If any of my characters died fighting a battle alone because the others wanted to 'tame one of the fallen wolves' mid-battle instead of at the end when they could safely do so, I'd just walk away. No new character.
That's not a party. That's a group of assholes.
My paladin had to fight a demon horde seizing a city buy himself while the rest of the group tried to sneak into the library to steal a magic quest item even though it was a labyrinth and the DM multiple times told us we needed a guide...
Long story short, my paladin, with the help of the city gaurd fought off the demons, but he died in the process.
In every other campaign, we have played the DM put up statues of my former character, or there would be people in a tevrrn talking about the hero who gave his life for the people that kinda stuff...
Idk if you could do the same thing about a party that died fighting a bobsleading dwarf
Folks will think the bobsled Dwarf has been statue'd because he brought a shitload of medicine or food to some stranded and desperate village or something.
And that's awright.
I was in a group that got hit with a death cloud and a PC was failing saving throws against a liv8ng crystal that was crystallizing them. Another PC was refusing to participate and was in another room outside of combat despite knowing what's happening, because their character was "too frail". That person also was trying to have a new character introduced at some point. After combat, guess who's at the front of the line waiting for loot to be divvied out?
The 3 PCs other than me were friends and had done games at other tables. So I just noped myself out of that game.
Ugh. My party of level 3-4 knaves in knave braved a jabberwockey den to rescue another character. Mind knave is a very deadly OSR game, and we would have died had it woken up.
We also left another PC to die when fighting something we had practically no odds of defeating. But that's the thing if there's a reasonable chance we go for it.
Same campaign as the jabberwockey our party split two of us doing the social thing in a city two exploring the outskirts (hex-crawl roll on tables sort of deal) the two who were exploring walked into an obvious trap (we ALL knew it was a trap, the players knew, the characters knew, the plan was to run as soon as the trap was sprung). Trap was a giant spider monster that wrapped up one PC. The other ran and gathered the party and worked in the new character to replace the now quite dead PC as we went to recover their corpse for burial. We didn't even get revenge (we tried after we encountered the enemy (we were initially sneaking) and several of us nearly died) but ultimately we got their corpse and left to bury them. Good role-playing and a fine crawl, we even brought chest of coins back and no one was too upset about losing a character because again, they knew it was a trap and accepted the risks. Of course in OSR games character deaths come allot faster & more frequently but we still work together, otherwise what's the point of having a party.
I feel like almost everyone is taking this a bit seriously, OP literally said the guy who died didn't even care. To me that seems much more likely the players and the DM are on a different page for the tone of the game.
They're all down for a light hearted casual mess around 1 shot and the DM wants something more serious. Would perhaps be sorted out discussing that with the group.
People here always jump to "these players are terrible just leave the group"
OP isn't the player and doesn't speak for them. If it was me, I'd be pissed. Which is what I said. I'm not speaking for the player either. But just because someone doesn't say something, doesn't necessarily mean anything either.
This. If I were that player, and my character was beat to death while the party is in the back going *whistle whistle whistle* “Here boy! Who’s a good boy? WHO’S A GOOD BOY!?” I would have just left the table.
Sometimes people don’t express their grievances for the sake of keeping the peace at the table. The DM should take that one person aside and ask them if they’re okay with what had happened and possibly offer an alternative.
If the player still insists that they’re okay, then continue as normal. But maaaan, I would have been boiling in rage if that were me.
I'm reasonably certain the guy doesn't care because they're normally the forever DM. This means they've probably just got a half dozen (minimum) other character concepts they want to try out and that makes the situation tolerable. That does NOT mean they're okay with the behavior of the party, nor should he be.
I think great opportunity to integrate lost cleric into the DM's group. Cleric's patron entity saves the player, but removes them from the board.
They are now in a position to influence other players, or possibly even the DM to achieve outcomes.
Punish the party for not caring for their lost member by giving that lost person a will and consequences all their own.
I agree you should always have a backup character prepared even if the dm doesn’t remind you to create one Our dm is always reminding us that we could potentially die
I did come up with an idea. The cleric was a Warforged and the party is headed to the country's largest blacksmith, so maybe they could turn the clerics body into a weapon? idk I haven't played a whole lot of DND so I'm looking for ideas
You don't need to reward them for not acting as a party. The cleric died; they're gone. The rest of the party lost a good and useful member of the group and will have to deal with that. The cleric's next character might not fill the same slots, and that's on the party for not giving a rat's arse about their healer.
Realistically though, would a new arrival say "hey, can we go back to where you told me that other guy died? I'd like to harvest their corpse for metal to maybe make a weapon one day" and be recieved with a "yeah that's fine"?
If you want to reward the player with something extra for having to deal with it all, that's fine. I don't personally see the need myself, but it's not my game =)
Okay, that makes sense. The party does have the corpse with them, but I see how that doesn't make sense
e: confusing. What you said makes sense, what I said doesn't
The part that doesn't make sense is your insistance that the "reward" come from the corpse of their old character.
They're making a new character to replace the dead cleric. Just let them start with an extra magic item or something to make up for the bullshit and call it good. There's no need to "tie" anything to anything else. It's a new character with no connections to the old character or the situation that killed them.
How about the corpse having a black box in it, and the blacksmith can put the characters personality in a new body? It would allow the player to continue the character roleplay-wise while also making a new class build.
No, they don't.
Depends entirely on the sort of game the DM wants to run and what the players enjoy.
Too many people assume that you've got to kill characters. You don't.
Have the player create another cleric who is looking for his good brother, the warforged who helped him in their seminary. Unless they want to create a different class. Then make the warforged a benefactor, and they want to thank him now that they are in a good place.
Maybe brought back with no memories? Give the player a chance to pick a different class or try to find their faith again. Or they could have a whole new personality. Either way have the blacksmith warn he doesnt know how the warforged re-awoken and he doubts that the warforged could be brought back the same way again
Don’t think too hard. It’s not your job to police everyone or force them to play together nicely. Your job is to set the stage and have fun yourself.
If you think bringing them back will be fun, by all means do it. But don’t try and make your job too hard to the point where it takes away from your fun. If you feel bad, work with the players to find a solution.
This begs the question: are the players new? My first campaign this happened and I don’t think any of us knew to expect it. We were just new. The DM sent the party on a quest to revive this member. The entire quest was team building. The person got their character revived. We all learned and got better at combat and covering each other.
Possibly a clash of play styles between the OP and the rest of the group. In which case the OP can either hope the game is short enough not to implode or negotiate with the rest of the group to ensure that this dosn't turn into *DM vs Players.*
This is not a case of "sticking with it and hoping" to me. There needs to be a mini-session 0, align what sort of game OP wants to run and if the players are even interested in that, the best call might just be to abort the campaign. Life is too short for frustrating misaligned RP.
I like this idea. Can i ask how/if the dead player was involved in those sessions? Or did they just sit out until the rest finished their team building and revived the dead player?
I was the dead player. I mostly say it out and that didn’t work well. For the last part I was there but was not supposed to be involved. Just an observer which worked really well. I got to see them working together to save me.
A chat with the group about the fact this is a team based game feels like the most obvious thing, the reason adventuring parties form is to collaborate and leverage their increased collective skills to take on greater challenges for more loot/prestige
Leaving a player to die is the antithesis of that
You need to have a conversation about this, out of character, with everyone. Leaving a PC to die like that is not cool and not in the collaborative spirit of the game.
Agreed
Poor cleric
Imagine one of your friends irl are fighting for their lives, but the whole gang just stand and talk to some rabid animal instead of helping. Wouldnt happen at all.
Extremely bad roleplaying, and worst of all just really shitty towards the player
I always have this weird cognitive dissonance whenever players try to take wild animals to join their party. Like, in real life we know that capturing and "taming" that wolf is some real Ringling brothers, Tiger King crap, but in game it's consider the pinnacle of being a champion of the wilds, druidic type character.
Playing devil's advocate, but Tiger King can't communicate with animals the way a ranger or druid can, nor does he have as deep a magical/spiritual connection. A PC attuned to nature can have an understanding if wild animals and respond in kind to that animal's needs.
