Definitely can seem punishing IMO, but I really hate that the best strategy to healing is to let them get reduced to 0 first. I want the players to avoid getting reduced to 0 like the plague.
One of the reasons for short rest being 6 seconds in my game, it gives a desperate p.c. at low H.P. an option to run for cover and take a short rest to heal up.
Desperate PCs at low health can just make a run for it and run away. There's no mandate to stay and fight to the death, at least most of the time.
In my games falling to 0 means death as finishers exists. My mobs dont stop hitting i there is a healer nearby. The death spiral comes fast so they preffer to avoid falling to 0.
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Definitely can seem punishing IMO, but I really hate that the best strategy to healing is to let them get reduced to 0 first. I want the players to avoid getting reduced to 0 like the plague.
One of the reasons for short rest being 6 seconds in my game, it gives a desperate p.c. at low H.P. an option to run for cover and take a short rest to heal up.
Desperate PCs at low health can just make a run for it and run away. There's no mandate to stay and fight to the death, at least most of the time.
Yeah, no kidding, the concept of "every challenge can be overcome with violence, and all combat involving PCs can/should be winnable" is generally a bad one to have at a table. Players become much stronger after having that concept beaten out of them, and as a DM you'll eventually start pulling out all your hair trying to keep a bunch of suicidal barbarians breathing. Let them suffer the full consequences of their mistakes!
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
More of my House Rules - this time concerning Rests.
HURT CONDITION
As a House Rule, I am instituting a new condition, called 'Hurt'. This condition is automatically applied to your character if they are at or below their 25% Hit Point maximum. A Hurt creature cannot benefit from Hit Dice expenditure during a short or long rest.
<snip>
At the end of the long rest and, as a House Rule, as long as your character doesn't have the Hurt condition, you can spend one or more Hit Dice up to your character's maximum number of Hit Dice. For each Hit Die spent in this way, you roll the die and add your Constitution modifier to it. Your character regains hit points equal to the total (minimum of 0). You can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll. The character also regains spent Hit Dice, up to a number of dice equal to half of the character's total number of them (rounded down and a minimum of one die).
Out of curiosity... how would one lose the Hurt condition in your campaign?
Yeah, no kidding, the concept of "every challenge can be overcome with violence, and all combat involving PCs can/should be winnable" is generally a bad one to have at a table. Players become much stronger after having that concept beaten out of them, and as a DM you'll eventually start pulling out all your hair trying to keep a bunch of suicidal barbarians breathing. Let them suffer the full consequences of their mistakes!
Indeed :) The way I was brought up in the game, it's considered polite to have that first time they learn this fact lead to them waking up in a dungeon, rather than dead. They keep fighting because for some reason these 15 random gnolls really must be killed, and then the last one of them drops to 0. They wake up in a cage on the back of a gnoll slave cart, heading to market. They can see their weapons and items piled up two carts in front of them. There's a woman with two children huddled in the cart with them. They are all naked and at 2 HP. Go! :D
Then if they keep not understanding, then the rolling of new characters becomes more frequent.
Definitely can seem punishing IMO, but I really hate that the best strategy to healing is to let them get reduced to 0 first. I want the players to avoid getting reduced to 0 like the plague.
One of the reasons for short rest being 6 seconds in my game, it gives a desperate p.c. at low H.P. an option to run for cover and take a short rest to heal up.
Desperate PCs at low health can just make a run for it and run away. There's no mandate to stay and fight to the death, at least most of the time.
In the current game there is no fear of being reduced to 0 H.P., it is actually the best strategy for healers, to let them drop before bringing them up.
Definitely can seem punishing IMO, but I really hate that the best strategy to healing is to let them get reduced to 0 first. I want the players to avoid getting reduced to 0 like the plague.
One of the reasons for short rest being 6 seconds in my game, it gives a desperate p.c. at low H.P. an option to run for cover and take a short rest to heal up.
Desperate PCs at low health can just make a run for it and run away. There's no mandate to stay and fight to the death, at least most of the time.
Yeah, no kidding, the concept of "every challenge can be overcome with violence, and all combat involving PCs can/should be winnable" is generally a bad one to have at a table. Players become much stronger after having that concept beaten out of them, and as a DM you'll eventually start pulling out all your hair trying to keep a bunch of suicidal barbarians breathing. Let them suffer the full consequences of their mistakes!
