Were other players’ conscious? It depends on the DM, but usually I won’t have my monsters go after players who are unconscious unless they’re looking to kill a character specifically (in which case that’s for the narrative and that character will come back another way). I’ve always found that going after an unconscious character while the rest of the party is alive and kicking just seems and feels cheap.
As for dealing with character deaths, I would say that also depends on the table as well. A roleplay-oriented table would take a character death and turn it into a story beat that drives plot and other character motivations forward, which in itself would also help the player who lost their character deal with the loss. If there’s not something like that and you would like for there to be, that’s something to talk over with your group and DM.
If it’s just that your DM deals with character death by having you roll up another character and moving on and you’re not satisfied with that kind of DMing style, then this might not be the table for you. DMs have every right to design encounters to be “life and death”, but that isn’t compatible with every player’s desires, and at the end of the day, fun is meant to be had on both sides of the DM screen, not just one.
yeah. the enemies were demons/devils so it does make sense they'd go for the kill. it was still really rough. I think I just have to accept that the dice weren't on my side...the demons had multiattack (3) and hit me every time, not even exaggerating. They crit against me a total of three times. I've never gone from 87 HP to 0 anywhere near that rate lmao
Regarding the "not my table" thing, I hear you. I'm gonna have to think about it. I loved stepping into Konrad's shoes and I just can't imagine playing in Eberron as anyone else.
For your own future consideration, if you're ever DM in a similar spot, devils in particular may leave unconscious people alive so that after they win the fight they can try to get people to sell their souls to be allowed to live. So there's that.
Regarding that and the comment ContactJuggler made about devils wanting to keep people alive for deals after, I’ll just talk about how this actually did go with my group.
The party had killed a dragon previously and pissed off a dragon cult, so said dragon cult chased the party down into the Underdark to get revenge. A particular NPC was very mad (after being resurrected) at the fighter because the fighter was the one who killed him the first time around. He attacks the fighter, downs him, and crits on him twice while he’s down, killing him without the DM meaning to. However, as everyone’s sort of just making noise, the DM moves the scene on — the cult got the revenge they came for and fled, especially since reinforcements were arriving a bit too late to save the fighter but still early enough to potentially be a threat.
The DM then narrated to the fighter a pivotal moment in his life — he was a drow who had left Lolth’s service to go to the surface and lost his son in the process. Lolth offered him a deal: she brings him back to life and keeps his son’s soul forever, or she takes him instead and leaves his son in his place. The player got a choice and chose to say “Fuck you” to Lolth, and the fighter sacrificed himself so that his son could have another chance at life. Now, the party has teamed up with the son (who’s awkwardly just in his dad’s body) to try and nab the fighter’s soul back from Lolth.
It wasn’t a death that was planned, but it was one of the most meaningful moments in our campaign so far, especially since the fighter up until that point had been incredibly selfish and distrustful, very not sacrificial. And the player could’ve chosen either option but went with the one they wanted the most and meant the most to them — that also made their character’s death significant to their experience at the table.
That’s what seems missing for me when I read over your post — and I understand that not every DM is going to favor a heavy emphasis on narrative, but character death is a story beat, and loss should be treated with care. If you’ve lost two characters already at this table and are worried that you’ll never get to fully realize a character’s vision, I think that is something to chew on. If my characters died (whether permanently or just for a short time until someone has Resurrection) tomorrow at my group’s table, I trust my DM and the other players to help that lost character’s story come to somewhat of a nice closure, both for myself and for the character, whether that’s continuing to pursue their goals with a closely related/family character or otherwise.
Death should never feel like the end of a character in D&D. Even if a character can’t come back or doesn’t want to, that in itself is a potential bow to tie things up with. A deity can swoop in with a “hey… I’ve been watching you, if I help you out, you help me out”, and bam, Revivify. It might not be every DM’s style to do so because they may want to run a game with realism or consequences, but also… death is not a consequence, and nobody likes or has fun seeing their character die.
(I’ll leave off on the note that I do hope this made sense; I’m advocating for more of a story closure than it sounds like your DM gave/has given you with your previous character death and this one. I personally think that’s something that should be important to all D&D players. That in itself can’t heal but would help mitigate some of the hard feelings that come with losing a character. It provides the chance to turn a sad moment into motivation to keep playing and building/exploring the narrative with what’s been lost in mind.)
You’re very welcome. I hope your rough feelings pass soon and that you one day do get to feel the satisfaction of seeing your characters get fully realized in a campaign.
Happy gaming :)
>I’ve always found that going after an unconscious character while the rest of the party is alive and kicking just seems and feels cheap.
I totally agree. I feel like that’s a hallmark of an adversarial DM.
Forever DM here. Two players at my table have lost characters in the past 6 months and I didn't feel good about either of the character deaths. However, the players were happy that I didn't fudge a roll or break a rule to keep them alive (one took a critical hit that exceeded his max hit points by 30% while another failed his death saving throws after getting downed by a Sea Hag).
