Would just getting rid of characters being killed outright help. So even if the character had 8 hp at level 1 and a crit did 20 damage they still just drop to zero and have death saves.
I think this is a good solution at lower levels. Once you get to around Level 5 there's not much that can outright kill you unless you do something risky, stupid, or both.
I'm a pretty firm believer in that consequences should result in player deaths, not purely poor dice rolls. We've all been momentary victims of the Wil Wheaton curse and it's so disheartening when a player is trying to use ingenuity and creativity and the dice just aren't on their side - to add death on top of that because a few sub-5 rolls in a row happen to hit can really kill a player's motivation and fun. It also really sucks to have a player spend sometimes a week or more coming up with a character, a backstory, and how they fit into the world just to have that character die during the second combat of the campaign because the goblin got a max damage crit on a crossbow.
Similarly, you can keep the D20 roll the same but instead fudge the damage roll of the crit so it doesn't outright kill.
First off, what DM puts a CR 2 monster up against level 1 chars? I gave an example of a 4th level char dying to a CR 2.
But ultimately, here is the thing. I gave examples of CR 1/2 Hobgoblins insta-killing a char. Simply put, it can happen, and SHOULD happen. Only the lucky and smart will survive in a well run campaign, otherwise the DM is simply a disney tour guide. And so what if a 1st level char dies? Bring a bunch to every session, and when one dies, pull out the next one. I find it hilarious that you want to bump a 7 HP 1st level char up to 22 HP, which would be its equivalent at 4th level. That won't make the job of new DM's any harder, no...not all.
Exactly. CR is badly flawed. And yes, giving starting characters HP boosts... how is that different from fudging dice when needed? You are effectively pre-fudging.
That is a really, really easy question to answer - one is a real solution utilising the rules of the game which would effect every single table; the other is not. Wizards could easily make something like “starting HP = maximum class dice + con mod + 15” as a rule; they will never make “DMs can fudge dice” RAW.
And, even if we are talking homebrew solutions, this could apply to all tables - plenty of DMs will not fudge numbers simply because they believe the dice fall as the dice fall. That group might see increasing HP as a way to let the dice still roll how they will, while still lessening the risk of instant and unavoidable low-level death.
First off, what DM puts a CR 2 monster up against level 1 chars? I gave an example of a 4th level char dying to a CR 2.
But ultimately, here is the thing. I gave examples of CR 1/2 Hobgoblins insta-killing a char. Simply put, it can happen, and SHOULD happen. Only the lucky and smart will survive in a well run campaign, otherwise the DM is simply a disney tour guide. And so what if a 1st level char dies? Bring a bunch to every session, and when one dies, pull out the next one. I find it hilarious that you want to bump a 7 HP 1st level char up to 22 HP, which would be its equivalent at 4th level. That won't make the job of new DM's any harder, no...not all.
Exactly. CR is badly flawed. And yes, giving starting characters HP boosts... how is that different from fudging dice when needed? You are effectively pre-fudging.
That is a really, really easy question to answer - one is a real solution utilising the rules of the game which would effect every single table; the other is not. Wizards could easily make something like “starting HP = maximum class dice + con mod + 15” as a rule; they will never make “DMs can fudge dice” RAW.
And, even if we are talking homebrew solutions, this could apply to all tables - plenty of DMs will not fudge numbers simply because they believe the dice fall as the dice fall. That group might see increasing HP as a way to let the dice still roll how they will, while still lessening the risk of instant and unavoidable low-level death.
So essentially, you want to make the game the equivalent of parents baby-proofing their house for their first-born. You want to make chars unkillable. Like I said before, when a Con 12 Sorcerer now starts at the HP of a 4th level char (22 HP), you are fundamentally changing the game. If you are going that far, then you might as well get rid of HP, and simply state chars can't die, and D&D is now guided tour of the zoo. If there is no risk in the game, it is no longer D&D.
I have been very consistent in saying I want to keep character death at low levels; that I don’t want to remove monster crits; and that I don’t want to remove instant kills. Those are all important features of the game at any level - and I think it is bad game design to make (particularly new) DMs have to learn and remember a whole new set of tools at middle levels that they did have to use or remember at lower levels.
