Revised suggestion: Remove autocrit from unconscious which causes two death save failures. However can possibly benefit from luck, durable, epic recovery boon and adamantine armor to negate crits.
This isn't a change. It reflects the ease of hitting a vital and vulnerable place on a target when they cannot move at all and don't know the attack is coming. It's the same result as the paralyzed condition.
I think they could remove the crit part causes 2 fails part but add a coup de grace action which still has advantage to hit and causes 3 fails if it does hit. That way multi attacks wont overly punish the player if they go down on the first attack but if a enemy uses their action just to finish you off they can.
That way multi attacks wont overly punish the player if they go down on the first attack but if a enemy uses their action just to finish you off they can.
I heartily agree with this. Coup-de-grace as an action would prevent monsters with multi-attack from insta-killing party members if their first attack brings the party member down, because they've already used their action to attack.
Without the current work around we, DMs, need to do which is to have monsters switch targets the moment they bring someone down, even when it doesn't make sense, just to prevent TPKs, particularly at very low and very high levels.
I would even go so far as to say that creatures under the Dying condition shouldn't take any additional failed death saves from being attacked while down unless it's a coup-de-grace, but instead should get disadvantage on the next death save they roll.
I don't know. If a dragon tries to bite on an unconscious person, I'm pretty sure they should die. No need for Coup-de-grace. The thing is technically a lizard, so I'm surprised that just swallowing it whole isn't an option.
Anyway, also do note that Spare the Dying, a cantrip, now restores 1 HP, so it's a free way to bring back any teammate to action. You'll need to be in range, of course, but there are plenty of ways to make that work. While a big monster with many attacks might be scary, any single monster with one attack can pretty much never kill anyone, even at level 1.
Also, maybe it's time healing is done mid-combat, and not only to bring back dead people. Make sure teammates don't reach the Dying condition at all. Of course, we know that isn't going to happen. Well, nobody ever complained about this in 5e, and it's practically the same, so I doubt they'll change anything.
yh the main difference now is if you get 3 successes you go to 1 hp and start a short rest rather than stay at 0 and just do nothing like it was nothing else has really changed
The way One D&D (and 5e) does death saves has no effect on TPKs, it just makes it really hard to kill a PC without a TPK, because outside of a TPK there's always someone available to heal the dying PC before death.
The way One D&D (and 5e) does death saves has no effect on TPKs, it just makes it really hard to kill a PC without a TPK, because outside of a TPK there's always someone available to heal the dying PC before death.
A lot of it is down to the DM. DMs usually play nice as the players have more fun if they don't die too often but realistically in a world where virtually every adventuring party have as least one person who can cast healing spells (not to mention potions) that will instantly teun an unconcious PC into a fully functioning lethal adversary an intelligent combatant would attack unconcious enemies to prevent that happening.
If the party are fighting a bandit captain and he reduces a PC to zero hit points with his first attack the optimal thing to do is to hit him with the remaining attacks to take him out the battle for good. Even a single melee attack on an unconcious player can mean a 45% chance of player death if he has to roll a death save before any othre party members can heal him.
Another result of such an approach is the players wouldn't "waste" spells on healing concious allies.
A lot of it is down to the DM. DMs usually play nice as the players have more fun if they don't die too often but realistically in a world where virtually every adventuring party have as least one person who can cast healing spells (not to mention potions) that will instantly teun an unconcious PC into a fully functioning lethal adversary an intelligent combatant would attack unconcious enemies to prevent that happening
Beating on unconscious PCs doesn't appreciably contribute to a TPK -- the usual cause of a TPK is just having enough damage (or other abilities) to disable everyone at the same time, at which point you can finish the survivors off at leisure.
Actually, the logical thing to do would either be to run/surrender because the bandit captain realises he can't win, or to immediately turn to kill the healer. He gains nothing from killing one person and dying right after, and unless your bandit captain can decapitate the players, there's no reason for them to believe another attack from them would actually prevent the ally from standing back up. He doesn't know how death saves work.
[...]unless your bandit captain can decapitate the players, there's no reason for them to believe another attack from them would actually prevent the ally from standing back up. He doesn't know how death saves work.
Not really, though. He knows that the character is unconscious, he knows that if he does nothing, there's a good chance that they can be healed and get back to the fight. However, if he kills them, they'll almost certainly be out of the fight permanently.
