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| #1AtheosisAug 19, 2014 14:26:22 | Anyone have any ideas regarding some kind of instant death rule to make higher levels more tense and give a setting a feeling of dread rather than just gung-ho-rush-in-kill-everything? I'm leaning towards damage that exceeds a player's constitution + (level x2) resulting in a constitution check with a DC equal to half the damage received to avoid instant death. Which, by happenstance, would also handle the issue of falling damage not being deadly enough at high levels. Note this is for a more gritty dark fantasy campaign with horror elements where PCs are actually supposed to be a bit afraid of monsters.
Edit: I'm also considering making it damage in a round rather just damage from a single attack. |
| #2Furion_ThamiorAug 19, 2014 14:52:31 |
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| #3AtheosisAug 19, 2014 15:04:04 | I want them to think twice about engaging, though it isn't necessarily about making all encounters hard so much as making them all potentially life-threatening if not handled smartly (this is true at low levels currently but quickly becomes less so later on). Oh and I have methods of dealing with high level magic so that players have to weigh the benefits versus the potential pitfalls rather than just casting high level spells without a second thought. I'm more interested in what people actually think of my idea or whether or not they have their own when it comes to the thread topic. |
| #4iserithAug 19, 2014 15:15:03 |
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| #5reddaemonAug 19, 2014 15:15:40 | To make a campaign more deadly, all you need to do is implement one rule:
0 HP = DEAD, No saving throws, no rerolls, do not pass go, do not collect $200, you fall to 0 HP you die. |
| #6AtheosisAug 19, 2014 15:52:02 |
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| #7ankiyavonAug 19, 2014 16:09:38 | In general, when changing death rules, the thing you need to keep in mind is: how often do you want PCs to die?
If you want to generate fear, the best way to do it is not to kill PCs. Death ends fear. To generate fear, you need to telegraph that the PCs are in danger and that they are close to death without actually killing them.
Hypothetically, imagine a rule where any weapon hit kills a character. The result will not be a lot of character death, because the players will simply avoid combat, and when forced into it, they will run away, defend, attack from range, etc. What you will see is a campaign focused heavily on noncombat activities, instead of one focused on combat.
Now, imagine hypothetically that your rule is three weapon hits within three rounds kills a character. You will see a lot more combat and a lot more death, because players will be able to track how close they are to death, and will take risks that they feel are worth the payoff. And as a result, they will make mistakes, and characters will die.
For this reason, whenever I want to alter the assumptions of death, my first stop is HP. Death at 0 HP is a perfectly fine way to do it, because players know how close they are to 0 HP and can do things about it. I personally like to have unconsciousness available as an option, so I find I like mortal wounds tables in general such as used by ACKS or Star Wars; Edge of the Empire; when you reach 0 HP, you're unconscious, and roll on a table to find out what happens because something bad happens. (I prefer the ACKS table to the SW table because the majority of the SW table is transient effects that just last till the end of the encounter, if they even matter that long, but the specific construction of the table isn't the primary point here).
In general, the point is that if you want players to fear for their character's life, you need to let them know that they are in danger and let them estimate how much danger that is themselves. Death isn't scary, especially not random death. (I'm not against death, or random death, but it isn't scary). |
| #8IllithidbixAug 19, 2014 16:28:56 | Eh, Constitution + 2x level? Presuming you do mean the ability score, not the ability modifier...
5th level wizard with CON 8 = 18 threshold, will probably have 17 hitpoints on average. 5th level fighter with Con 16 = 26 threshold, will probably have 49 hitpoints on average.
15th level wizard with CON: 10 = 40 threshold, will probably have 62 hitpoints.
For reference looking at the DMG Basic guide for the big hitters.
T-Rex bites for : 33 (4d12 + 7) piercing damage. But cannot tail attack the same target. It's challenge rating 8.
The Fire Giant gets two attacks with it's greatsword for 28 (6d6 + 7) slashing damage each. It's challenge Rating 9. So an average of 56 if both hit.