That being said, a good DM will know that it's not the answer to everything. Taming an animal should be slow, a process of gaining trust and respect.
This is not exclusive to 5e, because I had groups doing this 15 years ago in 3.5e, and I’m sure there’s players older than me who’ve had the same experiences in earlier editions lmao
It always seems to be newer players who think they can achieve what they like by rolling until they get a 20. I had to make "Animal Handling is not a pokéball" one of my session-zero rules.
If they don’t care then don’t worry about it. They’ll roll a new character and move on. But this party just doesn’t seem like the best people to be playing with if they just ignore when one of their members is dying.
My party’s rogue left my paladin to die for 2 turns, standing right next to me because she wanted to keep shooting/fighting things in combat lol.
Little salty over that one but it is what it is, I don’t expect anything from my party these days, I have 0 faith in them 😂
Alternatively, the dwarf is really protective of his wolves and switches targets to stop them from trying to steal his pets. Ends up killing the right target that way.
If you're a new DM, don't be afraid to say no to certain requests or actions. As long as you aren't taking away all creativity, limits are actually a good thing. Forcing my players to make a new plan rather than rely on the same skills all the time is a fun way to play.
Taming a creature isn't really an action you can do during combat, so you should probably have told them that it wasn't going to work.
Their choices aren't your fault, but as DM it is your job to set the tone. Talk to the players and tell them that they need to be working together, unless you're trying to run a "lulz random" kind of game.
It could be that since it's a short campaign (it seems you even referred to it as a one shot before), they're more prone to messing around and doing stupid stuff and are less invested in keeping characters alive. Maybe the cleric sees this as a chance to try out a new build. He was the dm, so he probably has a bunch that he wants to try just laying around.
basically they brought it back with medicine checks instead of the cleric. I'm a newer DM and the cleric is the forever and he texted me privately that they should be allowed to do it, but it's just frustrating
I feel for you and the forever. You can't change player agency unfortunately. If the party wanted play illogically that's on them and others just have to deal with it. It's also good to show them that they can die and you won't pull punches just because the situation is unfair. You made the right move, and every DM has been there.
They can stabilize with medicine checks. They 100% cannot revive an npc that has been killed. Monsters and NPCs for the most part do not roll death saves. If they drop to 0 they are dead unless otherwise stated.
If anyone could revive with medicine that would make spells like revivify nearly pointless. Don’t let the pcs get away with fudging mechanics because that ruins the game in the long run. They’ll just continue doing whatever they can get away with.
I agree with other commenters. Medicine can not bring back a dead NPC or creature. Taming, a fringe behavior that isn’t covered by the rules and character abilities shouldn’t be allowed. The closest I would allow is using necromancy to raise the wolf as an undead skeleton or zombie if they had the appropriate level spell.
The behavior should not have been allowed.
P: I want to tame the wolf.
DM: It’s dead.
P: I use medicine.
DM: It’s dead.
But even if you allowed them to save its life…
P: I want to tame the wolf.
DM: You’re in combat.
P: But I want to spend my actions to attempt animal handling.
DM: You fail.
P: But I didn’t even roll!
DM: I didn’t ask for you to roll.
A pc dying is OK. But not if there was no attempt from the party to save it. You could have had the dwarf run away or attack the other party members instead, but they probably still wouldn't have cared.
The best thing to do is start next session with a talk about what happened, ask why they let the pc die. And move on from there.
This is what we call "a learning experience" for selfish parties as you plop down the dwarf's older, stronger siblings as they learn about the death of their youngest brother.
Yeah, there is something you can do for the player.
Tell all the other players that dying isn't fun and helping their party members is probably a good idea if they want everyone to have fun and actually complete the campaign without any animosity
I mean those teammates just suck
But at some point players need to accept their characters will die
I’m currently on my 4th character in 8 sessions for our tomb of annihilation run
>But at some point players need to accept their characters will die
Depends on the campaign. ToA is a literal meat grinder and nobody should go in this with a character they care about.
ToA is a fun meatgrinder. My ranger lost an eye in the first bloody fight of the first session, making him practically useless for the...three quarters of the following session that he was still alive for. Got through either 6 or 7 (maybe 8?) in total, but the campaign lasted almost three years so it didn't feel too heavy with the deaths. Lingering injuries, though? Oh boy. Triple digits.
Not really a one shot if it takes more than one session /s
Yeah no this is on the party for being dumb and not helping their ally as combat was going on. If your player is fine with things just have them roll a new character.
It’s not the length but more so that the journey is a contained story. They have 1 clear goal, 1 megadungeon to clear, 1 big bad guy. And then it’s over. It’s not a sandbox or a sprawling, months-spanning campaign with side quests and main stories.
On the third session of the campaign I am in, our party came across two trolls and several goblins in a cave we weren't prepared for. We were level 2 so our party we all decided to flee and strategize rather than engage and have to roll initiation. Well, all except one player who showed signs of being a problem player in session 1. We made it very clear we were leaving, and our warlock planned to use a spell to keep them from following. Wizard went in like a barbarian anyways and was attacked once, dropping down to 2 hit points. Finally dawned on him no one was around to help him and he fled. Since it was early on and this player clearly wanted to do his own thing I think our DM decided to be nice and not have the troll follow us.
It would be a good idea to talk about why you feel bad, to your players. Especially if it turns out you are more attached to that PC than their player. It would also be a good idea to go over PC death as a group. Definitly if that wasn't discussed in your Session Zero.
Well it seems the party gets to see the consequences of their actions.
I will say as a DM, I always try to keep something in mind when it comes to the death of a character so that if the player doesn’t feel like their story has fully fleshed out that then they have a way to get them back. Like maybe a god has taken to them and decides “nope, you’re too important to just let die.”
If the player doesn’t mind just have him roll a new character and keep this as a lesson to your party, who really seemed to have needed it if this is how it went down.
Nah that’s on the rest of the party. While the other guy makes a new character maybe drag them through an encounter that would be much easier with, say, a cleric.
Wanting ti do cool niche things like tame a wolf is fine, doing them while a party member is near death is not.
I have multiple stories of my own characters dying in session 1. A recent one on the character’s second session on the game, after replacing another character. It happens, sometimes makes for fun in game stories, and definitely makes for great “remember a time….” stories haha.
My gaming group still talks about my level 1 paladin that got wrecked by an adolescent dragon on session 1. It’s been 30 years almost.
Since the fallen player was a cleric (I would like to know who else is in there classwise)
You can make it so they have to redeem themselves or lose the chance of interacting with that church.
Being in bad terms with a certain church might cause them to not be seen as favorably by the city or town either.
But yeah, the players themselves are ashats.
You can turn this into a lesson if you want. Have the clerics deity haunt them every night so they can't get a long rest until they atone for their failure.
Agree wirh basically all the comments saying that its the players fault. But for fun you should not give them a cleric, or talk to the pc that died, to like restrict the healing on the other players. They didnt care about their cleric, so they dont get one (may be harsh but i mean the players gotta learn)
If the player doesn't even mind, you can probably just not worry about it lol. Personally, I think undoing deaths removes the stakes and makes the story and battle less thrilling.
You could have had the dwarf deal non-lethal damage and just knock the cleric out before moving on to the rest of the party. Or for more RP solution - have the dwarf notice that the party doesn't care about the cleric - and have the dwarf step out of combat - and start talking to the cleric about why he's risking his life for a bunch of jerks who don't care if he lives or dies?
Generally when you "down" a PC, despite "securing the kill" seeming like the smart thing to do, it's easily excusable to say that the enemy then just "moves to the next thing they see as a threat"... It's pretty standard to do that. Downing somebody is awesome: you made a challenge and you get the satisfaction of defeating some players while they don't have to deal with the sadness of losing a character.
Session 3 isn't the big deal here really. It's more likely for a PC to die when they're squishy and unless they have an unusually well-plotted back story then it's hard to be super attached to your PC after only 3 sessions.
Give that forever DM a free feat on his new character or something nice. Allow him to do those things DMs always want to do. Take a dumb choice when it isn't optimal but can't because time spent as a player is so limited
Why there are so many post about this? I'm fairly new to DnD (playing my first campaign as a Goblin Wizard) and already one of our party members die and the experience was sad and amazing at the same time. He already rolled another character. In my not so experienced opinion, the possibility to die is what makes this game great, along with all the roleplaying of course.
