Episode 68. Play long enough, eventually a PC is going to die... Get Strongholds & Followers! shop.mcdmproductions.com Our Discord! mcdm.gg/discord Twitter! / mattcolville #RunningTheGame #MattColville
The problem with this is that certain modes of damage do things that don't harm your heroism...like...all elemental damage. And how does a resistance work? This is why D&D, especially 5E has a hard coded genre and it shouldn't be used for everything. You can't be almost poisoned and take poison damage, after all.
@@Amrylin1337 Toxins have threshold doses. A glancing blow from a poisoned dagger could cause pain and numbness at the point of injury, even if the poison didn't take hold. That's poison damage.
One of the first games I played the party started out as a group of soldiers tasked with securing a town. We get there and there's a lich with an undead army. One of the PCs was really egging us on to go and fight (despite only starting at 3rd level), so eventually we followed them into the town. After taking out a few skeletons the lich suddenly teleported in. Knowing we were outmatched we all froze, and the lich asked us who we were and what we thought we were doing killing his creations. Upon realizing we were just soldiers following orders he told us to go back to our commander and tell him that as long as he was left alone he wouldn't trouble us any further. The PC who had been egging us on decided to run at the lich with his sword out to try and slash at him. The lich simply glanced in his direction and then used Power Word Kill. Once we saw the PC fall we all ran back to the woodland then slowly made our way back to the rest of the army, shocked that the DM would do that. The player who's character died just seemed crestfallen, and we all felt so bad. After about fifteen minutes where we all were kinda awkward, the DM revealed that he had pre-planned that encounter with the player (who's _real_ character was waiting at the camp). He had wanted to impress on us that this game was going to have the possibility of death, and that doing stupid things would have consequences. I thought it was a great way to start the game, it really drove home the setting and solidified our expectations.
@@edlaprade I mean the good thing is the lich literally did the power word kill instakill method so had they followed him in he would just be dead and they would all look at him, look at the lich and go yeah... fuck this lol
In my experience asking "who has done more damage to the monster?" or similar questions and switching to them after a PC has gone down usually makes at least one of my players get the idea that if they do enough damage to my monster they can distract it away from their party member. And instead of it seeming like I'm pulling my punches it makes them feel like the encounter is this tense moment where they are trying to save each other by unloading their most powerful attacks on the monster to keep them away from their unconscious party members and it makes them feel really heroic
If you play monsters intelligently, there are all kinds of benefits. For humanoids like goblins, if half their number are cut down I will typically have them attempt to retreat, though one or two might stay behind because they're bolder or full of murderous rage.
This is how my current DM runs combat. I'm a wizard and we have some heavy armoured melee combatants, the foe ignored the frontliners to try and take me out, saying " the dragon attacks you, because you just did 40 damage to it with one spell and recognises that you are currently the biggest threat"
This is a good solution anyway. A) "pulling aggro" works in a lot of computer games and is a critical, tactical move. Resulting from it are tank classes who's job is exactly that. B) every intelligent monster or enemy group WILL attack the most dangerous opponent first. For example the old tactic of "kill the mage first!"... PCs do it all the time. Why wouldn't npcs do it?
This would actually make the traditional healer classes not into actual healers as in magic doctors, but rather inspiring individuals (possibly through being a "man/woman of God"), that inspire their fellow adventurers to fight on longer than they normally would. They don't close wounds and stop bleeding with their spells, but reinvigorate people to have the energy to dodge more attacks
My players literally jumped into a volcano, plunging into the BBEG's lair as dozens of high-level goons chased them. They were low on health and I knew there was a strong chance it was a TPK, so I called the session and spent a week in thought. When we rejoined for the next session, they perished: three level 7s against giants and dragons, so they stood no chance. The last surviving player even begged the BBEG not to kill them, but I hated the idea that such a terrible, cruel sorcerer - one whom they had nearly killed a few rounds prior - would spare them. It felt like a cheap outcome. Instead, I described them waking up in the far-off apocalyptic future where the BBEG had won, and they had been resurrected by the friendly NPC cleric and NPC time wizard, and were about to go back in time to save the future. Players loved it, and they have a burning vengeance for the BBEG now. It's a heroic fantasy campaign, so it worked. It won't work for everything. I am also running Tomb of Annihilation, and the players knew from session 0 that death would be swift and unforgiving in that campaign.
well one session the party's cleric fell in a hole. He couldn't come out because he kept rolling 1s and 2s. meanwhile my pc died because a useless undead decided to crit and tried to paralyze me. Rolled horribly for the saving throw. He executed me next turn. One turn later the cleric rolled decently, got out, and ended the encounter with a single "channel positive energy". Yea we rolled like trash.
In Lord of the Rings Online, HP is replaced with Morale. you're able to keep in the fight as your morale remains unbroken.. but when your morale finally breaks, you just lose the willpower to consider pushing on through the encounter. It's why music and other inspiration things restore 'health' in LOTRO.
Another great touch is when enemies start reacting emotionally to THEIR allies being killed, it will make the players realize these monsters or NPCs aren't just robots or fodder for their weapons!
This is my favorite tools. A lot of the time, my npcs and monsters are very quirky/have personalities, and my players love/hate because how much it blurs the line between just mindless murder and interaction. x3
Can someone tell my players *trying the sleep with everything* is not "interacting with NPCs in a meaningful way" Maybe one or two, but not the entire cast and back catalogue... _(certainly not the monster manual)_
In my last campaign only one of my PCs died. It was during the final boss fight (I told my players ahead of the campaign that it's wasn't in tented to be balanced in their favor and that their would be fights that I didn't intend for them to win) and the player was playing a life cleric. He was largely responsible for the fact that no one had died thus far. The boss did one final attack (essentially a last-ditch attempt to defeat the party as he would likely die when initiative reset) that was a massive explosion. The cleric was the only person who failed their save and thanks to his constant vigilance, every other party member was high enough HP to survive. The player was actually quite satisfied with the ending because to the very end, he kept his friends alive.