What I have said is that I think a player going from maximum HP to death due to a single roll is also bad game design. You’ll note that my solution does not even prevent crits from killing players who have been damaged a few times - going from hurt to dead is fine in my book. It encourages folks to use healing and positioning to try and mitigate their chances of dying. Going from perfectly healthy to dead because of a single roll is not great design for reasons that are so obvious, one has to be pretty obtuse to miss them. There’s the fact it means a party could have done all they should to prepare, and still be hamstrung by a single roll; there’s the fact a single roll could eliminate a character someone was excited to play through no fault (such as not keeping their HP up) of their own; there’s the fact that it feels unfair to the players (particularly if the DM is rolling behind a screen, so the players might not trust it was a true natural 20).
Additionally, increasing max hp allows low-level parties to fight more interesting and dynamic monsters as there would be a greater buffer zone permitting more complex, longer fights, without making such fights unfair to the players.
A slight early-game HP bump solves the full HP to dead problem without requiring fundamental rule changes, influencing higher level play in a measurable manner, and can even help those DMs who want more fun and dangerous fights during the (boring) level 1-3 period. It is the easiest, least invasive solution to a particularly poor piece of game design. The only folks it should not satisfy are those who want the early levels to be completely safe and that particularly inept kind of DM who thinks a natural 20 should kill a player who has full health - and neither of those groups should drive rule policy.
"...particularly inept kind of DM who thinks a natural 20 should kill a player who has full health"
I don't think disparaging gameplay styles that want more realism or risk is super helpful here. Any one game system will not be appropriate for all gameplay styles or desires. People can make an argument that WotC should tweak things to broaden their appeal by showing that there is a large unmet market demand for the tweak, but if that falls on deaf ears or the tweak doesn't have broad support there are plenty of rule system out there to move to.
Would an early game HP bump make the game less lethal at those levels? Obviously. Should that be a change to the core rules? I would argue no. Could it be an optional rule in the DMG under some category of 'heroic fantasy' rules to go along with the gritty realism optional rules? Absolutely, and I think that would be a good position for WotC to take myself that would not mess with everything else in the game and make older materials even less backward compatible.
First off, what DM puts a CR 2 monster up against level 1 chars? I gave an example of a 4th level char dying to a CR 2.
But ultimately, here is the thing. I gave examples of CR 1/2 Hobgoblins insta-killing a char. Simply put, it can happen, and SHOULD happen. Only the lucky and smart will survive in a well run campaign, otherwise the DM is simply a disney tour guide. And so what if a 1st level char dies? Bring a bunch to every session, and when one dies, pull out the next one. I find it hilarious that you want to bump a 7 HP 1st level char up to 22 HP, which would be its equivalent at 4th level. That won't make the job of new DM's any harder, no...not all.
Exactly. CR is badly flawed. And yes, giving starting characters HP boosts... how is that different from fudging dice when needed? You are effectively pre-fudging.
That is a really, really easy question to answer - one is a real solution utilising the rules of the game which would effect every single table; the other is not. Wizards could easily make something like “starting HP = maximum class dice + con mod + 15” as a rule; they will never make “DMs can fudge dice” RAW.
And, even if we are talking homebrew solutions, this could apply to all tables - plenty of DMs will not fudge numbers simply because they believe the dice fall as the dice fall. That group might see increasing HP as a way to let the dice still roll how they will, while still lessening the risk of instant and unavoidable low-level death.
"Remember that dice don’t run your game — you do. Dice are like rules. They’re tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player’s action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character’s plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage."
"Dice are neutral arbiters. They can determine the outcome of an action without assigning any motivation to the DM and without playing favorites. The extent to which you use them is entirely up to you."
Feel free to reread the portions of the DMG you quoted—you’ll find they do not disagree with me in the slightest. Not once do they say “you can fudge rolls” - not will they ever. The portions you quoted are both not fully applicable to combat (you’ll note combat has far stricter rules about when advantages and disadvantages are appropriate) and are determinations made before the dice are rolled about the nature of the roll or if one is needed in the first place. Wizards will give DMs plenty of tools they can use to set the stage for the rolls, but is never going to include “but after you do that, you can still fudge the results in RAW.”
DnD 5e is pretty low mortality, except at early levels when it's super high mortality to the point of one hit kills. And I don't mean that an encounter can't be deadly at higher levels, but the mortality rate just takes a deep dive.
A by mortality I mean the odds of dying suddenly. At high levels dnd 5e is very predictable and mathematical in terms of damage. Compared to for example Savage Worlds where a random lvl 1 character can one-shot a legendary hero if they get very lucky.
