For QOL remove the “if crit counts as two auto failed death saves”
this rule should be retired due to prone and unconscious conditions making it easy to be crit already, the single death save is fun, two auto fails is not
”Damage.If you take any damage, you suffer one death saving throw failure. If you suffer a critical hit, you instead suffer two death saving throw failures.”
a. Simplify the rules (remove the crit = two failed death saves, you already get crit when down at advantage)
b. Improve qol by reducing tpks
C. The new durable feat and the epic feat for death saves are useless , since you auto-fail from any hit (auto crit) and take two death saves
-make these feats worth taking
d. Dying condition + prone + unconscious are powerful enough without two auto death save failures on crit
I don't think it's a good idea to remove a crit from a DYING character to count as 2 misses, since a DM will generally NOT make enemies attack player characters that were knocked out often, partly to avoid cutting him. prematurely diversion to the players who had bad luck (if they are in combat and the others are there, if it is isolated, well, there the enemy chooses to end the matter or capture it before addressing the rest of the players, the capture can change a lot how the group had planned to act.), and partly because the creatures could choose instead of finishing off before those that are still fighting and dealing damage to them, and later finishing them off or capturing them.
If one of the group falls, one of the players must choose to prevent it from dying, moving it away from combat, even more so if there is area damage (these do not usually cause crits but are still dangerous), stabilize and heal it, perform actions that convert it in the spotlight, or eliminate opponents close to your ally instead of other targets, etc.
The new feat is NOT useless for crits and damage dealt, as it is an automatic success when making death saving throws, but the extra damage dealt while dying is not a roll, it just speeds up the counter, in fact without that feat let's say he receives 1 crit before that save, he has a 50% chance of dying on the 1st turn of convalescence, with that feat he would not die unless he receives damage
People already game the system with whack-a-mole healing. This will make it even worse. The autocrit makes it dangerous to be unconscious, as it should be, and means the players can’t know for sure how many rounds they have to get their ally back up.
Concur: people are lucky that it takes more than one melee attack against a downed target to finish them. Being prone, unconscious, and utterly defenseless with the reach of a foe with a blade - or a monster - should be utterly horrifying. Instead, the way the game currently tends to play, it's more just kinda inconvenient and mildly worrisome. The better simplification of the rules would be "if you take damage from a melee weapon attack (or a natural weapon attack) while Dying, you are slain and immediately die." Clean, simple, easy, intuitive, and it maximally discourages being down and defenseless within the easy reach of armed enemies or hungry predators. Which feels like a thing that SHOULD be maximally discouraged.
The first thing to say is that I don't disagree with the game being deadlier. However, I highly doubt WoTC will do that. D&D has become less and less deadly with the passing of editions, and for good reason. I remember playing Basic or AD&D 2e as a kid, which were absurdly deadly. Many times you would go into games with two or three character sheets prepared, because you knew you were going to die at one point or another. That had several unpleasant consequences. The first was that the narrative got weird, as suddenly, without much plot point, the DM had to introduce a new character practically out of nowhere (the hackneyed prisoner trick, for example). The second is that many times the players were forced not to play. Meaning: Players avoided opening doors or investigating, for fear of running into a fight. Especially if they were injured, since in those editions you only healed 1 HP a day. So if you had no healing potions, and the party was badly hurt, the cleric had no spells, etc... All you did was crawl through the shadows hoping to find a healing potion out of sheer serendipity. And the third is that a lot of players were getting frustrated with the game, as constantly dying is no fun. That frustration led both ways: Either the player stopped playing D&D, or the DM overprotected the characters (which ruined many campaigns). From there it went to 3.0 and 3.5, much less deadly but still deadlier than 5e (I never played 4e so I don't know). 3.0 and 3.5 brought in a lot of new players, and brought back players who had switched to other systems. But still the characters died from time to time, which frustrated many players. I have come to see adults crying for losing their character, which is not pleasant. And then came 5e, where after the first 2 or 3 levels it's practically impossible for characters to die. And it goes without saying that 5e is the most successful edition of the game.
