I decided to kill all my players’ characters just for fun

[@theDMLair]

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[@Connor_McKinnon]

In my campaign, I've had multiple characters die due to monsters with an attack that immediately kills them if reduced to 0 hp. Monsters that get to simply ignore death saving throws are often much deadlier.

[@alienspaceshaman]

I use a lingering injuries table, that way if they go down and get back up there are some consequences. Also I roll secret death saves. Good stuff Luke! You dont suck!

[@mwhearn1]

In my dnd universe, intelligent creatures are aware about death saving throws. Dragons have taught Kobolds about this. Kobolds now chant "Kill 3 times. Kill 3 times." as they fight. For some reason my players have decided to ally themselves with the Kobolds. Can't think why?

[@lostbutfreesoul]

I'm a pathfinder storyteller, and a long term follower of Lore. How do you think Tucker feels about Artillery? (Explained: Pathfinder first had a thing called Teamwork Feats and one was for an "Artillery Team." Two small creatures could fire a single shot from a firearm designed for a Large Creature, and even apply their bonuses accordingly. Kobolds have a thing called Bushwackers, a specialized firearm class that gives you 'grit points' for shooting people from ambush positions... which are used to maximize damage on a single shot to insane levels. Applied to every shot from a double Hackbut made for a Large creature. As a small bonus, the 'reloader' doesn't lose their turn reloading if they are a musketman or have the right feats. This means you have a secondary shooter that is putting some of their own lead down the field. Magically keeping both weapons shooting every round, thanks to 'reloading two handed firearms for free.' What, I just want to do good old General Tucker Proud!)

[@Solid_Sayori]

"This is D&D 5e. Death never was on the table." Yes, it IS on the table. Rocks fall, everyone dies!

[@josephhawk9940]

That Death Save reset on a long rest was a rule from 4E. I really did feel that added some fear to things.

[@jediprotector216]

As a Pathfinder 2e GM, it helps to have the Wounded, Dying, Drained, and Doomed conditions that track how much they've received punishment from both physical and mental effects. With your drowning/suffocation suggestion, you can also allow players who don't normally fight underwater to attempt a flat check keep their breath in when they swing wildly, cast a spell, or take a hit.

[@shieldgenerator7]

0:11 "1d4 hours later" xD

[@Citizen_J]

Well i just told my players about some of the ideas to make combat a bit more deadly, and they basically had mini revolt. Lol theyve had players go down 1 or 2 times in 30 weeks of play and routinely one shot monsters....

[@romanaww]

It's not wrong to bring up ideas like this. It's actually good they told you what they want out of the game, and for some (or many) they just don't want realism or grittiness. As long as they're having fun (and you too), that should be fine, right?

[@chaddemink7731]

I'm glad you brought your skits back! I was wondering what those guys were up to.

[@theDMLair]

they enjoyed a long vacation; now they are back to work for low pay and long hours. they have lots of time to make up for. :D

[@DramakilzU]

I did make a Wounded condition for one of my games, but this was to keep players conscious while making death saving throws, yet their actions were greatly limited (can’t cast leveled spells or attack more than once on a turn), couldn’t take bonus actions or reactions, and couldn’t stand up. The condition would end when they regain any hit points. This condition was a buff to the players, but I simply increased monster difficulty to compensate.

[@reuben2405]

If anything I need a guide to make DND less lethal. I don't know how many parties I've tpk just running a monster or group of monsters how I think they normally would act. Like the initial lost mines of phandelver goblin ambush with their hit run hide tactics.

[@Lrbearclaw]

As both a (newbie) DM and a player (I am running a game for IRL friends on Wednesday and play on a Discord Strahd-game on Sundays), I can tell you this: As a DM 5e can feel like there is no danger, as a player when you are at 0HP, it is terrifying because you are a single round from being dead.

[@DramakilzU]

I personally don’t like the system shock rule because of how it’s very likely for squishy classes to suffer the effect, whereas tanky characters are usually fine, which causes a bit of class imbalance.

[@israelmorales4249]

Great advices, let's make this a grity campaign!

[@Sir_Bortax]

That's is why I enjoy TSR over Wizards of the Coast.... At least in TSR deaths ment something whereas in wizards because of the mechanics of saves the players can ransack dungeons without fear

[@reneroache2955]

Fair. But does permanent character death really mean anything, when a player can just make a new character, if their character permanently dies. Especially, if their not attached to their dead character. And character death is still very much possible in 5e. It's just harder, by RAW to kill a player character in 5e, and that's actually a good things. Since not every player enjoys possibly dying a half a dozen time, and needing to create new a character each time. Also, if a DM wants character death to be more of a threat, it's best added as home brew.

[@saintsinna]

Never understood the obsession with player death. If the only investment someone has in the campaign is their character's life, they're just not invested in the campaign. I mean, if you die, you're just going to create a new character, one you may even just like more. But if that vital NPC/location is destroyed or that major quest failed, that is permanent. If you can make the party care, that's way more impactful.

[@onetruetroy]

Player death is tragic. Character death is a non-issue.

[@MJ-jd7rs]

I mean, the investment the player has in that important npc or location IS the investment the pc has. Kill the pc and you kill the investment.