I've never played much pen&paper/tabletop rpgs, but I've done quite a bit of group content in mmorpgs. Healers and tanks are generally really forgiving of death if the party stays alive. My buddy played a Paladin in FFXI and he'd die and lose XP/levels, but keeping us alive through the content was his reward. I'd never see him complain unless someone did something so dumb that they wiped the party and he had no chance of saving us.
I just realized I have been using inspiration wrong this whole time. How I use it: You can have multiple inspirations to reroll any D20 roll RAW: You can have one inspiration to give yourself and advantage to a D20 roll Was gonna talk about having advantage and using inspiration to reroll to get 1, 1, 1 and 1 But I was gonna also say that is a problem only when we talk about Attack rolls or Death saving roll counting as 2. On ability check or saving throw rolling a 1 can still lead you to succeed the roll ...
@@xezzee You could have elven accuracy and roll 3 d20s, or use halfling to reroll the 1 on regular advantage, then use lucky to roll an additional die, giving you 4 rolls total.
It's really started breaking immersion for me when my monsters knock PCs unconscious over and over again as the healer does his job. At some point, unsporting or not, it doesn't make sense for even a moderately intelligent foe to not realize that "down is not out" with these guys and start lopping heads.
8:17 "I think we should be telling our players, all our players in every game, that regardless of our intent or their behavior, the game is so complex - many encounters, some with many enemies with many different special abilities and lots of dice being rolled and each one dozens of times - that with no one intending to, and no one doing anything stupid, characters can die." -Matt
This happened to one of my players. He honestly didn't do anything stupid, and I couldn't justify any way he could have reasonably survived the circumstance, and the accompanying dice rolls.
@@sk8rdman Even so, making a dice roll for a decision means you have to take into account the success and failure of those rolls. The act of making the player roll means a chance of utter failure is possible. Along with unbelieveable success. I think it can be helpful to not have a binary success/failure state with an important roll. It's good to have degrees of success or failure. Having allies around to help add advantage to a dice roll is also powerful. Maybe the player only just fails a dex save to avoid falling over. In the binary scenario the player just falls over and goes prone. In a more degree based success/failure the player might just lose some feet of movement, given how close they were to succeeding they don't deserve the full punishment. And likewise if there's a really difficult lock to pick, that could be life or death for the party it doesn't necessarily have to be decided on one dice roll. You could get them to roll perception/history check first for a potential advantage, say they see not only the lock but they also recognise the lock from another one similar to it, which can give them advantage or a +X amount on the dice roll.Or simply prevents a critical failure breaking the lock. It doesn't disrupt the flow of play and it gives the players another chance at succeeding where otherwise a binary success/failure state could decide the fate of the whole encounter. The more dice rolls you allow the players to have and more ways you can enable them to gain advantage in unique fashion allows them more chances of success but also more chances of roleplaying the encounter. It's not for everyone, and sometimes a binary state is the only option if you're a little short on time or just not used to the game but just remember there are tools you can use to push the players to suceed where they otherwise thought they wouldn't. Or give them a scrap of info that their character would likely know to help them push through a difficult moment. Even just flat out giving then inspiration dice at key moments for good roleplay gives the players a tool they can use if they feel like they need it. And not once here did I mention fudging dice. So long as you're consistent with how you play and how you interpret the rules your players should be able to understand where you're coming from. Just so long as they know in advance what kind of game they're playing. Not everyone wants to randomly fall off a cliff and die, and not everyone wants a miraculous intervention rob their character of a glorious death in battle. My 2 pennies
It was unlikely that the player would die. It was largely due to a critical hit and a failed initiative. He got unlucky. Maybe he shouldn't have walked off at night alone with the doppelganger, but that's how it played out. He thought she was just a harmless wood elf.
I like the "don't appear like you're pulling punches" bit. I knew one of my players was low on hp when the multiattack boss hit him the first time. I paused; he didn't declare unconsciousness. Boss hit him again, and dealt more damage. "I'm unconscious from the first attack". I would have had the boss switch targets if the player had told me earlier, but I decided to keep the 2nd hit, which gave him 2 death save fails, and he got his 3rd fail on his next turn. I believe that saying "oh, actually he didn't hit you because I want you to still be alive" would be just as (if not more) unsatisfying as death.
I love what you describe as 'hitpoints being how luckily you managed to dodge a hit', because this is EXACTLY what Dusk City Outlaws does. Each character has luck instead of hitpoints, successful attacks reduce your luck (the players are encouraged to describe in what way they nearly got stabbed but cunningly dodged the attack) and once you run out of luck, well... you're out of luck. (and start taking wounds from hits)
@@PaxTorumin That's circular logic. The only reason a wizard does that is because they have fewer hit points. If hit points represent heroism, then that is saying the reason they are less heroic is because they have been given less heroism. But why? Because they have fewer hit points. Sorry, it doesn't work.
@@FlatOnHisFace Actually I was being sarcastic, not logical, in an attempt to politely dismiss you with humor. Colville is the one asserting HP = Heroism and he _explains his reasoning in the first three minutes_ of the video. I happen to like his explanation and agree with it. If his explanation is insufficient for your needs, that's _tough shit._
@@PaxTorumin Ooh, I guess my perfectly valid rebuttal to someone's misinterpretation of the meaning of something doesn't matter because some guy that I'll never meet said "tough shit." How will my group ever cope with playing hit points as stamina vs. injury again? I've been dismissed with humor that isn't funny! NOOOOooooo!
