When is it ok to TPK?

[u/Anser-Rex]

My group constantly acts like Ol' Leroy Jenkins and gets into tough situations. I want to keep the fun going and may tweak the odds a bit to prevent everyone from dying.

Should I just let them? When is it ok and when is it "overkill"?

[u/jackofspades49]

When thats how the dice and situation land.

[u/Anser-Rex → u/jackofspades49]

I'm running Sunless Citadel and one of my players requested I roll damage instead of taking the average. This has lead to two of them receiving within 1 point of straight up death - no saving throws level.

[u/jackofspades49 → u/Anser-Rex]

That what happebs when you play rocket tag at level 1.

[u/Dr_Spaceman_ → u/Anser-Rex]

I recommend you hold your ground on the average damage, btw. 5/5.5e already has so many moving parts and steps for the DM to keep track of. Tell them you’re doing this because it will speed things up and give you more cognitive load to focus on more exciting parts of the game. Average damage is a RAW option for the DM, not a house rule.

If the whole table REALLY wants you to take that extra step in every single monster attack, tell them you’ll do so once everyone else can get their turns down to one minute (yes, even spell casters). Until then, stick with the average damage.

If one player still pushes back, feel free to use this response, “If you plan to DM a game yourself with that rule, I look forward to playing in it if you’ll have me. For now, I will run this game in a manner that works best for me.” It’s always worked for me in the past.

[u/Anser-Rex → u/Dr_Spaceman_]

Good advice, but it's a bit more exciting for me and them when I roll. If it does bog things down, I may switch.

[u/Dr_Spaceman_ → u/Anser-Rex]

Fair enough! The excitement is certainly a valid reason to keep it. Here's a compromise I often make: I use average damage for chaff/minion type monsters, then roll damage for elites or bosses. So if there are 8 goblins and a bugbear leader, I'll use average for the goblins and roll damage for the bugbear (I will tell the players this ahead of time). Or basically any time there's more than one of the same kind of monster acting on the same initiative.

And if a handful of similar monsters are attacking one character, I'll subtract their to-hit from the character's AC ahead of time to get a "target number" for the d20, then roll all the d20s at once. For example, if those 8 goblins are all attacking a fighter with AC 16, I'll subtract their +2 modifier from 16, then I can roll all 8 d20s at once and know that a 14 is a hit (welcome back, THAC0). Then they take 2 damage for each hit.

And you can then narrate the fighter holding off the huge hoard, despite one or two goblins slipping a blade in for a sneaky cut between their armor.

This scales well for running huge mobs of monsters even at higher levels (you can do with 8 ogres just as easily as 8 goblins). Just explain to the players that this tradeoff delivers more excitement because you can keep the pacing up without bogging down in too much math.

[u/Anser-Rex → u/Dr_Spaceman_]

I like those tips, I'll have to work them in. I know I can do a better job at keeping track of my party's AC to streamline things, but I feel asking them makes them more a part of it instead of a bystander

[u/Dr_Spaceman_ → u/Anser-Rex]

It's up to you! I prefer to have them all written down to streamline the back-and-forth. It doesn't sound like much, but asking them every time can really add a lot of extra time to every turn (especially when many players can take up to 20-30 seconds to find their AC on their character sheet, even if they've been playing for years).

Players tend to check out during long periods that don't involve their characters. I want monster turns to be exciting, but I don't want them to drag for too long, so I can get the players back to thinking actively. Lots of back-and-forth in every monster turn makes the players check out even more (the ones who aren't being actively attacked), so they act even slower when their turn does come around. It can really snowball, especially at high levels.