If you're going to ban meta knowledge, then you have to think through their point of view, knowledge and their logic as an individual.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If I stab you and you fall down not moving I have no reason to stab you again in the middle of the fight if your party is still up fighting. So most DMs aren’t being nice by not finishing you off they are being realistic. Now if the healer brings you back and you attack me again then yes the next time you are dying I’m making sure you are dead. Also monsters that are trying to eat a party member is likely to shred someone’s unconscious body and run away with it. Unless the party is in its lair in which case again it wouldn’t keep attacking downed party members. It’s goal is to get all the party down. Unintelligent creatures wouldn’t even know to keep attacking a character that keeps getting popped back up with healing word. TPKs happen because DMs over estimate their players abilities, ingenuity, or understanding of the game. That last one will kill a lot of players. I’ve watched players get fed a moment to use an ability or feature and they completely miss all the DM hints and then when they can’t figure out why they are dying. It’s crazier when they have multiple solutions on their character sheet and they don’t use any of them. Even when the DM starts hinting toward those features. Also I’ve seen a bad dice roll night tpk. High AC monster, a lot of misses and when they did hit very bad damage rolls. A refusal to flee even when it was hinted that running is always an option.
If I stab you and you fall down not moving I have no reason to stab you again in the middle of the fight if your party is still up fighting. So most DMs aren’t being nice by not finishing you off they are being realistic. Now if the healer brings you back and you attack me again then yes the next time you are dying I’m making sure you are dead.
This really depends on how common healers are in the campaign world. Most games I have played in the party will encounter npc healers on a fairly common basis and adventuring parties are common enough that cities will post quest boards for them and it is expected that those parties will have some healing capability. Healing potions are also readily available though too expensive for commoners.
In such a world a bandit captain when facing a party of adventurers would behave exactly the same before and after witnessing one be healed from unconcious because that it what he would expect to happen if he left one pc making death saves. Leaving a player unconcious to attack another is either the action of a low intelligence creature or metagaming (for the enjoyment of the players)
If you are in a world where magic is rare and the bandit captain has no reason to suspect the party could have the ability to heal then you approach is reasonable.
If I stab you and you fall down not moving I have no reason to stab you again in the middle of the fight if your party is still up fighting. So most DMs aren’t being nice by not finishing you off they are being realistic.
It's being realistic in the real world where being able to heal a downed person back to fighting fit in a few seconds is just nonexistent. It's not realistic in a world where such healers are common and part of the understanding of how fights work.
When I down someone with Bandits, it's 100% because I'm not a jerk that I move them on rather than kill the PC. Even Bandits will know that just because someone is unconscious, they could still get up and fight more, and it's going to be easier to kill them outright than to risk having the PC get up again if they don't take out all the healers in the next 6 seconds. When healers have those abilities in a world, it will affect the mentality and tactics of people in the world.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If I stab you and you fall down not moving I have no reason to stab you again in the middle of the fight if your party is still up fighting. So most DMs aren’t being nice by not finishing you off they are being realistic. Now if the healer brings you back and you attack me again then yes the next time you are dying I’m making sure you are dead.
This really depends on how common healers are in the campaign world. Most games I have played in the party will encounter npc healers on a fairly common basis and adventuring parties are common enough that cities will post quest boards for them and it is expected that those parties will have some healing capability. Healing potions are also readily available though too expensive for commoners.
In such a world a bandit captain when facing a party of adventurers would behave exactly the same before and after witnessing one be healed from unconcious because that it what he would expect to happen if he left one pc making death saves. Leaving a player unconcious to attack another is either the action of a low intelligence creature or metagaming (for the enjoyment of the players)
If you are in a world where magic is rare and the bandit captain has no reason to suspect the party could have the ability to heal then you approach is reasonable.
Actually in your world the bandit captain should target the healer the first time he sees them cast a divine spell. Anyone casting sacred flame dies first. Anyone casting shillalah or thorn whip is also a target. Honestly if I’m a bandit captain in a world where adventurers are normal I’m setting ambushes targeting anyone with a holy symbol on them.
If I stab you and you fall down not moving I have no reason to stab you again in the middle of the fight if your party is still up fighting. So most DMs aren’t being nice by not finishing you off they are being realistic.
It's being realistic in the real world where being able to heal a downed person back to fighting fit in a few seconds is just nonexistent. It's not realistic in a world where such healers are common and part of the understanding of how fights work.
When I down someone with Bandits, it's 100% because I'm not a jerk that I move them on rather than kill the PC. Even Bandits will know that just because someone is unconscious, they could still get up and fight more, and it's going to be easier to kill them outright than to risk having the PC get up again if they don't take out all the healers in the next 6 seconds. When healers have those abilities in a world, it will affect the mentality and tactics of people in the world.
Most actual play doesn’t have healers in every npc party. If your world has tons of people running around with level 3 cleric abilities the entire world should function differently than D&D presents it. Have you ever noticed that most npcs working at temples and churches don’t even have cleric abilities?
Have you ever noticed that most npcs working at temples and churches don’t even have cleric abilities?
I haven't, because in the games I run, they do.