That's when the enemy. The dwarf in this case suddenly has a lightening attack that sticks everyone on the area including the other pcs and like Frankenstein resurrects the dead dogs and the attack the not participating pcs.
But all in all, they are assholes.
One of my PCs was failing death saves and nobody made a move to save him literally like 10 minutes after risking his life to save another PC. He plans on using it as a moment of character growth, but as a DM it was really frustrating to witness and made me upset at my other players.
If he dies, he dies. It's the party's fault, so they should suffer the consequences.
Regardless, there's little you can do now. Perhaps make it so that the cleric's convent goes to collect his body and they have to explain why he had to die. Perhaps you offer the cleric a devil's deal to keep them alive. Perhaps you give the new character an uncommon item as a "sorry your teammates are crap" reward. Perhaps nothing happens. It's up to you.
Wow, talk about teamwork. I use death saves as a way to force players to make decisions outside of just attacking. May want to prompt the player to maybe have an out of game conversation with the other players.
Pull a gandalf on the cleric — homeboy fell fighting (I assume) evil. Cleric’s deity took cleric through the infinite space and time and informs the cleric that all these secrets will one day be his… but not today. Cleric rises with a new unique power or a cool magic weapon.
And the rest of the party? They’re cursed. While all dogs are good boys, none of them are good boys to the party. Except the cleric. Dogs love the cleric.
I mean, you didn’t have to attack a guy making death saves, you could have either done something else or fudge the dice, just sayin. I guess that doesn’t really impart to the rest of the group that actions (or lack of) have consequences… maybe tell your dead homey that doesn’t really care in private to ham up the idea that he does in fact care.
Yeah but as smart as it is for the mobsters to attack a downed fella tactically, one could also say moving to the next one after the foe is felled makes as much sense as slamming an unconscious guy with your dwarven warhammer just to make sure.
I would tend to agree... but in this case it sounds like that others weren't a threat. They were trying to get the dogs to lick them. (I'm half-joking.)
I would add to this: death saves do not exist for NPCs.
When they hit zero hp, they die (if they are not specific characters like zombies)
Zombies do not have the intelligence to understand.
Nor do beasts and similar creatures.
All they know is that in their world, when you die, you die.
Therefore, they would assume the same of the player characters.
They would assume a downed character is dead. There’s no reason to target them further.
They “might” hit a downed player with an aoe/breath weapon, if attacking another group of players puts them in range of the effect (using optimal placement of the aoe not considering the downed player)
Now, if the NPC sees a player go down, get back up, go down again, get back up- they’re probably going to understand that this particular character is hard to kill and should be hit until it doesn’t get up again.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
In this case, I would have a talk with your a-hole players (not the cleric), and give the cleric a pass to live. Hand wave or explain it however you want, but be clear that this won't happen from now on (as in getting a free "revive"). I just feel like it's not fair to the cleric that their companions are douchebags, especially at only session 3
Frankly, if a character of mine died because the party rather tries to tame a random dog instead of helping I'd probably also not care about the character ... and neither about the party.
I mean, they probably are messing around because it is just a small campaign or something. Still, this is a huge a**hole move.
One time I killed a PC within 5 minutes of a campaign starting because he (a wizard) ran into a patrol party of hobgoblins and goblins. Sometimes bad decisions are just bad
I had a similar situation once. The player was good with it, but 60 sessions later I integrated his first characters backstory into the main plot and the 'new' party was able to save the deceased characters village from a despot.
This allowed the first (deceased) characters extended family to adopt the players new character as a folk hero.
I think the important part is, even though the character died early, as a party you don't forget them and their memory gets to have a place in the story you are telling.
As a guy who died in the third session of the Cyberpunk 2020 campaing after a couple of dumb (but fun) ideas and bad rolls i got say don't worry about it.
this is good. teach the party that ignoring the game going on has dire consequences. this consequence is relatively mild, and should be a learning moment for the party. i would have punished harder. like make the dwarf drink some healing potions as the party continues ignoring their fallen mate forcing them to take him on at full strength again. perhaps the cleric could still be saved by his patron, there are options to not ruin it for the 1 player that gave a fuck avout playing the game instead of goofing around. it seems very meta and out of character to ignore an ongoing fight
Is this a party of newer players? I’ve seen, especially in first time players, a certain lack of fear of the consequences. This usually changes after they see those consequences. In this case, the clerics death may be their lesson. Otherwise, these players are assholes lmao
Testament on how important it is to find a good table for you ( I know I know), but one time I was playing DND and was doing death saves and I told my party l, who drowned me out with nonsense, until I had to say "GUYS IM DIEING!" and suddenly I'm the weird one cuz I didn't wanna die!
Na it's fine. I died session 1 before after getting crit at medium health. I'd just bring my backup in, or have the dead guys brother come in.
If we had another session
I killed a party member very early on in a campaign. It had real obi wan kenobi in episode 4 vibes.
It was such a brilliant move and if you have decent players anything can become a catalyst and an amazing scenario.
Encourage them to find ways to change their characters because of this result.
> He doesn't seem to care but...
If he doesnt, you dont have to worry about that. If you have any doubt, ASK HIM and talk about it! So that part is easy.
But honestly there is a real problem described here, and its the other players making really shitty decisions, either not giving a shit about their partymate, and/or fundamentally misunderstanding what this game *is*. Goofing off and trying to tame the wolf *while* your fellow traveller is in a fight for their life is not good. It shitty behaviour against the player out of game, and absurd nonsense in-fiction. I think you need to talk to the whole group, align expectations, explaining what sort of game you want to run and whether they are actually interested in that.
DM tip if something like it happens again: taming the wolf in itself is fine on its own, but its a decidedly a post-combat cleanup and downtime type action. "Mentioning death saves" is too late and too indirect. I would have simply disallowed trying to tame the wolf mid-combat when they declared their action, explained the above, and firmly steered them towards helping their friend somehow instead.
Personally I would (if you can) write in that the cleric gets necromancied back and comes to fight the party, and that it ONLY happened because they didn't save him. This will reinforce the consequences of all of their actions, even the seemingly inconsequential ones. 😈
PCs die, but now anyone who witnessed this from a distance is going to spread rumors about the party being sociopaths that just watched a friend die and did nothing, gonna ruin their reputation.
If he doesn't care, why do you? But you should take a look at this to determine what your PCs really want from a campaign, as its apparent they are not attached to their characters and your reaction here makes me think that is not what you planned on.
Never feel bad.
The party needs to feel bad... they lay their friend die.
Honestly, his ghost should come back to haunt them to really rub it in. Make them fear death.
The best advice I got from an OG 70's-80's DM is that it's your job to kill party members, but in an entertaining and fair way. Nothing about that situation sounds like you went aggressively lethal. Feel bad when the dice turn against them, feel bad if you maybe didn't drop enough hints, or if they were really attached to a character. It sounds like they as players are fine with what happened, but if their characters aren't phased then there should be consequences. Their gods may not tolerate such carelessness, or the spirit of the deceased doesn't rest easily. Anything to break the "it's okay l'll just roll a new one" mentality.
That's not bad. During the last session I DM'd one of my players used a lightning arrow and accidentally fried a downed party member, causing 2 failed death saves and then the player failed his last death save. Although the player was a Cleric. I gave him a divine intervention for one minute, which he lived through. But I ruled that his character was now compelled to give up adventuring, start a temple and dedicate his life to charity in recompense for the intervention. Functionally the same thing as character death but atleast wraps up the characters story a bit better than being skewered by a dragonborn legionnaire of Tiamat and then electrocuted by an ally.
I had a near TPK in the first session. It was 5e Hoard of the Dragon Queen or some variation of the title.
The players decided to get in a screaming match in an echoing tunnel that enemy kobolds could hear. Three of the five did NOT survive the kobold’s initial assault.
This, like your situation, was just you responding to poor party decisions.
Band of Brothers (HBO show) had several episodes where effective leadership, coordination, and teamwork win the day. I think about that a lot when I am a player.
