Instead of dying, the group can agree that the party/character is simply defeated. They simply fall into a comatose state and gain hit points, can't awake unless 1) a Greater Restoration spell is cast on them or 2) after a long rest they can roll a D20 Cons save. Success they awake with whatever hit points they gained. Failure they stay Comatose and the process starts over.
I actually think that is almost similar to video games, except they just spawn back fully after death. I think this rule would be good, especially for those who had their characters for a long time and are attached to them. Obviously the rule shouldn't apply if your death was due to stupidity or a blatant disregard for persona safety. It also wouldn't apply to something similar to a massive catastrophe such as dying in lava, torn apart, swallowed etc.
If everyone dies? Well there are colorful options for that as well.
If there's no risk of failure, then it isn't a game. Just because the entire group dies, doesn't mean the story ends, it just means that different characters need to finish the story. Take a couple weeks off, work the TPK into the story, and continue.
As for ruling it a defeat instead of death, that's nothing new. DMs have been doing that since the earliest days of the game, they just finally put it in writing.
If there's no risk of failure, then it isn't a game. Just because the entire group dies, doesn't mean the story ends, it just means that different characters need to finish the story. Take a couple weeks off, work the TPK into the story, and continue.
Character death isn't the only way failure can occur. There need to be stakes*, but "you failed to achieve your goals" is something at stake. The town is overrun, or you don't save the dragon from the princess, etc. Even if you can go back and take another go, if the situation has changed, there were stakes.
* There do not, in fact, need to be stakes. It's entirely possible to have fun goofing around in a game where nobody can die, and there are no major crises to resolve, or you get any number of bites at the apple. It's not D&D's normal paradigm, but it's not Playing Wrong.
I also like the way death is covered in the new DMG. IMO death should be discussed in session Zero with players up-front. As stated in the new DMG, campaigns can be run as lethal or non-lethal, or something in between. The section on Scaling Lethality is the most important section for me in the new DMG. I run my campaign as something in between a lethal and non-lethal campaign: PCs are unconscious at 0 through -10 HP. Why -10? Because PCs almost never suffer damage that takes them to exactly 0 HP. PCs can be healed between 0 and-10 HP by normal healing spells, potions, etc. If a PC with 0 to -10 HP is not aided in any way by anyone else, they do not regain lost HPs. They would need to roll death saving throws. If they fail, they die, and can only be brough back to life with magic, e.g., revivify, resurrection, etc.
Why do I run death this way for my current campaign? Because the purpose of my current campaign is for players to have fun. And, yes, in my campaign PCs are taken to 0 to -10 HP fairly frequently. The most common way a PC dies is a TPK. And that would require a fairly big mistake in strategy or tactics, e.g., attack a BBEG (& minions) that is much more powerful, or a low probability event where an opponent(s) getsnlucky with a spell that everyone fails on their saving throw, etc.
I look forward to running a campaign that is more gritty and runs death differently. I think the way death is treated is campaign-dependent.
D&D was never intended to be a game of rules, but a game of preferences and judgments, this was true going as far back as the pre-release of original 1e when D&D was in its infancy and people have been arguing about what it "should "be for 50 years and for 50 years every single person who ever played the game no matter what method or approach they took, was running the game 100% correct.
For the first time in those 50 years, we see this acknowledged in the DMG which is just one of many reasons why I think this may in fact be the single best D&D guide for DM's ever written.
The book offers good advice on how to deal with death, the different ways to scale it from hyper old school lethality to god mode no one dies and everything in between. It offers advice on how to handle death scenes, various ways of dealing with death and more.
In a word, there is no way that you could alter this games death system or approach to character death in the game and be working outside of this advice and by association the rules. Every game you play, your DM will establish the lethality of the game and that is as it should be because there is not such thing as a death system that works universally for every type fo D&D game, there never has been and never will be. There is no such thing as "how deadly D&D should or shouldn't be", there is only "how deadly YOUR game is", a choice made by a DM or more commonly by a group decision. This philosophy is now officially supported by the game and this is the way it should have always been.
This does have applications for fail-forward, but in a lot of combats I can see it still resulting in death - real death.
Fighting a wild animal/gnolls/monstrosities/etc., then your comatose character gets eaten.
Fighting a BBEG, then your character will be finished off, turned undead, or whatever the BBEG does to people who try to kill them
There aren't many situations where I can imagine a character falling comatose and then being just left to sleep it off. Which means this is not much different from 5e where you would try to carry the corpse out of there and whip it over to Miracle Max's to get a cure for being mostly dead, until you're a high enough level to cast that cure yourself!