(Which is my way of saying that this is heavily DM-dependent and you shouldn't base what is 'normal' for D&D on what you are personally used to, nor for that matter on Adventure modules that are mostly written for low level parties where, for instance, the existence of a mid-level cleric who can cast Raise Dead at the local temple would render a murder plot that's supposed to happen later in the adventure completely moot).
If I stab you and you fall down not moving I have no reason to stab you again in the middle of the fight if your party is still up fighting. So most DMs aren’t being nice by not finishing you off they are being realistic.
It's being realistic in the real world where being able to heal a downed person back to fighting fit in a few seconds is just nonexistent. It's not realistic in a world where such healers are common and part of the understanding of how fights work.
When I down someone with Bandits, it's 100% because I'm not a jerk that I move them on rather than kill the PC. Even Bandits will know that just because someone is unconscious, they could still get up and fight more, and it's going to be easier to kill them outright than to risk having the PC get up again if they don't take out all the healers in the next 6 seconds. When healers have those abilities in a world, it will affect the mentality and tactics of people in the world.
Most actual play doesn’t have healers in every npc party. If your world has tons of people running around with level 3 cleric abilities the entire world should function differently than D&D presents it. Have you ever noticed that most npcs working at temples and churches don’t even have cleric abilities?
Most actual play doesn't have many NPC parties. Clerics, who are mostly associated with parties, being quite warlike compared to your average Priests, are unlikely to be hanging around temples and churches. Clerics aren't Father Ted. The people bandits deal with are a lot more likely to have Clerics, Druids, Paladins and others with in-combat healing abilities than you would if you went to your local church. Also, what game are you playing? You don't need to be a L3 Cleric to be doling out healing spells as we've been describing. Clerics, and indeed all the previously mentioned classes as well as others, get multiple healing spells at L1. When you're still basically marginally above the average Joe. You're the kind of people that bandits have to deal with intruding into their lairs trying to clear them out.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
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Revised suggestion: Remove autocrit from unconscious which causes two death save failures. However can possibly benefit from luck, durable, epic recovery boon and adamantine armor to negate crits.
Understanding this stinks in 5e too imho
they need to reduce instant tpk and simplify rules in spirit of onednd imho
This isn't a change. It reflects the ease of hitting a vital and vulnerable place on a target when they cannot move at all and don't know the attack is coming. It's the same result as the paralyzed condition.
I think they could remove the crit part causes 2 fails part but add a coup de grace action which still has advantage to hit and causes 3 fails if it does hit. That way multi attacks wont overly punish the player if they go down on the first attack but if a enemy uses their action just to finish you off they can.
I heartily agree with this. Coup-de-grace as an action would prevent monsters with multi-attack from insta-killing party members if their first attack brings the party member down, because they've already used their action to attack.
Without the current work around we, DMs, need to do which is to have monsters switch targets the moment they bring someone down, even when it doesn't make sense, just to prevent TPKs, particularly at very low and very high levels.
I would even go so far as to say that creatures under the Dying condition shouldn't take any additional failed death saves from being attacked while down unless it's a coup-de-grace, but instead should get disadvantage on the next death save they roll.
I don't know. If a dragon tries to bite on an unconscious person, I'm pretty sure they should die. No need for Coup-de-grace. The thing is technically a lizard, so I'm surprised that just swallowing it whole isn't an option.
Anyway, also do note that Spare the Dying, a cantrip, now restores 1 HP, so it's a free way to bring back any teammate to action. You'll need to be in range, of course, but there are plenty of ways to make that work. While a big monster with many attacks might be scary, any single monster with one attack can pretty much never kill anyone, even at level 1.
Also, maybe it's time healing is done mid-combat, and not only to bring back dead people. Make sure teammates don't reach the Dying condition at all. Of course, we know that isn't going to happen. Well, nobody ever complained about this in 5e, and it's practically the same, so I doubt they'll change anything.
Varielky
There is very little difference to 5E and 5E was surprisingly hard to actually kill PCs without specifically focusing them down, at least in combat.
yh the main difference now is if you get 3 successes you go to 1 hp and start a short rest rather than stay at 0 and just do nothing like it was nothing else has really changed
The way One D&D (and 5e) does death saves has no effect on TPKs, it just makes it really hard to kill a PC without a TPK, because outside of a TPK there's always someone available to heal the dying PC before death.
A lot of it is down to the DM. DMs usually play nice as the players have more fun if they don't die too often but realistically in a world where virtually every adventuring party have as least one person who can cast healing spells (not to mention potions) that will instantly teun an unconcious PC into a fully functioning lethal adversary an intelligent combatant would attack unconcious enemies to prevent that happening.
If the party are fighting a bandit captain and he reduces a PC to zero hit points with his first attack the optimal thing to do is to hit him with the remaining attacks to take him out the battle for good. Even a single melee attack on an unconcious player can mean a 45% chance of player death if he has to roll a death save before any othre party members can heal him.
