Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Sargon's wife's son]

wtf are you talking about? Any basic adventuring PC should be aware of this. Even if someone in the party can't cast it that's why local temples and shit exist. Knowing that people can be healed, and resurrected in D&D is not some esoteric knowledge that is rare or something unless you're playing in an incredibly low magic setting at which point you probably wouldn't ever have a caster in the party capable of casting it on their own anyway.

Most people in my mind have not seen it I was talking about Npcs Resurrection is not something people widely know happens

 

[p1138]

Most people in my mind have not seen it I was talking about Npcs Resurrection is not something people widely know happens

No, it isn't rare even among NPCs unless they're dirt farmers out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. In any real city in basically ANY D&D setting, temples exist and perform those kinds of services. As other people have mentioned they may be expensive as fuck to the point where a normal NPC could never dream to afford it, but that doesn't mean no one knows about it. And any NPCs with any amount of nobility would know, experience in the clergy would be obvious, military officers would be aware, obviously merchants beyond the random bazaars selling organically farmed dirt would know.

And what adventuring party stays entirely around dirt farming peasants in bumfuckistan for any extended period of time? Those NPCs will likely never have a quest worth a shit beyond level 1, they'll rarely have rewards worth a shit(sometimes it can be a case of not knowing what they had because the village elder dug some shit up 500 years ago and no one could activate it), and most threats of any interest again... aren't going to be experienced by those NPCs. At some point the party is going to end up in a large city, at least encountering some sort of nobility, etc.

Keeping the PCs forcibly retarded is fucking annoying, and how you get shitty D&D horror stories about dumb DMs throwing fits because a lvl3 character knew to stake a vampire or throw acid at a troll as if folk tales of shit that actually does exist in the world wouldn't get around. And that's ignoring that in a larger city you should be able to find libraries, plays/operas/concerts, bards, various guilds, etc.

 

[AnOminous]

Lmao just thinking resurrection is a thing. That's some bullshit. If you die, you die.

Resurrection is the exception, not the rule.

 

[Tom Bombodildo]

5e parties don't rely on Resurrection to do whack-a-mole in fights. They start using Healing Word to do that from level 1. And while Resurrection is a high-level spell, not knowing it exists is like not knowing brain surgeons exist in the real world.

It is very, very rare to insta-kill a character in 5e, which requires doing (current + max) HP in a single hit. I think I've seen it happen once, and it was a contrived case where an invisible monster way over the party's level rolled a critical hit. The intent was for him to merely down a party member and run away...but well, a crit's a crit. Few level-appropriate enemies can do enough damage in one hit to insta-kill.

Right, I wasn't saying that Raise Dead or Resurrection was used in fights, they have like hour-long cast times. But when it comes to the rational decision making of a combatant in a world where resurrection magic exists, stabbing a dude in the throat while he's down does not permanently remove him from the equation post-combat. Thus, there's no logical reason for a combatant to leave himself open to attacks from active threats to dispatch a foe, because the only way a foe can be for sure permanently dispatched is if they are killed and then reduced to ash, something that has to take place post-combat. Now this might change if all the parties involved know they're too poor to afford a rez of any kind, or multiple combatants have gotten up and down multiple times without just dying from an axe to the face.

I haven't run 5e in like a decade, but whatever I run I've never had this whackamole combat stuff come up. Just sounds like a real unfun slog of a combat if it lasts so long that becomes a problem.

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

Lmao just thinking resurrection is a thing. That's some bullshit. If you die, you die.

Resurrection is the exception, not the rule.

I always feel that resurrection should be super rare, a gift from a deity on some chosen one or a valiant defender of the faith particularly after a moving sacrifice or last stand. It has to be earned through deeds; it shouldn't be accessible to all in a just pay for it, bingo way, or it cheapens or even eliminates stakes.

This really pulls me out of a Paizo Pathfinder novel when the protagonist talks about stocking up scrolls and making arrangements for resurrection before embarking on a deadly quest. Immediately, the story loses any gravitas because I know that deaths will have no consequence as, you know, woosh, just res that bastard and he's back in business.

