Questions tagged [character-death]
For questions about issues related to the in-game death, or threat/fear of death, of a player's character in an RPG.
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Is damage while unconscious cumulative?
In 5e DnD, the massive damage rule still applies while unconcious at 0 hp, but is the damage taken during unconciousness cumulative?
For example, a character with max 20 hp is hit for 25 damage. A ...
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Can you recall a soul from Hades with Raise Dead?
Raise Dead (and other resurrection spells) all have a variant of this clause:
Raise Dead: If the creature's soul is both willing and at liberty to rejoin the body, the creature returns to life
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How can I resurrect a creature that died entirely by starvation or dehydration?
The section of the rules on food and water states that exhaustion resulting from starvation or dehydration cannot be cured until the cause has been eliminated (emphasis added):
Characters who don't ...
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How do I make a non-permanent death more impactful?
One of my players is going to be playing the homebrew Felis race for the campaign I'm going to be running. In the race description, it states that they have nine lives, and they typically die once ...
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Is it appropriate to bring a player character back after they had been "killed"?
A player character "died" in battle early on in this current arc I'm DMing, and I had already decided that either this character would be in pursuit by the big bad or would be taken captive. ...
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As a DM, how can I use Power Word: Kill without ruining my players' fun?
I'm currently designing an encounter with a lich for my 13th-level party. They've cruised through more level-appropriate combat encounters, and they like to come up with creative ways around difficult ...
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Can spells or spell-like abilities do non-lethal damage?
I'm working on a Paladin/Warlock combination, based off of Pureferret and Miniman's work, and as part of this, I noticed Miniman's remark that Repelling Blast won't be that useful, because as a ...
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Where do you go when you die?
Following in the line of this question, I know quite a bit about V:TM, W:TA, M:TA, and Mummy, but sadly I have almost no knowledge of the rest.
What happens to the spirit/soul of oWOD creatures (...
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If the Feign Death spell is cast on a warlock, what happens to their Pact Boon item? Does it matter whether their patron is "tricked" by Feign Death?
When a warlock dies, if they have a Pact Boon item from their Pact Boon class feature (e.g. a Book of Shadows from Pact of the Tome; or a talisman from Pact of the Talisman), it crumbles to ash. ...
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Can a player character avoid dying as long as they still have Plot Points?
I've read Cortex Prime and now I'm wondering whether a PC could die. The rule said that "you can spend a PP to avoid being taken out of the scene" (which I translate as dying).
Does this ...
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Can a creature tell when a creature succeeds or fails a death saving throw?
Using nonmagical senses, is it possible to tell:
When a creature succeeds (or fails) a death save
How many successes/failures a creature has
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How to determine cause of death when Death Saving Throws fail due to an attack rather than a roll
This is a generalization from this question on finger of death, but I do not think it is a duplicate. The answer to that question hinges on this one, but they are ultimately separate.
Using Finger of ...
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Is there a way to destabilize a character without making them fail a death save?
If this is possible, it allows an exploit: destabilize, wait for death save.
Success -> wait another turn
Failure/Critical Failure -> Cleric casts Spare the Dying, then destabilize again
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What happens when player characters die?
I'm quite new to role playing games; I've got about 10 sessions of experience. I'm interested in the role of game master, and I've tried an introduction game where everything is pretty much set up for ...
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In Princes of the Apocalypse, is this monster “supposed to” kill a player character?
In Princes of the Apocalypse Ch. 6,
has plenty of time and warning to prepare for his encounter with the party, along with the spells to do so:
He is also in possession of a powerful magic item,
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