I noticed that in the first 5th edition campaign I won. As the campaign progressed, I kept throwing more series threats and them well above what their CR was supposed to be and they kept surviving. I wasn’t deliberately trying to kill them, but I got a little tired of feeling like every fight was a cakewalk. There’s was no real risk and that’s just boring.
It is hard to die in 5e. But in most of our big combats, the frontline martials always go below half, and usually at least one PC drops to 0 and starts making death saving throws- but a healing word can fix that right up. And we have had to pull out a few times to regroup.
If I had 1 gp for every time some other player poured a Potion of Healing down my unconscious throat I’d… have a lot of gp.
I have.
Bringing someone back from the dead requires quite an epic quest, in my world. It should be like an Orpheus&Eurydice-level legendary event to bring someone back from the dead, not something every other cleric can do.
Well, to bring them back the same as they left is hard. Bringing them back wrong is way easier 
We called revivify the AED spell. You’re not dead, you’re only mostly dead and the spirit is still there. It is only good for 1 minute.
But a raise dead is far more serious.
Yep. My Grave cleric of the Raven Queen will cast revivify, but not Raise Dead unless She specifically allows it. “mostly dead” vs “all dead”- “There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive” Miracle Max.
It’d be one thing if Revivify was simply a “take you from -1 to 1 HP” kind of spell, but it’s not. It’s a “Bring you back no matter how many negative HP you have or what killed you” kind of spell, and I can’t be having with that.
Revivify doesn’t restore lost body parts so you presumably need an intact corpse for it to work. Beheading someone (or running them through a wood chipper) would prevent it from working, same as Raise Dead.
But D&D doesn’t model that sort of damage and, if a DM was to start saying that the hobgoblin axe lopped your head clean off, players would cry foul so it’s not likely to come up often.
Revivify is different from Raise/Resurrection in that it doesn’t require consent from the dead spirit to work. The other spells need the spirit to be willing to give up the afterlife and return. Revivify just works which adds to the fluff that it’s less “returning to life” and more “preventing really, really dead…”
I’m now picturing a gnome with an Anti-Revivify machine making an absolute killing once he figures out he can sell it as a gardening tool instead.
Yep.
Some items do, though - Vorpal Sword, for example.
Yeah, there’s a scant few items (Vorpal Sword and Sword of Sharpness are all that comes to mind in 5e) but, by that point, the players probably have access to Resurrection if it comes up. Well, you can just Revivify + Regenerate for a Sword of Sharpness since that doesn’t slice heads. And how many Vorpal swords are they encountering?
There are no “negative hit points” in 5e.
I was using it in the sense of “how very badly that last hit was”, not “keep track of your negative HP, 1st Ed styley” sense.
Even if the last blow was the insta-kill-level putting-you-into-minus-your-max-HP kind, Revivify still works, and that’s dumb, was my point.
That is where house rules make more sense. As that is suppose to be dead-dead for NPCs without plot armor, I can fully see saying Revivify doesn’t work in that case.
I dont see why killing off PCs is a Good thing. The DM can klil the PCs any time he wants, no house rules needed.
Needing a Raise Dead is not the end of the world though. It is up to the Ref and the players can argue their case or vote with their feet.
It’s not a Bad thing, either. It just happens.
He can also give them plot armour any time he wants. Both are not ideal DMing styles, IMO.
With my house rules, it’s not impossible to raise the dead. It’s just something that has to happen in plot, not casually. That makes more story for everyone.
I also tend not to run combat-heavy games, so characters dying is fairly infrequent. I despise hack&slash, I don’t play with murderhobos, and my monsters and villains don’t usually fight to the death, so I don’t expect the PCs to, either. I mean, I do want them to be in danger, but the danger is about not achieving their goals or being brought low in some way, more often than not.
My feelings about resurrection are pretty much Pet Sematary. “Sometimes, dead is better.” My rules are no evil characters and be ride or die with the party. But a rezzed character will be expected to be the opposite, if it ever happens, which it won’t in my game. Rezzing cheapens death. Mourn your friend, and the player rolls a new character.
For me, combat needs to have some element of risk to be interesting. I like seeing big hits in combat. I love seeing the PCs lay down some serious damage against the monsters, but I also like to see the monsters lay down some serious hate against the PCs. Yeah, I can kill the PC any time I want, but that’s boring. I like to let the dice do the talking.
I try not to base my games on horror films. I certainly agree with "No evils’ and in our current game- revivify will be done by my cleric, but not Raise dead or Resurrection unless his Goddess tells him to do it. And I think in that case, you would agree you have to do as She (who must be obeyed) says. We have not lost many PCs- one due to “I found I didnt like that character, give me a heroic death” (always Okay around here), and a couple due to serious opps- falling in lava with 0 hp, etc.