Another result of such an approach is the players wouldn't "waste" spells on healing concious allies.
Beating on unconscious PCs doesn't appreciably contribute to a TPK -- the usual cause of a TPK is just having enough damage (or other abilities) to disable everyone at the same time, at which point you can finish the survivors off at leisure.
Actually, the logical thing to do would either be to run/surrender because the bandit captain realises he can't win, or to immediately turn to kill the healer. He gains nothing from killing one person and dying right after, and unless your bandit captain can decapitate the players, there's no reason for them to believe another attack from them would actually prevent the ally from standing back up. He doesn't know how death saves work.
Varielky
Not really, though. He knows that the character is unconscious, he knows that if he does nothing, there's a good chance that they can be healed and get back to the fight. However, if he kills them, they'll almost certainly be out of the fight permanently.
If you're going to ban meta knowledge, then you have to think through their point of view, knowledge and their logic as an individual.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If I stab you and you fall down not moving I have no reason to stab you again in the middle of the fight if your party is still up fighting. So most DMs aren’t being nice by not finishing you off they are being realistic. Now if the healer brings you back and you attack me again then yes the next time you are dying I’m making sure you are dead. Also monsters that are trying to eat a party member is likely to shred someone’s unconscious body and run away with it. Unless the party is in its lair in which case again it wouldn’t keep attacking downed party members. It’s goal is to get all the party down. Unintelligent creatures wouldn’t even know to keep attacking a character that keeps getting popped back up with healing word. TPKs happen because DMs over estimate their players abilities, ingenuity, or understanding of the game. That last one will kill a lot of players. I’ve watched players get fed a moment to use an ability or feature and they completely miss all the DM hints and then when they can’t figure out why they are dying. It’s crazier when they have multiple solutions on their character sheet and they don’t use any of them. Even when the DM starts hinting toward those features. Also I’ve seen a bad dice roll night tpk. High AC monster, a lot of misses and when they did hit very bad damage rolls. A refusal to flee even when it was hinted that running is always an option.
This really depends on how common healers are in the campaign world. Most games I have played in the party will encounter npc healers on a fairly common basis and adventuring parties are common enough that cities will post quest boards for them and it is expected that those parties will have some healing capability. Healing potions are also readily available though too expensive for commoners.
In such a world a bandit captain when facing a party of adventurers would behave exactly the same before and after witnessing one be healed from unconcious because that it what he would expect to happen if he left one pc making death saves. Leaving a player unconcious to attack another is either the action of a low intelligence creature or metagaming (for the enjoyment of the players)
If you are in a world where magic is rare and the bandit captain has no reason to suspect the party could have the ability to heal then you approach is reasonable.
It's being realistic in the real world where being able to heal a downed person back to fighting fit in a few seconds is just nonexistent. It's not realistic in a world where such healers are common and part of the understanding of how fights work.
When I down someone with Bandits, it's 100% because I'm not a jerk that I move them on rather than kill the PC. Even Bandits will know that just because someone is unconscious, they could still get up and fight more, and it's going to be easier to kill them outright than to risk having the PC get up again if they don't take out all the healers in the next 6 seconds. When healers have those abilities in a world, it will affect the mentality and tactics of people in the world.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Actually in your world the bandit captain should target the healer the first time he sees them cast a divine spell. Anyone casting sacred flame dies first. Anyone casting shillalah or thorn whip is also a target. Honestly if I’m a bandit captain in a world where adventurers are normal I’m setting ambushes targeting anyone with a holy symbol on them.
Most actual play doesn’t have healers in every npc party. If your world has tons of people running around with level 3 cleric abilities the entire world should function differently than D&D presents it. Have you ever noticed that most npcs working at temples and churches don’t even have cleric abilities?
I haven't, because in the games I run, they do.
(Which is my way of saying that this is heavily DM-dependent and you shouldn't base what is 'normal' for D&D on what you are personally used to, nor for that matter on Adventure modules that are mostly written for low level parties where, for instance, the existence of a mid-level cleric who can cast Raise Dead at the local temple would render a murder plot that's supposed to happen later in the adventure completely moot).
Most actual play doesn't have many NPC parties. Clerics, who are mostly associated with parties, being quite warlike compared to your average Priests, are unlikely to be hanging around temples and churches. Clerics aren't Father Ted. The people bandits deal with are a lot more likely to have Clerics, Druids, Paladins and others with in-combat healing abilities than you would if you went to your local church. Also, what game are you playing? You don't need to be a L3 Cleric to be doling out healing spells as we've been describing. Clerics, and indeed all the previously mentioned classes as well as others, get multiple healing spells at L1. When you're still basically marginally above the average Joe. You're the kind of people that bandits have to deal with intruding into their lairs trying to clear them out.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.