 

[The Ugly One]

Right, I wasn't saying that Raise Dead or Resurrection was used in fights, they have like hour-long cast times. But when it comes to the rational decision making of a combatant in a world where resurrection magic exists, stabbing a dude in the throat while he's down does not permanently remove him from the equation post-combat. Thus, there's no logical reason for a combatant to leave himself open to attacks from active threats to dispatch a foe, because the only way a foe can be for sure permanently dispatched is if they are killed and then reduced to ash, something that has to take place post-combat. Now this might change if all the parties involved know they're too poor to afford a rez of any kind, or multiple combatants have gotten up and down multiple times without just dying from an axe to the face.

I haven't run 5e in like a decade, but whatever I run I've never had this whackamole combat stuff come up. Just sounds like a real unfun slog of a combat if it lasts so long that becomes a problem.

I don't know why you're bringing up resurrection at all, since in any fight, including in real life, a fighter's main goal is to survive this fight. Sure, your average mook does not care in the heat of battle that maybe some day, possibly years from now, the party might level up really high or meet a powerful archbishop who can resurrect the fallen. But the average mook does care whether or not the steel-clad warrior they just knocked down will hop right back on his feet and start stabbing them again. And they know the armored dwarf waving around a holy symbol can snap his fingers and make that happen. It's common knowledge.

It is the same mentality behind why Bronze Age armies had sharpened counterweights on the butts of their spears. They knew fallen enemy warriors might just be dazed or winded, get back up after the phalanx had marched forward, and attack you from the rear, so they made sure to finish off the fallen as they advanced.

If finishing off downed enemies was common before antibiotics and blood transfusions existed, you can bet goblins and orcs would be doing it in world where one in four random assholes assaulting your warren can perform New Testament-style healing with a few words.

 

[Tom Bombodildo]

They knew fallen enemy warriors might just be dazed or winded, get back up after the phalanx had marched forward, and attack you from the rear, so they made sure to finish off the fallen as they advanced.

Sure, if you're running war games or something an army might have a take no prisoners approach but when it's clashes among small groups of combatants fighting in quick, close combat, you need every small edge you can get and things like holding formations and flank attacks matter less.

I'm making two core points here:
1. In most cases, it is mechanically disadvantageous (in D&D-style d20 systems) for a particular person to spend their turn making a coup de grace or finishing attack on a downed enemy when there is still someone nearby actively attempting to kill them, even if the enemy has a healer present. What is mechanically disadvantageous in a system is a bad combat decision, so rational combatants wouldn't do that. Just for example, even when I introduce enemy groups with healers, or necromancers that repair their undead, I have never had a party begin taking extra turns to finish individual enemies before moving on to the healer, because that's an inefficient use of action economy. They focus attention on the healer and then fight the rest of the enemies normally because that's the most effective way to fight in the system.

2. Even if one combatant wants another particular combatant dead more than anything else, given the previously described scenarios, they can't just kill that guy and move on knowing he's dead, because resurrection magic is a thing and his friends could resurrect him. To be sure that he is dead, they need the time and opportunity to destroy the body. The most common way that's accomplished is by defeating his party, which needs to be done in an effective way. See point #1.

I'm not saying these are ironclad Laws of Tabletop or some shit, you can easily run systems, settings, or scenarios where these don't hold up; but given the mechanics of the system being discussed (d20 D&D) and the way most settings and scenarios go, they're generally more true than not. Also, frankly, I think if you're running fun, engaging combats, you won't run into this problem often.

 

[Corn Flakes]

It feels like people have been overthinking this really hard.

In my main group (I really should stay saying just "group", the other group has been playing Mage 2e for a while now), enemies declare how many attacks go into each target before the DM starts rolling to hit. If you get taken to 0HP, the enemy still has attacks allocated to you, and those attacks hit, you die outright. Simple as that. It usually means animals will kill you since so many of them have 2-3 attacks, and enemies with multiattack are more dangerous if you're on low health.

(Yes, the death rules in 5e say taking damage at 0HP just adds an automatic failure to the death saving throw but we go with "any successful attack against you when you're down kills you outright". 5e characters are hard enough to kill as they are, so we take the death saving throw to be about bleeding out in peace, so to speak.)