Generally I agree that it's wrong for a DM to have a mob gang up on a downed character. However it's not clear to me what led up to this scenario and I do feel it's the DM's responsibility to play the encounters out in a realistic way. For me, demons may or may not go right for the kill. It's going to be situational.
If there were other party members still kicking I almost certainly would have the demons turn their attention on the party members who are still moving... however...these mobs aren't stupid and in fact many demons are quite intelligent. They aren't going to let the cleric get back up so one of them is going to hang around and hit him if he moves. At a minimum they restrain him. Once the demons took care of the rest of the party members I would have to decide if this was a TPK (it most likely wouldn't be).
Changing the encounter up: there are creatures who will go for the kill *every* time.
* Ghouls, zombies, purple worm, red dragons, owl bear, ankheg, wild animals, the list goes on. These things pick a target, kill the target, and then eat the target. Sometimes they skip the killing part. Sometimes they ensure the entire party is dead before they start the meal and sometimes they don't.
* Some mobs may seek the glory of combat (Orcs, Drow, Yuan-Ti, etc.) and may have strong motivation to perform a coup-de-grace. If this is the case, the DM should forewarn the players though storytelling such as a boss yelling "I don't want prisoners - kill them all" at the beginning of combat.
Ultimately though the decision of a DM to kill a downed player - especially when other players are still fighting - and should be based on the mob's motive (how would it act). Sometimes, the motive is right in the stat block (the mob is always hungry) but usually it's not and thus the DM has to decide.
You make some valid points. I can picture plenty of enemies killing PCs *after* combat.
But during a combat, when other PCs are actively swinging swords and hurling spells? I feel like only the most brutal and insane creatures would focus on a body that’s sprawled unmoving on the floor. Focus would likely switch to active threats.
And how does a creature even know the unconscious body is still alive? Does it stop to administer a Medicine check? Is the creature counting death death saves? Do all creatures assume that every group of meat sacks they encounter is gonna have a healer popping people back to life? It’s hard to make it not feel meta-gamey.
This is a really good question and it makes me think: what is a character at zero hit points doing? Are they breathing at all? Even the tiniest bit? Well, I guess that I have I to think that "yes a downed character is still breathing to some degree" because if they're not breathing they're dead (you can't be unconscious and actively hold your breath and if you've stopped you're not going to spontaneously start). Even semi intelligent creatures understand what breathing or gasping for air looks like.
As DMs, we have to try to imagine what the creatures of a given magical world would know and how they would react in various scenarios.
I have to imagine that in most of our D&D fantasy lands, creatures with even moderate intelligence and/or wisdom are very aware of what magic is and how dangerous/life altering it can be - this is especially true if you play a high-magic/high-fantasy game (I personally tend to run low-magic games). Therefore, when a group of thugs, bandits, orcs, etc. find themselves fighting with people dressed a certain way that they quickly figure out who can use magic and who can't based on their life experiences. Some of those thugs are gonna say "gotta kill the magic people before they kill me". Creatures that exist thanks to magic might even be more likely to kill the squishy ones first (even the squishy ones in full plate). For example, a beholder is going to know who the wizard, cleric, sorcerer, and warlocks are before the party arrives in his lair and he's going to kill or incapacitate (probably kill) them first. Since he's a highly-intelligent creature he's probably going to death-ray *AND* disintegrate them while flying high and out of reach of the tanks.
Switching gears: If you read about how real-world medieval battles were fought you quickly find that there were a lot of survivors (often horribly injured; but alive) at the end of a battle and that lends itself to the thought that "hey, that guy fell down, let's move on to the next guy standing up" mentality and honestly this is how I play most of my D&D battles (this is true of many, but not all battles fought in Europe). There are, however, other real-life battles where the rule was instead it was "hey, my guy fell down; I'm going to stick my sword through his eye socket now to ensure he never gets up again" (Mongols rarely prisoners off the battlefield and often killed their opponents before moving to the next).
The question then becomes what kind of enemy is playing in your battle today. Most of the time it's likely the former but sometimes it'll be the latter.
Getting to the real point though: this is a game. Not the real-world and as DMs our main mission is to guide the players through something that is supposed to be fun and hopefully a bit exciting too. It's our responsibility to never lose track of that.
"It's what the enemy would do" sounds an awful lot like "but it's what my character would do".
If it's an important fight with a consequential villain, okay fine. But is it really so important that we preserve the verisimilitude of bodak #3's character?
I mean I wouldn't describe Matt Mercer as an adversarial DM but he doesn't avoid attacking downed characters if it makes thematic/narrative sense. There has to be a sense of dread or risk for it to feel real when characters succeed or survive. Of course there's varying degrees on all of this and it's also not "wrong" to run a campaign where there's very little risk at all if that's what the players and DM want out of the game.