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| #9woifAug 19, 2014 16:33:18 | I'm not sure that you'd need to make a house rule for things to get more gritty and potentially deadly,you could probably get away with tuning encounter a little bit higher than you would otherwise and have the enemies useing good tactics. In the same vein, give the players options to counter your tactics example, one encounter includes two large ogres and 6-8 bowmen\spell casters who heavily focus fire. Another thing I tend to do to increase mortality rates is have certain monsters coup de grace (attack a downed target = auto crit = 2 failed death throws, only 1 more and dead), this one is monster dependant though a highly trained group of mercs would ignore the downed target to hit the still threatening targets, but an orc in the throws of bloodlust may just keep swinging till the corpse is unrecognizable and mangled, possibly even tear/chop off a limb and take out a large bite or something.
Another tactic I use to keep my players from charging every monster they see is fairly regularly put them near or in the way of something way stronger than them. Example, my party was level 2 and exploring a series of interconnected caves. One set of caves was a minotaur lair, which if the PCs didn't run from they would have all been wiped. That being said in my session 0 I explained to the party that this wasn't going to be easy mode and tht there were going to be threats they couldn't deal with by force alone, so they went into it knowing that such situations would arise.
My best advice would be what isereth said "Your players might and they'd be in a much better position to tell you what they'd be up for (and whether they'd be up for it at all) than strangers on the internet." Talk to your players, make sure they know you want a high danger campaign and are aware of any house rules you do decide to apply.
As for your particular house rule, it seems a bit too randowm for me. I prefer player deaths to come from bad choices, not bad dice roles. But then again, that's just my preference. I do like the 0HP=dead implimentation, if you still think a houserule is necisarry I'd start there, playtest it, and modify it as needed (maybe 1 failed save=dead, or go oldschool and -10 is dead) |
| #10AtheosisAug 19, 2014 16:48:42 |
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| #11AtheosisAug 19, 2014 16:57:08 |
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| #12Beldak_SerpenthelmAug 19, 2014 17:19:06 |
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| #13IllithidbixAug 19, 2014 17:28:01 | Yeah, DC 31 would be problematic.
Would a fixed DC of 10 be solution? It would mean that Proficiency in CON Saving throws might render it trivial, but... I get the impression it should be a "scary possibility" rather than something that causes players to actually die lots.
Personally I'd wait to see how it plays out before tweaking.
I've also recently come around 0 HP =death idea. The fact being that players are heroes who can choose to literally fight to the death, long after everyone else has succumbed to pain. Hence it's a heroic choice for the players to fight onto 0 rather than run away. |
| #14AtheosisAug 19, 2014 18:23:10 |
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| #15ankiyavonAug 19, 2014 18:42:12 |
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| #16AtheosisAug 19, 2014 19:02:31 | You're right to a degree. It's all a matter of proportion. My idea is to create a gritty game where players are still powerful but where they know that fighting that big monster over yonder could and likely will cost some of them their lives. That's why I'm leaning toward the 0hp = dead idea rather than the one I presented in OP. Though with the right game capricious death can be quite fun...and scary to boot. That said it's more fitting with a true horror game that doesn't want players to fight ever, and that's not what I'm going for. I want players to fight but to know that the stakes are high every time they do. |
| #17ankiyavonAug 19, 2014 19:26:13 |
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| #18NoonAug 19, 2014 20:32:23 |
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| #19AtheosisAug 19, 2014 20:37:18 |
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| #20franfronAug 20, 2014 2:05:13 | I have also thought of a modification of the instant death rules. Although I haven't tried it yet.
My idea is to consider only the first level hit points (maximum result in your hit dice plus Co modifier) when accounting for remaining damage after being reduced to zero hit points. So if the remaining damage is more than your first level hit points you get an auto failure in your death saving throws. If it is more than two times these hit points then you get instead two failures. And if it is more than tree times, you are dead.