"This lethal encounter didn't have to be lethal, if only..." There is only one ending to this sentence that won't make your players hate you instantly, and it is this: *If only I hadn't rolled 15 crits in a row!*
Watching this video a few weeks ago, I remember thinking how many times a PC death in my games has ended up exactly as you described. They would ask why it happened, I would feel defensive and suggest alternatives, which only caused them to feel more offended. Tonight a PC died in my game, and as I could see them struggling with the emotions that brought on, I remembered this video's advice. After trying what you suggested, and I can only say thank you, as that is by far the best closure I think we've ever had. Keep up the great work Mr. Colville.
Having an enemy switch targets after they knock a PC unconscious has never seemed unbelievable to me. If I was a bandit fighting 3-5 well armed adventurers and one of them fell to the ground, I wouldn't stop to stab them a few times to make sure they're dead, I would immediately focus on the next nearest person to me.
Our group works hard to get pcs back up (healing wording them), and with those mechanics it may be very sensible to murder the pc first to avoid him getting back up. If you know that downed players are down for the rest of the fight, I'd definitely agree.
Given how fast combat is and how dangerous 3-5 opponents are to a single defender (the bandit) every attack would seem to be ideally aimed at incapacitating any active threat. I think a lot depends on the prevalence of magical healing in your campaign though.
The problem is, with present mechanics, basically the way that players can stand up for free, and the fact that healing word is a bonus action, an unconscious PC is no less threatening than a PC at 1 hp. If a bandit knocks someone unconscious he is acting in a tactically disadvantageous way by not immediately stabbing the downed character, unless he just downed the cleric or something and can be reasonably assured that the player isn't just going to stand back up. If you really want to be evil, give the enemies death save mechanics and a healer and watch the party squirm until they realize they have to cu de gras the guys they knock down. Then they'll understand when the DM does it.
If we use a bandit as an example then what you say makes sense, but if it's an animal or a monster of some kind, or a villain who gains powers from killing, then it's more easy to justify making sure the pc is dead. Also if the unconscious PC is a character of high importance, like a cleric or wizard, it would be smarter for the bandit to execute them then run away from the rest of the party to fight another day. Of course the important lesson of players having proper expectations applies. "I am going to fucking kill you because you have spells" is something you want to warn someone about in advance.
Way I see it, the first time the bandit downs a PC, they'll naturally switch targets. If they're around long enough for a downed PC to get back up, next time they down a PC they're going to stay on them. The typical bandits certainly haven't gone their whole pillaging career double tapping every person they mug, so that's not going to be their first instinct if they have no prior knowledge of the party.
Rules on the Unconscious condition and Death Saving Throws Player's Handbook pg. 292 - Attack rolls against the unconscious creature have advantage. - Any attack that hits an unconscious creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Player's Handbook pg. 197 - If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead.
So by this logic, and character who is at 0 hit points and gets hit with an attack within 5 feet, they suffer 2 failed death saves, not 1. Interesting. I'd have to think about it, but I might roll with it. Would anyone else? If not, how would you modify the rules the not do this?
@@SomeTomfoolery Lots of ways to solve this: increase the number of death saving throws before you die to 3 + CONmod; introduce healing surges PC can do if they hit 0 HP; dole out rings of regeneration with limited charges per day; allow clerics or paladins the ability to cast a heal as a reaction if an ally falls, simply rule any hit while unconscious is only 1 DST, etc. Totally depends on how much you want PC death to play a role in your game
@@SomeTomfoolery I would roll with it. But I'd probably discuss with players first the idea of hitting downed PCs - some players might be okay with it, some others dramatically against it. It depends - if the group is out of sync with what I want to do, maybe it's not the group for me as DM.
I ran a game where my party ran into an entire town of werewolves a few hours before they transformed. They missed a lot of clues. After they fled, barely escaping a chase sequence, they returned to the town the next day and rigged traps for nightfall. Predictably, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, so it got hectic. The rouge did something incredibly brave that got him knocked out. Rather than have the werewolf kill him outright, one ripped his arm off, and ran after the rest of the party. The party won the day, and saved what was ledt of the rouge. I told the player he was free to make a new char3if he wanted, but the player was legitimately excited for the challenge of a one armed PC. He ended up with an axe of returning, (homebrew item) that he tossed around the battlefield like the most dangerous boomerang in the world. Amd it put the fear of Almighty GOD in the rest of the party. Hard to sword and board with one arm. Or leg. So, if. PC is down, and you don't want to lose them, think about a maiming attack rather then death. Creates an opportunity for PC growth, and an encounter no one is soon to forget.
When you unknowingly set off a chain reaction of dying fire beetles, engulfing your party of level-1 characters in a clusterbomb of napalm, you cant fudge your way out of that.
Killed a PC recently, and in a low magic world... he was a druid with reincarnation, and the other PCs were upset he came back after they mourned his loss :-)
I had a player say "Well I wanna run this other type of character, so my character plunges off a cliff." "Bro, she can just live a peaceful life as a retired adventurer..." "Nah, plunges off a cliff." True story. That was a weird player tbh.
Not gonna lie.. I seriously thought it was one of those and he was just making an analogy before moving on to the test. I just came over here from the suggested videos list.
For me as a player, when i see that dm is pulling punches i feel insulted. My intelligence or luck led me to this outcome, so let my pc die like he lived. Without thrill of death whole experience for me is meaningless and as result my choices is meaningless too. Sry for bad english.
I feel the same way. One of the best feelings this game can give you is standing victorious after a tough battle, knowing that you won because you earned it. If you find out that you were never intended to lose, and the DM will go out of his way to make sure noone dies, then that feeling is gone. You're not winning because you earned it, you are winning because the DM wants you to. And that makes the game boring.
