D&D 5E Surprisingly Lethal Side Effect of Multiattack

[ScaleyBob]

I've run into an odd, and rather lethal, side effect of monsters with Multi-attack. My PCs are currently 4th level, and at one of points in the game where they can quite easily bite off more than they can chew - strong enough to be dangerous, but then not resilient enough to take too much damage. They've started to run into NPCs and Monsters with multiattack, and during last weeks session it nearly led to a couple PC deaths.

What happened was that the enemy would make its attacks all at one PC (all declared at once to save time), hit with several of them, and then knock the PC unconscious with one of the first attacks. Then it becomes lethal - the next hit counts as a critical, because it's against an unconscious target, which then counts as two failed death saves because of how a critical works against an unconscious target. Which then leads to the party panicking, and trying to get the now one save off dying PC back on their feet before their turn.

Has anyone else run into this?, Am I playing this right? and does anyone have any suggestions about it?

The obvious solution is to resolve each attack one at a time, but that get a bit fiddly and time consuming, especially with multiple multi attacking monsters.

 

[mellored]

You don't need to declare all the attacks at once. Otherwise, yes. You can knock someone down with an attack, the hit them again for 2 failed saves. Possibly kill the outright with 3 attacks.

These are adventurers, and you are facing monsters in a life or death battle. Scrambling to save someone in peril is part of the game.
Also, clerics get revivify at level 5. So you can bring people back to life.

But if you want to make it less deadly, then just make hitting a downed person 1 failed save.

 

[werecorpse]

You are playing it right. If you want to go easier on the players you can roll each attack in sequence and stop attacking the player when they drop, but you don't have to.

This is one of the reasons why I am surprised by people who say that 5e isn't lethal enough. If you feel that way it's easy enough to dial up the lethal-o-meter by having intelligent monsters targeting divine casters and finishing off unconscious PC's.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Yes, monsters can kill characters.

 

[ccs]

Yes, I noticed the auto-crit/2 fail bit along time ago. Works fine.

 

[MiraMels]

I've run into an odd, and rather lethal, side effect of monsters with Multi-attack. My PCs are currently 4th level, and at one of points in the game where they can quite easily bite off more than they can chew - strong enough to be dangerous, but then not resilient enough to take too much damage. They've started to run into NPCs and Monsters with multiattack, and during last weeks session it nearly led to a couple PC deaths.

What happened was that the enemy would make its attacks all at one PC (all declared at once to save time), hit with several of them, and then knock the PC unconscious with one of the first attacks. Then it becomes lethal - the next hit counts as a critical, because it's against an unconscious target, which then counts as two failed death saves because of how a critical works against an unconscious target. Which then leads to the party panicking, and trying to get the now one save off dying PC back on their feet before their turn.

Has anyone else run into this?, Am I playing this right? and does anyone have any suggestions about it?

The obvious solution is to resolve each attack one at a time, but that get a bit fiddly and time consuming, especially with multiple multi attacking monsters.

Spread out the attacks amongst multiple characters, even if that provokes opportunity attacks from your players.

Throw some grapples and shoves (away to disrupt player positioning, down to make the follow up attack more reliable, yet less lethal) just to mix it up a bit.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This reminded me of a great story.

Party fighting a Legendary Hydra, only two people in melee with it and the one is doing enough damage the hydra isn't going to interesting in moving any time soon. It had 16 heads at one point, getting 8 attacks against each individual.

Took a legendary gift from a Goddess to save the one character, because he could only survive 2 of those attacks, and my dice were hot that night. He'd have been torn into tiny little bits. Best, most tense, fight we've had to date I think.

 

[Ashkelon]

Spread out the attacks amongst multiple characters, even if that provokes opportunity attacks from your players.

Throw some grapples and shoves (away to disrupt player positioning, down to make the follow up attack more reliable, yet less lethal) just to mix it up a bit.

Why?

D&D what good comes from playing monsters in such a manner? If a monster is mart enough to kill a player, why wouldn't they? What benefit comes to a monster from spreading out his damage?

The game is more fun when there is an actual sense of danger in each combat. And monsters should be played to their intelligence. Any creature with any modicum of intelligence should know that removing a creature from combat is much better than spreading out damage. And any creature with even a little bit of intelligence should know that killing a creature to prevent it from being healed mid combat is probably a better choice than leaving it breathing and able to fight again.

Sure, playing with such tactics makes combat more deadly, but is that really much of a problem. In general 5e combat is rather easy anyway.

 

[Shiroiken]

Why?

D&D what good comes from playing monsters in such a manner? If a monster is mart enough to kill a player, why wouldn't they? What benefit comes to a monster from spreading out his damage?

The game is more fun when there is an actual sense of danger in each combat. And monsters should be played to their intelligence. Any creature with any modicum of intelligence should know that removing a creature from combat is much better than spreading out damage. And any creature with even a little bit of intelligence should know that killing a creature to prevent it from being healed mid combat is probably a better choice than leaving it breathing and able to fight again.

Sure, playing with such tactics makes combat more deadly, but is that really much of a problem. In general 5e combat is rather easy anyway.

It depends on what mode of play you want. Some people want easier combat, especially if introducing new characters is difficult. Of course, other prefer a more logical combat, with intelligent creatures making tactical decisions, regardless of the consequences to the lifespan of the PCs. Some even run things on full tilt miniatures gaming, where monsters (regardless of intelligence) always make the most brutal decisions against the PCs.

As a DM, I determine each attack one at a time, and if the PC drops, the creature will decide what to do based on intelligence and situation. Simple animals & monsters often grab the fallen PC and drag it off for a meal. Semi-intelligent enemies will move on to other threats. Smart enemies will often finish off a fallen PC unless they can attack another PC instead. Really smart enemies will focus on the spellcasters.

 

[Ahrimon]

I'd say that if you have declared all of the attacks in advance then the circumstances behind those attacks are also set. So no auto-crit and 2 auto-failures. Otherwise go, with rolling one at a time.