[@brianclarke9861]

Well some people get heavily invested in the character in addition to the campaign. In those cases, it often feels bad for that player's character to die. One of the many reasons session zero is essential to any campaign, so the GM can let people know immediately that deadly encounters are always on the horizon and poor planning will get you killed.

[@WayneBraack]

​​@@brianclarke9861I agree there are weak-minded people out there that can't separate reality and a make-believe story. They allow themselves to get too invested in Make Believe. Forget their perspective that you're just playing a game. If a character dying ends up being part of that story that's just fine. Don't internalize it.

[@jeffgoelz9136]

You mean character death, right? Player death is a big deal.

[@sleepinggiant4062]

The DM doesn't have to "try". They can throw anything they want at the party. An army of goblins will defeat a 20th level party if there are enough of them. I use the 0 HP exhaustion, failed deaths saves recover after long rest, healing kit required (or heal for half), and slow and natural healing. Gritty Realism doesn't affect the difficulty unless you increase the number of encounters per rest. It only affects the amount of time it takes to do stuff in game. Players will rest when they need to. Great video!

[@Skagkiller]

funny thing I see out of gritty realism, is that you're giving the players more downtime, since there's an entire week for a long rest, the players could potentially have their characters running around gather crafting materials, information, and other things of the sort, which in the long run makes preperation, which I personally think is something that gets over looked a lot in 5e, due to how powerful simple magic items and class features can be. The main thing is that, especially in the 2024 ruleset, giving the player opportunities to get large amounts of prep time can make them even more powerful than a standard 8 hour long rest would give them, given they use the time given well Just a thought

[@JmzNudd96]

First off, you don't suck.😊 Second, this video was especially timely. My party is nearing a final battle against Zuggtmoy and I'm trying to figure out ways to slow them down and make the final battle gritty. Im definitely using a few of these ideas. Thanks!

[@LeonardAndHisBiscuit]

Nothing strikes fear into the heart of the Average 5e Player quite like a homebrew edit of a monster they thought they knew.

[@victorbazan2676]

Lots of creative suggestions. I love it, thank you.

[@Scott-ig6nx]

So what we do is that when the pc hits zero hp, when they are healed they have a level of exhaustion. They can't remove this exhaustion without a long rest. One level per long rest. Also, the death saves don't reset until a long rest. Finally, They can only be revived a number of times equal to the con score, going back to 2e.

[@colinz226]

I mean, there's two options for making number 11 more relevant; Reskinning and Homebrewing. I made a homebrew mercenary type with the troll's inability to be killed by damage that was not fire or radiant, I also gave them an attack which let them recover hit points when they _EAT_ a piece of a person. (Had one make a flying tackle, teeth first, onto the party wizard once, that was fun) So as long as you recalculate their CR, you should be fine to give more creatures the petrification ability. I am not sure how much the monster creation process has changed in 5.5, but I know the Angry Game Master had a few masterful articles explaining how to use 5.0's monster creation rules from the DMG. (The DMG's own explanations were, in a word, bad)

[@rowanash5378]

One thing I would personally do is instead of Healer's Kit Dependency, do a Medicine Check Dependency. During a short rest a character must make a dc 15 medicine check to allow themselves or one other player to spend hit dice. You could also limit the maximum number of hit dice a character can spend each short rest to be equal to the Healer's proficiency bonus (times two if they have expertise).

[@mirandelf]

I’m watching this just after watching episode 26 in High Rollers campaign Aerois. Mark is a master at dropping his characters to zero, but tends to avoid killing outright as his players have massive character investment. But one character does die outright in this episode. A mechanic that he uses that I think is more harsh than death is a critical wounds table. When I character takes a large amount of damage in one hit they also suffer from a wound which can’t be healed in the usual way. The character Qillek, an Arakokra who started the campaign flightless with only one wing (because his player Tom rocks), has already permanently also lost an eye which lowers his perception and in this episode incurs broken ribs which means a CON roll needed to attempt any movement based action eg. Getting up from prone. This is much more impactful than dying as it’s constantly making play harder for the character on an ongoing basis. Whereas a player with a dead character rolls another one and is as good as new.

[@fhuber7507]

Drop to 0... 1 exhaustion if they get back up. No exhaustion if they stay prone and not attacking for 1 minute, so they can avoid it. Now it's a choice after the other PC stabilizes them or they make 3 saves.

[@bartroberts1514]

Wouldn't do these myself, but good on you for saying what we all feel some time or another without thinking it through.

[@colinz226]

I like the short rest option for death saves!

[@AbstractStew]

Good video. I'm not personally a fan of realism in games, but this video was still entertaining and full of useful ideas.