I do on occasion do some of the subtle things Matt suggests in this video, like finding a way to justify spreading out attacks rather than focusing everything on one PC. At the end of the day, I DO want my players to win, and I tell them this as I'm rolling 12d6 poison damage against the lot of them. I don't kill PCs, but that doesn't mean PCs can't die.
It depends on the circumstances and how much the DM knows about their players. Matt in this video references Phil a long time friend and dnd player, so he clearly knows what phil expects from the game with a given character. So you have more leeway in interpreting when phils character gets into trouble you don't have to worry as much about him feeling bad about dying. For most folks this isn't a realistic option, not everyone has a friend of decades sitting in their game. Which is why a lesson zero is important. Ask your players beforehand "are you okay with your character dying? do you want a hint if/when it's going to happen or are you willing to play the odds and bet everything on a single dice roll?" "are you okay with divine intervention to protect your character or otherwise some unknown plot element saving them or would you rather die?" "would your character want to come back to life if the players found a way to res them?" "do you want to do an underworld/otherworldly setting when your character dies as a means of escaping death and coming back to life via a small set of trials or roleplaying moments with some diety/devil/divine creature?" "are you okay with falling out of a window and being instantly killed?". And sometimes just simply outlining to the players as Matt points out "this is the world, life is cheap" or "this is the world there is an afterlife, death is not the end" and as the DM it's their job to decide how far they want to push that campaign toward which extreme they want things to go. Sometimes if your group is roleplayers you can get away with more dice roll fudging and otherwise "pull punches" because the players expect a story, and killing a character ruins that story. Sometimes the players want a more mechanical experience true to that world, where dice roll fudging is harder to do and you don't pull punches because the players expect a challenge to help highlight and bring realism to that world. Neither option is bad, but you do need to know which the players prefer. And sometimes if you have a mix of players you just have to upset one of them with doing something they didn't expect. While it's not their world, the world wouldn't exist without their characters bringing life to it, so there's definitely a bit of collaboration that has to occur. Matt's resolution here by having the players roll up new characters and bring them in as reinforcements to come in at a dramatic moment could work, but that's a lot of extra work the DM has to do and they can't do it all the time. An alternative is just doing things like mentally altering the number of NPC's the players have to deal with as allies or enemies depending on how well the players are doing, to help the action economy or hinder it if the players need more of a challenge. or altering the amount of HP the boss has. Keeping tabs on how much health players have is different to keeping tabs on how much health monsters have. The DM controls the information about the monsters, but the player information is known to everyone. So there's an implicit bias in favour of the players that the DM has to constantly dance around. I can also guarantee you that you don't notice when the DM pulls their punches for real because the DM wants an epic story just as much as the player. And arguably witholding groups of monsters could qualify as pulling punches. Or even giving the group extra magic items or some other random boon the players happen upon. And when you do notice it's not because the DM schemed against you or robbed you of a fine death. but because they either forgot about an ability in combat or didn't know off-hand exactly how you wanted the game to be played. I suppose there are a few DM's who are just assholes. But That's just life, sometimes you just have to call it quits and admit you lost a lot of time dealing with someone who was an asshole.
I remember one time I was DMing, and I had a player ask me to die. He got sick of his own character. I agreed and told him to make a new character same level. However I didnt do it immediately. I waited for a chance to do the death by no die roll. He failed an animal handling roll trying to get a horse under control, and was flung off as a 50 man party of guards was in pursuit. It was so fast that he was ran over by the first few chasers, and then some that later noticed him in the road, remembering their capture orders started to avoid him. But then the captain of that guard, who had already been embarrassed by the party before, made a decision to swing his sword as he passed by, decapitating the PC. He then ordered the men to continue on and chase the rest of the party. Moral, sometimes PC death can be used at the right time to give more flavor to a story, as well as let them go for a new character if for some reason they just werent enjoying the story as their current one anymore.
Running the Star Wars RPG from FFG I tell my players in every game.. Life is cheap in the Star Wars universe. A New Hope introduces us to every character with a Death. Lukes ant and uncle. Alderaan with Leia. Vader and the Rebels on the blockade runner. Knowing the stakes are high and death is a real possibility make the heroic actions that much more impactful. Know that running across that field of blaster fire could save your friends life... but could end yours. Its fun. Dramatic. So happy I communicated this intent at the start of the campaign. :D
i'm playing a sentient droid on a star wars rpg. our mj is a big fan of the call of cthulhu and even though he's not as lethal in other rpg, he's still very harsh on the PCs. the fun part with that character is that i can take slightly reckless actions for my team, get my body out of order, then my team pick up my chip and my next body will be up to a dice. in the past, i took a grenade for one of my team mates (who's kind of posing as my owner), i rolled a few time on my dex stat to catch a blaster shot with my hand (and loose my hand), and i once played the passive medical droid as some imperial soldier were storming in a bar waiting for them to ignore me, just to stab their commander with my needle and walk the fuck away (since that medical droid was not meant to run) as they chased and caught me, while my partners had all the room they needed to fight back.
@@intergalactic92 for a lot of people, star wars is a saga from their youth, but it's still far from a fairy tail. in the original trilogy, countless people die cruel deaths, vador is not just a bad ill-willed villain, he's that harsh and unforgiving character who kill his own subordinate because of mistakes. regarding the prelogy, i guess the order 66 alone is enough...