 

[The Ugly One]

In most cases, it is mechanically disadvantageous (in D&D-style d20 systems) for a particular person to spend their turn making a coup de grace or finishing attack on a downed enemy when there is still someone nearby actively attempting to kill them, even if the enemy has a healer present.

If this were the case, players would celebrate when the monsters finish off downed players. "Haha, stupid monsters, we really got 'em now, that monster 'wasted' two attacks removing the Fighter from the combat completely." But no, they wail and squeal precisely because you made everything worse for them. You can quantify the correctness of monster tactics in player tears.

Just for example, even when I introduce enemy groups with healers, or necromancers that repair their undead, I have never had a party begin taking extra turns to finish individual enemies before moving on to the healer, because that's an inefficient use of action economy.

Monsters can't get back up after hitting 0 hp. Monsters die at 0 hp, while players die at 0 hp + 3 failed death saves, so it's not the same. A more comparable situation is when the players cast sleep. When players cast sleep, the first thing the monsters start doing is waking up their sleeping comrades. My players always start by killing the sleeping monsters first, not attacking the conscious ones, because otherwise, all they end up doing is delaying the full posse being back on its feet in a round or two.

Yes, the death rules in 5e say taking damage at 0HP just adds an automatic failure to the death saving throw

It's two automatic failures for melee. A melee hit on an unconscious enemy is an auto-crit, and crits impose two failed saves.

 

[Corn Flakes]

It's two automatic failures for melee. A melee hit on an unconscious enemy is an auto-crit, and crits impose two failed saves.

Oh, yeah. You are correct. They really should remind people of that in the death rules section of the PHB, because that's an important interaction*.

*And one I really should have remembered because I spent over a year playing a Sorcerer and starting almost every encounter with Sleep. I guess I never associated "downed" with "unconscious" since we had any attack vs. a 0HP opponent being a kill anyway. Shows you why I don't GM, I guess.

 

[RandomTwitterGuy]

Well, the dying issue is mainly a DnD5th problem.
If you go down, you have to make death-saving throws, and if you fail or clear three times, you are good. However, if you get any healing, things reset, and you might have lost a turn, but it is not dangerous overall. That is also why it feels like whac-a-mole, as it is too easy to have someone cast healing word as a bonus action and get someone op.

There are no real stakes to it at all, and if you die, then you have to raise death and so on.

That is why I like what Pathfinder2E did with their dying state.
If you go down, you have a dying condition, which is 1 or 2 depending on where the crit. If you hit dying four, you die. You can do recovery checks, which is D20 10+dying condition. So you go down 1 time, it is a flat 11 check, and it only gets harder to save.
Interestingly, if you are healed/saved, your wounded condition increases with one. This is added to your initial dying condition, so if wounded 1, you start dying 2 or 3, depending on whether it was a crit, and the system makes it very easy to take crits.

It is not perfect, but it does create some more drama.

 

[Ghostse]

Well, the dying issue is mainly a DnD5th problem.
If you go down, you have to make death-saving throws, and if you fail or clear three times, you are good. However, if you get any healing, things reset, and you might have lost a turn, but it is not dangerous overall. That is also why it feels like whac-a-mole, as it is too easy to have someone cast healing word as a bonus action and get someone op.

There are no real stakes to it at all, and if you die, then you have to raise death and so on.

That is why I like what Pathfinder2E did with their dying state.
If you go down, you have a dying condition, which is 1 or 2 depending on where the crit. If you hit dying four, you die. You can do recovery checks, which is D20 10+dying condition. So you go down 1 time, it is a flat 11 check, and it only gets harder to save.
Interestingly, if you are healed/saved, your wounded condition increases with one. This is added to your initial dying condition, so if wounded 1, you start dying 2 or 3, depending on whether it was a crit, and the system makes it very easy to take crits.

It is not perfect, but it does create some more drama.

PF goes too hard into the other direction. tbh.