[@nazaritev6482]

Love the advice. Honestly I'm in love with old school games or osr. After playing cyberpunk Red (and homebrewing Cyberpunk 2020 rules into the game). The amount of umph stories that can have when it feels like your choices matter, can't be understated when playing a deadly system. I'm learning alot still. And have a great deal of love and respect for sci-fi. I will always love gothic fantasy, (it's my favorite kind of fantasy give me those vampires, ghouls and gargoyles babyyy). Making monsters rare, makes them feel special. Doing massive damage in one hit feels scary. But something about the death mechanism of DND just doesn't feel as cinematic as Cyberpunk's roll under your body stat, death system. Or you die. My Players trust is massively important to me. If death isn't on the table or feels possible. Tell me the risks. And I'll make my choice. Maybe I've been with bad people, but every time I've tried to implement a new lethality mechanic to DND my players groaned and complained. And asked me: "why do you want to be so edgy and make everything grimdark all the time?" To that. All I can say really is that without consequences, and real stakes. Why play? If you are playing a superhero, I'd rather you be a Batman. Or spiderman, rather than superman who has to have literal planet destroying threats.

[@kelvinl2214]

Luke I think you forgot to mention adding the Death effect. This instantly kills PCs that are reduced to 0 hp. My level 17 Kingmaker group had to spend thousands of gold to revive 1 pc and to fail to revive another.

[@vapypr]

We use variations of, depending on the theme of the campaign, when you go down, and are revived by magic you mage a death save. If you succeed, no problem. If you fail you get back up, but have a lingering death save fail. These are stackable. Basically, the magic jolting you back causes a shock to the system. It requires a long rest in a safe, comfortable location such as an inn to recover the lingering DS fails.

[@EricBrockway]

My advice if you want to make the "death from massive damage" rule more interesting - use current hit points instead of maximum full health hit points. The idea is, as the character gets worn down by the fighting, they become more vulnerable to potentially lethal attacks that they would have been able to avoid if they were more fresh and less fatigued.

[@shpo4648]

I sometimes modify the effects of undead creatures to prevent the players from knowing exactly what's going on, in order to keep some mystery involved. One of these is to replace strength or other stat drain instead being a level of exhaustion. That gets people nervous.

[@DDann99]

yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the skits are back! It's been a while since i was on the channel but the skits were my favorite part

[@MechbossBoogie]

In the system I wrote, when you get brought back up you get a debuff that gives you -1 to hit and -1 to block. Might not seem like much to people who primarily use a d20, but this is a d6 system. You can spend a turn doing nothing to remove the debuff or a highly skilled healer can remove it. And I do mean highly skilled. The healing path requires two separate activations, one to heal you back to being up and another to remove the debuff unless you have the final ability of that path which can do both. Keep in mind, you're not healing a health pool with a hard bottom, you're removing wound tokens. So if you've got 6 toughness and you have 20 wound tokens on you, that's not going to be a single turn heal. You're going to be down a long time with the healer spending a lot of time on you. Granted that's not going to be the case every time. Usually you'll get 0-3 more wounds than your toughness and enemies will pick a new target as they step over your body. I'm using morale as a main mechanic in combat, keeping with the wargame theme I'm playing with. If you have a number of wound tokens equal to or greater than half of your toughness and you fail morale, your character cuts and runs. Which if you lose a melee by dealing less damage than your opponent during a combat you're taking a morale check, to count one such instance, and that will happen a lot going both ways. Not dead, but removed from combat. Another character can retrieve you during combat if they have the ability, but if there's no one left but downed characters, the downed ones are dead and the ones who fled can regroup later. It might not seem like it on paper, but missing that one key morale check is brutal.

[@shaclown7721]

The sketch is back! 😁

[@TroyKnoell]

Great advice. Thanks. And if you're looking for some great adventures that are easy to run, definitely check out his books, like Into the Fey. They really are good. And he's not paying me to say this.

[@tangoto1209]

I personally have great difficulty not killing my players... at level 6. I think pathfinder 2e is a bit harder to ballence though given the +23s and DC 38s

[@dukejaywalker5858]

I let players recover HP equal to their level on a short rest once per session, and roll Hit Dice on a long rest. Also, failed death saves stay with you until after a long rest. And conditions have to be relatively comfortable to get full long-rest benefits. e.g. camping half-way up the side of a cold windy mountain ain't gunna cut it.

[@reginaldblue7240]

Shadows. I nearly killed a character... he had 2 points of strength left. One more hit could have killed him... no death saves.... comes back as a shadow which is quite hard to undo. I hadn't intended for that encounter to be that terrifying.... but it was.

[@diegolamanya345]

shadows are awesome, my entire party had dumped strength in the curse of strahd, they were in for a wake up call when shadows appeared

[@evolution031680]

…How did the shadow survive that long? My PCs obliterated the shadows in my CoS campaign in 1-2 rounds without taking any Strength damage. I was expecting more drama.

[@reginaldblue7240]

@evolution031680 4th level party of 5. 10 shadows. They went into the room and spread thin after ignoring the warnings of dancing shadows. Most failed their perception checks, so I got a surprise round to surround them. They won... But were badly hurt.

[@diegolamanya345]

@@evolution031680 if only two shadows hit the 8 strength rogue, he could be dead, if three of them hit he is likely to be dead

[@lostbutfreesoul]

There are a few other creatures like this, the Rule-O-Thumb we are looking for: If it Creates a Spawn through Ability Loss... your party will love meeting them!