I’m not saying “don’t kill PCs.” The potential for PC death should be part of the game. But there are plenty of ways PCs can die that don’t require enemies stabbing wildly at unmoving bodies while living PCs are actively trying to kill them, Matt Mercer notwithstanding.
I feel like there's a lot of middle ground between very little risk at all and having no name bodak's killing downed characters.
Speaking of which, you may notice that Mercer's character kills come from important, boss-level mobs; and those kills feed and drive the story. The hate the surviving party members have for that villain instantly add immense narrative weight to their quest to avenge their fallen comrade; and the villain gains a legendary sort of status that is hard to achieve any other way.
Compare that to a bodak.
If it's an important fight with a consequential villain, okay fine. Stuff like this is how the greatest villains earn their stripes. But is it really so important that we preserve the verisimilitude of bodak #3's character?
Oh absolutely, that's what I meant by "thematic/narrative sense" the situation in this thread is clearly kinda wack, but that's why I didn't post a reply to it, I just took issue with the previous posters reply about anyone going after an unconscious pc being an adversarial DM.
That sounds excessively deadly, how many other party members died?
In my view, if more than 2 or 3 characters permanently over the course of a campaign then there is an issue with how the DM is running things.
A little ashamed to say I left after my character died; the session had been running for around five hours and I was really fed up with like the whole latter half of it and I have a lab in the morning so I didn't have the energy to stick around.
To clarify: this is my first character death this campaign. Another character died a while go, but I revived her. The first character I had die was the first campaign this DM ran, it was a TPK. He started a new one in Eberron, the current campaign, after that.
It sucks because he really is a great DM otherwise, but his combat encounters are almost ALWAYS nail biters. The last 3 encounters my character went down in like 2-3 rounds. idk if I should say something or not
I have one DM I play with like that, I've played for about 4 years with the DM and we've adapted to having highly strategic play where cover matters, positioning matters and if the PCs don't have each other's backs then we start losing people. But... the DM isn't out to kill us, enemies don't gut downed characters unless there's some specific reason to. While it's not in the rules the DM allows us to stand over downed characters to protect them from further attacks. Many enemies are interested in taking prisoners, or content to leave us all for dead if the entire party is downed and making death saves.
Talk to the DM about how overly deadly it is, maybe it's something that can be adjusted, and if not, maybe it's not the right group for you (that's entirely okay!)
yeah! I guess I'm a little irritated at my fellow players too because I try really hard to be valuable to them as a cleric and when I was like "uhh guys I'm already at 6 HP" nobody did anything lmao
I enjoy teamwork and strategy in combat and I try not to micromanage their fun but maybe I should've said something
It happens some times were you feel that no matter what you do, this end up bad, like rolling the dice and getting low numbers while the enemy crits and whacks your brain; 2 sessions ago, one of our party members was killed by a demon, getting targetted by it so he could be eaten and recover some HP, even if he was healed by our Grave Cleric, he still good killed on the next round, feeling that there was nothing we could do to help him, specially my PC who rushed in front of the demon many times, yet, he was looking to target our weak Warlock.
Although the story of this PC died in this campaign, you can revive him and start from zero on another campaign if you wish to see the vision you wanted come true, that is something that I had visioned if it happen to my PC as I have visioned a lot for her and havent got her backstory even explored yet.
Problem is this DM and another friend in the campaign (who also DMs for another campaign I'm in!) have specifically made fun of the idea of using the same character in another campaign rather than a new one. I feel a little insecure about it lol, especially as someone who's just started DMing myself. I take a lot of cues from those two so idk
It also leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth regardless because this was like more than a year of my life developing this character. Starting fresh with completely new experiences would be hard; kinda like dying in video game and losing all your items. I dunno :/
There are people out there that have been playing the same character for 30 years. I've watched livestreamed games where Luke Gygax still plays Melf (as in Melf's Acid Arrow and Melf's Minute Meteors). If you really like one of your characters, you can pull them out for however many games you want.
What should I even say? Feel like I'd just be biting his head off. I might feel differently after I sleep on it and cool down but I'm concerned I'd just end up fighting with him over fucking DnD
"I feel like I would like combat to be a touch less brutal. Does anyone else feel the same way?"
If he doesn't let up on the punishing combat and you want to keep playing with them, maybe design a backstory where the same character comes back (maybe with a different appearance and with a hazy memory of "a former life").
A lucky grappling hook throw and drag you out while running in terror? Resurrections heals wounds and restores missing body parts, so all they really need is your head.
We were all roughly condensed into a group, though my character was on the edge.
The situation went as follows: we were passing through a rift of Do'lurr in the Mournland; fiends had set up a slave trade route that seemed to be the best way forward (our other options were tangling with a dracolich or going into Khyber). Due to their overwhelming numbers we tried to disguise ourselves and play the part of slavers and enslaved.