In DnD 5e
1. Insta kills don't practically exist in balanced fights from maybe lvl 5-6 onwards, so the whole mechanic strangely exists only in the beginning when perma death is already much more likely and nobody knows resurrects. At lvl 6, even if your squishy caster had just 1hp, damage is unlikely to equal your max HP. At level 1, a brown bear can one-shot a caster from full HP to instant death with one average crit. HP and healing increases faster than dmg, which makes fights longer as you get higher.
2. Crits mean less and less and single melee hits, especially the dice are relatively smaller as you get higher. A CR 30 Tarrasque has the following melee attacks: 1x4d6+10, 1x4d12+10, 1x4d10+10, 2x4d8+10. So the toughest creature's toughest melee attack has a crit of 8d12+10, which averages around 58dmg.
A CR 1 brown bear's melee hit deals 2d6+4 and crits 4d6+4, averaging around 16dmg.
So while CR increases 30x, the average crit only increases around 4x.
3. Spells and abilities that can stabilize a character are more expensive and scarce at low levels. At higher levels basic potions are pocket money and healing word becomes practically a cantrip. And you only need to heal 1hp to bring someone back from death saves.
For starters, only dice are doubled, not static damage. Unless the crit is for a spell usually the added value is actually on average less than half of the average damage of the initial hit.
But also, splitting up that damage into two hits can make it much less lethal.
If a PC has 5/10 hp and gets hit for 16 damage they straight up die.
If a PC has 5/10 HP and is hit for 8 damage twice, that's bad for their death saves but not instant death. Also maybe the creature doesn't have multi attack. Or would go after another party member who is still active rather than attack a KOd pc. Or another party member could heal the downed PC before the monster's next turn. Or the PC is a half orc and drops to 1 hp from the first hit.
I don't think that crits neccesarily need to be taken way from monsters though, DMs just need to be a bit more careful about the damage enemies can dish out at level 1.
For starters, only dice are doubled, not static damage. Unless the crit is for a spell usually the added value is actually on average less than half of the average damage of the initial hit.
This just increases the damage from two hits when compared with one crit.
[...]splitting up that damage into two hits can make it much less lethal.
If a PC has 5/10 hp and gets hit for 16 damage they straight up die.
If a PC has 5/10 HP and is hit for 8 damage twice, that's bad for their death saves but not instant death. Also maybe the creature doesn't have multi attack. Or would go after another party member who is still active rather than attack a KOd pc. Or another party member could heal the downed PC before the monster's next turn. Or the PC is a half orc and drops to 1 hp from the first hit.
As you yourself explained earlier, only the damage dice are doubled for a critical hit. This means that the two attacks combined would likely deal more damage than the individual crit does, and this scenario fails to account for that.
Anyways, death and 2 failed death saves are both really bad outcomes. So, well it is bad to have a character get killed, the results of two powerful attacks hitting or one powerful attack critting will be nearly identical. Not only that, but attacks made against a KOd PC have advantage and are an automatic crit, so the two death saves situations are much more likely to occur and about as lethal when they do. Also, the character was already wounded, so a critical hit might be worse in that situation, but it wouldn't be if the character were closer to full health.
I don't think that crits neccesarily need to be taken way from monsters though, DMs just need to be a bit more careful about the damage enemies can dish out at level 1.
I agree that monsters should still be able to crit. And to be honest, I think the problem is DMs who assign incredibly lethal monsters like the one in question above. I mean, if your monster can bring a relatively sturdy character from full health to zero in a single shot, then that monster should only be used in boss fights if you are going to use it at all.
Anyways, two hits and one monster crit are nearly identical. Yes, they have a few differences, but they are very, very close to each other in how dangerous they are.
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For starters, only dice are doubled, not static damage. Unless the crit is for a spell usually the added value is actually on average less than half of the average damage of the initial hit.
But also, splitting up that damage into two hits can make it much less lethal.
If a PC has 5/10 hp and gets hit for 16 damage they straight up die.
If a PC has 5/10 HP and is hit for 8 damage twice, that's bad for their death saves but not instant death. Also maybe the creature doesn't have multi attack. Or would go after another party member who is still active rather than attack a KOd pc. Or another party member could heal the downed PC before the monster's next turn. Or the PC is a half orc and drops to 1 hp from the first hit.