[@jierdareisa4313]

I do really love ALL the DM Lair videos!!!! ❤

[@АнтонДемин-ю4з]

I had a boss, rogue and cultist of Grazzt. He used curved blade that reduces max hp because cursed wounds that can be healed only with Regeneration effect. He had sneak attack like typical rogue. And rolled 2 critical hits against one character. Max hp gone to 0 and he died.

[@tabletopgamingwithwolfphototec]

Happy to see a new skit.

[@greggbanfield776]

I combined pathfinder confusion table and the 5E exhaustion table. Level 1 - normal exhaustion event Level 2 - roll (2) D100, minus 2 lowest rolls from each other and apply to the confusion table Level 3 - roll (2) D100, take lowest roll and apply to confusion table Level 4 - roll (2) D100, take highest roll, minus CON mod, and apply to confusion table Level 5 - roll (2) D100, add 2 highest rolls together, minus CON mod, and apply to confusion table Level 6 - normal exhaustion event

[@arpandey698]

To be honest, the Game Master in the intro was being a bit pathetic. The Players just used the resources available to them and smart level dips in order to win a hard encounter. If my players did that, I would jump for joy.

[@lostbutfreesoul]

There is a difference between legitimately trying to kill characters, and vindictively trying to kill characters. So many storytellers out there will fail to attempt the first, thinking they would be doing the second. This means entire swaths of Rules simply get ignored, because they might put the party members into 'real Peril.' As long as your compiling the Rules in the correct manor, then the outcomes is the one that the players need to deal with, and sometimes... it leads to Peril, which will enrichen your story if handled right! And, as the skit plays out: 5th edition is designed so that 'real peril' isn't as real as it used to be. Bring to death, they wrote the Save System expecting it!

[@deborahblock-schwenk2907]

I like the going to 0 = get an exhaustion point rule! Our own house rule is that the round after regaining consciousness the character gets half-movement and no regular action. In other words, unless they have a bonus action, that first turn after one regains consciousness is nearly always just "I stagger to my feet." This doesn't make going to 0 more lethal per se, but does make it awfully inconvenient.

[@deborahblock-schwenk2907]

I'll add that lethality under regular rules is pretty easy to achieve when a monster's goal is to drag a character away to eat them. This nearly happened to me recently, the really scary part was that "away" meant on a different plane!

[@murgel2006]

"All rules within the books are suggestions!" 0 Hit points means dead.

[@johghurt9863]

Sea and air travel (over sea) accidents lead quickly to exhaustion. Another good one are mine cave-ins deep below ground with water rising or methane gas. Getting out from 500m below ground isn't that easy. Oxygen will be running out. Also rocks crush.

[@onetruetroy]

Funny video. You’re a funny guy. Funny, how? The way you tell it. - Ever since the early ‘90s, I treat HP simply as Hitting Points. As long as you have HP, you can hit-fight, interact, react, dodge, cast spells, walk, etc. As soon as a PC or creature reaches 0 HP then they can make one last non-combat action: take one step, grab onto an object, activate an object, say something, give a signal, then they are stunned. They fall down and are unable to react. They can groan, flex a hand slightly, swallow, and receive medical attention from another. Also, they can be instantly killed if an attacker so chooses. - If left undisturbed they naturally gain 1 HP per hour up to half of their maximum HP. Each hour the player rolls a d20 and if the result is less than or equal to their current HP, then the PC is able to fully act and react. Otherwise, they are still incapacitated and cannot react. The PC cannot heal naturally beyond half max HP until they succeed on that roll. - This serves several purposes: PCs don’t become accidental murder hobos. PCs must apply principles when dealing with incapacitated enemies. Tavern brawls aren’t always deadly. The wizard doesn’t die by tripping on a book. Players don’t have to pretend their PCs are unconscious. No one automatically dies. No inevitable TPKs. Avoids unnecessary resurrections. The enemy can choose what to do with the PCs. PCs can’t just rest a few hours and pop up from being totally incapacitated. No convoluted rules on top of rules. No death saves. This applies to the enemy as well. - Most importantly, this allows heroes to seemingly escape death, but still suffer consequences: Aragorn tumbles off the cliff Conan survives the tree of woe. Theoden converses with Eowyn after the Nazgûl encounter. Beatrix punches out of the coffin. And so on…

[@wdyd_masterattwitch4956]

I don't like the exhaustion rules because it causes a spiraling effect. Once you get like 2 levels of it, you are significantly more likely to die because you are weaker in combat. This will lead to you holding back your team. Also, the martials that are doing their jobs by getting hit are getting screwed over more. Finally, you're just going to forget you have it. If you play every week and you're a good bookkeeper, great. Otherwise, you're just going to forget you have 4 levels of exhaustion. This is coming from someone who has been a player and a DM in games with this rule. Addition cons: takes forever to die from this, so it doesn't really fix the problem, and it takes forever to recover back to 100%. I've been wanting to try the "keeping failed death saves" rules, actually. I thought it was my original idea. This is the first time I've seen someone else talk about it. Pros: It only makes you more likely to die when you drop to 0 hp, and you're more likely to remember it because if you drop to 0 hp, you're already looking at your death saves. Cons: Similar to the exhaustion rules but not as bad, the only exception being if your players are getting brought back before getting any failed death saves, then this rule accomplishes nothing. However, that might be a good thing. They are rewarded for prioritizing immediately healing. No hiding death saves or the DM rolling them, the other members of the team would WANT to help their allies have the fewest amount of death saves because they carry over.

