Auto unconscious effect in D&D 5E

[Zacchaeus]

Interesting. It is how the rules work, but 5E DM Guide also says the DM is can bend rules and use them more like guidelines at times. The game is about having fun. Its no fun when a boss is killed early or the "destined" PC doesnt get the kill shot. I am not saying I do this all the time, but I'm in a situation where the characters have out-leveled the areas they are running through in POA and I like making some - especially bosses, a little tougher. In the case of my player characters, I like that it does this automatically, its just the NPC's/enemies that I control I find it frustrating. Thanks for the response though! Ill just have to manually adjust them from here on out.

There are several possible ways you can address this.
1) Make the NPCs tougher; not just more hp but AC, more damaging weapons or just more of them
2) Use environmental effects. The Underdark is replete with hazards; maybe those fungi that they had for lunch weren't so benign as the Ranger thought after all and the characters get poisoned for a few hours (giving them disadvantage on attack rolls); or possibly the area that they are in has bad air and the PCs suffer some ongoing damage every hour that they remain in the area (this would negate the value of a long rest if they take 8d6 points of damage during it). Perhaps also the terrain is difficult and one or two of the characters suffer a fall reducing their speed or ability to take reactions. All sorts of possibilities there.
3) Maybe they wander into an area where magic doesn't work (or it does but requires a roll on the Wild Magic table every time a spell is cast)
4) Wandering monsters - Drow are everywhere in the Underdark; maybe the party come up against a substantial patrol; or maybe Duergar or something else.


EDIT: and yes I didn't mean that you were doing it wrong; FG is programmed to follow the rules - so not becoming unconscious when reduced to zero hp would be a house rule.

[shadzar]

that FGs is designed to do that automatically because that is how the rules tells us how it should be

a live DM has the choice during a real game to make the decision. too much automation takes those options from a DM. not everyone plays RAW. That is what Macabreus is saying. the default of the rules doesn't do anything unless in a strict Adventure League environment. no "rule" in any edition of D&D is that forced upon players at any table, real or virtual.

for example in this case it should say to the GM that this state was activated, but do nothing automatically unless the GM has put their game into Strict RAW mode.

you can't really hard-code an RPG system when the 40 history of the system is allowing it to be changed. you got to leave wiggle room for people to play their way and as a GM adjust thing on the fly, not be locked in by the code. This is why no MMO has ever reproduced the full feel extent of a TTRPG.

[Henrique Oliveira Machado]

a live DM has the choice during a real game to make the decision. too much automation takes those options from a DM. not everyone plays RAW. That is what Macabreus is saying. the default of the rules doesn't do anything unless in a strict Adventure League environment. no "rule" in any edition of D&D is that forced upon players at any table, real or virtual.

for example in this case it should say to the GM that this state was activated, but do nothing automatically unless the GM has put their game into Strict RAW mode.

you can't really hard-code an RPG system when the 40 history of the system is allowing it to be changed. you got to leave wiggle room for people to play their way and as a GM adjust thing on the fly, not be locked in by the code. This is why no MMO has ever reproduced the full feel extent of a TTRPG.

Well, yeah i understand your argument and also OPs wish. But FG was designed to automatically do almost everything that can be automatic, to speed up play and to diminish work for the DM.
For everything else there is always roll20, if you wish to manually input everything.

And i did not say OP couldnt add this option to the wishlist. I would gladly vote for it. But the standard must be automatic, and the manual should be optional and turned on in the options menu.

In an encounter with 15 monsters and 1 boss (i run this kind of encounters a lot) i would only want the boss to not be automatically unconscious, for example. Manually inputing this for every minion would be too much extra work.
Even above that. i calculate every encounter difficulty, so almost never i will have to fudge an encounter result. If the boss is important. He will run or leave dramatically/badassly (lol) at half his total health. In extreme cases, he will be at the back giving support to his minions/companions.

Strahd, from curse of strahd, is a very good example of a low health villain.

[shadzar]

Well, yeah i understand your argument and also OPs wish. But FG was designed to automatically do almost everything that can be automatic, to speed up play and to diminish work for the DM.

That would be great, assuming everyone is playing by RAW for Adventures League or Pathfinder Society, but it then renders FG useless to those people who don't believe RAW is the only way to play. the individual groups being allowed to decide on a ruling, aka "house-rules" has been a staple of D&D for over 40 years. Taking that right away from the players of the game is a failing for any VTT or other RPG related software product. 90% of the RPG software product have done this in the past 30 years, and the ones that didn't that were fan created, got shut down mostly, like Emms Character Sheets.

The whole point of an RPG is to allow you to play how you want, with as much or as little of the rules as you want. Taking that away means any software product for use with an RPG is not fulfilling its obligations to facilitate that RPG. Example: the "Show GM rolls" there is an option for that, it isn't forced to hide them for anything unless you have that option toggled off.

For everything else there is always roll20, if you wish to manually input everything.

IF that is the SmiteWorks stance, then so be it; and many people do, because they don't want things forcibly automated to where they have no choice or say in the matter of how the game is played that THEY are playing, and the programmers are not.