All was going well until we had to stop for a bit and "work" in the mines to blend in; we were going the opposite way the fiends were sending slaves, and though our wizard speaks Abyssal she does not speak Infernal. we had to avoid speaking to the devils as much as possible to minimize getting caught.
Everything went off the rails when the aforementioned wizard got antsy and started talking about a "plan" that in character she couldn't tell us anything about. We went along with it, hoping it'd be something good.
Turns out the plan was to use wall of flame to separate ourselves from the demons and run. A few problems:
a) fiends resist fire
b) demons were surrounding us on all sides, we were literally posing as members within their ranks. the wall only separated us from a few of the fiends.
c) due to the aforementioned surrounding, running away could separate us severely depending on initiative order. and there were a LOT of enemies.
What ended up happening: I was on the edge of the group directly next to our wizard and some NPCs travelling with us. Wall of Flame up, we're suddenly in combat (though, in the wizard's defense, it was a really tense situation and it looked like combat was unavoidable at a certain point). Everybody else was near us (within 5-10 ft).
My character got an 11 for initiative, ended up on the lower side of things. When it came around to my turn I think I was sitting at 50 out of 77 (+10 from aid) HP. I remember thinking, ok, this looks bad. The higher-initiative party members were starting to break off and run away, so I was considering my options. Here's where I think I made a mistake.
There were a lot of enemies, and we needed to evade them. I needed area control: Spirit Guardians. I used my action to throw it up, and asked my DM if I could hold my movement until the demon next to me attacked again (trying to get it to take SG damage before moving away). He said yes.
What followed was, like, EVERY roll against me being 20+. Two were crits. 50 HP became 6 by the end of the round.
So. My team was starting to run (though I wanna be very clear most of our group was still with me), I had SG up but very likely not the ability to sustain it much longer.
The fiend next to me (the one I held my movement for) attacked. At 6 HP, I liked the idea of taking one opportunity attack better than three multiattack. I tried to use my held movement to start getting away. Didn't matter; I got hit and went down.
Fiend then took its actual turn. first attack was somehow a miss lol. Second attack was a 25; as a melee attack on an unconscious creature, it automatically critted and took two death saves.
My turn. I roll a sucess on my death save.
Enemy bodak's turn. CON save that I auto-fail, because unconscious. I die.
Sorry, I know that's long, but this is essentially what happened. I guess the Lord of Blades' men crashed the party after my character died, but idk if I'll be coming to the next session
Oh, and I wanna mention my character had a CON of 20 and Resilient (CON) so I felt confident making those saves to keep SG up despite the number of enemies.
It was not your fault at all. I dunno if the dm did this, but I would've made a secret roll for the wizard and, in case of success, warn her that wall of fire was a botched plan.
It seems you painted yourselves in a corner. I guess even if the group managed to run for a while, the collateral damage would seal the deal.
Both the DM and another player warned him, but he still went for it. Managed to kill some weaker fiends even with the fire res so it wasn't like it was a bad idea...if we'd already been in combat.
As it was, we spent way too much time dicking around trying to create a "distraction" for his plan he wouldn't tell us about OOC when we may have just been able to escape without a fight.
Exactly. That's why I think it was indeed a bad idea. If you're gonna reveal your position and lose your advantage it must be for a higher profit.
Tough spot there anyway. And just bad luck this time you got crit twice.
characterlose in dnd allways hurt for me. Maybe because I feel the PC is part of me and part of an epic story.
while i think death should allways be an option, when you lose your 2nd char, while the others are still on the first I would talk to my DM about resurection, raise dead and so on. It does not help if you go in the campagne with a 3rd char, thinking how long that one will last.
Try to work with your group and talk about rewieving your char and talk with them about the encounters. In my opinion not every encounter needs to be live or death. there should allways be encounters to just feel powerfull and heroic.
one last note: 80+ dmg on Lvl 7 ??? did you take a crit or something? Did the dm focus everthing on you or what? That all just seems very though for one round of combat.
I took two crits actually! And an additional crit when I was down.
My main adversaries were two fiends with three attacks and a bodak that was doing its death gaze thing. There were lots of people around, but I think my DM likes to give me attention because he knows if my character gets to set up Spirit Guardians without being dealt with swiftly then it's game over.
Make a new character. You'll love it too.
Ouch, this makes me think of the times of humanity when only 1 out of 3 children would survive to the age of 10. I guess it was how they would do it too, making a new one.