[@cp1cupcake]

I am running Secrets of the Wierd Wizard at the moment, and every player at 0 hp loses 1d6 max hp at the end of each round. Because of how initiative works, it doesn't come up as often as I would like, but its still much better than what 5e wants to have.

[@lostbutfreesoul]

In my day, we called these things Tombs of Horrors and they taught me a valuable lesson. My very first character, back in AD&D land, died on the way to one said Tomb of Horrors. One hour spent figuring out how the rules worked, only for the following to play out: Okay, before we get to the Tomb let us do a simple combat to better understand the rules. Before you is a crippled goblin leaning on a rickety bow that looks like it could snap at any moment.... Okay, you lost Initiative so he gets to roll attack Okay, he hit so he gets to roll damage Okay, he rolls damage so and.... So you died. That was my very first introduction to this game, I didn't live long enough to meet the party.

[@blueperry5409]

Combine two, exhaustion from massive damage. When you are hit with an attack that does more than, say, your level plus constitution score, you make a con save or gain a level of exhaustion.

[@soMeRandoM670]

Brutal an bunch of kobolds and low level rack up exhaustion

[@gcwoodhead4180]

Unrelated to the video, but question: Im in a campaign where there are multiple parties (1 per player, who is the shot caller for each). Generally, I don't mind picking a weaker PC. Mostly, so no one else gets stuck with a bad stat block. Partly, because it gives me an excuse to be a little goofy. But we have a power gamer. Which, again, I'd normally be fine with. Just talk to the DM, find my character's strengths, move on. However, DM made a comment that he was tired of me "griefing" the party by picking these character flavors. To note, I held off a monster in one encounter so the PG could get us out of a TPK (I did not initiate or encourage the encounter to begin with, as my PC was asleep). In another encounter with another party, my PC found out the other party members got into a conflict with demons. And my magic circle kept everyone alive. So I don't feel like I've "griefed" anyone. Quite the contrary, I made bad characters useful. I think the DM, who I've played with many times before, is being influenced by the PG. Not actively, mind you. I think DM just doesn't want to leave a bad impression on the first time merging two play groups together. Any advice on how to approach this? Should I just start choosing more conventially effective characters to show I'm not a scrub? Am I taking it too personally? Should I forgo a support/protective play style and just sort of hope we can butcher our way forward? Any feedback is appreciated (commenters included)

[@archersfriend5900]

It depends. Most ttrpgs are group survival/resource management games. If a player picks a character that doesn't support other characters role play styles it can add real world party conflict. For instance. 5 players want to play hard charging characters and 1 player plays a pacifist character. Now that 1 pacifist character effects how the other characters play the game. For a good long term group. Everyone should discuss how they want to play the game, dm included. If the group is cool with your goofy character idea, no problem. If the group doesn't like your character idea, then change it or get a new group.

[@brewski4758]

Solution I use. Lingering Injuries table which you roll on after you've go e down (I do it after combat as I'm not a monster 😅) Secondly, max damage crits. So a crit does the max damage of a normal attack, and then you roll 1 set of damage. (I'm sure it has a proper name everyone knows but me 😂) I makes the players feel great as crits always do more damage than regular. But it makes monsters scary. Oh that bugbear doesn't look that scary until it does 30+2d6+2d8 damage....

[@jonathanprovost7779]

Extra idea, merging the countdown stress: My players were advised at the start of the session, that the 2-stage Ritual to bring about essentially the apocalypse, would reach its climax (ie. More or less game over) on a random roll of 5% on the 1st turn. 10% on round 2. And so on. Well... we failed. Ritual went off. Craziness ensued. TPK avoided by a double PC sacrifice. Epic finish!

[@pyhriel]

The rule about regaining hit dice is : you regain half your total hit dice after a long rest. Personnaly I use a variant of Natural Healing. My players have one hit dice per two levels, instead of one per level, and they can use up to their constitution modifier (minimum 1) of their hit dice on a long rest automatically. The number of hit dice you can use during a long rest can be boosted by using med kits (which in my games heal only through hit dice), to regain hit points during a short rest, you need to have someone use med kits to allow you to use some of your hit dice. In my case, I didn't necessarily want a more deadly feel to my games, but I like the feel of attrition, which in the base 5e rule is non-existent since you fully heal after a long rest. I must also add that my games don't follow the pattern of (something around the lines of) 3 to 5 battles a day with numerous short rests, which I feel is more for a dungeon crawl type of game.

[@TOOLandNINfan]

I take breaks from running our 3.5e campaign with running the Alien RPG by Free League; they know they're expected to die in the cinematics I run!

[@screenmonkey]

How to increase leathality, Dont play 5e DnD, its literally a game with built in bumper rails. What this means is that unless the monster is designed to kill or TPK a party, its often not a threat. When combined with HP bloat, and the various safety nets, this is game is more of a Haunted House fun ride than an expedition into danger. Its fine if that is what you want, but if you want actual danger for characters you need to look beyond the WoTC ecosystem.