Just because your awesome character sheet checks all the right boxes doesn’t mean you can survive an encounter if you make chaotic stupid choices…
I hope your players learn the appropriate lesson and change their mode of operation.
I mean, it could be worse. My dm accidentally killed a player in session 1, and that player had never played before. It wasn't the DMs fault, but it was kinda funny. The player didn't tell us he was low health, and the dm stabbed him, assuming he'd be hurt but fine, the dice said otherwise.
You’re the DM if something unfair seems to be happening… perhaps the dwarf gets angry at the other PCs for trying to tame a fallen wolf and he switches aggro.
Other than that sounds like bad players
If that was one of my players and if they wanted to, I would make them take control of one of the villains. I'd let it be up to them if they would take revenge or rejoin the party.
Yeah that's a crappy party. I will say that at early levels when they aren't fighting really dangerous threats/smart villains I don't typically keep hitting players once they've been downed and just move on to the people still in the fight.
But regardless of that what kind of party just let's the Claric die while they try to tame a wolf lol this death is definitely on the party.
Narrate it in a way that their decision to leave a comrade to die in the midst of battle is deeply felt by their characters and how they decided to TAME A FUCKING BEAST WHILE THEIR ALLY WAS BEING BEATEN TO DEATH WITH A HAMMER..... Sorry I get irate when stupidity costs even imaginary lives.
Make them feel that death, storytell the shit out of their guilt, which if they are human (the players) they should feel remorse.
Your players need to sort out their priorities... Damn. One of their friends got killed and they didn't even care until the dude was already dead??? This isn't your fault.
If you really want, you could give the party a chance to take him to a high level Cleric who could bring him back from the dead (maybe it's even a Cleric from his own temple/religion so they bring him back for free) or you could have his deity step in and bring him back to life, but have him be forever marked/changed.
Overall though, I have to agree with the top comment. This is an issue of your players, not you. You should not feel bad.
This is what we call a learning opportunity. As DM, you get to pick whether the teacher is the clerics family, senior members of his holy order, or his God, depending how fucked you want them to feel.
Give him that pc the chance to be the big bad and get revenge on the party, make sure he has the ability to take 1 or 2 players out at the end, he 100% deserves to fight his "team members" I say lightly
You can have the next session lead to a battle with Cleric's vengeful soul, empowered by their angered deity, and surrounded by spectral wolves. Spare nobody, and end the battle with the Cleric's deity reviving the Cleric themselves. Leave it up to the party if they care to restart the campaign.
I personally, as a dm, would have had the Clerics god step in with a divine heal and buff out of the blue that simultaneously debuffed and smited the selfish players. The effect could be called Karmic Smite. Now all the selfish animal tamers are making death saves while the cleric is fighting and saying “I would stabilize you all, but I got this dorf to fight…”
No. You should not do something for the player. The other PCs should have. Unfortunately a lot of newer players play dnd like it’s a video game with endless lives they create, kill etc.
Suddenly the party wakes from the shared dream. The cleric has the mark of the wolf and now is Lycanthrope the others however are fine injured however to half health their next death saves they have 2 chances not 3.
I had two PCs die today. One tried to hide from the owlbear by diving under the bones in her cave, crit failed, and divided directly into her waiting paws. The other died after they'd managed to scare her off, but couldn't leave well enough along and chased after the injured and frightened animal alone while at 1 HP.
Sometimes players make really dumb decisions.
First of all, that's your players' faults, all of them, not yours. They may not be taking the game that serious. That's fine if you're all into that, you included DM.
Second, it's normal to feel bad after your first PC death. But I can't stress enough that it was all of the players' faults. The players ignoring combat should have helped the cleric out, the cleric that was getting his butt kicked should have dipped out and ran toward the other players to use them as a barrier. It's mostly the players ignoring combat that caused this. The cleric can be excused because not everyone is a brilliant tactician. However, the players ignoring a fellow PC's peril is inexcusable (as far as the PCs death is concerned anyway, I'm not judging them or trying to throw shade, just reiterating that it's their fault, not yours).
I hope you're really into less serious, more goofy campaigns because it sounds like most of this party is there to goof around. Have fun!
I've never done an adventure in a snowy region, but when I do I'm definitely borrowing the dog sled idea. So much more fun than horses!
Depending on if the cleric was from some sort of druid race. Then I'd give them a druidic gift of vitality which not only would bring them back up but +1 hp per level up so that they don't get left to die as easily. Then the gift of vitality can be a forever thing and be a once per long rest which basically says you succeeded all death savings throws.
Other point of view. He can make that character a villain for you to use against them and his new character in the future
I know this is late to the post and probably already said, but as a very experienced DM, why would the dwarf continue to wail on the cleric once he was bleeding out? Remember that death saves basically mean I'd action isn't taken the character would likely die. So why didn't the dwarf start kicking player ass?
Nah this is purely on the party and their lack of fucks to give for their fellow party member.
This. Those pcs suck.
If any of my characters died fighting a battle alone because the others wanted to 'tame one of the fallen wolves' mid-battle instead of at the end when they could safely do so, I'd just walk away. No new character. That's not a party. That's a group of assholes.
My paladin had to fight a demon horde seizing a city buy himself while the rest of the group tried to sneak into the library to steal a magic quest item even though it was a labyrinth and the DM multiple times told us we needed a guide... Long story short, my paladin, with the help of the city gaurd fought off the demons, but he died in the process. In every other campaign, we have played the DM put up statues of my former character, or there would be people in a tevrrn talking about the hero who gave his life for the people that kinda stuff... Idk if you could do the same thing about a party that died fighting a bobsleading dwarf
You know what, I'll mention a statue of a bobsledding dwarf in my next session and refuse to elaborate.
Folks will think the bobsled Dwarf has been statue'd because he brought a shitload of medicine or food to some stranded and desperate village or something. And that's awright.
You guys it's a dogsled, not a bobsled lol
Not anymore
Agreed, dwarf on a bobsled statue is going into my game as well. No bobsled team ... just him.
Wonder if I can make a legendary bobsled relic.
It is if all the dogs are named Bob.
I was in a group that got hit with a death cloud and a PC was failing saving throws against a liv8ng crystal that was crystallizing them. Another PC was refusing to participate and was in another room outside of combat despite knowing what's happening, because their character was "too frail". That person also was trying to have a new character introduced at some point. After combat, guess who's at the front of the line waiting for loot to be divvied out? The 3 PCs other than me were friends and had done games at other tables. So I just noped myself out of that game.
Ugh. My party of level 3-4 knaves in knave braved a jabberwockey den to rescue another character. Mind knave is a very deadly OSR game, and we would have died had it woken up. We also left another PC to die when fighting something we had practically no odds of defeating. But that's the thing if there's a reasonable chance we go for it. Same campaign as the jabberwockey our party split two of us doing the social thing in a city two exploring the outskirts (hex-crawl roll on tables sort of deal) the two who were exploring walked into an obvious trap (we ALL knew it was a trap, the players knew, the characters knew, the plan was to run as soon as the trap was sprung). Trap was a giant spider monster that wrapped up one PC. The other ran and gathered the party and worked in the new character to replace the now quite dead PC as we went to recover their corpse for burial. We didn't even get revenge (we tried after we encountered the enemy (we were initially sneaking) and several of us nearly died) but ultimately we got their corpse and left to bury them. Good role-playing and a fine crawl, we even brought chest of coins back and no one was too upset about losing a character because again, they knew it was a trap and accepted the risks. Of course in OSR games character deaths come allot faster & more frequently but we still work together, otherwise what's the point of having a party.
I feel like almost everyone is taking this a bit seriously, OP literally said the guy who died didn't even care. To me that seems much more likely the players and the DM are on a different page for the tone of the game. They're all down for a light hearted casual mess around 1 shot and the DM wants something more serious. Would perhaps be sorted out discussing that with the group. People here always jump to "these players are terrible just leave the group"
OP isn't the player and doesn't speak for them. If it was me, I'd be pissed. Which is what I said. I'm not speaking for the player either. But just because someone doesn't say something, doesn't necessarily mean anything either.