The reinforcement party is an amazing idea! The only thing is rescuing a player’s first character probably leads to a lot of them talking to themselves in roleplay lol
On the topic of not being able to say how deadly a game will be: One of my DnD groups has been through a few adventures now. Between Humblewood, Icewind Dale, and Descent Into Avernus, Humblewood was by far the most deadly despite it being a cute forest adventure with talking bird people and the other two being a literal descent into hell and a frozen wasteland filled with undead and a demigod that wants to create perpetual winter. While in Descent into Avernus we had one or two people die who were revived through revival spells and in Icewind Dale we've had one person die and a whole bunch of really close calls, in Humblewood we had a near TPK (the wizard cast invisibility and hid after everybody else had died hence 'near' TPK)
One thing I would add to this discussion: when talking to your players about how prevalent death is in your campaign, you should also tell them how prevelant revivication magic is. How easy or hard is it to bring someone back from the dead? Are there clerics who you can pay to raise your buddy, or is that magic rare and only exists in legend? Just a thought. Cant wait for the D&D stream!
I was thinking that the necromancer could have "revived" the party to 1 hp locked in a cell. After a moment they realize some one is missing. During the escape they find the missing party member who uses twisted versions of his abilities to stop them. This former party member is now an intelligent captain of the undead hordes and the party themselves find they themselves may in fact be undead as well.
@CommandoDude that's why its important to discuss resurrection with your party. If you dm a game and get rid of resurection magic, or change it in some way you should tell your players.
I’m on the side of not telling them about resurrection magic unless their CHARACTERS would know. It keeps the meta gaming down to a minimum. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “You character would have zero idea about this” or even have them roll for that knowledge.
@@ironman21389 That's... really shitty. Like this is information that should be disclosed before the game starts. Hell, before characters are made. Have some faith in your players to play reasonably instead of trying to trick and misinform them because 'they wouldn't know'. The player should, even if their character doesn't.
EviIPaladin it depends on the group. Mine didn’t ask about it and I’m playing with two serious veteran players, one of which is playing the Paladin, and the other is playing a Druid. They discovered how frequent that magic is when they found a Revivify scroll early in the game and when they went to buy another one they realized it’ll cost them quite a bit of gold. Same with trying to get a magical curse removed. They’ve also had a healing wand made and even buy potions. I like letting my players discover the world through the eyes of their characters. Letting them be intuitive and make precautions when going out and adventuring. My players learned after almost being wiped out at level 5 that they need to be prepared for when things go bad. It works for my table and it may not work at yours.
I killed my first player this weekend. I've always been the kind of DM that likes to toss really difficult encounters at my players. My players have always dealt with this just fine. Last session was that kinda "let's chill and not do anything too difficult" type of thing. This lead to the rouge eating 300 g of pure cocaine.... A glorious death....
This literally just happened to me a couple hours ago. Young blue dragon breathed lightning through three level 4-5 characters, killing the two injured ones instantly. Can't help but think what I, as the DM, could've done to avoid this. It was a side mission that not everyone wanted to do, and no one expected death at the end, so I feel guilty. But I'm confident good will come out of it. The two players were upset, but they're already brainstorming new characters! Thanks for the analysis Matt
I know what you mean. My friends character died in such an inane way I was worried it would turn him off from DnD and my crew forever. Had the direct opposite effect and it turned out i was more devastated for him than HE was. That and I felt cheated my first PC kill was so....lack luster.(Most DM's imagine that a BBEG would slay a PC in an epic showdown rather than a random encounter with bandits on a bridge....)
I killed my first PC in the first encounter of the first adventure I ever ran. I had five L15 PCs entering a dungeon, and the first door they opened had a wail of the banshee trap on it...three of the five PCs failed their saves and died. That's when I learned I'm a sociopathic GM, because I didn't feel bad for the PCs at all. :-) That adventure was a one-off I was running to introduce some new players to D&D. A couple of weeks later we started the Forgotten Realms campaign I'd been planning for 8 months, and in the first round of the first encounter, I killed the party cleric. That was 13 years ago, and the only time I've ever used deus ex machina by having the 24th level cleric I'd run in an earlier FR campaign and who had actually sent the PCs on their quest. Nothing like a bunch of new players seeing true resurrection used in the first 30 minutes of a low-level campaign...
@@frocat5163 I killed my level 5 pc with a swarm of spiders that rolled well. It was 3v2, with 3 PCs against a swarm of spiders, and a giant spider. Long story short, the spiders rolled well. The PC went unconscious, he rolled a 1 on both his death saves, and that was the end.
My 4 eleventh-level players are fighting a lich tonight, and she's been scrying them for a while. This video couldn't have been more perfectly timed for me!
@@simontmn I'd start with Dominate Person on the party melee fighter (Barbarian first, Fighter if a barbarian isn't present), then Disintegrate. If the Dominate Person goes off, either the party can waste spells to break the enchantment, or they have to contend with a party member maiming them in addition to dealing with the lich. Follow up with Disintegrate spells to the Cleric, then the Wizard. Don't forget the buff the lich with Greater Invisibility, Mirror Image, Displacement, and True Seeing. Also, any treasure items you roll for him that are useful to him, equip them to him and have him utilize them.
@@arcurusplays6899 I buffed her with mislead (for smug monologuing) and foresight instead. I had swapped a lot of her instakills out for things that would be more interesting and interactive. Gave her a shield guardian that cast fly on her. Put the fight in a lava pit with pillars of stone she could fly away to. They almost didn't make it. And now the party's killed her once, she's even more pissed with them.
Clicked for the title, stayed for the content! I might start implementing some of this into my games; it's a super interesting, especially the stuff about hit point levels, and I'd never heard it before. Thanks for making this video!
Something I haven't seen mentioned is that you can always have your enemies start dealing non-lethal damage, and try to take the party prisoners. Players often hate that much more than just dying!
The magnet idea for tracking health points is a literal game changer. In place of magnetized miniature bases and colored magnets using colored disks for the mini to sit on works well enough too.