I don't think that crits neccesarily need to be taken way from monsters though, DMs just need to be a bit more careful about the damage enemies can dish out at level 1.
This clearly illustrates how different a fixed amount of damage can be from a crit to taking 2 shots. To refute this, or claim it DOESN'T add to character survivability is to deny basic math and rules, which puts you in homebrew territory. Breaking the 16 damage up into 2 swipes gave the character a chance, they were down and needed help. If that had been a single shot, they would be rerolling a new character while the rest of the party tried to survive the fight.
What most of these "dice rule" folks are stuck on is that it can happen at later levels too. NO SHIT. We aren't talking about a character being 6-8 sessions in and being killed through unfortunate dice rolls. By then some options are likely starting to be available for reviving them (drag the body back to town maybe or some such) We are talking about session 1, maybe an hour in, first fight and BOOM, character is dead. D E A D. No chance for death saves, no chance for a potion or medkit to stabilize, jus flat dead. If that's your table's idea of fun, go crazy. If I was subject to that it would mark the last time I played at that table. When it happened at level 4, I would be disappointed, but would have at LEAST had a chance to play the character I had worked on for a bit. Still sucks, but I wouldn't feel as cheated as if he had gotten a crit insta-death on our first foray.
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For starters, only dice are doubled, not static damage. Unless the crit is for a spell usually the added value is actually on average less than half of the average damage of the initial hit.
But also, splitting up that damage into two hits can make it much less lethal.
If a PC has 5/10 hp and gets hit for 16 damage they straight up die.
If a PC has 5/10 HP and is hit for 8 damage twice, that's bad for their death saves but not instant death. Also maybe the creature doesn't have multi attack. Or would go after another party member who is still active rather than attack a KOd pc. Or another party member could heal the downed PC before the monster's next turn. Or the PC is a half orc and drops to 1 hp from the first hit.
I don't think that crits neccesarily need to be taken way from monsters though, DMs just need to be a bit more careful about the damage enemies can dish out at level 1.
This clearly illustrates how different a fixed amount of damage can be from a crit to taking 2 shots. To refute this, or claim it DOESN'T add to character survivability is to deny basic math and rules, which puts you in homebrew territory. Breaking the 16 damage up into 2 swipes gave the character a chance, they were down and needed help. If that had been a single shot, they would be rerolling a new character while the rest of the party tried to survive the fight.
What most of these "dice rule" folks are stuck on is that it can happen at later levels too. NO SHIT. We aren't talking about a character being 6-8 sessions in and being killed through unfortunate dice rolls. By then some options are likely starting to be available for reviving them (drag the body back to town maybe or some such) We are talking about session 1, maybe an hour in, first fight and BOOM, character is dead. D E A D. No chance for death saves, no chance for a potion or medkit to stabilize, jus flat dead. If that's your table's idea of fun, go crazy. If I was subject to that it would mark the last time I played at that table. When it happened at level 4, I would be disappointed, but would have at LEAST had a chance to play the character I had worked on for a bit. Still sucks, but I wouldn't feel as cheated as if he had gotten a crit insta-death on our first foray.
That example assumes a damaged character though. If we go that route, why not assume 1 HP? In that case, we would not want any monster that could do above 8 damage on a crit to ensure no PC ever goes from alive to dead without death saves. So all mobs would do maximum 1d4 -1 damage on an attack at low levels. if we stick with the original issue (full health to instant death) then a creature that hits for up to 6 damage per hit still has the possibility of killing a wizard in two hits (6 to 0 HP, 0 HP to dead).
This is just a pretty useless mechanic IMO, as I explained before. The mortality rate at low levels is already higher without the insta kill mechanic and insta kills don't really happen anymore at later levels, so it becomes obsolete very quickly. I don't really get the point. What value does it add to the game?
The threat of death is a reason for level 1 characters from unrelated backgrounds, who might not even know each other well, to work together for mutual benefit.
Diluting combat threats undercuts the group dynamic a bit, but more importantly introduces a pathway for more aggressive adventures with less fear. Roleplaying can take uncomfortable turns when there are fewer negative consequences. Especially when players are capable of mathematically predicting enemy outcomes.
Putting aside the decades of D&D history, the arc of most heroes is to grow from lesser ability and into a greater ability to fend off death. Across genres and platforms, the hero separates from the common folk. D&D uses levels for that growth, to varying success, and relies on the DM to help bring that arc to life. Taking out a mechanism from the DM toolkit lessens their ability to do so.