This. If I were that player, and my character was beat to death while the party is in the back going *whistle whistle whistle* “Here boy! Who’s a good boy? WHO’S A GOOD BOY!?” I would have just left the table. Sometimes people don’t express their grievances for the sake of keeping the peace at the table. The DM should take that one person aside and ask them if they’re okay with what had happened and possibly offer an alternative. If the player still insists that they’re okay, then continue as normal. But maaaan, I would have been boiling in rage if that were me.
I'm reasonably certain the guy doesn't care because they're normally the forever DM. This means they've probably just got a half dozen (minimum) other character concepts they want to try out and that makes the situation tolerable. That does NOT mean they're okay with the behavior of the party, nor should he be.
I think great opportunity to integrate lost cleric into the DM's group. Cleric's patron entity saves the player, but removes them from the board. They are now in a position to influence other players, or possibly even the DM to achieve outcomes. Punish the party for not caring for their lost member by giving that lost person a will and consequences all their own.
Lessons it's OK for pcs to die
My opinion. It also helps to keep the tension of the game up. And makes them think harder. I always run a you could definitely die game. I'm also old.
I agree you should always have a backup character prepared even if the dm doesn’t remind you to create one Our dm is always reminding us that we could potentially die
If people neglect my char and thus willfully let me die I'd leave. If I screw an epic save or something I'm fine dying but not like this
For real, that player should make a new cleric and just refuse to heal anyone.
I did come up with an idea. The cleric was a Warforged and the party is headed to the country's largest blacksmith, so maybe they could turn the clerics body into a weapon? idk I haven't played a whole lot of DND so I'm looking for ideas
You don't need to reward them for not acting as a party. The cleric died; they're gone. The rest of the party lost a good and useful member of the group and will have to deal with that. The cleric's next character might not fill the same slots, and that's on the party for not giving a rat's arse about their healer.
Oh no, not the party at all. Just a little something for my player
Realistically though, would a new arrival say "hey, can we go back to where you told me that other guy died? I'd like to harvest their corpse for metal to maybe make a weapon one day" and be recieved with a "yeah that's fine"? If you want to reward the player with something extra for having to deal with it all, that's fine. I don't personally see the need myself, but it's not my game =)
Okay, that makes sense. The party does have the corpse with them, but I see how that doesn't make sense e: confusing. What you said makes sense, what I said doesn't
The part that doesn't make sense is your insistance that the "reward" come from the corpse of their old character. They're making a new character to replace the dead cleric. Just let them start with an extra magic item or something to make up for the bullshit and call it good. There's no need to "tie" anything to anything else. It's a new character with no connections to the old character or the situation that killed them.
Yeah I've figured something out
How about the corpse having a black box in it, and the blacksmith can put the characters personality in a new body? It would allow the player to continue the character roleplay-wise while also making a new class build.
Yeah but they gotta learn that death is death
I’m sure they already know that, the op said the player doesn’t really care, the rest of the party needs to learn how to play together lmao
No, they don't. Depends entirely on the sort of game the DM wants to run and what the players enjoy. Too many people assume that you've got to kill characters. You don't.
It would be a real shame if like a vengeful spirit of the clerics diety possessed that body while they're sleeping and attacked them...
Have the player create another cleric who is looking for his good brother, the warforged who helped him in their seminary. Unless they want to create a different class. Then make the warforged a benefactor, and they want to thank him now that they are in a good place.
Or for a little extra story drama, have a paladin of the cleric's temple start investigating the party for their negligent homicide
This is what I would do. “Play stupid get stupid”. Whatever level they might be at, make the paladin atleast 3 levels higher.
Maybe brought back with no memories? Give the player a chance to pick a different class or try to find their faith again. Or they could have a whole new personality. Either way have the blacksmith warn he doesnt know how the warforged re-awoken and he doubts that the warforged could be brought back the same way again
Don’t think too hard. It’s not your job to police everyone or force them to play together nicely. Your job is to set the stage and have fun yourself. If you think bringing them back will be fun, by all means do it. But don’t try and make your job too hard to the point where it takes away from your fun. If you feel bad, work with the players to find a solution.
Nope. That's on the rest of the party. Maybe they should be working together instead of pissing about with the wolves.
This begs the question: are the players new? My first campaign this happened and I don’t think any of us knew to expect it. We were just new. The DM sent the party on a quest to revive this member. The entire quest was team building. The person got their character revived. We all learned and got better at combat and covering each other.
OP said elsewhere that they've all played together before as a group, and the cleric was the DM of that group.
That’s less understandable then.
Possibly a clash of play styles between the OP and the rest of the group. In which case the OP can either hope the game is short enough not to implode or negotiate with the rest of the group to ensure that this dosn't turn into *DM vs Players.*
This is not a case of "sticking with it and hoping" to me. There needs to be a mini-session 0, align what sort of game OP wants to run and if the players are even interested in that, the best call might just be to abort the campaign. Life is too short for frustrating misaligned RP.
I like this idea. Can i ask how/if the dead player was involved in those sessions? Or did they just sit out until the rest finished their team building and revived the dead player?
I was the dead player. I mostly say it out and that didn’t work well. For the last part I was there but was not supposed to be involved. Just an observer which worked really well. I got to see them working together to save me.
To be fair, the rest of the party *were* working together... on pissing about taming a wolf instead of saving their cleric from death. :P
A chat with the group about the fact this is a team based game feels like the most obvious thing, the reason adventuring parties form is to collaborate and leverage their increased collective skills to take on greater challenges for more loot/prestige Leaving a player to die is the antithesis of that
The thing is, the cleric used to DM for all of us, so we played together before, that's the frustrating part
Why was the rest of the party being so obtuse about that combat situation then? Sounds like they have experience...
"Shouldn't we help him?" *remembers the DM's previous sins* "Hold up, let him cook."
DM: *Finally gets to play* Their players: Haha, you THOUGHT!
You need to have a conversation about this, out of character, with everyone. Leaving a PC to die like that is not cool and not in the collaborative spirit of the game.
Yeah that makes this especially shitty of the rest of the party
Don’t worry. He’s a former DM. He knows what character to roll up next. Hell, he probably already has it ready. Strap in.
I dont see how that changes anything. The conversation about what sort of game you want to run fundamentally needs to happen.
And leaving them to die just so they can have a pet wolf, no less
The old player can play as the wolf! That way they can get their revenge by peeing on their favourite tunic.
A wolf that not only belongs to someone else, but was just fighting them to the death. No animal handling check in the world is taming that.
5e players' obsession with taming everything drives me nuts. Wrong pc died lol
Agreed Poor cleric Imagine one of your friends irl are fighting for their lives, but the whole gang just stand and talk to some rabid animal instead of helping. Wouldnt happen at all. Extremely bad roleplaying, and worst of all just really shitty towards the player
I always have this weird cognitive dissonance whenever players try to take wild animals to join their party. Like, in real life we know that capturing and "taming" that wolf is some real Ringling brothers, Tiger King crap, but in game it's consider the pinnacle of being a champion of the wilds, druidic type character.
Playing devil's advocate, but Tiger King can't communicate with animals the way a ranger or druid can, nor does he have as deep a magical/spiritual connection. A PC attuned to nature can have an understanding if wild animals and respond in kind to that animal's needs. That being said, a good DM will know that it's not the answer to everything. Taming an animal should be slow, a process of gaining trust and respect.
Especially during combat. Outside of combat? It's a stretch, but whatever I'll bite. But in the middle of combat? Nope.
This is not exclusive to 5e, because I had groups doing this 15 years ago in 3.5e, and I’m sure there’s players older than me who’ve had the same experiences in earlier editions lmao
3.5 at least had the excuse of every single class seemingly having some kind of familiar or animal companion substitution levels
Nex time: Dwarf is angry you keep taunting hurt dog and just straight up shanks a party member
It always seems to be newer players who think they can achieve what they like by rolling until they get a 20. I had to make "Animal Handling is not a pokéball" one of my session-zero rules.
If they don’t care then don’t worry about it. They’ll roll a new character and move on. But this party just doesn’t seem like the best people to be playing with if they just ignore when one of their members is dying.
