A few things I've learned (and some apparently forgot)...

[Herschel]

1. PCs don't adventure alone. They have a TEAM. That means measuring your single PC against an encounter or BBEG is inaccurate and silly.

2. They got to be BBEGs for a reason: because they can hit you often, usually against your weakest defense.

3. Monsters usually have one obviously lower defense too. It's many times better to attack it than trying to hit its best defense with the attack you want.

4. If a PC rarely takes damage either the encounters are too easy or (more likely) that PC simply isn't helping the team as best they could. Every PC should be ready to take hits when needed. That means if the defenders are betting beaten down, archer boy should step up and take advantage of Prime Shot a few times.

5. Just doing damage isn't as efficient as nerfing, buffing and doing damage. Durable artillery can't shoot what they can't see.

6. You hit them, they hit you, but when they go down they tend to STAY down, unlike PCs with leaders around.

Additions?

 

[Henry]

I recently learned...

7) Even an Avenger's Oath can't help you if the player owns sucky dice.

I had the WORST streak of luck about a week ago with my first 4E character.

 

[Monkey Boy]

8. Hire henchmen and then put them in front. See if you can convince the DM that your character would have some wardogs as pets, come up with a suitable background and cross your fingers.

9. Sleep is your nuke, use it wisely. Try and have a few members of the party that can cast it like elves or magic-users.

10. Sleep doesn't work on skeletons.

11. At level 1 everthing can kill you and will do so quickly. Try and get the drop and ambush foes. Even better avoid fighting and work out ways to nab the precious gold (xp).

12. Run away.

 

[blargney the second]

13. Sometimes edition wars go guerilla.

14. If you've got a DM that rewards doing cool stuff, do cool stuff! (Corollary: If you want to do cool stuff, pay attention to fluff text.)

 

[AFGNCAAP]

15. A well-balanced party is key. Cover each basic role wisely (fighter, cleric, mage, thief/leader, defender, controller, striker).

(There's nothing like having a bunch of elf and half-elf mage/thieves with barely any spells left hide behind the party's sole paladin because they don't want to get hit by the giants.)

16. Diversity is a valuable asset. Have as many necessary skills covered by the party, and avoid having a common/"party" dump stat amoung characters as much as possible.

17. The dice may not always be your friends, but stupid decisions far outweigh unlucky dice rolls.

18. Just because a player can have fun at the expense of other players doesn't mean that it's a fun game for everyone.

19. DMs should be out to run a game, not win it.

20. Play characters that you'll be interested in playing and able to play for the long haul in regular campaigns.

(Corollary: Feel free to try/experiment with characters in one-shot/short run games. Don't try something new for a long-term game if you'll just get bored & wish you'd rather play something else down the line.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

4. If a PC rarely takes damage either the encounters are too easy or (more likely) that PC simply isn't helping the team as best they could. Every PC should be ready to take hits when needed. That means if the defenders are betting beaten down, archer boy should step up and take advantage of Prime Shot a few times.

I can't say I agree with this 100%- I've had some high-AC PCs who simply didn't get hit very often.

21. Don't cast a spell/manifest a power until & unless you have to. You may miss it down the road. Judicious conservation of ablative game-changing resources leads to increased party durability.

22. Reach weapons are a great way for 2nd line PCs to contribute to taking down foes.

23. Sometimes, destroying a cool item is the only way to survive an encounter.

24. High-Dex PCs should always have some kind of ranged weapon or grenade.

 

[billd91]

24. High-Dex PCs should always have some kind of ranged weapon or grenade.

24a. ALL characters should have some kind of ranged attack. Characters twinked out to specialize in one melee attack form aren't going to do squat against flyers.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

24a. ALL characters should have some kind of ranged attack. Characters twinked out to specialize in one melee attack form aren't going to do squat against flyers.

Have you heard the story of how our group cruelly slayed some attacking harpies?

Our low-level party had been attacked by harpies. Our Druid, thinking quickly, cast Entangle, snagging the entire flock in the vegetation. We then began to pelt them with whatever ranged weapons we had...which were one guy with a bow, one guy with a single throwing hammer, and one guy with a sling.

The thing is, the Druid had to cast Entangle 2 more times to ensure we killed them all...the spells kept expiring while we nicked and gently bruised the evil critters to death!

In a black comedic twist, our attack and damage rolls were so bad, we exhausted the party supply of arrows & bolts, so the Druid had to cast Entangle again while we pelted them to death with stones. It was so bad, one PC even went so far as to cut an arrow out of a harpy to re-use it- apologizing as he did so- and when he finally ran out of arrows he resorted to throwing rocks. The hammer thrower had to spend time recovering his hammer as well.

After this Vulgar Display of Power, our DM started grousing...

DM: "#%$#%^@^% Entangle Spell! It's so ^%#*%&* broken!"

However, the Druid player responded: "My other option was "Purify Food and Drink"- d'ya think that would have helped any?"

 

[dnoonan]

First, I always thought the collective noun for harpies should be an "outbreak." But that's just me.

Second, to the list I'd add:

n) If the table's consensus plan is to retreat, then frickin' retreat.

Run away! Don't stick around for just one more round to "cover" for others. Because they won't flee either, and you'll all just be one round closer to your now-inevitable demise.

I've seen more TPKs happen when the whole table agreed on retreating in the abstract, but nobody actually fled for the door until it was too late.

--Dave.
nnnooner.blogspot.com

 

[Freakohollik]

Know what all your spells/items/abilities do. I've been through TPKs where I later realized I had the item that would have won. You should be able to know what they all do when you look at them on your character sheet. Ideally, you'd have them all in your head and not need to start looking at everything on your character sheet to avoid a TPK.

As a corollary, when things get bad look through everything on your character sheet, you may have the thing that will win the battle.

This is common in published adventures where the author places an item that will be very useful later, but will otherwise be near useless. One guy writes it on the character sheet, everyone forgets about it, no one remembers until it's too late.