Characterizing crit hits by the DM as a problem, seems the problem to me.
I think lvl 1 characters feel threatened enough without random insta kills.
In our games, players often put lots of effort into character creation and backstories. They aren't just random characters that only become meaningful once they learn fireball. They are meaningful to the player from the beginning. They can also be meaningful and important individuals in lots of ways, just not as adventurers.
So in my eyes, a lvl 1 PC death should be as meaningful as later in the game, not by being randomly one-shotted by the first goblin archer they encounter.
I don't recommend getting rid of monster crits, but the insta death mechanic combined with crits is kinda excessive.
So I proved your point that players don't generally want their characters to die a meaningless death and make a new one right away. Ok. Now what? It's been proven. What does it matter?
I stand by my point.
I believe you said this:
"Chars at low levels are nothing in the arc of the history and lore of a game, and are essentially disposable. 1st level chars are slightly above glorified NPC's. That has always been the way, and always should be."
I mean. Is the DMs purpose to create the arc of history and the lore of the game? Or is the purpose of the game to have fun together? It's not very much fun to randomly die before even getting started.
I would never consider player characters disposable. Disposable for what purpose? The world? My personal gain at the player's expense? No way. The players are not there for me to use in my personal storytelling. If I wanted to tell a story, I'd write a book. Here I want to make an enjoyable game that evolves into a story in collaboration.
I believe you also said something about baby-proofing. Well I don't think I ever said anything even remotely related to that.
What I said, and I can't emphasize this enough, is that the death of a player should hold some meaning or excitement or any value. PC deaths can be satisfying. Even lvl 1 deaths should be meaningful and satisfying. You don't need to plot shield or baby-proof them to accomplish that.
In for example call of cthulhu games everyone is expected to die. But even in a those games they usually die in an exciting way and in meaningful and exciting situations. You don't need to have random deaths lurking behind corners in order to create suspense and a sense of threat.
Now that I went through more of the posts, I feel like our RP cultures are just two different worlds and our expectations for games and definitions of fun are just different.
So I don't think we'll be able to come to a satisfying conclusion here.
Maybe at your table this is considered fun. Who am I to judge. We can all have fun our own way. That's the beauty of these games.
If you are here to just argue and not pay any attention to what is being said, then please argue with someone else.
This a quote from my own reply:
"What I said, and I can't emphasize this enough, is that the death of a player should hold some meaning or excitement or any value. PC deaths can be satisfying. Even lvl 1 deaths should be meaningful and satisfying. You don't need to plot shield or baby-proof them to accomplish that. "
"In for example call of cthulhu games everyone is expected to die. But even in a those games they usually die in an exciting way and in meaningful and exciting situations. You don't need to have random deaths lurking behind corners in order to create suspense and a sense of threat. "
So please stop lying about what I'm doing or saying. I am in no way saying that low level characters shouldn't die. If that isn't clear to you now, then you just want to make your own narrative and that is a waste of my time and energy. Might as well argue with a rock.
And if you think randomly occurring PC deaths are needed to create suspense or make players fear death, then I suggest studying some more. Relying on random PC deaths is very much like comedy relying on laugh tracks and horror writers depending on jump scares.
Let's end this now. You should now hopefully understand that I do not want to abolish player deaths at lower levels. And if you don't by now, then I won't bother explaining again.
I think this is a good solution at lower levels. Once you get to around Level 5 there's not much that can outright kill you unless you do something risky, stupid, or both.
I'm a pretty firm believer in that consequences should result in player deaths, not purely poor dice rolls. We've all been momentary victims of the Wil Wheaton curse and it's so disheartening when a player is trying to use ingenuity and creativity and the dice just aren't on their side - to add death on top of that because a few sub-5 rolls in a row happen to hit can really kill a player's motivation and fun. It also really sucks to have a player spend sometimes a week or more coming up with a character, a backstory, and how they fit into the world just to have that character die during the second combat of the campaign because the goblin got a max damage crit on a crossbow.
Similarly, you can keep the D20 roll the same but instead fudge the damage roll of the crit so it doesn't outright kill.
That is a really, really easy question to answer - one is a real solution utilising the rules of the game which would effect every single table; the other is not. Wizards could easily make something like “starting HP = maximum class dice + con mod + 15” as a rule; they will never make “DMs can fudge dice” RAW.
