My Friday night D&D group uses a house-rule that really heightens the combat drama. It's this:
Failed Death Saves don't reset until after you've completed a Long Rest.
It's amazing how much of an impact that has on resource management, timing your healing spells, and planning out your excursions into the Underdark / Astral Plane / what-have-you. If you're an experienced gamer and you're coming to 5th Ed from another, more fatal system like Lamentations of the Flame Princess or older editions of D&D, this can really help you feel like you're risking something and keep you engaged. For newer players, it encourages thinking about non-combat options and planning an escape before getting into battle. Overall, this simple rule has been a great addition to our campaign, and maybe you'll enjoy using it, too!
I like this rule a lot. No matter how much damage a PC takes they are completely healed after an 8 hour rest and totally without magical intervention. It's almost laughable.
I like this rule a lot. No matter how much damage a PC takes they are completely healed after an 8 hour rest and totally without magical intervention. It's almost laughable.
You could use the healing variants from DMG. I'm considering using the Slow Natural Healing for my group, since they're not into many combat encounters. They usually get into battle once or twice per day.
I find it odd that almost every game I'm aware of ends up having one or two encounters per day, and yet the rules are made for something like six. Granted I guess it works, because you can't have less encounters the norm for those who love dungeons with more encounters. Its easier to make an encounter harder than making it easier.
Anyway, Matt Mercer has an interesting way of handling Player death that makes getting resurrected require a skill challenge. Hopefully he will have more details on it once the campaign guide comes out. I think he was toying with how to make it a lot harder.
I'd caution against not letting death saves restart until the next day. First, if you are only having one or two encounters per day, it doesn't really matter, as if they don't die in the first encounter, you probably aren't having a second one and if you have 2, then really the first encounter can't tax the players or you risk only having one. I also think that it will simply make players want to rest more.
The key thing to remember is that if an opponent is within five feet, you autocrit an unconscious person, and you take two automatic failures when someone crits on you. So, you don't need death saves to continue, you just need monsters that are willing to deal that extra blow.
you just need monsters that are willing to deal that extra blow
I always deemed that tactic as metagaming. Most creatures will be happy enough to watch the PCs knocked out and won't bother until all of them pose no threat. In case one is particularly keen on making sure the characters stay dead, I see that as either a paranoid opponent, or a sadistic DM.
you just need monsters that are willing to deal that extra blow
I always deemed that tactic as metagaming. Most creatures will be happy enough to watch the PCs knocked out and won't bother until all of them pose no threat. In case one is particularly keen on making sure the characters stay dead, I see that as either a paranoid opponent, or a sadistic DM.
Would a goblin really be happy having someone unconscious rather than dead?
Fairly certain in most real life shark/bear/etc. Attacks The animal doesn't just attack one person and stop the second they become unconscious. But at least continues for a bit (i.e. 6 seconds longer in the game.) there isn't a guarantee that a non intellegent animal would even move on after the one person was dead unless being attacked by someone else.
Dragons are smart enough to know that straight up killing someone's friend is smart. To begin with, they know magic and healing exists and having a foe unconscious and not finishing the job is a risk a dragon would never take as the person could easily rejoin the fight. Plus seeing your friend die is way more nerve racking than seeing him simply get unconscious.
Not to mention how many truly evil people are going to knock you out and not deliever the final blow? There is virtually no movie where the villian knocks someone unconscious and doesn't use his sword to stab the injured and dying person in the heart.
So to not finish off a person is more metagaming than actually doing it because it makes more sense for a villian to finish him off than risk a come back and flank.
Would a goblin really be happy having someone unconscious rather than dead?
For now (i.e. until all the fighting is done and fallen foes can be dead-checked)? Yes, absolutely, just like any intelligent creature (i.e. see real life war practices).
But the deeper question is actually this: How or why does the goblin believe that the foe they have just felled isn't already dead or at least more likely to be dead than not?