Instead of dying, the group can agree that the party/character is simply defeated. They simply fall into a comatose state and gain hit points, can't awake unless 1) a Greater Restoration spell is cast on them or 2) after a long rest they can roll a D20 Cons save. Success they awake with whatever hit points they gained. Failure they stay Comatose and the process starts over.
I actually think that is almost similar to video games, except they just spawn back fully after death. I think this rule would be good, especially for those who had their characters for a long time and are attached to them. Obviously the rule shouldn't apply if your death was due to stupidity or a blatant disregard for persona safety. It also wouldn't apply to something similar to a massive catastrophe such as dying in lava, torn apart, swallowed etc.
If everyone dies? Well there are colorful options for that as well.
If there's no risk of failure, then it isn't a game. Just because the entire group dies, doesn't mean the story ends, it just means that different characters need to finish the story. Take a couple weeks off, work the TPK into the story, and continue.
As for ruling it a defeat instead of death, that's nothing new. DMs have been doing that since the earliest days of the game, they just finally put it in writing.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
Character death isn't the only way failure can occur. There need to be stakes*, but "you failed to achieve your goals" is something at stake. The town is overrun, or you don't save the dragon from the princess, etc. Even if you can go back and take another go, if the situation has changed, there were stakes.
* There do not, in fact, need to be stakes. It's entirely possible to have fun goofing around in a game where nobody can die, and there are no major crises to resolve, or you get any number of bites at the apple. It's not D&D's normal paradigm, but it's not Playing Wrong.
âIf anything is possible, then nothing is interesting.â
â H.G. WellsI also like the way death is covered in the new DMG. IMO death should be discussed in session Zero with players up-front. As stated in the new DMG, campaigns can be run as lethal or non-lethal, or something in between. The section on Scaling Lethality is the most important section for me in the new DMG. I run my campaign as something in between a lethal and non-lethal campaign: PCs are unconscious at 0 through -10 HP. Why -10? Because PCs almost never suffer damage that takes them to exactly 0 HP. PCs can be healed between 0 and-10 HP by normal healing spells, potions, etc. If a PC with 0 to -10 HP is not aided in any way by anyone else, they do not regain lost HPs. They would need to roll death saving throws. If they fail, they die, and can only be brough back to life with magic, e.g., revivify, resurrection, etc.
Why do I run death this way for my current campaign? Because the purpose of my current campaign is for players to have fun. And, yes, in my campaign PCs are taken to 0 to -10 HP fairly frequently. The most common way a PC dies is a TPK. And that would require a fairly big mistake in strategy or tactics, e.g., attack a BBEG (& minions) that is much more powerful, or a low probability event where an opponent(s) getsnlucky with a spell that everyone fails on their saving throw, etc.
I look forward to running a campaign that is more gritty and runs death differently. I think the way death is treated is campaign-dependent.
Started playing AD&D in the late 70s and stopped in the mid-80s. Started immersing myself into 5e in 2023
D&D was never intended to be a game of rules, but a game of preferences and judgments, this was true going as far back as the pre-release of original 1e when D&D was in its infancy and people have been arguing about what it "should "be for 50 years and for 50 years every single person who ever played the game no matter what method or approach they took, was running the game 100% correct.
For the first time in those 50 years, we see this acknowledged in the DMG which is just one of many reasons why I think this may in fact be the single best D&D guide for DM's ever written.
The book offers good advice on how to deal with death, the different ways to scale it from hyper old school lethality to god mode no one dies and everything in between. It offers advice on how to handle death scenes, various ways of dealing with death and more.
In a word, there is no way that you could alter this games death system or approach to character death in the game and be working outside of this advice and by association the rules. Every game you play, your DM will establish the lethality of the game and that is as it should be because there is not such thing as a death system that works universally for every type fo D&D game, there never has been and never will be. There is no such thing as "how deadly D&D should or shouldn't be", there is only "how deadly YOUR game is", a choice made by a DM or more commonly by a group decision. This philosophy is now officially supported by the game and this is the way it should have always been.
This does have applications for fail-forward, but in a lot of combats I can see it still resulting in death - real death.
Fighting a wild animal/gnolls/monstrosities/etc., then your comatose character gets eaten.
Fighting a BBEG, then your character will be finished off, turned undead, or whatever the BBEG does to people who try to kill them
There aren't many situations where I can imagine a character falling comatose and then being just left to sleep it off. Which means this is not much different from 5e where you would try to carry the corpse out of there and whip it over to Miracle Max's to get a cure for being mostly dead, until you're a high enough level to cast that cure yourself!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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