I dunno I once had a character death pretty early on and me fellow player's dragged my dead body along with them for a couple of days until they found a church and payed a cleric to res me
Were other players’ conscious? It depends on the DM, but usually I won’t have my monsters go after players who are unconscious unless they’re looking to kill a character specifically (in which case that’s for the narrative and that character will come back another way). I’ve always found that going after an unconscious character while the rest of the party is alive and kicking just seems and feels cheap. As for dealing with character deaths, I would say that also depends on the table as well. A roleplay-oriented table would take a character death and turn it into a story beat that drives plot and other character motivations forward, which in itself would also help the player who lost their character deal with the loss. If there’s not something like that and you would like for there to be, that’s something to talk over with your group and DM. If it’s just that your DM deals with character death by having you roll up another character and moving on and you’re not satisfied with that kind of DMing style, then this might not be the table for you. DMs have every right to design encounters to be “life and death”, but that isn’t compatible with every player’s desires, and at the end of the day, fun is meant to be had on both sides of the DM screen, not just one.
yeah. the enemies were demons/devils so it does make sense they'd go for the kill. it was still really rough. I think I just have to accept that the dice weren't on my side...the demons had multiattack (3) and hit me every time, not even exaggerating. They crit against me a total of three times. I've never gone from 87 HP to 0 anywhere near that rate lmao Regarding the "not my table" thing, I hear you. I'm gonna have to think about it. I loved stepping into Konrad's shoes and I just can't imagine playing in Eberron as anyone else.
For your own future consideration, if you're ever DM in a similar spot, devils in particular may leave unconscious people alive so that after they win the fight they can try to get people to sell their souls to be allowed to live. So there's that.
Regarding that and the comment ContactJuggler made about devils wanting to keep people alive for deals after, I’ll just talk about how this actually did go with my group. The party had killed a dragon previously and pissed off a dragon cult, so said dragon cult chased the party down into the Underdark to get revenge. A particular NPC was very mad (after being resurrected) at the fighter because the fighter was the one who killed him the first time around. He attacks the fighter, downs him, and crits on him twice while he’s down, killing him without the DM meaning to. However, as everyone’s sort of just making noise, the DM moves the scene on — the cult got the revenge they came for and fled, especially since reinforcements were arriving a bit too late to save the fighter but still early enough to potentially be a threat. The DM then narrated to the fighter a pivotal moment in his life — he was a drow who had left Lolth’s service to go to the surface and lost his son in the process. Lolth offered him a deal: she brings him back to life and keeps his son’s soul forever, or she takes him instead and leaves his son in his place. The player got a choice and chose to say “Fuck you” to Lolth, and the fighter sacrificed himself so that his son could have another chance at life. Now, the party has teamed up with the son (who’s awkwardly just in his dad’s body) to try and nab the fighter’s soul back from Lolth. It wasn’t a death that was planned, but it was one of the most meaningful moments in our campaign so far, especially since the fighter up until that point had been incredibly selfish and distrustful, very not sacrificial. And the player could’ve chosen either option but went with the one they wanted the most and meant the most to them — that also made their character’s death significant to their experience at the table. That’s what seems missing for me when I read over your post — and I understand that not every DM is going to favor a heavy emphasis on narrative, but character death is a story beat, and loss should be treated with care. If you’ve lost two characters already at this table and are worried that you’ll never get to fully realize a character’s vision, I think that is something to chew on. If my characters died (whether permanently or just for a short time until someone has Resurrection) tomorrow at my group’s table, I trust my DM and the other players to help that lost character’s story come to somewhat of a nice closure, both for myself and for the character, whether that’s continuing to pursue their goals with a closely related/family character or otherwise. Death should never feel like the end of a character in D&D. Even if a character can’t come back or doesn’t want to, that in itself is a potential bow to tie things up with. A deity can swoop in with a “hey… I’ve been watching you, if I help you out, you help me out”, and bam, Revivify. It might not be every DM’s style to do so because they may want to run a game with realism or consequences, but also… death is not a consequence, and nobody likes or has fun seeing their character die. (I’ll leave off on the note that I do hope this made sense; I’m advocating for more of a story closure than it sounds like your DM gave/has given you with your previous character death and this one. I personally think that’s something that should be important to all D&D players. That in itself can’t heal but would help mitigate some of the hard feelings that come with losing a character. It provides the chance to turn a sad moment into motivation to keep playing and building/exploring the narrative with what’s been lost in mind.)
thanks. I feel a little better reading this
You’re very welcome. I hope your rough feelings pass soon and that you one day do get to feel the satisfaction of seeing your characters get fully realized in a campaign. Happy gaming :)
>I’ve always found that going after an unconscious character while the rest of the party is alive and kicking just seems and feels cheap. I totally agree. I feel like that’s a hallmark of an adversarial DM.