Example: A fighter, no matter which level it is, with a Constitution of 16. If remaing damage is between 13 and 25 gets one failure. If it is between 26 and 38 gets two failure. And if is 39 or more he dies.
This way you reduce the mortality of low levels characters and increase it for high level characters. A good thing for me, as high level characters have more options to bring characters back to life. |
| #21Beldak_SerpenthelmAug 20, 2014 6:17:27 |
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| #22AlHazredAug 20, 2014 8:13:22 | There already is an "Instant Death" rule in 5E.
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| #23IorwerthAug 20, 2014 9:38:03 | What about introducing the old White Dwarf critical system, where if you roll a 20 to hit, you get to roll again. If you roll another 20, then the damage from your critical is doubled, and you get to roll another d20. If that comes up a 20, then you double it again. You just keep doing this until the attacker fails to roll a 20. The chances of you getting multiple 20's is obviously very slim, but it will occur, and when it does it can be lethal. So the possibility of taking a hit big enough to do instant death is there, even for high level characters when they are hit with few hit points left.
Could also use the 50 damage rule, that if any blow does over 50 damage, then you are either instantly dead, or have to save v death etc. Combine the two rules, and things become even more deadly at higher levels. |
| #24AtheosisAug 20, 2014 11:02:13 |
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| #25AtheosisAug 20, 2014 11:03:55 |
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| (Reply to #15)bawylie |
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| #27vodokarAug 20, 2014 12:19:50 | I wouldn't really qualify this as instant death, but a system that can in some circumstances cause it:
In every version of D&D that I have played, I have always used critical hit and fumble tables with a few nasty consequences on it, such as decapitation, losing an arm, friendly fire, spell feedback etc. that was interspersed with some lesser effects on the table.. It first started when the Rolemaster Arms Law system came out in the early 80's and we just took those tables and used them for when you rolled a 20. Been using something similar ever since then.
it is a good way to introduce fear into the campaign, because everyone knows that something bad 'could' happen at any time; always just a 20 or 1 away from something potentially really bad happening. It's the fact that it's everpresent, but unpredictable, that generates the fear. If someone knows they are outmatched in combat, they won't do the fight. If someone knows for sure x, y or z bad thing will happen to them, they will avoid it. But, if they know that they have a fair shot at succeeding, but there is a risk of something bad happening, it tends to be a better effect.
Besides, it is a simple way to make combat a little more realistic. In most editions of D&D, hit points primarily were equated to skill and it's only once your skill is worn down that you start to take real wounds. Yes, I know, there are debates against that philosophy. Not wanting to get into that. But, this was the original explanation by Gygax about hit points and thus the way I've always understood it. At any rate, if you do look at the hit point system in that way, normally, combat is very predictable; you know when you are in trouble and when you can press your luck. But in real life combat, sometimes a lucky shot can bypass that and do a real wound in an instant. That is what the fumble and critical tables bring to the game.
I usually start using this table around level 3, once the PC's have obtained a cushion of hit points to not feel so vulnerable and have developed some level of comfort playing thier characters. I also do not use this for enemies that are greater than 5 levels below them. So, if they were level 10, defending the city gate against an onrushing throng of goblins, one of the goblins isn't going to get a lucky critical on them, however, anything that is near thier level or above could possibly.
I'm an advocate of using this type of critical and fumble system, but it's very important to fine tune the probabilities with it. If it is too rare, like the above mentioned having to roll three or more 20's in a row, then it's never likely to happen. On the other hand, if it's too likely, then it effects the feel of the game too much.
My personal preference is rolling a 20 for critical, which does the normal critical damage, then roll a d6, a 5 or 6 prompts a roll on the special critical table, which has 20 entries, about 6 or 7 of which are pretty nasty and the others are lesser effects.
For fumbles, it is the same. Roll 1 = automatic miss, roll a d6, 5 or 6 prompts roll on special fumble table, which has 20 entries where about 6 or 7 are pretty nasty.