I can appreciate 4e/5e taking the "Healing gets you to 0 then heals normal ammount" route from a simplified "Just play" perspective, but it does lead to too much whack-a-mole. I know you can house rule things, but provided your party gets you fast the only thing you really lose is a move action to get back up.
PF2e has the right sort of idea of "eventually you get too fucked up to continue" counter, but as is common with PF just goes to deep on the mechanics and submechanics.

 

[The Ugly One]

PF goes too hard into the other direction. tbh.

I can appreciate 4e/5e taking the "Healing gets you to 0 then heals normal ammount" route from a simplified "Just play" perspective, but it does lead to too much whack-a-mole. I know you can house rule things, but provided your party gets you fast the only thing you really lose is a move action to get back up.
PF2e has the right sort of idea of "eventually you get too fucked up to continue" counter, but as is common with PF just goes to deep on the mechanics and submechanics.

In ACKS, once you are down, you are out, short of a miracle (i.e. a very good mortal wounds roll). Even if you are healed to positive HP, you most likely feel like hammered shit and can only lie on the ground and groan like a retard until you've had a few days of bed rest. It's simple in its own way.

Example how this might go down:

Marvin the Wizard takes a brutal shot from an orc and is knocked down to -4 HP. The next round, Charlie the Cleric casts Cure Light Wounds on him, bringing up up to 1 hp.

Your evil DM, me, rolls a d20. Marvin has 15 max hp, so that's a -2 penalty to being knocked below 1/4 max. Marvin used a 1st-level spell (+1) and treated him within a round (+2), so that's a +3. So I add 1 to the result.

The total I roll is 9:

You are griveously wounded. You die unless healed to 1 hp within 1 turn (10 minutes). If you are healed you need 2 weeks bed rest.

Additionally, I roll 1d6 to determine his wound. I roll a 3:

One of your arms is severed or crushed (cannot climb, use shields, dual wield, or use two-handed weapons).

Not the end of the world for a wizard, but still, Marvin's out for 2 weeks. Marvin's Fighter henchman, Fred, helps him out of the dungeon. The rest of the party decides to carry on.

 

[ZMOT]

I always feel that resurrection should be super rare, a gift from a deity on some chosen one or a valiant defender of the faith particularly after a moving sacrifice or last stand. It has to be earned through deeds; it shouldn't be accessible to all in a just pay for it, bingo way, or it cheapens or even eliminates stakes.

in a world where resurrections are a common occurrence, this includes the villain. the stakes are not to survive, but keep the fucker dead.

 

[Ghostse]

In ACKS, once you are down, you are out, short of a miracle (i.e. a very good mortal wounds roll). Even if you are healed to positive HP, you most likely feel like hammered shit and can only lie on the ground and groan like a retard until you've had a few days of bed rest. It's simple in its own way.

I feel like that's also too far in the other direction. There should be some option to get a party member back into the fight, but it should be more than "First dose of healing, any healing, and they're back to full combat effectiveness like it never happened and you can do this as many times as you have healing sources"

I felt like 4e's healing surges did a pretty decent job of tracking player stamina, though they're too simplistic.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I feel like that's also too far in the other direction. There should be some option to get a party member back into the fight, but it should be more than "First dose of healing, any healing, and they're back to full combat effectiveness like it never happened and you can do this as many times as you have healing sources"

I felt like 4e's healing surges did a pretty decent job of tracking player stamina, though they're too simplistic.

If you want to use rules that are already there, you could have it so being taken to 0HP also applies a level of exhaustion to the character, which stacks and needs to be cleared normally (either by rest of burning 100gp in diamonds for a cast of Greater Restoration). Although that's probably too lenient since you get to go down twice before risking serious combat penalties.

Another idea is to have someone who just got back up from 0HP be actually wounded (mechanically, disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws) in a way quick-and-dirty healing magic can't fix. So they need to have their wounds patched up after combat before going back to full performance. That would also give the healer's kit some kind of use. After all, when was the last time you actually used one of those past level 5, when the Paladin can just Lay On Hands for 1HP all day?

 

[Tom Bombodildo]

If this were the case, players would celebrate when the monsters finish off downed players. "Haha, stupid monsters, we really got 'em now, that monster 'wasted' two attacks removing the Fighter from the combat completely." But no, they wail and squeal precisely because you made everything worse for them. You can quantify the correctness of monster tactics in player tears.