[@itscougar659]

Arent you creative 🙄 if you cant balance encounters then say so

[@GlenFinney]

Oh, I can kill player characters in 5e without any fancy tricks. Just need to turn up the aggression of their opponents. Go after the healers first, once a character is down to 0 hit points mob them as their enemies begin to feast or slaughter those down. Also once a fight is done, there’s no resting, as attempting to rest gives the opportunity for hostile creatures to find and attack. Add in some nefarious traps and harsh environments and then you’ll not find 5e so safe. Oh and for those who complain about Darkvision make your dungeons pitch dark and any light attracts hostiles. Darkvision turns darkness into dim light conditions only. And narrate that using just Darkvision turns the scene into a black and white movie essentially, everything in shades of gray. I can also softball OSR games as well. The biggest difference mechanically that is harder RAW to mitigate is HP bloat. OSR and d100 rpgs tend to keep those low throughout whereas 5e and to a degree PF2 inflate them. You can homebrew fixes for that though if desired.

[@peterwhitcomb8315]

@@screenmonkey Or you take the “kiddy gloves off” during encounters. Traps, terrain, and cover works wonders for the “bad guys” too. Tuckers Kobalds is a lesson for everyone.

[@BlackyMox]

I agree. Used to play shadowrun 5e with my dnd group. They were on the line of death almost every 2-3 session's. I threw a bladedemon at my lvl 2 party. A enemy designed for at least 3 lvl 5 characters. One went unconscious. That's it. Demon had no chance... was super disappointing.

[@peterwhitcomb8315]

@@BlackyMox Tell me more. Just read up on the Demon (assuming I am looking at the same stats). Unless there were a lot of Nat 20's that thing is making it to round 3 minimum and taking out 2 or 3 players. And the players should be TPK'ing by the end of round 4 if they were level 2. Oh, wait, Paladin shenanigans? Forgot about Paladins.

[@docmysterio71]

TPK'd 3 parties during Rhime of the Frost Maiden and 2 parties in Curse of Strahd so death is DEFINITELY on the table in 5e

[@Dracolich2017]

in my games a player loses all mods, so they are only rolling a d20. They get them back after long rest. Also spell DC of 8 for magic users. If they roll a 20 on death save they get them back on short rest.

[@victordevillers3899]

In my games they enjoy 5-7 short rest between 6 to 8 vombats and a longrest after 8 combats

[@StephanieDaugherty]

Doesn't really take any alternate rules or house rules. Depending on their motivations, Intelligent enemies are potentially going to hit downed players, or focus down the healers, especially if they keep getting back up after being downed. This is particularly true of evil-aligned enemies, who might embrace the cruelty of finishing blows over attacking the characters still standing. Doesn't even have to be employed every fight - the threat of it alone will strain whatever healing the party has available. If you do want to house rule, try basing XP on fights per long rest somehow, with each fight ramping up the XP, and a long rest cashing out the XP bank - thus rewarding the party for pressing on with low resources, and perhaps, tempting them to either get greedy over XP, or push far enough ahead that they can't easily rest so deep into the BBEG's lair....

[@lukedesmith]

@theDMLair I love your t-shirt!

[@SamuelDancingGallew]

Personally, I think things like massive damage tables are very bad in general, just because you're already in trouble, and now you're being removed from the game outright. Plus, it's niche enough that you'll be lucky to see it used against the Party once. Instead, I just have it so that when a Creature is reduced to 50% HP or less, they can choose to roll on a Bloodied Table, which gives extra actions, and refreshes abilities, but comes at an unpredictable price such as: "You cannot attack. You must Dash as the first action on your Turn. You must attack immediately after any movement." Of course not all those effects are bad, in fact... at least one is incredibly strong. But it encourages the Players to decide if they need that last little boost, or if they should wait.

[@michaelpinkston2602]

2024 exhaustion is the only thing I'm taking out of the 3 books so far. I've decided to use Tales of the Valiant books.

[@seangriffin2040]

Lethality? Play more AD&D. Near TPK last Saturday. Phase Spiders are dangerous.

[@LyleAshbaugh]

So true! My 4 player group could roll up new characters in less than 10 minutes. Lots of practice 😂

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

Another great video.

[@princesskanuta3870]

Great video!

[@steveng.clinard1766]

I want a Lethal Boredom mechanic.

[@Winterclaw42]

Bring back old school carrion crawlers and give them a decent enough to hit bonus and a high enough DC on the paralyze that the players start sweating a little when seeing them.

[@hrothgardevaitos8330]

5e is the kiddie pool of ttrpgs. By design, I might add, it was made to be more newb friendly to attract more players outside of the normal scope of players. This means that the game is not only more lenient on players in terms of deadliness, but also in terms of system bloat. A lot of the ancillary rules that make the game more complex are gone, too. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, previous editions had a lot of system bloat, after all. My issue is that they sanded away too many things. Templates are gone, as are monster types with standard abilities. Energy drain is also gone, as is ability damage and ability drain. Poison just deals "Poison damage" and inflicts the poison condition, instead of having a wide range of different poisons, each with their own unique effect. Sure, previous editions needed some pruning, but there's a such thing as pruning too much.