So for all that I doubt WoTC is going to make the game deadlier. They don't want to lose frustrated players, and they don't want to scare off new players. In fact, they obviously want the opposite. And people today are less prepared to lose than they were in the past. Society in general is tending more and more to not know how to manage frustration, and D&D players weren't going to be different.
Now that I think about it, with UA, Menwy's request is fulfilled, since only the played ones make crits. Unfortunately according to UA, the enemies no longer have the possibility of making crits, therefore they only advance by 1 failure per damage caused, only being valid for when we cause them, and only important enemies that do NOT die automatically, that is, in UA that no longer exists.
so monsters no longer crit when you are prone and unconscious? What is the point of adamantine armor?
That was my counter to the crits
then this keeps it balanced if clear in rules. From reading prone and unconscious rules though it seems you would still be crit on hit and fail two death saves
The changes to critical hit rules were abandoned due to outrage and pushback from the community. Despite the changes to crit rules being an excellent game design decision that would have made One a better ruleset. So no - monsters can still crit.
I agree the current rule is unnecessarily complicated. The fact that being down means I have two other conditions (Unconscious and typically prone) and then one of those conditions means there are autocrits on melee attacks (Actually its attacks within 5 feet because why not I guess) and then crits on downed characters have this special rule of doing two death save fails. It just sets up unexpected and unpleasant chain reactions for inexperienced players. Why not just make it simpler and just be taking damaged while dying equals death.
I can understand why people don't like coup de grace rules, but honestly its easier for a dm to just not attack downed players if that's the type of game you want to play. What is actually gained by the current rules? I mean I guess the dm can hit your character once to make it more likely you'll die, but that's about it.
** I was under the impression that monsters/encounters in ONE cannot crit. Has this been changed?
Yes, this has been reverted.
I don't really have a dog in this fight, with all the level 1 healing abilities they're planning to add I need the full picture personally. But I for one don't think a cantrip (Spare The Dying) should fully revive people.
Whac-a-mole is one of the less appealing aspects of 5e combat. There are other options, such as negative hit points.
I personally hate dangling around 0HP, going in and out of KO with 1HP of healing without consequences. I used to use injuries from DMG, but now exhaustion seems like a balanced enough punishment for going KO. Still not sure about dying to two cat scratches after KO, though, as my players don't go KO often. I'm leaning to negative hit points as well, I think. Each melee hit having advantage and becoming a crit is probably enough to account for a fragile state a KO character is.
A simple fix to the whack a mole problem: healing doesn't end your unconscious condition until you have 3 successful death saving throws or are stabilized or whatever. So you can have a bunch of hit points, but you still gotta get those saves in, or have someone stabilize you with a healers kit or spare the dying cantrip (the old version) or whatever before you can get up so its a little bit more work than a simple healing word from 30 feet away. But that's just how I would do it.
I wonder if the team monitors these threads or reddit feedback.
They're clearly looking at something, because they knew the overwhelming Druid/wildshape feedback and had a response ready before the survey even went live.
But to reiterate what Crawford said in that video - threads like this may get a dozen people, Reddit or a Facebook group may top out at 100... but the surveys reach tens of thousands, so that's still our best bet to reach them. It's not even close.
A simple fix to the whack a mole problem: healing doesn't end your unconscious condition until you have 3 successful death saving throws or are stabilized or whatever. So you can have a bunch of hit points, but you still gotta get those saves in, or have someone stabilize you with a healers kit or spare the dying cantrip (the old version) or whatever before you can get up so its a little bit more work than a simple healing word from 30 feet away. But that's just how I would do it.
Would healing stop / reset the fail count? I know if I hit three failures while someone was actively healing me that I'd be ******.
For QOL remove the “if crit counts as two auto failed death saves”
It should be replaced with "Any melee attack on a character at zero hit points instantly kills them".
I think there should be a coup de grace action, ranged and melee options, uses your entire action and it kills a downed enemy. Or you can just hit them and it causes a failed death save. But only 1.
Edit to add I am also a fan of the negative hit points you suggested. Or heck maybe a healing spell should only cancel a death save if the person has not been stabilized yet.