This, like most cases someone brings up "metagaming", is where someone seeking to not metagame ends up metagaming (by which I mean the motivation for having the monster attack an already fallen foe is because the rules say the foe is probably still alive, while the fictional world the monster lives in says the foe is probably already dead). And yes, the retort of "...but healing magic is real!" is even more metagaming heaped on the pile (because while out-of-game we know it is common among the parties of characters we see, the in-game world typically considers it to be exceedingly rare so there is really no more reason to assume that a particular monster believes a party to have the right magic without actually seeing that specific magic done by them or being specifically told they have it than there is to assume that a particular person in our world is good friends with someone roughly 7-feet tall).
I would beg to differ. A Goblin is smart enough to know that a group of people traveling with a cleric probably has healing magic. They might not but any smart foe is going to er on the side of caution and assume they do, regardless of how likely it is they don't. Also any intelligent foe is going to be able to tell the difference between someone who is unconscious and still breathing and someone who is dead. In most cases it makes sense to finish someone off so they don't came back to haunt you.
I'm not saying every foe does this. But it would be a valid tactic for monsters, especially the intellegence ones or the bloodthirsty ones.
It's also a way to strike fear into the other opponents. It's one thing to see your buddy beaten on the ground, it's another thing to see his head chopped off or a sword thrusted through his lifeless body.
1) A Goblin is smart enough to know that a group of people traveling with a cleric probably has healing magic. 2) They might not but any smart foe is going to er on the side of caution and assume they do, regardless of how likely it is they don't. 3) Also any intelligent foe is going to be able to tell the difference between someone who is unconscious and still breathing and someone who is dead.
Numbering added for ease of reference as to what I mean by my following comments.
1) I don't care how smart a goblin is, they don't necessarily know the difference between a priest that is incapable of magic and a cleric on sight. They also don't know the spells actually available to any given cleric on sight. Depending on their learning, however, they might actually know what a cleric is theoretically capable of doing with magic. It's only out-of-game knowledge that tells you what class the character is (because even using a holy symbol to cast your spells doesn't necessarily mean you are a cleric), what spells they can do, and then leads you to find a reason why the goblin is acting on that information despite potentially having never actually witnessed a real spell caster before because they are, according to the setting, as rare as a 7-foot tall person in the real world (which any given person is a statistical outlier if they have seen one in real life outside of on TV or at a sporting event).
2) Acting as though a remote possibility - which is what the settings of D&D tell us spell casting people are, despite having numerous of them in every adventuring party - is basically assured is not "to er on the side of caution" it is "to be paranoid into over-preparation". It's only out-of-game knowledge that tells you life giving magic is a thing to bother including countermeasures against in your plans.
3) Real life medical professionals can make the wrong call with actual hands-on checking of vitals, and you think untrained folks should have zero margin of error while distracted by combat? That's nonsense - real people used a mirror to check for breathing for a reason, and that's because it is damned hard to tell accurately at a glance given that injuries that cause unconsciousness can also lead to short and shallow breathing.
And as for the "so they don't come back to haunt you" logic - which is more likely?: A) one of the enemy combatants still conscious and fighting will do you harm; or B) the probably dead, definitely dead-looking, and currently out of the fight enemy combatant will return to action and do you harm.
If you aren't dedicating your efforts to your real and current threats, prioritizing your hypothetical future threats instead, then you are not what fits the definition of "any intelligent foe."
Correct. If you don't know the difference an intellegence foe would assume cleric. Of course this assumes no spells are cast during the encounter. A single spell means clearly cleric.
If you don't know the spells a magic user knows/can do you assume the worse/the common obvious ones they tend to have. Unless you know something about magic then you assume the worse.
The harder it is to tell, the more likely a foe is to strike an additional blow after you fall down to make certain you are dead. Only if you knew for certain an opponent was dead would you not necessarily strike an additional blow.
I'm not saying every Goblin is going to go spellcaster! And act on that but some could.
Also based on actual D&D campaigns every city ends up with an actual cleric. Especially when a party needs one. So while in theory they may be rare, actually in game they end up being decently common, even outside of the NPCs.
Check out free PDFs for my designs (cyberpunk superheroic D&D 5E, eastern fantasy noir steampunk D&D 5E, and post-apocalyptic D&D 5E!) at https://mikemyler.com/ !
@MikeMyler: I like it. Seems like it would add a nice layer of grit to a post-nuke flavored campaign. Have you played/DM'd a campaign with those rules in place? How did it go?