Yep. that is why I made being reduced to 0 H.P. really suck, so that there is a real consequence. Per RAW it is no big deal.
In my games falling to 0 means death as finishers exists. My mobs dont stop hitting i there is a healer nearby. The death spiral comes fast so they preffer to avoid falling to 0.
What is the logic for them to continue to attack something that is no longer a threat, when there are other threats? I know my players stop attacking at 0 why wouldn't the bad guys? Seems like you play them like bloodthirsty idiots that have no care about their own survival.
In the current game there is no fear of being reduced to 0 H.P., it is actually the best strategy for healers, to let them drop before bringing them up.
It's the best strategy until they take 2 melee attacks before the healer gets a turn and instantly die from having 4 death saves.
In the current game there is no fear of being reduced to 0 H.P., it is actually the best strategy for healers, to let them drop before bringing them up.
It's the best strategy until they take 2 melee attacks before the healer gets a turn and instantly die from having 4 death saves.
And they get to do that in part because the PC at 0 HP isn't there to keep fighting them. Losing a party member for 1 or 2 rounds can also hurt the other PCs.
I'm guessing the benefit here stems from spells available to people at/below 0, that can't be used on people above 0? So the idea is that letting your fighter drop and lose this turn, and then maybe even lose next turn depending on when the cleric can get to him, is worth it for a few more HP returned to him, even though you've now lost maybe 2 rounds of that fighter's damage output?
The idea is that there's no negative HP in 5e so if the Fighter has 5 HP and gets hit for 20, then gets healed for 5, the party mitigated 10 damage.
If that's the case, the strategy only seems to make sense when you only have weak healing available, such as Healing Word and regular Potions of Healing. Things that are really best used to bounce someone back up from 0, since they're only recovering a handful of HP anyway.
If you have more significant healing--especially if you also have a dedicated healer party member--then that seems needlessly risky.
More of my House Rules - this time concerning Rests.
HURT CONDITION
As a House Rule, I am instituting a new condition, called 'Hurt'. This condition is automatically applied to your character if they are at or below their 25% Hit Point maximum. A Hurt creature cannot benefit from Hit Dice expenditure during a short or long rest.
<snip>
At the end of the long rest and, as a House Rule, as long as your character doesn't have the Hurt condition, you can spend one or more Hit Dice up to your character's maximum number of Hit Dice. For each Hit Die spent in this way, you roll the die and add your Constitution modifier to it. Your character regains hit points equal to the total (minimum of 0). You can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll. The character also regains spent Hit Dice, up to a number of dice equal to half of the character's total number of them (rounded down and a minimum of one die).
Out of curiosity... how would one lose the Hurt condition in your campaign?
Oh, good question. I forgot to include that in the description. Once the character gets above 25% of their Hit Point maximum. This can be done several ways (e.g., magic or Long Rests).
In my games falling to 0 means death as finishers exists. My mobs dont stop hitting i there is a healer nearby. The death spiral comes fast so they preffer to avoid falling to 0.
What is the logic for them to continue to attack something that is no longer a threat, when there are other threats? I know my players stop attacking at 0 why wouldn't the bad guys? Seems like you play them like bloodthirsty idiots that have no care about their own survival.
Then i ask you one question... Why are the players stopping when an enemy drops ? Is it really cause it is down or is it because as a dm you taught them that enemies are insta dead at 0 hp ? My players dont stop and push death saving throws cause i thought them that the enemies also benefits from death saving throws ! Forced them to realise that each enemies they fought and did not made sure they died... Could potentially come back to haunt them with stronger parties.
It is not idiotic to bash a downed opponent. Not if you realise that they also can be healed. Not when you realise that everything the players can do... Can also be done by the monsters !
My monsters... They use doors... They use traps. They use spells and my dragons usually dont fight in close range and make good use of their flying abilities !
My players live in that fear of those beast because they are a threat.
The point is... Players learn !!!