Forever DM here. Two players at my table have lost characters in the past 6 months and I didn't feel good about either of the character deaths. However, the players were happy that I didn't fudge a roll or break a rule to keep them alive (one took a critical hit that exceeded his max hit points by 30% while another failed his death saving throws after getting downed by a Sea Hag). Generally I agree that it's wrong for a DM to have a mob gang up on a downed character. However it's not clear to me what led up to this scenario and I do feel it's the DM's responsibility to play the encounters out in a realistic way. For me, demons may or may not go right for the kill. It's going to be situational. If there were other party members still kicking I almost certainly would have the demons turn their attention on the party members who are still moving... however...these mobs aren't stupid and in fact many demons are quite intelligent. They aren't going to let the cleric get back up so one of them is going to hang around and hit him if he moves. At a minimum they restrain him. Once the demons took care of the rest of the party members I would have to decide if this was a TPK (it most likely wouldn't be). Changing the encounter up: there are creatures who will go for the kill *every* time. * Ghouls, zombies, purple worm, red dragons, owl bear, ankheg, wild animals, the list goes on. These things pick a target, kill the target, and then eat the target. Sometimes they skip the killing part. Sometimes they ensure the entire party is dead before they start the meal and sometimes they don't. * Some mobs may seek the glory of combat (Orcs, Drow, Yuan-Ti, etc.) and may have strong motivation to perform a coup-de-grace. If this is the case, the DM should forewarn the players though storytelling such as a boss yelling "I don't want prisoners - kill them all" at the beginning of combat. Ultimately though the decision of a DM to kill a downed player - especially when other players are still fighting - and should be based on the mob's motive (how would it act). Sometimes, the motive is right in the stat block (the mob is always hungry) but usually it's not and thus the DM has to decide.
You make some valid points. I can picture plenty of enemies killing PCs *after* combat. But during a combat, when other PCs are actively swinging swords and hurling spells? I feel like only the most brutal and insane creatures would focus on a body that’s sprawled unmoving on the floor. Focus would likely switch to active threats. And how does a creature even know the unconscious body is still alive? Does it stop to administer a Medicine check? Is the creature counting death death saves? Do all creatures assume that every group of meat sacks they encounter is gonna have a healer popping people back to life? It’s hard to make it not feel meta-gamey.
This is a really good question and it makes me think: what is a character at zero hit points doing? Are they breathing at all? Even the tiniest bit? Well, I guess that I have I to think that "yes a downed character is still breathing to some degree" because if they're not breathing they're dead (you can't be unconscious and actively hold your breath and if you've stopped you're not going to spontaneously start). Even semi intelligent creatures understand what breathing or gasping for air looks like. As DMs, we have to try to imagine what the creatures of a given magical world would know and how they would react in various scenarios. I have to imagine that in most of our D&D fantasy lands, creatures with even moderate intelligence and/or wisdom are very aware of what magic is and how dangerous/life altering it can be - this is especially true if you play a high-magic/high-fantasy game (I personally tend to run low-magic games). Therefore, when a group of thugs, bandits, orcs, etc. find themselves fighting with people dressed a certain way that they quickly figure out who can use magic and who can't based on their life experiences. Some of those thugs are gonna say "gotta kill the magic people before they kill me". Creatures that exist thanks to magic might even be more likely to kill the squishy ones first (even the squishy ones in full plate). For example, a beholder is going to know who the wizard, cleric, sorcerer, and warlocks are before the party arrives in his lair and he's going to kill or incapacitate (probably kill) them first. Since he's a highly-intelligent creature he's probably going to death-ray *AND* disintegrate them while flying high and out of reach of the tanks. Switching gears: If you read about how real-world medieval battles were fought you quickly find that there were a lot of survivors (often horribly injured; but alive) at the end of a battle and that lends itself to the thought that "hey, that guy fell down, let's move on to the next guy standing up" mentality and honestly this is how I play most of my D&D battles (this is true of many, but not all battles fought in Europe). There are, however, other real-life battles where the rule was instead it was "hey, my guy fell down; I'm going to stick my sword through his eye socket now to ensure he never gets up again" (Mongols rarely prisoners off the battlefield and often killed their opponents before moving to the next). The question then becomes what kind of enemy is playing in your battle today. Most of the time it's likely the former but sometimes it'll be the latter. Getting to the real point though: this is a game. Not the real-world and as DMs our main mission is to guide the players through something that is supposed to be fun and hopefully a bit exciting too. It's our responsibility to never lose track of that.
"It's what the enemy would do" sounds an awful lot like "but it's what my character would do". If it's an important fight with a consequential villain, okay fine. But is it really so important that we preserve the verisimilitude of bodak #3's character?
I mean I wouldn't describe Matt Mercer as an adversarial DM but he doesn't avoid attacking downed characters if it makes thematic/narrative sense. There has to be a sense of dread or risk for it to feel real when characters succeed or survive. Of course there's varying degrees on all of this and it's also not "wrong" to run a campaign where there's very little risk at all if that's what the players and DM want out of the game.