So, the probability of something nasty happening is about 1%, more or less, which seems low, but when your throwing dice around a lot, it can and does happen.
Most importantly, this applies to everyone, including the monsters. The kobold has just as much chance of fumbling as the characters do and plays by the same rules. |
| #28Moirdryd2Aug 20, 2014 12:30:19 | Don't forget that any damage done to a character once they're on zero HP that doesn't instant death generates a fail on the death save track. |
| #29NoonAug 20, 2014 18:29:37 |
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| #30AtheosisAug 20, 2014 21:31:37 | Why does anyone post anything here instead of just working it out with their players? Probably because their players are not DMs who understand the balance issues involved in running a game. I'm looking for input from people who actually run games. I've already gotten input from my players (which was basically "cool! let's play a gritty campaign! you can come up with the rules!"). |
| #31CaptainPicardAug 21, 2014 8:12:59 | I believe you could accomplish a lot of this by encounter design, as I have certainly found it possible to render characters in my 4E game completely paranoid and perpetually in fear for their lives, simply by running monsters in a way that threatened them. From my experience, it is stealth based monsters that cause this the most, at least with how the rules of 4E work.
The issue I see with 0 HP = Death is that if the adventurers are ever surprised, at least one of them is almost certain to die, at least from my experience running 5E. This may be what you're going for, but it's something to consider. You may find yourself needing to carefully fine-tune your encounters and monster selection if you go with that rule, or it could lead to a "screw you" situation where a group of Drow wind up with a 22 Stealth check, and the PCs have no possible way to see them.
A possibility would be that the character needs to make a "special" saving throw upon being sent to 0 HP, perhaps a DC 10 Constitution save. This would certainly lead to some characters passing it more than others, but those are the characters who are tough, and should be trying to help their allies. Failure means they are dead; the blow that dropped them was severe enough to render them dead instantly, or so damaged that no level of healing could possibly save them. Success means they follow the normal rules for death and dying. I could see this capturing the idea that any attack that lands in combat could potentially be fatal, and would maybe be safer to play with while the rules are still kind of untested. |
| #32DooflegnaAug 21, 2014 8:19:18 |
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| #33JackKerrasAug 22, 2014 1:53:22 | Horror isn't about death. Horror is about loss. Horror is about having to abandon your principles, knowing that you are a small thing in a vast, uncaring world, and being utterly alone.
Create situations wherein meaningful decisions need to be made; these should be easy for one character to jump in on and hard for others. You are driving wedges, here; you want your characters to be suspicious or honestly paranoid of each other. They're together, but they're alone. That is wonderful for horror.
Make people roll. Don't tell them why. Pass out findings and snippets on little pieces of paper and tell them to write something back and return it to you; give them things like 'would you rather find a sapphire or a ruby?' sometimes, and things like 'You just saw the Rogue lift that amulet out of the Cleric's pack' or 'The Ranger's shadow is not doing what the Ranger is doing' other times. 'Every time you look up, everyone is looking at you.'
Horror is not about death. That's the thrust of it. One-shotty horseshit mechanics aren't epic or exciting, it's just one-shotty trash and no one likes to reroll 'cuz you happened to roll two twenties in a row.
Put the party in precarious situations. Destroy their supplies. Rot their food. Have them moving through a dungeon where shrieks and unseen mechanisms grinding in the walls and random monster attacks constantly interrupt their rest and won't let them get a wink of sleep. Make them dive for days and poison their water and make every nice thing they find (not every treasure, just every source of honest relief) the seat of some awful thing until they won't even think about going up and dipping into a perfectly safe-looking fountain... then make a lot of them perfectly safe. Use traps that aren't just pressure plates that shoot darts. Disrupt their core abilities (like Keen Mind's north-sense or time-sense). Get them lost in a place where geometry doesn't make sense (so they can't map it on grid paper).