If something is wrong it is 99% of the time because you, as a dm, taught them to act like that. If players are not afraid of your enemies, it might be cause you are not giving them good challenges. If they think they are unkillable. It might be because they never felt the threats. If they use healing and your monsters dont... Then maybe you are the one giving the players too much of an edge and now they think theyll get away with recklessness. Or maybe you play like a video game and now they are not afraid of dieing and making new characters. In which case you taught them not to care for their characters.
Golden rule... At least for me... Players learn... Teach them well !
DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Then i ask you one question... Why are the players stopping when an enemy drops ? Is it really cause it is down or is it because as a dm you taught them that enemies are insta dead at 0 hp ?
The Player's Handbook tells players that most DMs will kill off monsters at 0 hit points.
It is not idiotic to bash a downed opponent. Not if you realise that they also can be healed. Not when you realise that everything the players can do... Can also be done by the monsters !
Yeah, but just because the DM can make monsters do anything the players can do doesn't mean they should. Monsters healing mid-fight drags out combat. Monsters stunning players takes them out of the game, which isn't fun.
It feels to me like the designers of 5e have fully embraced the, "Everyone gets a medal!" mentality when it comes to PC death. Unless you play monsters and NPCs as "lessons" where you punish PCs for falling in battle with more shots, it's really hard to have a PC die (not that you should want that). Moreover, in a combat full of action and enemies, why would a bad guy take an action to slit the throat of an out-of-commission enemy (other than the DM knowledge that that's the only way to keep the PCs down)?
What was wrong with the negative Hit Point to Con-system and "bleeding out?" Actually, I know part of the reason... if your PC has 2 Hit Points left and a bad guy does 23 points of damage, that death just sucks; however, this calls into play tactics. If you're that screwed up, get the healer up there or get your ass out of battle.
What was wrong with the negative Hit Point to Con-system and "bleeding out?" Actually, I know part of the reason... if your PC has 2 Hit Points left and a bad guy does 23 points of damage, that death just sucks; however, this calls into play tactics. If you're that screwed up, get the healer up there or get your ass out of battle.
The problem with that system is that all it takes is one bad tactical decision (or monsters surprising the party, which is partially up to the dice) for players to get into an "oops, I'm dead" situation. That works fine for Dark Souls because you can get back up and try again, but in D&D you don't just respawn at your last bonfire.
I don't think the vast majority of people playing D&D today are looking for some gritty tactics combat simulator where every encounter could be your last. There's nothing wrong with that kind of game, but the sales pitch for D&D is basically "Hey, you get to pretend you're a hero!" so it's safer to default to less lethal rules and let the players opt into higher difficulty than vice-versa. They're the protagonists, they get some amount of plot armor.
I am curious why you feel the best strategy for healing is to let them get reduced to 0 first. Am I missing something?
Desperate PCs at low health can just make a run for it and run away. There's no mandate to stay and fight to the death, at least most of the time.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
And then the much under used and under appreciate chase mechanics come into play!
I wonder the same thing.
In my games falling to 0 means death as finishers exists. My mobs dont stop hitting i there is a healer nearby. The death spiral comes fast so they preffer to avoid falling to 0.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Yeah, no kidding, the concept of "every challenge can be overcome with violence, and all combat involving PCs can/should be winnable" is generally a bad one to have at a table. Players become much stronger after having that concept beaten out of them, and as a DM you'll eventually start pulling out all your hair trying to keep a bunch of suicidal barbarians breathing. Let them suffer the full consequences of their mistakes!
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Out of curiosity... how would one lose the Hurt condition in your campaign?
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
Indeed :) The way I was brought up in the game, it's considered polite to have that first time they learn this fact lead to them waking up in a dungeon, rather than dead. They keep fighting because for some reason these 15 random gnolls really must be killed, and then the last one of them drops to 0. They wake up in a cage on the back of a gnoll slave cart, heading to market. They can see their weapons and items piled up two carts in front of them. There's a woman with two children huddled in the cart with them. They are all naked and at 2 HP. Go! :D
Then if they keep not understanding, then the rolling of new characters becomes more frequent.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
In the current game there is no fear of being reduced to 0 H.P., it is actually the best strategy for healers, to let them drop before bringing them up.
Yep. that is why I made being reduced to 0 H.P. really suck, so that there is a real consequence. Per RAW it is no big deal.