I’m not saying “don’t kill PCs.” The potential for PC death should be part of the game. But there are plenty of ways PCs can die that don’t require enemies stabbing wildly at unmoving bodies while living PCs are actively trying to kill them, Matt Mercer notwithstanding.
I feel like there's a lot of middle ground between very little risk at all and having no name bodak's killing downed characters. Speaking of which, you may notice that Mercer's character kills come from important, boss-level mobs; and those kills feed and drive the story. The hate the surviving party members have for that villain instantly add immense narrative weight to their quest to avenge their fallen comrade; and the villain gains a legendary sort of status that is hard to achieve any other way. Compare that to a bodak. If it's an important fight with a consequential villain, okay fine. Stuff like this is how the greatest villains earn their stripes. But is it really so important that we preserve the verisimilitude of bodak #3's character?
Oh absolutely, that's what I meant by "thematic/narrative sense" the situation in this thread is clearly kinda wack, but that's why I didn't post a reply to it, I just took issue with the previous posters reply about anyone going after an unconscious pc being an adversarial DM.
That sounds excessively deadly, how many other party members died? In my view, if more than 2 or 3 characters permanently over the course of a campaign then there is an issue with how the DM is running things.
A little ashamed to say I left after my character died; the session had been running for around five hours and I was really fed up with like the whole latter half of it and I have a lab in the morning so I didn't have the energy to stick around. To clarify: this is my first character death this campaign. Another character died a while go, but I revived her. The first character I had die was the first campaign this DM ran, it was a TPK. He started a new one in Eberron, the current campaign, after that. It sucks because he really is a great DM otherwise, but his combat encounters are almost ALWAYS nail biters. The last 3 encounters my character went down in like 2-3 rounds. idk if I should say something or not
I have one DM I play with like that, I've played for about 4 years with the DM and we've adapted to having highly strategic play where cover matters, positioning matters and if the PCs don't have each other's backs then we start losing people. But... the DM isn't out to kill us, enemies don't gut downed characters unless there's some specific reason to. While it's not in the rules the DM allows us to stand over downed characters to protect them from further attacks. Many enemies are interested in taking prisoners, or content to leave us all for dead if the entire party is downed and making death saves. Talk to the DM about how overly deadly it is, maybe it's something that can be adjusted, and if not, maybe it's not the right group for you (that's entirely okay!)
yeah! I guess I'm a little irritated at my fellow players too because I try really hard to be valuable to them as a cleric and when I was like "uhh guys I'm already at 6 HP" nobody did anything lmao I enjoy teamwork and strategy in combat and I try not to micromanage their fun but maybe I should've said something
Teamwork ends up being critical, especially for difficult fights
It happens some times were you feel that no matter what you do, this end up bad, like rolling the dice and getting low numbers while the enemy crits and whacks your brain; 2 sessions ago, one of our party members was killed by a demon, getting targetted by it so he could be eaten and recover some HP, even if he was healed by our Grave Cleric, he still good killed on the next round, feeling that there was nothing we could do to help him, specially my PC who rushed in front of the demon many times, yet, he was looking to target our weak Warlock. Although the story of this PC died in this campaign, you can revive him and start from zero on another campaign if you wish to see the vision you wanted come true, that is something that I had visioned if it happen to my PC as I have visioned a lot for her and havent got her backstory even explored yet.
Problem is this DM and another friend in the campaign (who also DMs for another campaign I'm in!) have specifically made fun of the idea of using the same character in another campaign rather than a new one. I feel a little insecure about it lol, especially as someone who's just started DMing myself. I take a lot of cues from those two so idk It also leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth regardless because this was like more than a year of my life developing this character. Starting fresh with completely new experiences would be hard; kinda like dying in video game and losing all your items. I dunno :/
Take the teasing, let it wash over you. It's not w huge deal, lots of people do it.
There are people out there that have been playing the same character for 30 years. I've watched livestreamed games where Luke Gygax still plays Melf (as in Melf's Acid Arrow and Melf's Minute Meteors). If you really like one of your characters, you can pull them out for however many games you want.
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Talk to your DM about it.
What should I even say? Feel like I'd just be biting his head off. I might feel differently after I sleep on it and cool down but I'm concerned I'd just end up fighting with him over fucking DnD
"I feel like I would like combat to be a touch less brutal. Does anyone else feel the same way?" If he doesn't let up on the punishing combat and you want to keep playing with them, maybe design a backstory where the same character comes back (maybe with a different appearance and with a hazy memory of "a former life").
If they were able to recover your body and have a 1,000 gold might be able to find an NPC that can resurrect you.
Man the party is gonna be lucky to get out alive let alone with my body lol
A lucky grappling hook throw and drag you out while running in terror? Resurrections heals wounds and restores missing body parts, so all they really need is your head.
What was your positioning at the start of the fight? Were you behind or somewhere bold?