@MikeMyler: I like it. Seems like it would add a nice layer of grit to a post-nuke flavored campaign. Have you played/DM'd a campaign with those rules in place? How did it go?
Thanks! We spent a lot of time polishing, tweaking, and improving them. I've found altering the way rests operate actually end up making the game (any game I'd wager) WAY more strategical. There are discussions about "do we attack this weaker monster or should we call it a day?" and dungeon exploration is wayyyy more like D&D 1e because of the reduced resources.
My players and the playtester GMs' groups love it though! Definitely a fun change of pace. :D
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Check out free PDFs for my designs (cyberpunk superheroic D&D 5E, eastern fantasy noir steampunk D&D 5E, and post-apocalyptic D&D 5E!) at https://mikemyler.com/ !
I'm torn between it and my idea that failing the second death save yield an injury (from the DMG injury table).
There's also the notion of adding a level of exhaustion whenever a character hits zero hit points. I like that idea a lot, because it's simple and easy to administer.
Check out free PDFs for my designs (cyberpunk superheroic D&D 5E, eastern fantasy noir steampunk D&D 5E, and post-apocalyptic D&D 5E!) at https://mikemyler.com/ !
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My Friday night D&D group uses a house-rule that really heightens the combat drama. It's this:
Failed Death Saves don't reset until after you've completed a Long Rest.
It's amazing how much of an impact that has on resource management, timing your healing spells, and planning out your excursions into the Underdark / Astral Plane / what-have-you.
If you're an experienced gamer and you're coming to 5th Ed from another, more fatal system like Lamentations of the Flame Princess or older editions of D&D, this can really help you feel like you're risking something and keep you engaged. For newer players, it encourages thinking about non-combat options and planning an escape before getting into battle. Overall, this simple rule has been a great addition to our campaign, and maybe you'll enjoy using it, too!
https://dreadweasel.blogspot.com/
I like this rule a lot. No matter how much damage a PC takes they are completely healed after an 8 hour rest and totally without magical intervention. It's almost laughable.
I find it odd that almost every game I'm aware of ends up having one or two encounters per day, and yet the rules are made for something like six. Granted I guess it works, because you can't have less encounters the norm for those who love dungeons with more encounters. Its easier to make an encounter harder than making it easier.
Anyway, Matt Mercer has an interesting way of handling Player death that makes getting resurrected require a skill challenge. Hopefully he will have more details on it once the campaign guide comes out. I think he was toying with how to make it a lot harder.
I'd caution against not letting death saves restart until the next day. First, if you are only having one or two encounters per day, it doesn't really matter, as if they don't die in the first encounter, you probably aren't having a second one and if you have 2, then really the first encounter can't tax the players or you risk only having one. I also think that it will simply make players want to rest more.
The key thing to remember is that if an opponent is within five feet, you autocrit an unconscious person, and you take two automatic failures when someone crits on you. So, you don't need death saves to continue, you just need monsters that are willing to deal that extra blow.
For now (i.e. until all the fighting is done and fallen foes can be dead-checked)? Yes, absolutely, just like any intelligent creature (i.e. see real life war practices).
But the deeper question is actually this: How or why does the goblin believe that the foe they have just felled isn't already dead or at least more likely to be dead than not?
This, like most cases someone brings up "metagaming", is where someone seeking to not metagame ends up metagaming (by which I mean the motivation for having the monster attack an already fallen foe is because the rules say the foe is probably still alive, while the fictional world the monster lives in says the foe is probably already dead). And yes, the retort of "...but healing magic is real!" is even more metagaming heaped on the pile (because while out-of-game we know it is common among the parties of characters we see, the in-game world typically considers it to be exceedingly rare so there is really no more reason to assume that a particular monster believes a party to have the right magic without actually seeing that specific magic done by them or being specifically told they have it than there is to assume that a particular person in our world is good friends with someone roughly 7-feet tall).
I would beg to differ. A Goblin is smart enough to know that a group of people traveling with a cleric probably has healing magic. They might not but any smart foe is going to er on the side of caution and assume they do, regardless of how likely it is they don't. Also any intelligent foe is going to be able to tell the difference between someone who is unconscious and still breathing and someone who is dead. In most cases it makes sense to finish someone off so they don't came back to haunt you.