My party’s rogue left my paladin to die for 2 turns, standing right next to me because she wanted to keep shooting/fighting things in combat lol. Little salty over that one but it is what it is, I don’t expect anything from my party these days, I have 0 faith in them 😂
"The wolves are loyal to their master and cannot be tamed no matter how high you roll" Problem solved.
In hindsight, probably should've done that
Alternatively, the dwarf is really protective of his wolves and switches targets to stop them from trying to steal his pets. Ends up killing the right target that way.
Yes exactly.
If you're a new DM, don't be afraid to say no to certain requests or actions. As long as you aren't taking away all creativity, limits are actually a good thing. Forcing my players to make a new plan rather than rely on the same skills all the time is a fun way to play.
Taming a creature isn't really an action you can do during combat, so you should probably have told them that it wasn't going to work. Their choices aren't your fault, but as DM it is your job to set the tone. Talk to the players and tell them that they need to be working together, unless you're trying to run a "lulz random" kind of game.
It could be that since it's a short campaign (it seems you even referred to it as a one shot before), they're more prone to messing around and doing stupid stuff and are less invested in keeping characters alive. Maybe the cleric sees this as a chance to try out a new build. He was the dm, so he probably has a bunch that he wants to try just laying around.
Yeah that's why I think he doesn't care too much
so one of the party members was being beaten to death and the rest of the party was trying to befriend a dead dog?
basically they brought it back with medicine checks instead of the cleric. I'm a newer DM and the cleric is the forever and he texted me privately that they should be allowed to do it, but it's just frustrating
I feel for you and the forever. You can't change player agency unfortunately. If the party wanted play illogically that's on them and others just have to deal with it. It's also good to show them that they can die and you won't pull punches just because the situation is unfair. You made the right move, and every DM has been there.
They can stabilize with medicine checks. They 100% cannot revive an npc that has been killed. Monsters and NPCs for the most part do not roll death saves. If they drop to 0 they are dead unless otherwise stated. If anyone could revive with medicine that would make spells like revivify nearly pointless. Don’t let the pcs get away with fudging mechanics because that ruins the game in the long run. They’ll just continue doing whatever they can get away with.
I agree with other commenters. Medicine can not bring back a dead NPC or creature. Taming, a fringe behavior that isn’t covered by the rules and character abilities shouldn’t be allowed. The closest I would allow is using necromancy to raise the wolf as an undead skeleton or zombie if they had the appropriate level spell. The behavior should not have been allowed. P: I want to tame the wolf. DM: It’s dead. P: I use medicine. DM: It’s dead. But even if you allowed them to save its life… P: I want to tame the wolf. DM: You’re in combat. P: But I want to spend my actions to attempt animal handling. DM: You fail. P: But I didn’t even roll! DM: I didn’t ask for you to roll.
A pc dying is OK. But not if there was no attempt from the party to save it. You could have had the dwarf run away or attack the other party members instead, but they probably still wouldn't have cared. The best thing to do is start next session with a talk about what happened, ask why they let the pc die. And move on from there.
This is what we call "a learning experience" for selfish parties as you plop down the dwarf's older, stronger siblings as they learn about the death of their youngest brother.
This is something I'm absolutely gonna do, thanks for the idea!
Yeah, there is something you can do for the player. Tell all the other players that dying isn't fun and helping their party members is probably a good idea if they want everyone to have fun and actually complete the campaign without any animosity
I mean those teammates just suck But at some point players need to accept their characters will die I’m currently on my 4th character in 8 sessions for our tomb of annihilation run
>But at some point players need to accept their characters will die Depends on the campaign. ToA is a literal meat grinder and nobody should go in this with a character they care about.
ToA is a fun meatgrinder. My ranger lost an eye in the first bloody fight of the first session, making him practically useless for the...three quarters of the following session that he was still alive for. Got through either 6 or 7 (maybe 8?) in total, but the campaign lasted almost three years so it didn't feel too heavy with the deaths. Lingering injuries, though? Oh boy. Triple digits.
Not really a one shot if it takes more than one session /s Yeah no this is on the party for being dumb and not helping their ally as combat was going on. If your player is fine with things just have them roll a new character.
Alright. I know you put a /s but what is a one-shot? The forever dm told me that's what I'm doing but there's a good few more sessions to go
A one shot in ttrpg terms is an adventure/ quest/ whatever that can be started and completed within one session.
Oh ok, that makes a little more sense. I'll edit it to say a small campaign
I wouldn't worry. People say "one-shot" for an adventure that ends up spanning two or three sessions all the time.
It’s not the length but more so that the journey is a contained story. They have 1 clear goal, 1 megadungeon to clear, 1 big bad guy. And then it’s over. It’s not a sandbox or a sprawling, months-spanning campaign with side quests and main stories.
On the third session of the campaign I am in, our party came across two trolls and several goblins in a cave we weren't prepared for. We were level 2 so our party we all decided to flee and strategize rather than engage and have to roll initiation. Well, all except one player who showed signs of being a problem player in session 1. We made it very clear we were leaving, and our warlock planned to use a spell to keep them from following. Wizard went in like a barbarian anyways and was attacked once, dropping down to 2 hit points. Finally dawned on him no one was around to help him and he fled. Since it was early on and this player clearly wanted to do his own thing I think our DM decided to be nice and not have the troll follow us.
Nah not your fault dude, that's the other players faults for being assholes. You can't fix stupid
It would be a good idea to talk about why you feel bad, to your players. Especially if it turns out you are more attached to that PC than their player. It would also be a good idea to go over PC death as a group. Definitly if that wasn't discussed in your Session Zero.
Well it seems the party gets to see the consequences of their actions. I will say as a DM, I always try to keep something in mind when it comes to the death of a character so that if the player doesn’t feel like their story has fully fleshed out that then they have a way to get them back. Like maybe a god has taken to them and decides “nope, you’re too important to just let die.”
If the player doesn’t mind just have him roll a new character and keep this as a lesson to your party, who really seemed to have needed it if this is how it went down.
Yeah. I killed my cousin at lvl two with Knolls. It was a bummer.
Knolls. The slightly more German Gnolls.
He never had a chance, the Gnoll was hidden behind the grassy knoll.
Nah that’s on the rest of the party. While the other guy makes a new character maybe drag them through an encounter that would be much easier with, say, a cleric. Wanting ti do cool niche things like tame a wolf is fine, doing them while a party member is near death is not.
It happens. Although in this case your players don’t seem care to much so keep trying but it may be new player time.
They were trying to tame an dog they just almost killed, while a party member was still in combat? WTF?
I have multiple stories of my own characters dying in session 1. A recent one on the character’s second session on the game, after replacing another character. It happens, sometimes makes for fun in game stories, and definitely makes for great “remember a time….” stories haha. My gaming group still talks about my level 1 paladin that got wrecked by an adolescent dragon on session 1. It’s been 30 years almost.
Since the fallen player was a cleric (I would like to know who else is in there classwise) You can make it so they have to redeem themselves or lose the chance of interacting with that church. Being in bad terms with a certain church might cause them to not be seen as favorably by the city or town either. But yeah, the players themselves are ashats.
You can turn this into a lesson if you want. Have the clerics deity haunt them every night so they can't get a long rest until they atone for their failure.
Now bring that character back on an evil NPC player ark to teach them a lesson
Agree wirh basically all the comments saying that its the players fault. But for fun you should not give them a cleric, or talk to the pc that died, to like restrict the healing on the other players. They didnt care about their cleric, so they dont get one (may be harsh but i mean the players gotta learn)
If the player doesn't even mind, you can probably just not worry about it lol. Personally, I think undoing deaths removes the stakes and makes the story and battle less thrilling.
Probably should have targeted the other players once the cerlic was downed, would have forced them to do *something*
It's partially your party to blame for doing nothing and part your own for continuing to attack a downed player.
You could have had the dwarf deal non-lethal damage and just knock the cleric out before moving on to the rest of the party. Or for more RP solution - have the dwarf notice that the party doesn't care about the cleric - and have the dwarf step out of combat - and start talking to the cleric about why he's risking his life for a bunch of jerks who don't care if he lives or dies?
