How deadly is your Dungeons & Dragons game? Do players go into each combat wondering if their character will survive? Do they avoid combat? Or do they rush in, knowing their chance of losing their character is very low?

People enjoy different things. And, even in the early days of the game, there were varying desires for how deadly it should be. Consider that hit points were invented because the first person to die didn’t appreciate it happening in a single hit!

In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, there is a magic item that immediately kills anyone who puts it on: the cloak of poisonousness. According to the rules of that edition, you can use the identify spell to determine what a magic item does. And to use the identify spell, you need to wield or wear the magic item in the manner it’s normally used. That is, you need to wear the cloak to cast the spell. Which, of course, kills you.

This cloak comes from mythology (see the tale of Heracles and Nessus) and was reinterpreted by Gygax for an item that a lot of players – I’m tempted to say “most” – consider unfair. The magic item description allows the death to be reversed by magic, but it requires a cleric to cast the remove curse, neutralise poison, and raise dead spells. And then there’s a chance it will fail. Permanently, so the character can never come back. The item even says there’s a penalty compared to the normal chances of raising someone from the dead!

This is an item that has caused controversy. There were articles in Dragon Magazine about it. Some DMs consider it fair game. Others will use it, but only if they include clues to its nature, so that it only the unwary are affected. And others just never use it at all.

The analysis of the deadliness of a situation often revolves around how the players can avoid or mitigate the risk.

• Can the players avoid the situation altogether?
• Can the players reverse the effects of situation after it has occurred?
• Can the players act in a way to reduce the chances of the situation turning deadly?
• Can the players learn about the situation in advance?

Having the threat of death is often useful, but it’s not so great when the players can do nothing to avert that death, or when the death feels random.

In original Dungeons & Dragons, a first-level character has between 1 and 8 hit points, with 3 or 4 being most common. A blow from a weapon or monster deals 1d6 damage. On reaching 0 hit points, the character immediately dies. First-level combat can kill a lot of characters in the game.

There are four primary ways of mitigating against dying in combat:

• Wear plate mail armour and bear a shield, so you are hit less frequently.
• Stay out of the front rank of combat (perhaps hiring a man-at-arms to take the place).
• Avoid combat altogether.
• Start combat at range and use missile weapons to take out opponents (who do not have missile weapons).

Given that many people rather enjoy combat, avoiding combat altogether isn’t a great option. And if you have been inspired by tales of Conan and Aragorn, you’re rather wanting to stand in the front rank and wield your sword. But, at this point, a single hit might kill you and, even though you’ve chosen to wear plate armour, a random die roll can end your character’s career.

However, by the time you reach the higher levels, you’re tougher. Monsters are still dealing the same amount of damage, but you require five or more hits to kill! And this opens up a new avenue of survival:

• Flee when combat turns against you.

I enjoy original D&D combat, but I think it works best when characters aren’t worried about dying with every attack against them. Once they have a buffer of hit points, there is a “push your luck” element, as the player balances risk against reward. Is it worth staying one round more, and attempting to kill the monster before it kills you?

Later editions of D&D, starting as early as AD&D first edition, started changing the rules so that characters had an additional state between “alive” and “dead”. The new state? “Unconscious and dying.” And the various editions have tried various versions of it. Combat is still dangerous for low-level characters, but “one hit and you’re dead” became less common.

It is worth nothing that the introduction of critical hits changed the equation significantly. Both 3E and 5E can find a character going from alive to dead without landing in unconscious. (This stays in 3E throughout the levels, but in 5E, it is incredibly unlikely at higher levels.)

The result of this is that in recent editions, players can push their luck to high levels, knowing that even if they miscalculate, they’re unlikely to perish. (This has led to my observation that it’s more likely that all characters will die in a 5E session than just one character!)

I believe that the “push your luck” element of Dungeons & Dragons is tremendously important for making it exciting. And, for it to work properly, players need to be informed about the risks, they need to make decisions that expose them to those risks in exchange for rewards on success, and that the rewards and risks matter to the players.

Depending on the campaign, “death” need not be the only consequence. However, one of the challenges with Dungeons & Dragons is that it is often the only consequence we know about. Some editions have experimented with other consequences, such as loss of equipment and magic items, and loss of levels and XP.

Loss of social standing? Loss of allies? Loss of opportunities? These areas are not covered in the Dungeons & Dragons rules to any great extent and become very dependent on the DM and the group to determine such penalties. Part of the problem with enumerating such is that they’re very depending on the campaign and group, and the setting they use. What is good advice in one setting, may not be in another.

Different players also have varying tolerances for risk. Some players very much enjoy the OD&D style of play which has high chances of characters dying in their first sessions. (The very existence of Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is proof of that!) Other players like a risk of death in any combat. And others want death to be extremely rare or non-existent.

Some players want consequences to be permanent. Others want ways to reverse them.

Consider a treasure chest that lies beyond an open pit. In the pit are poisonous spikes. A character can jump the pit, but there is a chance of failure. How much do they want the treasure? And are there other options for overcoming the challenge? You have risk, reward, and options.

In D&D 5E, I believe that the band for “unconscious and dying” is too wide. By the mid to high levels, there’s no chance that a character will die from a single hit. And, as a result, you have players being more reckless in combat than I appreciate. (This is linked to how easy it is to get someone up from “dying” without sacrificing anything meaningful). Meanwhile, in 3E, it was too narrow. -10 was dead, despite the fact that monsters could easily deal 30+ damage with a single hit. There should be a middle ground.

But that’s my personal view; it doesn’t necessarily line up with yours.

I think it’s important to understand how Dungeons & Dragons uses risk and rewards, and where the system may not give the results you expect.