Make the hideous bossfight they're dreading come upon them at a time wherein they are not ready for it. Give them time to consider hopping in or bugging out. Then, if they die, it was on their terms, not because of your evil dice; they hopped in on a lich injured, paranoid, low on spells and ammunition, having not eaten or slept for three days... but it was a more attractive notion than going through that awful place ever again.
Making the environment, enemy, or both a real, scary villain... is hard. It takes practice and work. Don't expect to knock it out of the park the first time, but do try. |
| #34AtheosisAug 22, 2014 2:06:54 |
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| #35coil6Sep 13, 2014 10:37:31 | to the OP. I too like gritty campaigns, not all of my players do though. taking a piece of genious from a post on another thread(don't remember wich) we agreed that upon death(wich via RAW is a 50/50 chance each time you reach 0 hp. if you fail your death rolls, you can either accept the loss of your character, or continue with a crippling effect ( rolled on the location dice and applied to the character appropriatley). of course the player must choose before rolling the target dice, and the crippling effect is a -2 applied to an attribute (1st time), or ability (2nd time) as long as it makes sense compared to the affected area (ie left leg = -2 to stealth or dex depending on wether it is the first or second critical effect). this allows a character to cheat death with a lasting penalty. wich fits in a grittier type of campaign. either the player will roleplay that gimped character( wich tells me they are truely invested in their character) or choose to retire them. I know this doesnt directly answer your question. to that i say instant death at 0hp is fine, this is however an alternative that can add some further spice to the characters as well as a gritty feel. my thanks to the poster here sparked this idea whoever you are.
edit: if the target die comes up target reroll and add 1st and 2nd effects.
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| #36TimmeeSep 14, 2014 14:53:35 |
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| #37teron82Sep 14, 2014 18:49:57 |
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| #38NoonSep 15, 2014 3:41:48 |
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| #39AlpizaraiSep 16, 2014 5:09:21 | my contribution may not be as accurate as you may need. But something very helpfull in startwars saga games, was the so called Damage Thershold. A very good rule that may work great to emulate a muttered sense of danger on any level. Attacks that deal massive amounts of damage can impair or incapacitate you regardless of how many hit points you have remaining. Your damage threshold determines how much damage a single attack must deal to reduce your combat effectiveness or, in some cases, kill you. Your damage threshold is calculated as follows: Damage Theshold = 8 + Constitution Score + size bonus Size Modifier: Characters and monsters larger than Medium size gain a size bonus to their damage threshold. This size bonus is +5 for Large, +10 for Huge, +20 for Gargantuan. When a single attack made against you deals damage that equals or exceeds your damage threshold, but not enough damage to drop you to 0 hit points, you move 1 step along the Exhaustion Levels track (see Conditions, page 291). If the damage reduces you to 0 hit points, you are dead, similarly to the instant death rule. |
| #40AnsbachSep 16, 2014 9:09:56 | I definitely think that the Instant Death RAW break at higher levels, so an adjustment to those would do what you want.
In the past when I've wanted to increase the threat of death in a campaign, I've approached it from the opposite direction by severely limiting (or eliminating) resurrection magic. Not sure that is exactly what you want here, though - it does increase the tension in combat, but it doesn't make them easier to kill. |
| (Reply to #39)onceMoreIntoBreech |
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| #42Huntsman57Sep 16, 2014 13:09:04 | My recommendation for instant death is to make it a possibility if the character takes half his hitpoints in damage in a single hit.
I fell in love with the 2E Combat and Tactics rules for critical hits, and I apply them even today for purposes other than simply rolling a 20 on an attack roll. They can be pretty brutal so that's something to be aware of, but I feel like they are pretty "realistic." My version is actually a bit different than the 2E book, but basically a single hit of any kind that costs a player half his hitpoints or more creates a 1d12 roll on the C&T critical hit chart, and that could result in death, or if not, bleeding, or some kind of disability. |
| #43Arbitrary_AardvarkSep 16, 2014 14:18:23 | If you have frequent insta-deaths, how are people even going to get to a high level? |