We had the lethality conversation (among others, session 0 was very productive) in the new group I'm running for now, and we were all in agreement that high lethality was not something we were interested in, but dramatic lethality was. To that end I pitched a simple rule hack that will likely be tested in next Saturday's game: the Rally Save. Instead of Death Saves at 0 HP, your character makes Rally Saves to get back in the fight. Every time you make one, you can act that round, either moving or acting at disadvantage. If you crit or make three successes, you can spend a hit die and get back into the action, and if you fail three times or crit fail you're unconscious for real. Outright death (outside of spells, I need to look at those more in depth as we go) happens as a result of massive damage or due to executions, which need to be declared as an action and take a full round to trigger, allowing them to be interrupted. Death isn't cheap in this game. It's a threat for the reckless and foolish and leveled by the cruel or true villains. I'm looking forward to seeing how well it works.
That's very cool, I like this idea a lot. I'm starting my very first campain as a DM soon and I might try that, because I'm way too afraid of a TPK haha !
I'll always remember the first time I killed one of my players' characters. It was my first time DM'ing, and several people's first time playing. I misjudged the lethality of an encounter, and a player died in the very first session. Things fell apart quickly from there, and though the remaining characters survived, we did not continue that particular adventure. Thankfully, we all still play together in a new campaign, and I've gotten better at modulating encounters at design time and run time to prevent untimely death. In case you were curious, it was the bugbear at the end of the Tomb of the Delian Order. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I love giving GMs advice on how to avoid killing PCs other than just taking it and saying whatever. Having the told how to manage the game game both ahead if time and on the fly is a true skill GM's need to learn.
When you said, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, I flashed back to my childhood, then lo and behold, you actually put in a Super Chicken & Fred clip! Thank you!
Yes one of our best DM's Brad let it be known at the start that he WOULD let the dice-roll-as-they-may which was especially funny one fight where a HUGE Hill Giant we was struggling against Crit Fumbled a swing with it's Great Club and took itself out... :P
@AeonReign Actually once when I was splitting Locust Tree base root wood with a maul, the twist of the wood angled that full power swing out to the side and into my leg shin. Thankfully I ALWAYS wore some old Catcher's legguards just in case of 'situations' such as that... :)
@AeonReign This actually reminds me of one particularly interesting & freaky combat related injury also leading to death... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wu7RvWnqn74.html
@AeonReign They also don't exist. Nowhere in the PHB or DMG are they mentioned, because WotC already knows they suck. (Or if you *really* want to do it, just... leave someone's weapon jammed in the ground and give them disadvantage on their next roll or something.)
100% agree with letting your players know going in how deadly the game is. The advice you've given in a previous video is something we live by. "Let me have 30 minutes to be mad and fuming but when I am done I will be eager to play again".
Can I just say that I have recently found some of your videos, and you are by far my favorite DM talker I've seen. This video proved it, and it has given me a lot of insight for my campaigns. I want to thank you, very much, because-like the Necromancer idea-this broadened my horizons and let me see things from another perspective.
I use death saves as a point of intrigue. Certain monster types will continue to attach downed characters, others lose interest when they go down, some have a mixture of both situationally (Intelligent enemies). Will Attack: Zombies, Feral Wolves, hungry predators. Wont Attack: Threatened animals and monsters, territorial creatures. Depends: Intelligent creatures. Soldiers, thugs. When they wont: When they don't seem to be a threat and others are more threatening. When they will: If they're out for blood and have a window of opportunity to do so without risking themselves. If they have a vendetta against the individual / party. There's also a fourth rarer category, the kidnappers. Things like trolls, wyverns, ect. It makes zombies for example more of a threat since they know if they go down, they're dead. (then again, I make my zombies much more threatening in other more direct ways and something to be very careful when facing)
I agree, I do the same. It makes sense that a ghoul that's hungry for flesh to keep attacking (eating) the character. Or when an intelligent enemy sees that whenever he knocks someone down the other pc's heal him and he has to deal with him again, he will off course try to end his life.
This is also how I DM and I find that beyond the luck of the dice it's the main factor in the lethality of the game (assuming you are sticking to CR recommendations and number of combats per day). 90% of DM's I have when I'm a player never attack a downed player and it really makes almost any situation non-lethal. If you want your game to be more lethal, use more ravenous or intelligent enemies that purposefully go for downed players.
I have zombies and unintelligent Golems in the category of "won't attack." Simple automatons too, unless specifically commmanded to do otherwise.. Their target is down, no longer a threat, move on to threats.
Most creatures will try to survive the fight. Wasting time on an unconscious is in most cases an idea that goes against fight or flight instincts. Even a hungry ghoul would (in most cases) remove the threats before feasting on the body. Most creatures have a hard time enjoying their dinner while getting blasted with fire. For intelligent foes, their agenda is (usually) the same. Survive the fight is first priority, and only if this is impossible for them, they would go for an unconscious PC just out of spite. An exception to this is an enemy that knows the party has a healer (knows before the fight, or learns it during it), and unless they kill a member, they will keep getting up again and again. An enemy that has an escape plan will, however, try to inflict as much damage as possible if winning straight up is no longer an option, and would (almost) always try to kill. Just think about it: If you were pulled into a street fight with friends, and you knock someone to the ground and they don't move. There has to be some kind of extreme circumstance for you to keep punching that one downed guy, while your friends are being hit by other foes. So, unless you fulfill the _extreme_ criteria, both intelligent and dumb creatures will not go for kills before they are safe.
Love this video. I've DM'ed for almost 2 decades and I always track PC HP and it has served me really well. I am already tracking monster HP so hasn't added much to my plate.
I always refer to Hit Points as Fatigue. Once a creature has run out of steam and is sufficiently fatigued it takes a killing blow. It’s a conceptualization that has always worked for me.
I've never personally been fooled by a DM changing targets after knocking someone unconscious. It's pretty obvious what they are doing. I think everyone is just ok / relieved their character wont die and play along.