[@maciejmazur2622]

As i player i didnt care that much, but as i GM - its ridiculous, when we were playing 5e campaign one time we had an encounter with a mindflayer and 2 abominations (or whatever the name of the undead beholders is ) - we were more annoyed that it takes so long rather than scared or worried - the DM after that said that hes not sure what to do as that was double the lethal encounter CR wise .....

[@will2000ism]

This would be unnecessary if the massive HP for creatures and players wasn't there. How about HP being based on Constitution score, Creatures HP decreased for quicker fights and stopping the slugfest and finally deleting long rest reset but making it only 1HP per long rest + Con bonus minimum 1HP after long rest. Also with a healer in the party you can negate the effects fairly quickly so limit how many spells they can use. Like in combat Clerics/Paladins need a Concentration check.

[@alexandermont5722]

You don't suck....I do use exhaustion when they go to zero. This has been a balancing mech for me.

[@MaKs2K5]

You forgot lingering injuries !

[@aidenlemar3414]

You don't completely suck (besides the joke your actually pretty good).

[@GeraldKatz]

Seriously, Luke doesn't suck, but I firmly believe he has a DM bias flaw. He's a forever DM, likes being a forever DM, doesn't want to be a player, and those times he is a player he admits to being reckless doing dumb things and gets his character killed a lot. He cannot see the player's perspective of the game. The risk of character death is part of the fun, but players are not wrong for never wanting it to actually happen. A monster who dies doesn't matter to the DM. The monster was meant to die anyway, and the DM has more monsters already set up. The player's PC is 'on camera' all the time. It's the only thing he get to control or even have to interact with the game. It's the player's precious, so it's a big deal for the character to die. There's a story to the character. Even if a backstory wasn't written the story is the progress made in the campaign. A player has empathy for his character the same way a person has empathy for a character in a book, tv show, or movie. Just dropping to 0 hit points is a sense of loss despite the next player to go heals him. The joy of success is not his PC not dying. The joy is the party defeating the monsters saving the day. Dropped to 0 but healed after a tough fight is that fun of accomplishment. Playing the game is the fun, not rolling up character number 4.

[@romanaww]

Yeah that's similar to my DM being confused when I told him to maybe remind me less about the possibility of my squishy character dying early game bc "well, it IS always a possibility :)" like I didn't sink two weeks of work into the character. In a way, the DM never has to worry about being unable to play lol

[@scottwalker6947]

Hell, I actively tried to kill my character in 5E, and couldn't.

[@АнтонМихайлов-ъ3г]

> getting to zero hit points gives a level of exhaustion No, don't do it, it is a bad rule. D&D 5e was consciously designed in a way that healing scales much worse than damage. With this rule it means that it often does not matter if you heal a character on low hitpoints before or after attack - the damage is likely to overcome the small buffer made by healing anyway and deliver an exhaustion point. This rule does not incentivise the players to use healing to stay with high hit points, because healing just doesn't keep up with damage. Healing a non-downed character will still be a waste of resources

[@bryanstephens4800]

I would have a DC 15 flat on1d20.

[@mwhearn1]

Luke, I just wish to confirm that you don't completely suck.

[@rowanash5378]

You already had me chuckling from the thumbnail itself, but that intro skit was both hysterical and way too true. (Especially because in 5.24e you don't even need to multiclass cleric, You can get an intelligence-based healing word from your background. Though I guess that doesn't give you heavy armor.)

[@ark1567]

Another good reason why I feel like I should not buy 5.24e; thanks 😂

[@guidoocchipinti8668]

How to fix death in dnd 5? Copying pathfinder 2e or dnd 3.5...

[@The-Shadowcat]

Happy mojito day!!!

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

Y'all... lethal is not spelled leathal... I mispell wirds inkorrektly myself sometimes, so I'm not perfect. I was going to bite my tongue and not say anything--Luke works hard, he is just trying to put out grrst videos that we all want to watch, and in the end (since mostly he is just speaking) the spelling doesn’t matter. But his misspell of lethality in the title is being carried on in the comments, and it's killing me. 😁

[@michaelpinkston2602]

BTW, you need to eat bacon during your video. Maybe pick up a bacon sponsor. 😁

[@PuppetMaster1791]

I don't know why people say killing PCs is difficult. The last mission the party went on, 2 of 5 of the characters didn't make it out. The other 3 i may have given mild panic attacks to. I think I might have to give them an easier mission or two before I challenge them again.

[@JayMaster390]

the solution to this is also playing pathfinder :)

[@Lrbearclaw]

Yeah, not really a fan of PF2. Played it a bit, and honestly, it just feels really clunky. So if I wanted to play Pathfinder, I'd play the real one. If I want a 3 action d20 system, I will stick with 5e. While a lot more simple, that simplicity makes it so easy to reflavor or homebrew. As to killing PCs, remember action economy. Make PCs have to choose to heal or finish he threat.