And, even if we are talking homebrew solutions, this could apply to all tables - plenty of DMs will not fudge numbers simply because they believe the dice fall as the dice fall. That group might see increasing HP as a way to let the dice still roll how they will, while still lessening the risk of instant and unavoidable low-level death.
I have been very consistent in saying I want to keep character death at low levels; that I don’t want to remove monster crits; and that I don’t want to remove instant kills. Those are all important features of the game at any level - and I think it is bad game design to make (particularly new) DMs have to learn and remember a whole new set of tools at middle levels that they did have to use or remember at lower levels.
What I have said is that I think a player going from maximum HP to death due to a single roll is also bad game design. You’ll note that my solution does not even prevent crits from killing players who have been damaged a few times - going from hurt to dead is fine in my book. It encourages folks to use healing and positioning to try and mitigate their chances of dying. Going from perfectly healthy to dead because of a single roll is not great design for reasons that are so obvious, one has to be pretty obtuse to miss them. There’s the fact it means a party could have done all they should to prepare, and still be hamstrung by a single roll; there’s the fact a single roll could eliminate a character someone was excited to play through no fault (such as not keeping their HP up) of their own; there’s the fact that it feels unfair to the players (particularly if the DM is rolling behind a screen, so the players might not trust it was a true natural 20).
Additionally, increasing max hp allows low-level parties to fight more interesting and dynamic monsters as there would be a greater buffer zone permitting more complex, longer fights, without making such fights unfair to the players.
A slight early-game HP bump solves the full HP to dead problem without requiring fundamental rule changes, influencing higher level play in a measurable manner, and can even help those DMs who want more fun and dangerous fights during the (boring) level 1-3 period. It is the easiest, least invasive solution to a particularly poor piece of game design. The only folks it should not satisfy are those who want the early levels to be completely safe and that particularly inept kind of DM who thinks a natural 20 should kill a player who has full health - and neither of those groups should drive rule policy.
"...particularly inept kind of DM who thinks a natural 20 should kill a player who has full health"
I don't think disparaging gameplay styles that want more realism or risk is super helpful here. Any one game system will not be appropriate for all gameplay styles or desires. People can make an argument that WotC should tweak things to broaden their appeal by showing that there is a large unmet market demand for the tweak, but if that falls on deaf ears or the tweak doesn't have broad support there are plenty of rule system out there to move to.
Would an early game HP bump make the game less lethal at those levels? Obviously. Should that be a change to the core rules? I would argue no. Could it be an optional rule in the DMG under some category of 'heroic fantasy' rules to go along with the gritty realism optional rules? Absolutely, and I think that would be a good position for WotC to take myself that would not mess with everything else in the game and make older materials even less backward compatible.
See? This is a big part of the game. Change it if you dare.
Feel free to reread the portions of the DMG you quoted—you’ll find they do not disagree with me in the slightest. Not once do they say “you can fudge rolls” - not will they ever. The portions you quoted are both not fully applicable to combat (you’ll note combat has far stricter rules about when advantages and disadvantages are appropriate) and are determinations made before the dice are rolled about the nature of the roll or if one is needed in the first place. Wizards will give DMs plenty of tools they can use to set the stage for the rolls, but is never going to include “but after you do that, you can still fudge the results in RAW.”
DnD 5e is pretty low mortality, except at early levels when it's super high mortality to the point of one hit kills. And I don't mean that an encounter can't be deadly at higher levels, but the mortality rate just takes a deep dive.
A by mortality I mean the odds of dying suddenly. At high levels dnd 5e is very predictable and mathematical in terms of damage. Compared to for example Savage Worlds where a random lvl 1 character can one-shot a legendary hero if they get very lucky.
In DnD 5e
1. Insta kills don't practically exist in balanced fights from maybe lvl 5-6 onwards, so the whole mechanic strangely exists only in the beginning when perma death is already much more likely and nobody knows resurrects. At lvl 6, even if your squishy caster had just 1hp, damage is unlikely to equal your max HP. At level 1, a brown bear can one-shot a caster from full HP to instant death with one average crit. HP and healing increases faster than dmg, which makes fights longer as you get higher.
