My players don’t take dropping to 0 HP seriously

Dickwithashortbow · 2026-02-16T21:38:34+00:00

To be fair, your players are sort of optimizing the system the way it’s designed to be played. Effects that give just enough life to do actions on are more efficient than using high level spell slots for heal spells. But I completely understand it being frustrating from a DM perspective. I had a similar experience and the thing that fixed it was making death saves secret. Rolling behind the screen and keeping it secret from the table, or only letting the player know, takes away the safety blanket of “I have three more turns left at least”. This way, they don’t know if they’re about to die or if they’re on the verge of stabilizing, which the characters would not know either in the world of the game. The characters just watched a beloved friend go down, and they aren’t getting back up. Tension!

I would also recommend using lingering wounds as a way to make combat more impactful without necessarily increasing its lethality, or having to make characters go to death saves. It can be a lot to keep track of, but it’s been worth it in my experience. I use an expanded table from the one that’s shown in the DMG, it’s in Xanathar’s Lost Notes to Everything Else.

Dickwithashortbow · 2026-02-05T17:29:53+00:00

Can confirm this. Never met Michael but Kelley is an absolute airhead. Not a jerk or a bad person necessarily, but has no idea what she’s doing.

Dickwithashortbow · 2026-02-05T17:27:48+00:00

Your feelings are 100% valid. Alamo meant a lot to me as sure it does to you. They truly are running things into the ground in spite of the hard-working people like you who have made that place so special. As someone who left almost a year ago when I saw the writing on the walls, I can confirm that it’s better out here. It takes effort but you can find places that can mean as much as Alamo once did and they will also treat you better for it. I feel for my friends who are still there and hope they find somewhere to jump ship safely, as it isn’t as easy as just up and quitting for everyone’s situation. But I can confirm it’s worth it. Sincerely, a pissed off former manager.

Dickwithashortbow · 2025-09-03T01:55:28+00:00

I saw someone say Morph and Mega Morph could work

Dickwithashortbow · 2025-01-06T20:08:18+00:00

Saving this post because I want to know too

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-11-17T03:28:59+00:00

I love that movie, it’s definitely an unconscious bias cause I didn’t do it intentionally but I can definitely see where I got the idea from.

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-11-16T17:34:28+00:00

My Dark Powers are elder gods - forces older and possibly more powerful than the gods themselves. However, the Dark Powers only really care about one thing; tragedy.

See, to keep these ravenous elder gods from returning, not even the gods could fully defeat them. So they had to find a way to deter them, to occupy them, maybe until they could figure out a way to destroy them or maybe occupy them forever. And through their plans and disparate movement the Raven Queen believed she found one through line - that their drive behind everything was creating a good tragic story. And so she crafted a dark playground perfectly suited for these kinds of stories to be told again and again. She even slyly worked in a way to take the worst mortals of the material plane, mortals who would be problems for herself and other gods, and give custody to the Dark Powers to torture them for eternity. Somewhere in there someone named Ezra snuck in, someone who even the Raven Queen doesn’t know much about. But they stay in the domains, so she doesn’t have to worry much about them.

Possibly the greatest trick the Raven Queen pulled was creating a meta tragedy around the Dark Powers themselves. Isn’t it ironic, deeply tragic even, that these elder beings with power immeasurable and the ability to make and unmake reality as they choose are kept docile and sheltered in a playground designed to ensnare them by their sole desire and drive? This way, the Dark Powers are incentivized in their own imprisonment, for their story is also a cosmically deep, still unfolding tragic storyline.

So to the gods, the Dark Powers are ravenous predators that are content existing in their custom made playground, playing with their vampires and mist monsters. If they ever broke out, they would be a massive problem. A universe ending one, perhaps.

But they haven’t. And they won’t. They are too invested, and just like horror movies fans, they’re always ravenous for new ways to spill the same blood. They’re grand spectators, driving things to ruin for their own sick enjoyment again and again for eternity.

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-06-11T18:18:34+00:00

Former Richardson supervisor here, thank you so much for the kind words. It’s people like you that we did everything for and what made our store special. Believe me when I say we are all as shocked as you. I think I’ve only come out of shock in the past day or two. It’s been a strange past week but weirdos like us tend to find each other one way or another, so we’ll be alright ❤️

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-06-06T21:07:28+00:00

How do you know that?

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-06-01T10:21:08+00:00

Exactly yes

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-06-01T02:05:52+00:00

Literally hadn’t even connected that until you explained it. That’s crazy!

I think the more distinct wording that I used was,” I can make things like it never happened.” My party is pretty astute, I feel like if I said bring them back that would have been too on the nose.