I'm not saying every foe does this. But it would be a valid tactic for monsters, especially the intellegence ones or the bloodthirsty ones.
It's also a way to strike fear into the other opponents. It's one thing to see your buddy beaten on the ground, it's another thing to see his head chopped off or a sword thrusted through his lifeless body.
Numbering added for ease of reference as to what I mean by my following comments.
1) I don't care how smart a goblin is, they don't necessarily know the difference between a priest that is incapable of magic and a cleric on sight. They also don't know the spells actually available to any given cleric on sight. Depending on their learning, however, they might actually know what a cleric is theoretically capable of doing with magic. It's only out-of-game knowledge that tells you what class the character is (because even using a holy symbol to cast your spells doesn't necessarily mean you are a cleric), what spells they can do, and then leads you to find a reason why the goblin is acting on that information despite potentially having never actually witnessed a real spell caster before because they are, according to the setting, as rare as a 7-foot tall person in the real world (which any given person is a statistical outlier if they have seen one in real life outside of on TV or at a sporting event).
2) Acting as though a remote possibility - which is what the settings of D&D tell us spell casting people are, despite having numerous of them in every adventuring party - is basically assured is not "to er on the side of caution" it is "to be paranoid into over-preparation". It's only out-of-game knowledge that tells you life giving magic is a thing to bother including countermeasures against in your plans.
3) Real life medical professionals can make the wrong call with actual hands-on checking of vitals, and you think untrained folks should have zero margin of error while distracted by combat? That's nonsense - real people used a mirror to check for breathing for a reason, and that's because it is damned hard to tell accurately at a glance given that injuries that cause unconsciousness can also lead to short and shallow breathing.
And as for the "so they don't come back to haunt you" logic - which is more likely?: A) one of the enemy combatants still conscious and fighting will do you harm; or B) the probably dead, definitely dead-looking, and currently out of the fight enemy combatant will return to action and do you harm.
If you aren't dedicating your efforts to your real and current threats, prioritizing your hypothetical future threats instead, then you are not what fits the definition of "any intelligent foe."
Correct. If you don't know the difference an intellegence foe would assume cleric. Of course this assumes no spells are cast during the encounter. A single spell means clearly cleric.
If you don't know the spells a magic user knows/can do you assume the worse/the common obvious ones they tend to have. Unless you know something about magic then you assume the worse.
The harder it is to tell, the more likely a foe is to strike an additional blow after you fall down to make certain you are dead. Only if you knew for certain an opponent was dead would you not necessarily strike an additional blow.
I'm not saying every Goblin is going to go spellcaster! And act on that but some could.
Also based on actual D&D campaigns every city ends up with an actual cleric. Especially when a party needs one. So while in theory they may be rare, actually in game they end up being decently common, even outside of the NPCs.
Check out free PDFs for my designs (cyberpunk superheroic D&D 5E, eastern fantasy noir steampunk D&D 5E, and post-apocalyptic D&D 5E!) at https://mikemyler.com/ !
@MikeMyler: I like it. Seems like it would add a nice layer of grit to a post-nuke flavored campaign. Have you played/DM'd a campaign with those rules in place? How did it go?
https://dreadweasel.blogspot.com/
My players and the playtester GMs' groups love it though! Definitely a fun change of pace. :D
Check out free PDFs for my designs (cyberpunk superheroic D&D 5E, eastern fantasy noir steampunk D&D 5E, and post-apocalyptic D&D 5E!) at https://mikemyler.com/ !
I like this idea.
I'm torn between it and my idea that failing the second death save yield an injury (from the DMG injury table).
There's also the notion of adding a level of exhaustion whenever a character hits zero hit points. I like that idea a lot, because it's simple and easy to administer.
My 5e Houserule Considerations. Please comment freely.
I say do it all! ;)
Check out free PDFs for my designs (cyberpunk superheroic D&D 5E, eastern fantasy noir steampunk D&D 5E, and post-apocalyptic D&D 5E!) at https://mikemyler.com/ !