What is the logic for them to continue to attack something that is no longer a threat, when there are other threats? I know my players stop attacking at 0 why wouldn't the bad guys? Seems like you play them like bloodthirsty idiots that have no care about their own survival.
Why do you say that?
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
It's the best strategy until they take 2 melee attacks before the healer gets a turn and instantly die from having 4 death saves.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
And they get to do that in part because the PC at 0 HP isn't there to keep fighting them. Losing a party member for 1 or 2 rounds can also hurt the other PCs.
I'm guessing the benefit here stems from spells available to people at/below 0, that can't be used on people above 0? So the idea is that letting your fighter drop and lose this turn, and then maybe even lose next turn depending on when the cleric can get to him, is worth it for a few more HP returned to him, even though you've now lost maybe 2 rounds of that fighter's damage output?
I'm skeptical.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
The idea is that there's no negative HP in 5e so if the Fighter has 5 HP and gets hit for 20, then gets healed for 5, the party mitigated 10 damage.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
If that's the case, the strategy only seems to make sense when you only have weak healing available, such as Healing Word and regular Potions of Healing. Things that are really best used to bounce someone back up from 0, since they're only recovering a handful of HP anyway.
If you have more significant healing--especially if you also have a dedicated healer party member--then that seems needlessly risky.
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
Oh, good question. I forgot to include that in the description. Once the character gets above 25% of their Hit Point maximum. This can be done several ways (e.g., magic or Long Rests).
Then i ask you one question... Why are the players stopping when an enemy drops ? Is it really cause it is down or is it because as a dm you taught them that enemies are insta dead at 0 hp ? My players dont stop and push death saving throws cause i thought them that the enemies also benefits from death saving throws ! Forced them to realise that each enemies they fought and did not made sure they died... Could potentially come back to haunt them with stronger parties.
It is not idiotic to bash a downed opponent. Not if you realise that they also can be healed. Not when you realise that everything the players can do... Can also be done by the monsters !
My monsters... They use doors... They use traps. They use spells and my dragons usually dont fight in close range and make good use of their flying abilities !
My players live in that fear of those beast because they are a threat.
The point is... Players learn !!!
If something is wrong it is 99% of the time because you, as a dm, taught them to act like that. If players are not afraid of your enemies, it might be cause you are not giving them good challenges. If they think they are unkillable. It might be because they never felt the threats. If they use healing and your monsters dont... Then maybe you are the one giving the players too much of an edge and now they think theyll get away with recklessness. Or maybe you play like a video game and now they are not afraid of dieing and making new characters. In which case you taught them not to care for their characters.
Golden rule... At least for me... Players learn... Teach them well !
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
The Player's Handbook tells players that most DMs will kill off monsters at 0 hit points.
Yeah, but just because the DM can make monsters do anything the players can do doesn't mean they should. Monsters healing mid-fight drags out combat. Monsters stunning players takes them out of the game, which isn't fun.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
It feels to me like the designers of 5e have fully embraced the, "Everyone gets a medal!" mentality when it comes to PC death. Unless you play monsters and NPCs as "lessons" where you punish PCs for falling in battle with more shots, it's really hard to have a PC die (not that you should want that). Moreover, in a combat full of action and enemies, why would a bad guy take an action to slit the throat of an out-of-commission enemy (other than the DM knowledge that that's the only way to keep the PCs down)?
What was wrong with the negative Hit Point to Con-system and "bleeding out?" Actually, I know part of the reason... if your PC has 2 Hit Points left and a bad guy does 23 points of damage, that death just sucks; however, this calls into play tactics. If you're that screwed up, get the healer up there or get your ass out of battle.
The problem with that system is that all it takes is one bad tactical decision (or monsters surprising the party, which is partially up to the dice) for players to get into an "oops, I'm dead" situation. That works fine for Dark Souls because you can get back up and try again, but in D&D you don't just respawn at your last bonfire.
I don't think the vast majority of people playing D&D today are looking for some gritty tactics combat simulator where every encounter could be your last. There's nothing wrong with that kind of game, but the sales pitch for D&D is basically "Hey, you get to pretend you're a hero!" so it's safer to default to less lethal rules and let the players opt into higher difficulty than vice-versa. They're the protagonists, they get some amount of plot armor.
The Forum Infestation (TM)