Lol, players are upset by that because it means either rolling a new character or spending the resources to rez that one, not because your epic tactics have made the fight more difficult. If your players are still bitching and moaning over character death, you're nowhere near as cruel a DM as you pretend to be.

Monsters can't get back up after hitting 0 hp. Monsters die at 0 hp, while players die at 0 hp + 3 failed death saves,

This is literally just 5e. In 3.5, monsters (other than undead and constructs) die at -10 HP like players and, like players, can take feats and abilities to increase that. In PF1, monsters (other than undead and constructs) die at negative hit points equal to their constitution score, like players, and many of them have mechanics for fighting beyond 0 HP. In AD&D 2e, monsters and players both die at 0 HP. If you think having monsters standing around stabbing unconscious people while they catch arrows and axes to the face compensates for 5e death save mechanics, than whatever, but this is literally just a difference that exists in 5e and could be very easily homeruled away by using any of the prior death & dying systems.

 

[The Ugly One]

I feel like that's also too far in the other direction. There should be some option to get a party member back into the fight, but it should be more than "First dose of healing, any healing, and they're back to full combat effectiveness like it never happened and you can do this as many times as you have healing sources"

I felt like 4e's healing surges did a pretty decent job of tracking player stamina, though they're too simplistic.

Since damage is very B/X-like, i.e. most things only do one attack and hit for one die, you usually know things are going south well before 0 HP. The outcome is that players tend not to wait until their last few HP to heal, unlike 5e. Parties also tend to be larger, like 6-8 characters, so when a player's been hurt a lot, they tend to fall back for the rest of the delve.

Lol, players are upset by that because it means either rolling a new character or spending the resources to rez that one, not because your epic tactics have made the fight more difficult.

No big deal, all they have to do is wait until the cleric hits 13th level and can cast Resurrection, resurrect the fallen hero, and then go find whichever band of bugbears killed him back around 5th level and finish the fight.

This is literally just 5e.

Yes, I'm talking about a very 5e-specific rule which results in very 5e-specific behaviors if the DM follows the social convention of not killing unconscious PCs.

If you think having monsters standing around stabbing unconscious people while they catch arrows and axes to the face compensates for 5e death save mechanics

Conscious players don't get opportunity attacks if a monster uses an attack on an unconscious player. If a Hill Giant uses his second attack to finish off a downed paladin, there's no sudden explosion of axes & arrows to stop him. What typically happens is the paladin dies, and the party flees because without the paladin, they are fucked for a variety of reasons.

If you're a monster, the #1 way to get a band of assholes to leave your warren is to kill one. My monsters know this, because adventurers aren't all that uncommon.

If you think having monsters standing around stabbing unconscious people while they catch arrows and axes to the face compensates for 5e death save mechanics, than whatever, but this is literally just a difference that exists in 5e and could be very easily homeruled away by using any of the prior death & dying systems.

I don't think this, because I'm not theorycrafting. I know this, because I ran 5e combat RAW for 10 years, and just tossing some of the silly conventions and running the monsters as though they actually mean to survive rather than just stand around like meat sacks full of treasure and XP completely changed player behavior. I've filled countless graves and sent many parties fleeing in terror. I don't have a problem with whack-a-mole, with unkillable PCs, or with nobody preparing Cure Wounds, because monsters fight to win.

 

[Overly Serious]

You can quantify the correctness of monster tactics in player tears.

I don't want to wade into this discussion. I just want to say this is a beautiful sentiment.

 

[Quintus]

If this were the case, players would celebrate when the monsters finish off downed players. "Haha, stupid monsters, we really got 'em now, that monster 'wasted' two attacks removing the Fighter from the combat completely." But no, they wail and squeal precisely because you made everything worse for them. You can quantify the correctness of monster tactics in player tears.

I think you're forgetting something here. Yes, a monster using it's turn to finish someone else is a tactical advantage. But, people aren't likely to celebrate someone not getting to participate in a social game for however long the combat lasts.

*Edited due to a misclick.