2. Crits mean less and less and single melee hits, especially the dice are relatively smaller as you get higher. A CR 30 Tarrasque has the following melee attacks: 1x4d6+10, 1x4d12+10, 1x4d10+10, 2x4d8+10. So the toughest creature's toughest melee attack has a crit of 8d12+10, which averages around 58dmg.
A CR 1 brown bear's melee hit deals 2d6+4 and crits 4d6+4, averaging around 16dmg.
So while CR increases 30x, the average crit only increases around 4x.
3. Spells and abilities that can stabilize a character are more expensive and scarce at low levels. At higher levels basic potions are pocket money and healing word becomes practically a cantrip. And you only need to heal 1hp to bring someone back from death saves.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Btw, if a monster critting causes a character death, then that monster landing a regular hit twice would have done the exact same thing.
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HERE.Not necessarily.
For starters, only dice are doubled, not static damage. Unless the crit is for a spell usually the added value is actually on average less than half of the average damage of the initial hit.
But also, splitting up that damage into two hits can make it much less lethal.
If a PC has 5/10 hp and gets hit for 16 damage they straight up die.
If a PC has 5/10 HP and is hit for 8 damage twice, that's bad for their death saves but not instant death. Also maybe the creature doesn't have multi attack. Or would go after another party member who is still active rather than attack a KOd pc. Or another party member could heal the downed PC before the monster's next turn. Or the PC is a half orc and drops to 1 hp from the first hit.
I don't think that crits neccesarily need to be taken way from monsters though, DMs just need to be a bit more careful about the damage enemies can dish out at level 1.
This just increases the damage from two hits when compared with one crit.
As you yourself explained earlier, only the damage dice are doubled for a critical hit. This means that the two attacks combined would likely deal more damage than the individual crit does, and this scenario fails to account for that.
Anyways, death and 2 failed death saves are both really bad outcomes. So, well it is bad to have a character get killed, the results of two powerful attacks hitting or one powerful attack critting will be nearly identical. Not only that, but attacks made against a KOd PC have advantage and are an automatic crit, so the two death saves situations are much more likely to occur and about as lethal when they do. Also, the character was already wounded, so a critical hit might be worse in that situation, but it wouldn't be if the character were closer to full health.
I agree that monsters should still be able to crit. And to be honest, I think the problem is DMs who assign incredibly lethal monsters like the one in question above. I mean, if your monster can bring a relatively sturdy character from full health to zero in a single shot, then that monster should only be used in boss fights if you are going to use it at all.
Anyways, two hits and one monster crit are nearly identical. Yes, they have a few differences, but they are very, very close to each other in how dangerous they are.
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HERE.This clearly illustrates how different a fixed amount of damage can be from a crit to taking 2 shots. To refute this, or claim it DOESN'T add to character survivability is to deny basic math and rules, which puts you in homebrew territory. Breaking the 16 damage up into 2 swipes gave the character a chance, they were down and needed help. If that had been a single shot, they would be rerolling a new character while the rest of the party tried to survive the fight.
What most of these "dice rule" folks are stuck on is that it can happen at later levels too. NO SHIT. We aren't talking about a character being 6-8 sessions in and being killed through unfortunate dice rolls. By then some options are likely starting to be available for reviving them (drag the body back to town maybe or some such) We are talking about session 1, maybe an hour in, first fight and BOOM, character is dead. D E A D. No chance for death saves, no chance for a potion or medkit to stabilize, jus flat dead. If that's your table's idea of fun, go crazy. If I was subject to that it would mark the last time I played at that table. When it happened at level 4, I would be disappointed, but would have at LEAST had a chance to play the character I had worked on for a bit. Still sucks, but I wouldn't feel as cheated as if he had gotten a crit insta-death on our first foray.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
That example assumes a damaged character though. If we go that route, why not assume 1 HP? In that case, we would not want any monster that could do above 8 damage on a crit to ensure no PC ever goes from alive to dead without death saves. So all mobs would do maximum 1d4 -1 damage on an attack at low levels. if we stick with the original issue (full health to instant death) then a creature that hits for up to 6 damage per hit still has the possibility of killing a wizard in two hits (6 to 0 HP, 0 HP to dead).
This is just a pretty useless mechanic IMO, as I explained before. The mortality rate at low levels is already higher without the insta kill mechanic and insta kills don't really happen anymore at later levels, so it becomes obsolete very quickly. I don't really get the point. What value does it add to the game?
