Quote from: HappyDaze on October 31, 2021, 02:31:48 PM
5e certainly does have the rules for fst-killing someone down because of 0 hp. However, the game then strongly pushes the DM not to do it. In effect, doing so is suggested to be playing the game wrong. I have to wonder how any of the monsters got used to dropping people to 0 hp then "moving on to another combatant" only to see the downed enemy get back up time and again thanks to low-level healing magic.

Err in what way does "the game" strongly push a DM not to do that?

If I ran 5E, and depending on the level of the party,  1-2 dragons.

Its because 5es combat system is SHIIIT. You need to Quadruple tap to kill somebody. And even 1 HP of healing resets it.

But because its nostalgic, everybody gives its design a pass.

My only adjustment would be to have death saves reset after a long rest.

I have seen countless 5e characters die. Some of you are in the twilight zone.

Greetings!

Yeah, I modify my campaign. I don't use all the stupid death saves. Fuck all that. You get to zero or less hit points, you are unconscious, and or bleeding the fuck out, at a rate of 1 hit pint per turn. At negative 10, you are dead.

I also use level draining. Vampires, Wraiths, and Spectres all drain levels with their melee attacks, bitch.

I also cut the 5E monster Hit Points by 50%, and have player characters limited as well. Wizards have D4's for Hit Dice, and Rogues have D6's. Only Warrior Classes get above +2 Con bonuses. Every other class has +2 Con bonuses, maximum.

I also use expanded Critical Ranges for different weapons, as well as exploding Criticals. Every round, the Critical threat range increases by 1, as you get worn down in hand-to-hand combat. With each passing round of combat, the chances increase that you will be a step too slow, miss a block, and get ripped in a crushing attack. Every round of combat, your death comes closer. A common peasant, or a brigand, or an Orc warrior, can get a critical against you, and you are fucking done. That can happen, whether you are level 1 or level 10.

Death and blood and pain need to be confronting the player characters at every turn. They need to experience FEAR when a man draws steel. Or when that peasant girl has a bow drawn on them...ready to go. If she's good, you will be lucky to get three steps before you are lying on the fucking ground, dead.

I like having that sense of fear and realism and verisimilitude. Player characters should be heroes, not fucking super heroes.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I'd say 5e design clearly points to fantasy superhero game.

QuoteEvery round, the Critical threat range increases by 1, as you get worn down in hand-to-hand combat. With each passing round of combat, the chances increase that you will be a step too slow, miss a block, and get ripped in a crushing attack. Every round of combat, your death comes closer. A common peasant, or a brigand, or an Orc warrior, can get a critical against you, and you are fucking done.

Hmmm... dunno about it. I mean battle wears both sides - which means they become less efficient attackers. So it's sort of balanced under normal critial rules.
In real life if melee fight is too long it would rather become cripple fight, than increased critical range.

Quote from: FingerRod on November 01, 2021, 03:25:46 PM
I have seen countless 5e characters die. Some of you are in the twilight zone.

Yeah, some GMs may play softball or ignore things to make it a bit more swashbuckling or cinematic, but standard issue 5e PCs can drop pretty fast.  If anything, the uncertainty of death saves is scarier than a mere countdown to -10. 

How many dragons does it take to kill a 5e character?   It depends.  A Red Wyrmling can one-shot 1st level PCs and some of the squishier 2nd and 3rd level PCs with bad breath alone.

However, I've never liked how most D&D only has four stages of combat effectiveness: Up & Running, Taking a Nap, Mortal Peril, and Corpse.  There needs to be one or two things between Up & Running and Taking a Nap.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 30, 2021, 10:16:53 AM
You need dragons? I had a swarm of zombies, backed by some variant ghouls, actually force my players to pull back from the haunted village they were investigating. They killed a lot of them, but y'know, quantity has a quality all its own and they got VERY lucky on a couple clutch rolls.

No one died but they definitely got their confidence rattled a bit.

Zombies, oh big deal. It's not hard to defeat them.

After all, they were already dead on their feet.

There are so many things you can do with zombies, and their skinnier cousins: skeletons. 

With zombies, you can scoop out their innards and fill them with clay jars of alchemist's fire, or acid, or some noxious gas producing liquid, and wait for that fighter with the greatsword to trigger his own doom. 

Infest a zombie with Rot Grubs and you have a nice one-two punch.

Dress up a zombie in rusty Splint Mail (the armor that everyone bypasses) and improve its armor class.  Tell those armored zombies to lie down in 18 inches of muddy water and you have a nice ambush.  If you don't want to give the players a suit of splint mail as a prize, just bolt some metal plates onto the zombie.  Fashion some old scythe blades onto their arms while you're at it.  Might as well smear some poison on them too. 