[Henrique Oliveira Machado]

That would be great, assuming everyone is playing by RAW for Adventures League or Pathfinder Society, but it then renders FG useless to those people who don't believe RAW is the only way to play. the individual groups being allowed to decide on a ruling, aka "house-rules" has been a staple of D&D for over 40 years. Taking that right away from the players of the game is a failing for any VTT or other RPG related software product. 90% of the RPG software product have done this in the past 30 years, and the ones that didn't that were fan created, got shut down mostly, like Emms Character Sheets.

The whole point of an RPG is to allow you to play how you want, with as much or as little of the rules as you want. Taking that away means any software product for use with an RPG is not fulfilling its obligations to facilitate that RPG. Example: the "Show GM rolls" there is an option for that, it isn't forced to hide them for anything unless you have that option toggled off.



IF that is the SmiteWorks stance, then so be it; and many people do, because they don't want things forcibly automated to where they have no choice or say in the matter of how the game is played that THEY are playing, and the programmers are not.

I understand your point but again, i risk on saying that most people play the majority of rules by RAW and only have one major house rules or two. And very little people play with mostly house rules and use the system only as a faint guideline. For these people, not using ruleset, or using roll20 is faster. If people were playing mostly with house rules, why reading/buying the book/rulesets at all?

SW cannot nor will ever please everyone. But FGs is a great software as it is, and it pleases almost everyone by making things automatic, since the GM can just cross its arms and let players do things without much to worry about..

It sounds to me you want a roll20 experience in fantasy grounds, as i see you complaining in every single thread, no even one compliment to the software. I think you are clearly not happy with this software.

[Zacchaeus]

According to p198 of the PHB Monsters die when they reach zero hit points but at the DMs discretion they might fall unconscious and then follow the same death saving rules as for players. Thus the DM can easily bring such a creature back to life if they want to. Perhaps an ally manages to chuck a potion down the unconscious enemy's throat; or there's a healer around with spells. So the options are all there, catered for by FG.

[shadzar]

It sounds to me you want a roll20 experience in fantasy grounds, as i see you complaining in every single thread, no even one compliment to the software. I think you are clearly not happy with this software.

i am jsut think as things progress because the other VTTs left today don't evne consider things. roll20 is whatever they want to do. MapTools are quite a bit stuck up, and you have to design your own framework (aka FG ruleset)....they dont have any license and wouldnt be able to since the way MT works.


i am jsut thinking about player choice. and in this case FG could really show off its stuff if it did have all the options, but ALSO had a Strict RAW mode for AL or PFS, or SS, so that maybe it would connect with WotC or Paizo and record the adventure, player ID, and character to the organized play channels

no reason Unity can't even if Classic can't.

also all RPG software has seemed to suffer from the early accounting software. The programmer didnt know the material they were coding for, and the people that knew the material didn't know how to program. so i still see ALL VTTs in that light. and i have nothing to say "ERmegherd i l♥vs me some FG", because it doesnt do anything in its current state that i could use it for.

if it worked for board games, if it worked for non-d20 system RPGs...it offers nothing in its current form that i could use. maybe FG Unity will.. that is what people keep telling me, so i keep hoping and offering ideas to improve upon Classic since the Unity engine can do SO much more than FG Classic can do...

Maybe, jsut maybe, someone will make a VTT that fits my needs.. who knows?

[epithet]

I'm partial to statements like, "Everything in your experience tells you this monster should be dead, that this fight should be over, but to your amazement it isn't. Blood and drool fall from its open jaws, and it breath heaves in ragged, tortured gasps, but it seems stable on its feet and shows no sign of giving up any time soon." Then you come up with whatever you want to actually kill the thing, like radiant damage or damage above a certain threshold in one turn. Or, you can just decide it takes another round or two to die, no matter what happens. The important thing is to acknowledge that the party reduced its hit points to zero, but that something extraordinary is keeping it going.

[Henrique Oliveira Machado]

i think you can solve this issue by calculating encounters correctly. then no monsters will die before you want them to.

if you make an easy day of encounters, then of course you will have to keep fudging with results to keep monsters alive. But players end up knowing you did it, and will react to it.

[Trenloe]

i am jsut thinking about player choice. and in this case FG could really show off its stuff if it did have all the options, but ALSO had a Strict RAW mode for AL or PFS, or SS, so that maybe it would connect with WotC or Paizo and record the adventure, player ID, and character to the organized play channels

Yeah, that would be amazing. But SmiteWorks would need many more developers than they have now and the cost of FG would skyrocket to accommodate those developers.

also all RPG software has seemed to suffer from the early accounting software. The programmer didnt know the material they were coding for, and the people that knew the material didn't know how to program. so i still see ALL VTTs in that light.

You may see them in that light, but this vision is incorrect as far as FG is concerned. The main two owners of SmiteWorks are long time gamers and IT professionals. The main developer was initially a community developer who was coding rulesets because he wanted them for the games he was playing. He did such as great job doing his community rulesets that he was brought into the company as the main developer.

because it doesnt do anything in its current state that i could use it for.

FG doesn't do anything that you could use it for? Is that a serious remark? Nothing at all? If that's the case, I really don't know why you're still here. I wouldn't use any software that couldn't do anything for me, and I wouldn't go on a crusade to try to change it to my own, stringent, requirements.

I have a question for you regarding your comment: "MapTools are quite a bit stuck up, and you have to design your own framework" - why are the people involved with MapTools stuck up? Because they can't provide you with all of the many different options you obviously expect, but suggest you can do it by designing your own framework within their completely free software?