Personally, at least for me when I'm DMing and knock a PC out, I make an on the fly decision of whether or not that enemy would intentionally move onto another target. Some enemies really would just move onto the next target (humanoids/weaker enemies who just want to get out of the encounter alive would go after the people still standing since they pose a threat), but others absolutely would take the opportunity to finish off a downed opponent (like the BBEG, their minions, assassins, or an otherwise extremely strong character who knows they're winning the fight and wants to demoralize the PCs even further). I'd say it's not about pulling punches all of the time and more about knowing when to pull the punches. Understanding your monsters/enemies and their motivations in combat is key to that.
@@Valiant_Requiem It doesn't mean that they don't intend to go back and be certain everyone is dead later. In the moment once you're down, you're no longer a threat. So focus on the guy still trying to hurt you, then go back and stab them all in the face once you've won.
@@Belgand That is certainly something you can choose to do, but my point was that there's not a one size fits all solution (unless you want there to be.) Sentient humanoids might not finish anyone off, like I suggested, because they're focused on running away or dealing with whoever is still standing. Bandits might knock you out, take your valuables, but leave you lying in the mud with nothing but your life. They might come back and kill you, but really, if the entire party goes unconscious, whether or not they finish them off is the least of the players' worries. A wild creature, however, like a giant boar or a wolf might immediately take a bite or charge at your body once you're down for a number of reasons. An ancient dragon might decide to swallow the fighter that's been brutalizing it for 3 rounds straight once he goes down, but it might also decide to focus on the rest of the party. Maybe it doesn't want to fight anymore and would rather run. My point was that there's many, many different reasons for a monster, sentient or otherwise, to finish off a downed PC. There's also many reasons not to. Making the decision in the moment isn't a bad thing, just as making the decision that all monsters run away or move on after a PC drops isn't such a bad thing. Having the bad guys come back to coup de grace the PCs is also fine if they get TPK'd. Whatever works for you and yours is what works. Sharing different methods helps others see that there's many ways to run the game.
Ive had a player complain that an enemy didnt use 2 other attacks after knocking out a PC with first of multiattacks They wanted more drama and disliked me going easy
All I could think of when Matt was describing instakilling players for very stupid decisions was a certain druid proudly proclaiming "No it's fine... we're Gods!"
@@williamwall3403 it actually wasn't justified at all by the rules - fall damage maxes out at 20d6, an average of 70 damage, which wouldn't have killed marisha. matt rolled something like 90 or 100d6. marisha was right, they were essentially gods, and that fall wouldn't have killed keyleth and probably wouldn't have even knocked her down if the correct rule was used.
@@nitewalker11 Yeah but that rule is completely ridiculous, ignoring it is the only thing that makes any sense. The damage cap is way way way way way way way way too low (I got bored of typing "way").
Death is a joke in 5e, just use revivify, raise dead, or anything else. Unless your fighting something like a Lich or tpk. I usually run games in 5e where resurrection isn’t a thing. Makes the world feel more dangerous, I don’t try to kill them, but certain boss fights feel more tense. It’s important to note! This is presented upfront and on roll20, I have a group of players that like this kind of game. And those who don’t? Just don’t apply to my games, surprisingly I’ve had huge success on finding people who actually like this and been stuck with 2 games a week, for over a year now. I expected like 10 applicants but my post was like 80 something applicants and we had total 3 deaths between 8 players over the year.
RidersOfRohan you would think that, but often that isn’t available. My players are at lvl 9. We have lost 2 players. Now at high levels yeah it becomes more trivial. But at that level in a magic setting it kinda makes sense. But high risk settings are super fun too
Been playing dnd for years, like Matt said who knows what the real statistics behind it is. Every table can be different. But what I do know is, for the over 40ish players I’ve had maybe more. Each one is shocked or surprised when someone dies and the typical answer is. Wow never had a character die before or saw one. If streamed games are any incentive, seems like either plot armor or lethality is removed entirely.
@@falconforgefantasy9496 There also Matthew Mercer's homebrew'd rules on resurrecting where it becomes more and more difficult each time you 're resurrected and it actually requires some rolls. I wouldn't mind playing or dm'ing a game without any resurrecting, I just believe that it adds to the narrative if an option is available, but it's not exploitable like it is by raw in the 5e. Sometimes I even give my character one narrative resurrection (depending on their backstories and lore, for example as a reverant of the Raven Queen etc.)
i actually LOVE your video about the group getting caught with the shield, and your friend's wizard taking selfless actions like cloaking the warrior to run away with the shield.... your description of what happened, why it was a mistake, and what you could have done differently....plus how to handle a friend that is upset and/or mad about a situation....I've only been playing DnD for about 3 years, but i am 2.5 months into my first DMing campaign....your advice has been priceless.... you are great!
17:20 I've done this once, for an action that I wouldn't call reckless so much as calculated self-sacrifice. A PC in my Scum and Villainy game who was already greivously wounded and who had basically used up all his ways to weasel out of harm already declared that he was going to grapple the main antagonist and then set off a grenade. And that's beyond even perfect rolls to protect you from, so my answer was "that will be controlled/standard, and also you will die." And he did die, but he took down a very nasty bad guy in the process and saved the day, so it was cool as heck.
I too made the horrible mistake of answering a "what could we have done different" and after hearing this... I realize my player was BAITING me and not asking an honest question! They used it to start WW3 and assaulted everything I had ever done even long before they started playing with the group. Told her to leave and never regretted it and after watching this... I would never hesitate to do it all over again. No on even died in that session ironically, they just threw a fit because they killed 30+ enemies but were unable to clear an entire dungeon without ever stopping to rest, at level 2!