Buff your zombies with barkskin, stoneskin, fire shield, haste, and lett them go to town.

Zombies are the ultimate power source.  Make them walk on a treadmill to power a mad wizard's engine of destruction, make them reload and fire seige engines ceaselessly.  Need a crew for a submarine that won't deplete the air?  That's right...ZOMBIES.

LOL at Griswald. Well played.

But yeah. Undead in general are serious opponents, but skeletons and zombies lend themselves well to unexpected ambushes (I had one where the skeletons were concealed inside terracotta statues and smashed their way out to attack the party).

Anyone can outsmart skeletons, the boneheads...

Quote from: SHARK on November 01, 2021, 04:18:31 PM
Greetings!

Yeah, I modify my campaign. I don't use all the stupid death saves. Fuck all that. You get to zero or less hit points, you are unconscious, and or bleeding the fuck out, at a rate of 1 hit pint per turn. At negative 10, you are dead.

I also use level draining. Vampires, Wraiths, and Spectres all drain levels with their melee attacks, bitch.

I also cut the 5E monster Hit Points by 50%, and have player characters limited as well. Wizards have D4's for Hit Dice, and Rogues have D6's. Only Warrior Classes get above +2 Con bonuses. Every other class has +2 Con bonuses, maximum.

I also use expanded Critical Ranges for different weapons, as well as exploding Criticals. Every round, the Critical threat range increases by 1, as you get worn down in hand-to-hand combat. With each passing round of combat, the chances increase that you will be a step too slow, miss a block, and get ripped in a crushing attack. Every round of combat, your death comes closer. A common peasant, or a brigand, or an Orc warrior, can get a critical against you, and you are fucking done. That can happen, whether you are level 1 or level 10.

Death and blood and pain need to be confronting the player characters at every turn. They need to experience FEAR when a man draws steel. Or when that peasant girl has a bow drawn on them...ready to go. If she's good, you will be lucky to get three steps before you are lying on the fucking ground, dead.

I like having that sense of fear and realism and verisimilitude. Player characters should be heroes, not fucking super heroes.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

You're basically hybridizing 2E and 5E, which is actually something I've thought about doing. It makes it possible to keep the best practices of both systems, and yes, frankly introducing the players to the concept of thinking twice before charging in on a wraith or vampire and such. I'd also recommend bringing back 1 save against a medusa or baskilisk or you are turned to stone, period fucking dot. Ghosts can age you decades on a failed save. Stuff like that. Give monsters their teeth back, so to speak.

Quote from: jmarso on November 01, 2021, 11:47:19 PM

Quote from: SHARK on November 01, 2021, 04:18:31 PM
Greetings!

Yeah, I modify my campaign. I don't use all the stupid death saves. Fuck all that. You get to zero or less hit points, you are unconscious, and or bleeding the fuck out, at a rate of 1 hit pint per turn. At negative 10, you are dead.

I also use level draining. Vampires, Wraiths, and Spectres all drain levels with their melee attacks, bitch.

I also cut the 5E monster Hit Points by 50%, and have player characters limited as well. Wizards have D4's for Hit Dice, and Rogues have D6's. Only Warrior Classes get above +2 Con bonuses. Every other class has +2 Con bonuses, maximum.

I also use expanded Critical Ranges for different weapons, as well as exploding Criticals. Every round, the Critical threat range increases by 1, as you get worn down in hand-to-hand combat. With each passing round of combat, the chances increase that you will be a step too slow, miss a block, and get ripped in a crushing attack. Every round of combat, your death comes closer. A common peasant, or a brigand, or an Orc warrior, can get a critical against you, and you are fucking done. That can happen, whether you are level 1 or level 10.

Death and blood and pain need to be confronting the player characters at every turn. They need to experience FEAR when a man draws steel. Or when that peasant girl has a bow drawn on them...ready to go. If she's good, you will be lucky to get three steps before you are lying on the fucking ground, dead.

I like having that sense of fear and realism and verisimilitude. Player characters should be heroes, not fucking super heroes.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

You're basically hybridizing 2E and 5E, which is actually something I've thought about doing. It makes it possible to keep the best practices of both systems, and yes, frankly introducing the players to the concept of thinking twice before charging in on a wraith or vampire and such. I'd also recommend bringing back 1 save against a medusa or baskilisk or you are turned to stone, period fucking dot. Ghosts can age you decades on a failed save. Stuff like that. Give monsters their teeth back, so to speak.