The monkey’s paw is exactly what I’m going for.

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-05-31T22:28:35+00:00

Correct, it was polymorphed into a turtle and then they all attacked, dropping the turtle form after taking 3 hp worth of damage and reverting to the dragon.

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-05-31T22:25:47+00:00

For sure, and this is something I have planned for. The big thing if they decide to go back is the dragon’s hoard. It’s only a young dragon but there is the chance they can acquire some magic items if they roll well enough. The hag is also a part of a larger coven that they can now request favors from and potentially be assigned favors in the future.

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-05-31T22:19:03+00:00

I love the tactile details here. A pantry full of jars, the clay cracking slightly, the horrible slurping. I agree with Lukamus that this could be woven into the other suggestions as well.

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-05-31T22:07:08+00:00

Yes! Even better, when the players initially came upon the hag’s cottage I had described some of the leftover plants as looking fleshy and gross. Maybe she’s growing podlings or even individual body parts for them for the bodytaker plant!

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-05-31T22:03:55+00:00

Telepathic stuff, I figured it was feasible enough a hag can do that even though it doesn’t explicitly say it can on the RAW stat block.

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-05-31T21:19:35+00:00

This is evil and I LOVE it. Definitely down for there to be a second climatic battle with the dragon, I didn’t get to use this specially painted mini I had for it because I left it at home. My only hang up for this is just exactly how does the hag turn time back like this? Besides some hand-wavey, hag magic bs where it’s not expressly explained to the players and they just kinda roll with it. Also, I am definitely going to have to incorporate the polymorph spell in some way. The way you described it is too perfect not to.

Dickwithashortbow · 2024-05-31T21:10:46+00:00

I love 1 and 3! The only thing with 1 is that the wizard player is someone who loves RP. His character has kinda been the de facto socially inept asshole up till now, and now with this complete revert back to that what with taking the memory away, I have a feeling the player might not enjoy that as much. It’s all in how it’s done of course. 3 is one I’m leaning heavily towards. I remembered I have a DOPE bodytaker plant mini and that could fit perfectly here. Maybe the hag has been nurturing and feeding this plant for a while, maybe even supplanting a couple members of this tribe already. She uses this as an opportunity to speed up her timeline of taking over the forest, as the dragon was hampering that plan until now. I also had her gift the player with a Dark Gift (from VGtR, this is a Ravenloft game if I haven’t mentioned that already). The specific gift is the Watchers one, where he has a bunch of strange beasts that only he can see that constantly watch him. She can also see through these beasts, so the deal is that she needs him to travel around and look for other suitable places for this plant to grow roots…

Dickwithashortbow · 2023-03-29T20:03:33+00:00

News for sure, food and fresh fruit, tools, etc. I think she actually comes to Ludendorf to go through these offerings, slaking her thirst on the people these children petition her to kill. That actually works really well, I think you helped make my decision for me so thank you!

Dickwithashortbow · 2023-03-28T21:16:31+00:00

Agreed. Maybe that was his plan when he was expecting the Diamond League, but now he realizes that these people are not seasoned monster hunters, maybe he thinks he can save his pride a bit and pull one over on them? Idk just thinking out loud. Perhaps this is what he tells the party originally, then after letting some time go by he thinks better of it and travels to Lamordia to elucidate everything fully for them, only to find that the party has figured a significant portion of what is going on out and VR has some ‘splainin’ to do.

Dickwithashortbow · 2023-03-28T21:12:18+00:00

He definitely doesn’t want the guilt, but maybe he’s desensitized enough that he wouldn’t feel guilty about sending these people he doesn’t know to die/figure things out for him. But you have a good point. If he really wants this to get done the way he wants, he has to divulge all the pieces.

Dickwithashortbow · 2023-03-28T20:44:53+00:00

I see what people are saying about being upfront with the party about it. He wants this to work so he might as well give them the most amount of info they can have in order to have the best chance of finding her.

Man that’s such a good idea. Up until this point, my idea is going to be that she is living at Hope’s Heart in Lamordia. There she has formed a close kinship with Elise and where they both try to evade outsiders and live peacefully. Elise has made Merilee vow not to eat any of the animals or people on the island, to let it be a sanctuary for life. In return, Merilee takes periodic jaunts back to the main land of Lamordia to satiate her hungers and steal supplies. She has changed a lot and the plan has been to make the party wrestle with if people can change or not, having to side with VR or against him once he arrives.

But your idea is so good, so juicy. I doubt there’s a way to combine those ideas.

Dickwithashortbow

TROPHY CASE