For QOL remove the “if crit counts as two auto failed death saves”
this rule should be retired due to prone and unconscious conditions making it easy to be crit already, the single death save is fun, two auto fails is not
”Damage.If you take any damage, you suffer one death saving throw failure. If you suffer a critical hit, you instead suffer two death saving throw failures.”
a. Simplify the rules (remove the crit = two failed death saves, you already get crit when down at advantage)
b. Improve qol by reducing tpks
C. The new durable feat and the epic feat for death saves are useless , since you auto-fail from any hit (auto crit) and take two death saves
-make these feats worth taking
d. Dying condition + prone + unconscious are powerful enough without two auto death save failures on crit
I don't think it's a good idea to remove a crit from a DYING character to count as 2 misses, since a DM will generally NOT make enemies attack player characters that were knocked out often, partly to avoid cutting him. prematurely diversion to the players who had bad luck (if they are in combat and the others are there, if it is isolated, well, there the enemy chooses to end the matter or capture it before addressing the rest of the players, the capture can change a lot how the group had planned to act.), and partly because the creatures could choose instead of finishing off before those that are still fighting and dealing damage to them, and later finishing them off or capturing them.
If one of the group falls, one of the players must choose to prevent it from dying, moving it away from combat, even more so if there is area damage (these do not usually cause crits but are still dangerous), stabilize and heal it, perform actions that convert it in the spotlight, or eliminate opponents close to your ally instead of other targets, etc.
The new feat is NOT useless for crits and damage dealt, as it is an automatic success when making death saving throws, but the extra damage dealt while dying is not a roll, it just speeds up the counter, in fact without that feat let's say he receives 1 crit before that save, he has a 50% chance of dying on the 1st turn of convalescence, with that feat he would not die unless he receives damage
People already game the system with whack-a-mole healing. This will make it even worse. The autocrit makes it dangerous to be unconscious, as it should be, and means the players can’t know for sure how many rounds they have to get their ally back up.
It should be replaced with "Any melee attack on a character at zero hit points instantly kills them".
Coup de Grâce? Brutal.
Concur: people are lucky that it takes more than one melee attack against a downed target to finish them. Being prone, unconscious, and utterly defenseless with the reach of a foe with a blade - or a monster - should be utterly horrifying. Instead, the way the game currently tends to play, it's more just kinda inconvenient and mildly worrisome. The better simplification of the rules would be "if you take damage from a melee weapon attack (or a natural weapon attack) while Dying, you are slain and immediately die." Clean, simple, easy, intuitive, and it maximally discourages being down and defenseless within the easy reach of armed enemies or hungry predators. Which feels like a thing that SHOULD be maximally discouraged.
Please do not contact or message me.
The first thing to say is that I don't disagree with the game being deadlier. However, I highly doubt WoTC will do that. D&D has become less and less deadly with the passing of editions, and for good reason. I remember playing Basic or AD&D 2e as a kid, which were absurdly deadly. Many times you would go into games with two or three character sheets prepared, because you knew you were going to die at one point or another. That had several unpleasant consequences. The first was that the narrative got weird, as suddenly, without much plot point, the DM had to introduce a new character practically out of nowhere (the hackneyed prisoner trick, for example). The second is that many times the players were forced not to play. Meaning: Players avoided opening doors or investigating, for fear of running into a fight. Especially if they were injured, since in those editions you only healed 1 HP a day. So if you had no healing potions, and the party was badly hurt, the cleric had no spells, etc... All you did was crawl through the shadows hoping to find a healing potion out of sheer serendipity. And the third is that a lot of players were getting frustrated with the game, as constantly dying is no fun. That frustration led both ways: Either the player stopped playing D&D, or the DM overprotected the characters (which ruined many campaigns). From there it went to 3.0 and 3.5, much less deadly but still deadlier than 5e (I never played 4e so I don't know). 3.0 and 3.5 brought in a lot of new players, and brought back players who had switched to other systems. But still the characters died from time to time, which frustrated many players. I have come to see adults crying for losing their character, which is not pleasant. And then came 5e, where after the first 2 or 3 levels it's practically impossible for characters to die. And it goes without saying that 5e is the most successful edition of the game.