Greetings!

Yeah, give monsters their teeth back! I grew up playing Holmes basic (The Blue book with the Dragon on the front cover) and AD&D, and I remember lots of monsters being very dangerous. Not just at 1st or 3rd or 4th level, either, but at 8th, 10rh, 12th, and 16th level. Undead, Dragons, Demons, lamias, chimeras, manticores, all kinds of things, but even brigands and orcs and ogres could be dangerous. I also remember having LOTS of wilderness adventures, fighting in forests and mountain slopes, marshes, and blasting hot jungles with giant Misquitoes and snakes everywhere. I remember walking a lot, when I couldn't ride my warhorse. I don't remember the group teleporting everywhere, or using gates, or flying all the damned time, either.

So, in my current campaigns, I have spells like Fly, Gate, teleport, all that stuff, either entirely gone or severely restricted. Also, Raise Dead, Resurrection? Gone. When people die, they usually stay dead. It's over, and time for a dramatic funeral. It also makes dying far more meaningful, which also makes living and surviving, far more meaningful. People rejoice and scream when they live, and when a dear friend or loved one is found tortured and slaughtered, or is cut down by some villain in battle?

Tears actually flow. Armies are raised, and wars are unleashed. Whole cities are put to the torch. Players *BURN* with a seething hatred for their enemies that has them thinking of vengeance, even during th week, before the upcoming game session. They plot and scheme, and go to elaborate efforts to get their revenge against hated villains that have killed beloved characters or NPC's.

The Players know that there's no "do over." The characters are dead, and gone.

No gates, flying, teleporting, wind walking. Fuck that. Travel is alot slower, and more meaningful. Players actually have to travel through land, and Rangers become actually useful, because Players have to actually use skills and resources and knowledge to survive in the wilderness. They don't just fly around to resort hotels until they get to whatever destination they want to go to. This is true at low levels, and true at higher levels.

Likewise, I also don't use lots of crazy plane jumping or visiting other worlds. The campaign world is enormous, and has so much in it, different terrain, climate, cultures, creatures, races, and kingdoms and all that, I haven't ever seen any group explore it all, or even half of it. The mortal world should have plenty to do, and lots of things to keep Players super busy from level 1 ro 30, or whatever. Fuck, when and if they become rulers, of their own little realms, shit really gets interesting, with taxes, training armies, spies, foreign diplomacy, wars, rescue missions, riots, assassination plots, new immigration waves, barbarians on the borders, there is always something going on.

I often like to describe my campaign world as 2 quarters Ancient World, 1 quarter Dark Ages, and 1 quarter Weird. Definitely some magic, and some fantastic, especially in some areas, at different levels, or with different creatures or NPC's, but much of the time, it's a fairly mundane, harsh, and brutal world with a lot of grounding in realism and historical flavour. The whole point of keeping lots of things rather normal, is that when the magical and fantastic does make an appearance, it is very wild, wondrous, and really appreciated. Not just yawned at, and time to teleport into Orcus's throne room. It also means that much of the time, dealing with Humans, Orcs, Beastmen, Frog men, Lizard men, Minotaurs--it's all still pretty normal, physical things. Real emotions, real armour, weapons, real castles, real needs for animals, water, and food, and silver, iron, and gold. Not half-dragon, half rainbow hippo alphabet maiden with a springtime wand and summoning Moon Faeiries to love the Monotaurs in a happy nighttime ren faire party.

I think the game rules should support the kind of campaign you want to run--and not actually work against you, and cause you nothing but problems, because the rules have so much stuff in them that are constantly trying to force you to run a bright happy ren-faire super heroes campaign.

So, I get out the Ghengis Khan Saber of Ruthless DM bastard, and go to work on the rule assumptions, spells, and other trappings and notations throughout the rule books, and slice away. Like Ants eating an Elephant--One Bite At A Time. Until the rules work for me, and don't fight me on everything. That way, the Players also don't roll up their characters with Happy Ren Faire Super Heroes in their minds. NO.

They know that isn't happening for damned sure.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I once killed a 5e level 20 Druid in one round with a single blue dragon. She made the mistake of approaching it non-Wildshaped. It won init and killed her before she could act.

Quote from: S'mon on November 02, 2021, 05:58:14 AM
I once killed a 5e level 20 Druid in one round with a single blue dragon. She made the mistake of approaching it non-Wildshaped. It won init and killed her before she could act.

If you're talking about an Adult Blue Dragon (CR 16) then yes that makes sense.