[@JayMaster390]

@@Lrbearclaw While I respect your opinion, im not sure what you mean by real one. Do you mean PF1? I don't think either is more real than the other lol. I was mostly referring to the rubber band effect in 5e combat for pcs and healing, which pathfinder specifically addresses with the wounded condition, which luke probably knows since he runs a pathfinder game. Big rule of thumb with Pathfidner as well is to leave the rules you dislike behind, and keep the ones you do! But I like having a baseline to look at first.

[@Lrbearclaw]

@@JayMaster390 I was just making a joke with the "real" comment. That's all. ;) But yeah, I just found PF2 combat actually a lot more clunky. 5e can feel rubber-bandy with life/death but, given how after level 1 you are more than twice as durable as a normal Commoner, this doesn't bother me much. Now, I do like the idea of (if your group wants more danger) tying Wounded/2024 Exhaustion to hitting 0 HP, but I also like to let my players get a single action to crawl (halfspeed), attack (at Disadvantage), or Dodge (to remove the Advantage against them) when they are at 0, giving them options to react to "bleeding out". As both a (newbie) DM and a player (I am running a game for IRL friends on Wednesday and play on a Discord Strahd-game on Sundays), I can tell you this: As a DM 5e can feel like there is no danger, as a player when you are at 0HP, it is terrifying because you are a single round from being dead.

[@GeraldKatz]

Here we go again. Obligatory: No, of course not PCs should never die with plot armor, but once the DM is upset PCs aren't dying he needs to step away from the DM chair. If a player is cavalier about death as merely a condition to be overcome by a spell you have other issues with the player. The problem is not PC death or lack thereof but his treating the game like a glorified boardgame. Players who are immersed and interested in the game never want to drop to 0 hit points. Healing Word doesn't matter. Revivify doesn't matter. That they dropped at all is the shucks darn it risk that makes the game fun even more when it doesn't happen. On those occasions a PC does die many players would rather just play a new character despite resurrection options. They mourn their character and to come back feels cheap. They accept the finality. In addition there are things worse than PC death that is the risk to make the game fun such as failing to succeed in the whatever the goal is. Players hate that more than anything save failing to get the loot. If not one PC dies throughout a campaign, the DM did not run the game wrong. If the DM is upset with that outcome, move away from the chair.

[@АнтонМихайлов-ъ3г]

> 4:20 DC for constitution saving throw against massive damage scales with level Firstly, it makes no sense. How come a first level character has am easier time resisting damage than a one who has been through many battles and made alive out of them? Secondly, this change heavily penalizes characters with no proficiency in constitution saving throws and characters who don't raise their constitution score. Gaining experience should make a character more powerful, not the other way around. Heavily nudging players into spending their very limited amount of ASI on constitution is borderline violating players' agency

[@ronhulmaggot6134]

Or you can play something like Mythras.

[@jefffisher1297]

Luke, I enjoy your content and this video is a perfect example of how 5E ruined the true feeling of RPGs, simply put, from your observations there are TOO MANY RULES. Try playing with No Death saves and you die at zero HP, end of story. In other words, make dying fun again...

[@YearZeroHero]

Best house rule: don’t play d&d

[@yellingintothewind]

Stop treating combat as a gladitorial event and this is not a problem. "Monsters that kill" is not limited to creatures with instant death effects. Zombies, bears, slimes, and (my favorite) mimics will all ignore most other threats in favor of beginning to eat the fallen. Wolves will drag one helpless victim off into the underbrush while the rest of the pack continues to run interference and entirely abscond with them (thereby depriving the party of a raise dead target, or even the fallen member's gear). Intelligent foes will happily finish off downed characters, counterspell Healing Word, prioritize healers, and otherwise try not to lose.

[@aaronshaw7934]

I'm not gonna leave a comment, but I don't think you suck.

[@Michaeljack81sk]

If you want character death then stop playing 5e and play something less forgiving. The whole setup of the game is to make death very rare and trying to make it lethal is like adding poison spike traps to a soft play area

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

I mean as a GM in a game session your job is never to kill your players as that is just not what TTRPGs are... In you want to kill your player play a nartive wargame as the solo player who is in charge on the Bot players... Like even if you players want that nartive wargame expernce don't ever give it to them... It will only go very bad very fast and ruin your rep as GM... This is also tru in wargames where the GM comes from... As in wargames GMs are there to modfy the game to fit with that single match mostly to matvh it more realistic even when not used to train. for milltray reasons... Hince why in TTRPG people love and expect realism as TTRPG are dxiract desendents to TT wargames were realism is also expacted and wanted... So yeah 100% you are a tioxcic and bad GM if you want to increase lethality of the game with out your player really wanting that... Which is never just because it's to easy or not fun... As lethality isn't the only way to make TTRPGs fun...

[@MJ-jd7rs]

Imma be real, in the 8 years I’ve played dnd 5e I’ve never been a part of a group (as dm or player) which didn’t care when a player went down, didn’t try everything to prevent a player from dropping to 0, abused yo-yo, or otherwise treated it like no big deal. Whenever the yo-yo did occur it was always a near tpk experience and we’d only barely survive the encounter (if we did at all). All 90% of these would do is ensure we’d have tpk in a death spiral. Poor form.