The topic of legality is really about how you want a game to go. Ive had games where a PC had really bad luck (like a 2nd level PC taking 8d10 from a special glyph of warding) or where an RP moment turned foul and we faced a boss we shouldnt have. In one case I was DM, in another it was a friend. Because of circumstance, we both made the decision to give the character an out. In my case, I gave the 2nd level Paladin an extra death save to pray to their god. In the second case, the DM realized the NPC was overpowered and put the PC in a coma for a week. In another case, we were running tomb of annihilation, and our DM made it clear that this was deadly and not everyone would survive. But he made an effort to kill the PCs in a meaningful way. My Warforged died because he was dumb enough to used a magic paint to camouflage himself as a cloud and was turned into one. The death of Brute was the highlight of the campaign. Another got into a cult and was put down by the other PCs. Another impactful death. And yet another PC tackled the final boss into a sphere of annihilation, sacrificing himself to save my sorcerer and climax the campaign. A PC death doesnt have to be a bad thing, so long as its not anticlimactic. Make it a moment, funny or sad or triumphant
I have to say as a fledling DM (been doing it for about 5 to 6 months now for a group of friends), this was both very informative and entertaining. Giving me a ton to think about!
So after going through this whole series at this point, the one greatest lesson I've learned is to call all descriptions dooblee-doos. This has been a gripping video series for this new DM. Thank you very much!
When I first started DMing 5e a few years ago I recall reading in some official source that on average a fight against non-mooks should feel like the player's have a 30% chance of victory, when they actually have closer to 70%. Now losing does not necessarily mean death, but it frequently does. That's the only official quote I can remember, and I don't remember where it's from. Also: the "death" of a PC doesn't necessarily mean that the character is dead. Perhaps they've lost limbs, or took a blow that made them quit. Anything that forces a character to stop adventuring is a PC death.
That's just a general rule of all game design, make the player feel like the odds are stacked against them even when you actually stack them in their favor. It makes the game more engaging while minimizing the risk of turning people away when things go wrong. If you shoot for a 70% win rate, then either it was just a couple really unlucky dice rolls (in which case the next time they play it will probably be fine) or the player did something wrong (and they should probably be able to figure that out and learn from it). The thing you want to avoid is the player constantly replaying your game but not getting any further because they aren't either perfectly optimized or very lucky. There are games that can push that boundary, but you need to do a lot to set the player's expectations for that and not spring it on them.
If I remember correctly a while ago you came with the tip to 'foreshadow' how deadly a game could be by killing an NPC in view of the PCs. I've done that a few times and it did work well for me. It instills the fear of death in PCs without needing to (at that moment) kill any. One of the worst things that could happen, I feel, is the players getting the feeling their PCs have 'story armour'.
You are far and away my favorite content creator i've seen in a long time. So much good food for thought, I really hope I can find a work and passion balance like this someday.
This episode was one of the most lucid and thorough examinations of that intangible horror that is ever present within the fabric of the game. It also allowed me to flesh out some ground rules and better visualize some of the expectations I hope to set for the player prep in a future session zero. Excellent stuff Matthew and thank you.
I love that you put that 3rd option for PC death in there. Just a funny anecdote of a game I've been playing... A PC that has been known for the "chaotic" part of his alignment very greedily equipped a cursed necklace of fireballs not knowing what it was and not heeding warnings from other PCs... taking 6 fireballs centered on him... 48d8 later and his character was hamburger. The group warned him moments earlier but he was eager to try something... leading to a brilliant display of gore and fire. The player took it in stride, we explored reaction options to "save" him, and it just made sense to let it play out as discussed. Sometimes, PCs just die.
Something very similar to what you suggested with the necromancer happened while we were playing Against the Giants. We had two party members unconscious, and making death saves. My Ancients Paladin and the Goliath Ranger were the only party members still up. He managed to escape into a Rope Trick, and I surrendered. They took us prisoner, including the unconscious ones, and the all except the Goliath Ranger made new characters who were part of the same guild, and we used Invisibility and Pass Without Trace to sneak into the fortress and spring our friends. We found a place outside the fortress to strategise, and decided to attack the fortress from both sides. Using each party as one attack force.
The first fight in my upcoming campaign might kill the party. But I have a plan. They won't be killed. Disabled, knocked out, then robbed. Sent back to town tarred and feathered. By kobolds. I think the shame is worth more motivation than a TPK. What a hook. Time to get revenge.
As a player, I love the possibility of death. I want my mistakes to count, I want every fight to be a nerve wracking experience, even if it is just a couple of rats. (Rats can crit, I'm level 1, aaaaah!) As a DM, I hate it. I don't want to destroy this character that my friend has spent hours developing.
@@davidlarson242 I do love your idea for starting an adventure. Getting the players to know that they are level 1 (or whatever you start at), and that they are not powerful, and kobolds don't even bother killing them. Having interesting outcomes for a losing battle can make things very fun, and the revenge will be so sweet.
Had an ongoing campaign and at one point I had brought in some new players. On of the PCs had on multiple occasions commit random acts of murder, but when the other players questioned his actions he insisted that his character was ‘chaotic neutral’, ‘just following his whims’ and that ‘he certainly wasn’t a murder hobo’. While in the act of setting a building on fire he was caught by guards and was promptly hung for his murder spree. At first I felt really bad, that I had somehow failed him. But then all my other players agreed that I had done the right thing. This video helped me get over that feeling of regret as well. Thanks for the insightful watch.
Oh my god this is an amazing video Matt, very detailed and insightful, asking great questions I hadn’t thought about. Great content as always and I hope you keep doin well.
Matt, if no one else has mentioned this already, during your "peace...out" -- when you hold up two fingers with the back side of your hand facing the viewer, that means something not so nice for your UK viewers. That being said -- I am a new DM, and I absolutely love your videos. I have gleaned a TON of useful information from your videos and will continue to do so as long as you are producing them. Stellar job. And congratulations on the Kickstarter campaign!