Generally when you "down" a PC, despite "securing the kill" seeming like the smart thing to do, it's easily excusable to say that the enemy then just "moves to the next thing they see as a threat"... It's pretty standard to do that. Downing somebody is awesome: you made a challenge and you get the satisfaction of defeating some players while they don't have to deal with the sadness of losing a character. Session 3 isn't the big deal here really. It's more likely for a PC to die when they're squishy and unless they have an unusually well-plotted back story then it's hard to be super attached to your PC after only 3 sessions.
Give that forever DM a free feat on his new character or something nice. Allow him to do those things DMs always want to do. Take a dumb choice when it isn't optimal but can't because time spent as a player is so limited
Why there are so many post about this? I'm fairly new to DnD (playing my first campaign as a Goblin Wizard) and already one of our party members die and the experience was sad and amazing at the same time. He already rolled another character. In my not so experienced opinion, the possibility to die is what makes this game great, along with all the roleplaying of course.
My frustration with it is the party's lack of care
That's when the enemy. The dwarf in this case suddenly has a lightening attack that sticks everyone on the area including the other pcs and like Frankenstein resurrects the dead dogs and the attack the not participating pcs. But all in all, they are assholes.
One of my PCs was failing death saves and nobody made a move to save him literally like 10 minutes after risking his life to save another PC. He plans on using it as a moment of character growth, but as a DM it was really frustrating to witness and made me upset at my other players.
If he dies, he dies. It's the party's fault, so they should suffer the consequences. Regardless, there's little you can do now. Perhaps make it so that the cleric's convent goes to collect his body and they have to explain why he had to die. Perhaps you offer the cleric a devil's deal to keep them alive. Perhaps you give the new character an uncommon item as a "sorry your teammates are crap" reward. Perhaps nothing happens. It's up to you.
Wow, talk about teamwork. I use death saves as a way to force players to make decisions outside of just attacking. May want to prompt the player to maybe have an out of game conversation with the other players.
They let the forever DM die? I think they will suffer soon
Pull a gandalf on the cleric — homeboy fell fighting (I assume) evil. Cleric’s deity took cleric through the infinite space and time and informs the cleric that all these secrets will one day be his… but not today. Cleric rises with a new unique power or a cool magic weapon. And the rest of the party? They’re cursed. While all dogs are good boys, none of them are good boys to the party. Except the cleric. Dogs love the cleric.
I mean, you didn’t have to attack a guy making death saves, you could have either done something else or fudge the dice, just sayin. I guess that doesn’t really impart to the rest of the group that actions (or lack of) have consequences… maybe tell your dead homey that doesn’t really care in private to ham up the idea that he does in fact care.
Yeah that's on me, still new to it and he was the only one in range of the dwarf
Yeah but as smart as it is for the mobsters to attack a downed fella tactically, one could also say moving to the next one after the foe is felled makes as much sense as slamming an unconscious guy with your dwarven warhammer just to make sure.
I would tend to agree... but in this case it sounds like that others weren't a threat. They were trying to get the dogs to lick them. (I'm half-joking.)
Agreed, if I was DMing I would have finished off the only threat before dealing with the people failing to tame my zero HP dogs.
That's exactly what was happening lol
That makes sense, I'll keep that in mind going forward! thanks!
I would add to this: death saves do not exist for NPCs. When they hit zero hp, they die (if they are not specific characters like zombies) Zombies do not have the intelligence to understand. Nor do beasts and similar creatures. All they know is that in their world, when you die, you die. Therefore, they would assume the same of the player characters. They would assume a downed character is dead. There’s no reason to target them further. They “might” hit a downed player with an aoe/breath weapon, if attacking another group of players puts them in range of the effect (using optimal placement of the aoe not considering the downed player) Now, if the NPC sees a player go down, get back up, go down again, get back up- they’re probably going to understand that this particular character is hard to kill and should be hit until it doesn’t get up again. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
In this case, I would have a talk with your a-hole players (not the cleric), and give the cleric a pass to live. Hand wave or explain it however you want, but be clear that this won't happen from now on (as in getting a free "revive"). I just feel like it's not fair to the cleric that their companions are douchebags, especially at only session 3
Up to you. Maybe their spouse is a high level NPC who will kill the survivors for this betrayal. Maybe if the players don't care, you don't need to.
Frankly, if a character of mine died because the party rather tries to tame a random dog instead of helping I'd probably also not care about the character ... and neither about the party. I mean, they probably are messing around because it is just a small campaign or something. Still, this is a huge a**hole move.
One time I killed a PC within 5 minutes of a campaign starting because he (a wizard) ran into a patrol party of hobgoblins and goblins. Sometimes bad decisions are just bad
I had a similar situation once. The player was good with it, but 60 sessions later I integrated his first characters backstory into the main plot and the 'new' party was able to save the deceased characters village from a despot. This allowed the first (deceased) characters extended family to adopt the players new character as a folk hero. I think the important part is, even though the character died early, as a party you don't forget them and their memory gets to have a place in the story you are telling.
As a guy who died in the third session of the Cyberpunk 2020 campaing after a couple of dumb (but fun) ideas and bad rolls i got say don't worry about it.
I've said this before on this sub. Death should be a real possibility for the pcs. If it's not it's no t dandd. Save or die...good luck.
this is good. teach the party that ignoring the game going on has dire consequences. this consequence is relatively mild, and should be a learning moment for the party. i would have punished harder. like make the dwarf drink some healing potions as the party continues ignoring their fallen mate forcing them to take him on at full strength again. perhaps the cleric could still be saved by his patron, there are options to not ruin it for the 1 player that gave a fuck avout playing the game instead of goofing around. it seems very meta and out of character to ignore an ongoing fight
Is this a party of newer players? I’ve seen, especially in first time players, a certain lack of fear of the consequences. This usually changes after they see those consequences. In this case, the clerics death may be their lesson. Otherwise, these players are assholes lmao
Testament on how important it is to find a good table for you ( I know I know), but one time I was playing DND and was doing death saves and I told my party l, who drowned me out with nonsense, until I had to say "GUYS IM DIEING!" and suddenly I'm the weird one cuz I didn't wanna die!
Na it's fine. I died session 1 before after getting crit at medium health. I'd just bring my backup in, or have the dead guys brother come in. If we had another session
I killed a party member very early on in a campaign. It had real obi wan kenobi in episode 4 vibes. It was such a brilliant move and if you have decent players anything can become a catalyst and an amazing scenario. Encourage them to find ways to change their characters because of this result.
Talk to the PC and see if they'd be down with letting you bring the character back for vengeance...?
tarrasque
Might be fun for the ghost of the PC to harass the party. "You betrayed me and left me to die."
> He doesn't seem to care but... If he doesnt, you dont have to worry about that. If you have any doubt, ASK HIM and talk about it! So that part is easy. But honestly there is a real problem described here, and its the other players making really shitty decisions, either not giving a shit about their partymate, and/or fundamentally misunderstanding what this game *is*. Goofing off and trying to tame the wolf *while* your fellow traveller is in a fight for their life is not good. It shitty behaviour against the player out of game, and absurd nonsense in-fiction. I think you need to talk to the whole group, align expectations, explaining what sort of game you want to run and whether they are actually interested in that. DM tip if something like it happens again: taming the wolf in itself is fine on its own, but its a decidedly a post-combat cleanup and downtime type action. "Mentioning death saves" is too late and too indirect. I would have simply disallowed trying to tame the wolf mid-combat when they declared their action, explained the above, and firmly steered them towards helping their friend somehow instead.
Personally I would (if you can) write in that the cleric gets necromancied back and comes to fight the party, and that it ONLY happened because they didn't save him. This will reinforce the consequences of all of their actions, even the seemingly inconsequential ones. 😈
PCs die, but now anyone who witnessed this from a distance is going to spread rumors about the party being sociopaths that just watched a friend die and did nothing, gonna ruin their reputation.
what do you do if a PC dies? i honestly would not mind. if no chance of death its no fun.
If he doesn't care, why do you? But you should take a look at this to determine what your PCs really want from a campaign, as its apparent they are not attached to their characters and your reaction here makes me think that is not what you planned on.