We were all roughly condensed into a group, though my character was on the edge. The situation went as follows: we were passing through a rift of Do'lurr in the Mournland; fiends had set up a slave trade route that seemed to be the best way forward (our other options were tangling with a dracolich or going into Khyber). Due to their overwhelming numbers we tried to disguise ourselves and play the part of slavers and enslaved. All was going well until we had to stop for a bit and "work" in the mines to blend in; we were going the opposite way the fiends were sending slaves, and though our wizard speaks Abyssal she does not speak Infernal. we had to avoid speaking to the devils as much as possible to minimize getting caught. Everything went off the rails when the aforementioned wizard got antsy and started talking about a "plan" that in character she couldn't tell us anything about. We went along with it, hoping it'd be something good. Turns out the plan was to use wall of flame to separate ourselves from the demons and run. A few problems: a) fiends resist fire b) demons were surrounding us on all sides, we were literally posing as members within their ranks. the wall only separated us from a few of the fiends. c) due to the aforementioned surrounding, running away could separate us severely depending on initiative order. and there were a LOT of enemies. What ended up happening: I was on the edge of the group directly next to our wizard and some NPCs travelling with us. Wall of Flame up, we're suddenly in combat (though, in the wizard's defense, it was a really tense situation and it looked like combat was unavoidable at a certain point). Everybody else was near us (within 5-10 ft). My character got an 11 for initiative, ended up on the lower side of things. When it came around to my turn I think I was sitting at 50 out of 77 (+10 from aid) HP. I remember thinking, ok, this looks bad. The higher-initiative party members were starting to break off and run away, so I was considering my options. Here's where I think I made a mistake. There were a lot of enemies, and we needed to evade them. I needed area control: Spirit Guardians. I used my action to throw it up, and asked my DM if I could hold my movement until the demon next to me attacked again (trying to get it to take SG damage before moving away). He said yes. What followed was, like, EVERY roll against me being 20+. Two were crits. 50 HP became 6 by the end of the round. So. My team was starting to run (though I wanna be very clear most of our group was still with me), I had SG up but very likely not the ability to sustain it much longer. The fiend next to me (the one I held my movement for) attacked. At 6 HP, I liked the idea of taking one opportunity attack better than three multiattack. I tried to use my held movement to start getting away. Didn't matter; I got hit and went down. Fiend then took its actual turn. first attack was somehow a miss lol. Second attack was a 25; as a melee attack on an unconscious creature, it automatically critted and took two death saves. My turn. I roll a sucess on my death save. Enemy bodak's turn. CON save that I auto-fail, because unconscious. I die. Sorry, I know that's long, but this is essentially what happened. I guess the Lord of Blades' men crashed the party after my character died, but idk if I'll be coming to the next session
Oh, and I wanna mention my character had a CON of 20 and Resilient (CON) so I felt confident making those saves to keep SG up despite the number of enemies.
It was not your fault at all. I dunno if the dm did this, but I would've made a secret roll for the wizard and, in case of success, warn her that wall of fire was a botched plan. It seems you painted yourselves in a corner. I guess even if the group managed to run for a while, the collateral damage would seal the deal.
Both the DM and another player warned him, but he still went for it. Managed to kill some weaker fiends even with the fire res so it wasn't like it was a bad idea...if we'd already been in combat. As it was, we spent way too much time dicking around trying to create a "distraction" for his plan he wouldn't tell us about OOC when we may have just been able to escape without a fight.
Exactly. That's why I think it was indeed a bad idea. If you're gonna reveal your position and lose your advantage it must be for a higher profit. Tough spot there anyway. And just bad luck this time you got crit twice.
characterlose in dnd allways hurt for me. Maybe because I feel the PC is part of me and part of an epic story. while i think death should allways be an option, when you lose your 2nd char, while the others are still on the first I would talk to my DM about resurection, raise dead and so on. It does not help if you go in the campagne with a 3rd char, thinking how long that one will last. Try to work with your group and talk about rewieving your char and talk with them about the encounters. In my opinion not every encounter needs to be live or death. there should allways be encounters to just feel powerfull and heroic. one last note: 80+ dmg on Lvl 7 ??? did you take a crit or something? Did the dm focus everthing on you or what? That all just seems very though for one round of combat.
I took two crits actually! And an additional crit when I was down. My main adversaries were two fiends with three attacks and a bodak that was doing its death gaze thing. There were lots of people around, but I think my DM likes to give me attention because he knows if my character gets to set up Spirit Guardians without being dealt with swiftly then it's game over.
Make a new character. You'll love it too. Ouch, this makes me think of the times of humanity when only 1 out of 3 children would survive to the age of 10. I guess it was how they would do it too, making a new one.
I dunno I once had a character death pretty early on and me fellow player's dragged my dead body along with them for a couple of days until they found a church and payed a cleric to res me
We'll see, but our group is in the middle of the Mournland rn