that will seem less “plot armor”y.

the lava damage is a good point about the char may survive depending on their health and the roll of the 18d10.

small chance they take 18 damage. Which is survivable.

what you COULD do that was not an option...

have the NPC she was trying to save roll some check to assist/grab her as she misses or whatever. That way she’s not completely high and dry, and because the kid would likely be the one most acutely aware to her efforts to save them. Maybe he catches her somehow, stick, arm, shirt, whatever . And then she has a chance to grab the rock and hang on and climb.

but that would be up to the NPC commoner kid’s roll. But it’s better than a 0% chance.

edit:

Godrick also provided a great scenario of its either she does or manages up there but knocks the boy off as a side effect.

again, giving the commoner boy 1 roll wave attempt for himself. To try and achieve 5% glory.

or whatever his survivability odds would be.

@Rorlins: I had my suspicions where this started yes :-D

My vote were the same as yours:  "Give the party checks for insight/ Dex/ etc to stop the player before she leaps, realizing she won't make it"

And I completely agree with your last paragraph. That was why I in this situation might have given the player the choice: You failed to save both of you, now you have to choose. Do you save yourself or the boy? If this was at the end of a session/arc of the campaign, that could be awesome! Die a hero, or survive with bad consciousness.

If this was at the beginning of the game/session, I would probably have gone for something like: "You realizes you can't make it to the pillar, so you end up aiming on another one nearer to "land". Then I would have made it very clear that going further would mean death unless he rolled at least XX on a fitting check, but I would have allowed him to go back without rolling, and just describe how the boy was taken by the lava. If the player then choose to go on - well then he has chosen to play dice with death all by himself. But I would have given him the odds before he chose.

So, first comment - this is  A PRETTY BAD PLACE to be as a DM. No matter what you decide right now, you've now in the situation where the player's fate is decided not by his actions, but by your whims, maybe by some arguments on the internet or something. Because the roll's already made, the player's action is decided, but whether he dies or not is still in limbo. You should have figured out what the consequences of success and failure were BEFORE the roll and made sure the player knew what sort of things they were risking. Moreover, you should probably decided the DC of the check, too - I note you did not mention that in your post.

Second comment - why don't you just follow the rules for jumping? https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/adventuring#SpecialTypesofMovement They don't actually have the roll influence the distance you jump - the roll would affect whether you land prone or on your feet, and, if you're jumping OVER something, whether you hit the obstacle. If the bard failed at the jump because they hit an obstacle in the middle, obviously they should be able to grab it and not die. You didn't mention the distance the bard was jumping  - that distance and height the bard was jumping are more relevant than the roll, IMO.

Third comment - a fail is a fail, 5e does not typically do critical fails or degrees of failure. They rolled a 2 (out of a DC that's not specified, you didn't say) - it's the same as if they had rolled a 15 and the DC was 16. 

So, what was the roll FOR? If it was for a horizontal jump, then failing the roll just means the bard lands prone instead of on their feet. Fine, then they land prone, that's not falling into lava. If it's for height, well, the height the bard can jump isn't very big, only a few feet. The bard can definitely reach with their arms as far as their jump height, so the roll probably wasn't "land on feet" or "die", it only makes sense as "land on feet" or "Grab with arms", or between "Grab with arms" or "die". So if the bard had enough jump distance to expect to land on her feet, plus or minus 2-3 feet of height they had to roll for, then there's really no possible way for a fail there to end up with instant death instead of grabbing on to the ledge. On the other hand, if the bard was expecting to barely reach the platform with her fingers, then failure is death.

So, what was the setup? What was the distance and height of the jump, and did the player know whether they were attempting a "land on feet or land prone" roll, a "land on feet or grab with hands" roll, or a "grab with hands or die" roll?

Oh, and we've gone a heck of a lot of posts in this thread without *actually* linking to the Jumping rules: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/adventuring#SpecialTypesofMovement

Why not just give her an inspiration out right for her heroic action? Then she can use it to reroll.

Hi BigLizard - I think we agree where this started (for those who wasn't/isn't part of that, it was this discussion.)

I think you are reading Rorlins like the Devil reads the Bible when you say: 

Quote from BigLizard >>

 

The position Rorlins had in our previous discussion was that it was within the confines of D&D to run a game where characters were immortal, they cannot die, under any circumstance which is an option notably absent from the poll.  You should have included an option that says.

 

Here is a quote of what he said:

Character death should be possible but it has to service the broader enjoyment of the game.   Death is always possible in a world of magic and swords.  I've never said "Never kill a character".  What I said was to use it carefully and when it works for the story. 

That's not saying he is running a game of immortals (at least it doesn't sound like that to me). To me it seams that Rorlins (like myself), does allow players more leeway on some rolls than others, preferring to use other consequences than death. I live fine by that way of DM'ing, but it doesn't mean I never have players make rolls that might get them kill.

Indeed the option of "There's no way the character dies; they all have plot armor" is not listed because, frankly, no one has plot armor as such.  I ~DO~ believe (as do quite a few respondents) that there is some room for "try again" or "let's make a few more rolls to see if your character is dead."  Which is a bit different from "Hey, if they aren't taking risk seriously, death is what happens."

To be fair I never expected a majority in any direction, in particular.  It's quite possible that many of us are indeed playing DnD "wrong".  I suppose that is a matter of definitions.

I also think it is very cool to consider this a tactical exercise.  The "how far is the chasm, how far up does she need to fly, what do the rules establish for that, specifically?"  I don't usually get that into the technical side of things but I appreciate those who do.  I think I had too many bad "battle board" experiences in college where DnD was more like the old Chainmail game of tactical mini combat rather than an RPG.  Or maybe it was the use of it so "easily" in 4th edition that made me back away. 

As quoted in the DMG, there are a lot of options with how to run a game.  I like mine loose and fast, but that also requires a certain agility when a life is on the line to avoid the "that's not fair, I had no way of knowing it was going to be a DC 17!!!!" situation.

Quote from WuDnD >>

Why not just give her an inspiration out right for her heroic action? Then she can use it to reroll.

That is a listed option sort of.  AFAIK (and I"m open to correction) you need to announce the use of inspiration before you roll as you're then supposed to roll twice and use both dice.  Giving the inspiration after the failed roll would sorta break that "rule" but would make sense in the context of "c'mon, one more try".

As others have stated, I wouldn't force one unlucky die roll to determine a character's death if the character was in the midst of doing something SO selfless and heroic. 

I would give the player a choice. Something like...

"You sprint over the shifting rocks toward the helpless child, but just as you plant your foot for the final leap, the ground shifts unexpectedly underneath you. Your momentum carries you toward the child's column of rock, but you quickly realize that you'll be unable to get both yourself AND the child to safety.. . . . which will it be?" 

This way, you give the player a sense of agency in their character's fate. Since the player made that action choice to begin with, they will probably choose to save the child. But this gives them a chance to die not in vain, but in one last valiant act of courage and self sacrifice that other bards will be singing about for generations to come.

I'm just going to answer the question.

If it is possible for the character to slip off the pillar and fall to solid ground taking fatal damage, I would have this happen.  The players and game mechanics address whether the PC could be resurrected or left dead.

If it were not possible for the player to fall into anything but the lava, then the player falls into the lava and there is no chance for resurrection.

If the DM didn't consider the potential for PC death, they learned not to put a desperate child on top of a pillar in a lake of molten rock.

If the PC thought, they couldn't die, they learned they could.  Maybe they will use a rope or some other device to help them out next time.

It sounds like the DM wants the player to keep playing.  Make a new character and roll on.

Enjoy.