Finland GMT/UTC +2
The threat of death is a reason for level 1 characters from unrelated backgrounds, who might not even know each other well, to work together for mutual benefit.
Diluting combat threats undercuts the group dynamic a bit, but more importantly introduces a pathway for more aggressive adventures with less fear. Roleplaying can take uncomfortable turns when there are fewer negative consequences. Especially when players are capable of mathematically predicting enemy outcomes.
Putting aside the decades of D&D history, the arc of most heroes is to grow from lesser ability and into a greater ability to fend off death. Across genres and platforms, the hero separates from the common folk. D&D uses levels for that growth, to varying success, and relies on the DM to help bring that arc to life. Taking out a mechanism from the DM toolkit lessens their ability to do so.
Characterizing crit hits by the DM as a problem, seems the problem to me.
I think lvl 1 characters feel threatened enough without random insta kills.
In our games, players often put lots of effort into character creation and backstories. They aren't just random characters that only become meaningful once they learn fireball. They are meaningful to the player from the beginning. They can also be meaningful and important individuals in lots of ways, just not as adventurers.
So in my eyes, a lvl 1 PC death should be as meaningful as later in the game, not by being randomly one-shotted by the first goblin archer they encounter.
I don't recommend getting rid of monster crits, but the insta death mechanic combined with crits is kinda excessive.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
And? I'm not against you here.
So I proved your point that players don't generally want their characters to die a meaningless death and make a new one right away. Ok. Now what? It's been proven. What does it matter?
I stand by my point.
I believe you said this:
"Chars at low levels are nothing in the arc of the history and lore of a game, and are essentially disposable. 1st level chars are slightly above glorified NPC's. That has always been the way, and always should be."
I mean. Is the DMs purpose to create the arc of history and the lore of the game? Or is the purpose of the game to have fun together? It's not very much fun to randomly die before even getting started.
I would never consider player characters disposable. Disposable for what purpose? The world? My personal gain at the player's expense? No way. The players are not there for me to use in my personal storytelling. If I wanted to tell a story, I'd write a book. Here I want to make an enjoyable game that evolves into a story in collaboration.
I believe you also said something about baby-proofing. Well I don't think I ever said anything even remotely related to that.
What I said, and I can't emphasize this enough, is that the death of a player should hold some meaning or excitement or any value. PC deaths can be satisfying. Even lvl 1 deaths should be meaningful and satisfying. You don't need to plot shield or baby-proof them to accomplish that.
In for example call of cthulhu games everyone is expected to die. But even in a those games they usually die in an exciting way and in meaningful and exciting situations. You don't need to have random deaths lurking behind corners in order to create suspense and a sense of threat.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Now that I went through more of the posts, I feel like our RP cultures are just two different worlds and our expectations for games and definitions of fun are just different.
So I don't think we'll be able to come to a satisfying conclusion here.
Maybe at your table this is considered fun. Who am I to judge. We can all have fun our own way. That's the beauty of these games.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
The biggest takeaway from this thread:
Make sure to have a session 0, where players and DMs can set expectations, and if it's not a vibe either of you want to play, that's okay.
A little bit of communication goes a long way.
If you are here to just argue and not pay any attention to what is being said, then please argue with someone else.
This a quote from my own reply:
"What I said, and I can't emphasize this enough, is that the death of a player should hold some meaning or excitement or any value. PC deaths can be satisfying. Even lvl 1 deaths should be meaningful and satisfying. You don't need to plot shield or baby-proof them to accomplish that. "
"In for example call of cthulhu games everyone is expected to die. But even in a those games they usually die in an exciting way and in meaningful and exciting situations. You don't need to have random deaths lurking behind corners in order to create suspense and a sense of threat. "
So please stop lying about what I'm doing or saying. I am in no way saying that low level characters shouldn't die. If that isn't clear to you now, then you just want to make your own narrative and that is a waste of my time and energy. Might as well argue with a rock.
And if you think randomly occurring PC deaths are needed to create suspense or make players fear death, then I suggest studying some more. Relying on random PC deaths is very much like comedy relying on laugh tracks and horror writers depending on jump scares.
Let's end this now. You should now hopefully understand that I do not want to abolish player deaths at lower levels. And if you don't by now, then I won't bother explaining again.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
If only Dungeons and Dragons was a game that was flexible enough in its ruleset to allow different groups to play in different ways...
Oh wait, that would be silly!