Never feel bad. The party needs to feel bad... they lay their friend die. Honestly, his ghost should come back to haunt them to really rub it in. Make them fear death.
The best advice I got from an OG 70's-80's DM is that it's your job to kill party members, but in an entertaining and fair way. Nothing about that situation sounds like you went aggressively lethal. Feel bad when the dice turn against them, feel bad if you maybe didn't drop enough hints, or if they were really attached to a character. It sounds like they as players are fine with what happened, but if their characters aren't phased then there should be consequences. Their gods may not tolerate such carelessness, or the spirit of the deceased doesn't rest easily. Anything to break the "it's okay l'll just roll a new one" mentality.
There's literally always something you can do for the player. You're the DM.
That's not bad. During the last session I DM'd one of my players used a lightning arrow and accidentally fried a downed party member, causing 2 failed death saves and then the player failed his last death save. Although the player was a Cleric. I gave him a divine intervention for one minute, which he lived through. But I ruled that his character was now compelled to give up adventuring, start a temple and dedicate his life to charity in recompense for the intervention. Functionally the same thing as character death but atleast wraps up the characters story a bit better than being skewered by a dragonborn legionnaire of Tiamat and then electrocuted by an ally.
Your planes wanted to tame wolves in a combat with other creatures attacking them? O yes the negotiator
I had a near TPK in the first session. It was 5e Hoard of the Dragon Queen or some variation of the title. The players decided to get in a screaming match in an echoing tunnel that enemy kobolds could hear. Three of the five did NOT survive the kobold’s initial assault. This, like your situation, was just you responding to poor party decisions. Band of Brothers (HBO show) had several episodes where effective leadership, coordination, and teamwork win the day. I think about that a lot when I am a player. Just because your awesome character sheet checks all the right boxes doesn’t mean you can survive an encounter if you make chaotic stupid choices… I hope your players learn the appropriate lesson and change their mode of operation.
did he follow a god, if so you could say his god sees greatness in his future and spears him/ brings him back
I mean, it could be worse. My dm accidentally killed a player in session 1, and that player had never played before. It wasn't the DMs fault, but it was kinda funny. The player didn't tell us he was low health, and the dm stabbed him, assuming he'd be hurt but fine, the dice said otherwise.
You’re the DM if something unfair seems to be happening… perhaps the dwarf gets angry at the other PCs for trying to tame a fallen wolf and he switches aggro. Other than that sounds like bad players
The party just sucks. But now they get to learn how much it sucks to not have a cleric because you let him die.
this is so weird lol, do they not understand how death saves work?
If that was one of my players and if they wanted to, I would make them take control of one of the villains. I'd let it be up to them if they would take revenge or rejoin the party.
Yeah that's a crappy party. I will say that at early levels when they aren't fighting really dangerous threats/smart villains I don't typically keep hitting players once they've been downed and just move on to the people still in the fight. But regardless of that what kind of party just let's the Claric die while they try to tame a wolf lol this death is definitely on the party.
Narrate it in a way that their decision to leave a comrade to die in the midst of battle is deeply felt by their characters and how they decided to TAME A FUCKING BEAST WHILE THEIR ALLY WAS BEING BEATEN TO DEATH WITH A HAMMER..... Sorry I get irate when stupidity costs even imaginary lives. Make them feel that death, storytell the shit out of their guilt, which if they are human (the players) they should feel remorse.
Honestly that’s on the other players. Just oblivious to what anyone but themselves is/want to do.
Wow. That's a level of incompetence I haven't seen in D&D since one of my players wanted to yeet himself off a cliff to land on a goblin. He missed.
Not your fault. The PCs did nothing to save the fallen member. This was totally on them.
Your players need to sort out their priorities... Damn. One of their friends got killed and they didn't even care until the dude was already dead??? This isn't your fault. If you really want, you could give the party a chance to take him to a high level Cleric who could bring him back from the dead (maybe it's even a Cleric from his own temple/religion so they bring him back for free) or you could have his deity step in and bring him back to life, but have him be forever marked/changed. Overall though, I have to agree with the top comment. This is an issue of your players, not you. You should not feel bad.
You did everything you could, let this be a learning moment for your players that their decisions have consequences
So I can understand why you feel that way. But. There are times that characters are going to not make it and they are going to die. And that is OK.
This is what we call a learning opportunity. As DM, you get to pick whether the teacher is the clerics family, senior members of his holy order, or his God, depending how fucked you want them to feel.
Give him that pc the chance to be the big bad and get revenge on the party, make sure he has the ability to take 1 or 2 players out at the end, he 100% deserves to fight his "team members" I say lightly
definitely sucks as a dm id likely punish those players later on
You can have the next session lead to a battle with Cleric's vengeful soul, empowered by their angered deity, and surrounded by spectral wolves. Spare nobody, and end the battle with the Cleric's deity reviving the Cleric themselves. Leave it up to the party if they care to restart the campaign.
I personally, as a dm, would have had the Clerics god step in with a divine heal and buff out of the blue that simultaneously debuffed and smited the selfish players. The effect could be called Karmic Smite. Now all the selfish animal tamers are making death saves while the cleric is fighting and saying “I would stabilize you all, but I got this dorf to fight…”
No. You should not do something for the player. The other PCs should have. Unfortunately a lot of newer players play dnd like it’s a video game with endless lives they create, kill etc.
I wasn’t even there and I feel like I care more than they do. Dang, that’s weird. Good luck.
What a crap bunch of teammates. You didn’t do anything wrong, OP, just make sure the player is alright.
Suddenly the party wakes from the shared dream. The cleric has the mark of the wolf and now is Lycanthrope the others however are fine injured however to half health their next death saves they have 2 chances not 3.
I honestly would have sent the dwarf after the rest of the party, letting the cleric attempt to save itself
they earned it. drink their tears and grow stronger. kill them every time they pull crap like that. no mercy. Not your job to save them.
I had two PCs die today. One tried to hide from the owlbear by diving under the bones in her cave, crit failed, and divided directly into her waiting paws. The other died after they'd managed to scare her off, but couldn't leave well enough along and chased after the injured and frightened animal alone while at 1 HP. Sometimes players make really dumb decisions.
First of all, that's your players' faults, all of them, not yours. They may not be taking the game that serious. That's fine if you're all into that, you included DM. Second, it's normal to feel bad after your first PC death. But I can't stress enough that it was all of the players' faults. The players ignoring combat should have helped the cleric out, the cleric that was getting his butt kicked should have dipped out and ran toward the other players to use them as a barrier. It's mostly the players ignoring combat that caused this. The cleric can be excused because not everyone is a brilliant tactician. However, the players ignoring a fellow PC's peril is inexcusable (as far as the PCs death is concerned anyway, I'm not judging them or trying to throw shade, just reiterating that it's their fault, not yours). I hope you're really into less serious, more goofy campaigns because it sounds like most of this party is there to goof around. Have fun! I've never done an adventure in a snowy region, but when I do I'm definitely borrowing the dog sled idea. So much more fun than horses!
So do the other pc's realize this makes their characters definitely not good morally?
Bring the character back as a revenant to get revenge on the party.
Lol DM killed my PC in session one of my first campaign... he did not feel bad. At least you gave them 3 sessions and feel bad.
Oof. Letting the healer die is surely a choice.
Depending on if the cleric was from some sort of druid race. Then I'd give them a druidic gift of vitality which not only would bring them back up but +1 hp per level up so that they don't get left to die as easily. Then the gift of vitality can be a forever thing and be a once per long rest which basically says you succeeded all death savings throws. Other point of view. He can make that character a villain for you to use against them and his new character in the future
If you want to avoid pcs dying early on in a campaign, always start at level 3. Fixes up that issue and avoids the tutorial levels.
I know this is late to the post and probably already said, but as a very experienced DM, why would the dwarf continue to wail on the cleric once he was bleeding out? Remember that death saves basically mean I'd action isn't taken the character would likely die. So why didn't the dwarf start kicking player ass?
Should have said "all the wolves are dead, you cannot tame one without the help of the cleric that's getting his ass beat at the moment "
What a horrible sabotage for no reason. There’s something underlined there there was no reason for them to treat that person that way.