So for all that I doubt WoTC is going to make the game deadlier. They don't want to lose frustrated players, and they don't want to scare off new players. In fact, they obviously want the opposite. And people today are less prepared to lose than they were in the past. Society in general is tending more and more to not know how to manage frustration, and D&D players weren't going to be different.
Now that I think about it, with UA, Menwy's request is fulfilled, since only the played ones make crits. Unfortunately according to UA, the enemies no longer have the possibility of making crits, therefore they only advance by 1 failure per damage caused, only being valid for when we cause them, and only important enemies that do NOT die automatically, that is, in UA that no longer exists.
Whac-a-mole is one of the less appealing aspects of 5e combat. There are other options, such as negative hit points.
sakura:
That is an interesting take
so monsters no longer crit when you are prone and unconscious? What is the point of adamantine armor?
That was my counter to the crits
then this keeps it balanced if clear in rules. From reading prone and unconscious rules though it seems you would still be crit on hit and fail two death saves
The changes to critical hit rules were abandoned due to outrage and pushback from the community. Despite the changes to crit rules being an excellent game design decision that would have made One a better ruleset. So no - monsters can still crit.
Please do not contact or message me.
In a UA that has been reverted and is no longer relevant, yes...
I agree the current rule is unnecessarily complicated. The fact that being down means I have two other conditions (Unconscious and typically prone) and then one of those conditions means there are autocrits on melee attacks (Actually its attacks within 5 feet because why not I guess) and then crits on downed characters have this special rule of doing two death save fails. It just sets up unexpected and unpleasant chain reactions for inexperienced players. Why not just make it simpler and just be taking damaged while dying equals death.
I can understand why people don't like coup de grace rules, but honestly its easier for a dm to just not attack downed players if that's the type of game you want to play. What is actually gained by the current rules? I mean I guess the dm can hit your character once to make it more likely you'll die, but that's about it.
I would probably reword that to "with intent to kill".
Quite often I will roll multiple attacks and damage at the same time. Following this rule, I could inadvertently kill a PC.
** I was under the impression that monsters/encounters in ONE cannot crit. Has this been changed?
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Yes, this has been reverted.
I don't really have a dog in this fight, with all the level 1 healing abilities they're planning to add I need the full picture personally. But I for one don't think a cantrip (Spare The Dying) should fully revive people.
I wonder if the team monitors these threads or reddit feedback.
I personally hate dangling around 0HP, going in and out of KO with 1HP of healing without consequences. I used to use injuries from DMG, but now exhaustion seems like a balanced enough punishment for going KO. Still not sure about dying to two cat scratches after KO, though, as my players don't go KO often. I'm leaning to negative hit points as well, I think. Each melee hit having advantage and becoming a crit is probably enough to account for a fragile state a KO character is.
A simple fix to the whack a mole problem: healing doesn't end your unconscious condition until you have 3 successful death saving throws or are stabilized or whatever. So you can have a bunch of hit points, but you still gotta get those saves in, or have someone stabilize you with a healers kit or spare the dying cantrip (the old version) or whatever before you can get up so its a little bit more work than a simple healing word from 30 feet away. But that's just how I would do it.
They're clearly looking at something, because they knew the overwhelming Druid/wildshape feedback and had a response ready before the survey even went live.
But to reiterate what Crawford said in that video - threads like this may get a dozen people, Reddit or a Facebook group may top out at 100... but the surveys reach tens of thousands, so that's still our best bet to reach them. It's not even close.
Would healing stop / reset the fail count? I know if I hit three failures while someone was actively healing me that I'd be ******.
I think there should be a coup de grace action, ranged and melee options, uses your entire action and it kills a downed enemy. Or you can just hit them and it causes a failed death save. But only 1.
Edit to add I am also a fan of the negative hit points you suggested. Or heck maybe a healing spell should only cancel a death save if the person has not been stabilized yet.