A Fair Shake?

[moritheil]

I've been a bit conflicted over this for a while now, so I'll see what the boards say. I have something of a no-holds-barred campaign running over on the PbP forums where powergaming is encouraged and the PCs are working to help a fiendish invasion of a prime world. In the inaugural fight, I threw in a bunch of CR 9 kobold warriors, a kobold sorc, and a kobold Worm that Walks (also a sorc.) The encounter is more or less at the party's EL (17, and there are 10 14th ECL players), but the Worm that Walks just instakilled someone via engulf (a special attack that does 100 damage on a successful melee touch attack.) This player had indicated that she wouldn't mind a new character, but I wonder if it was a bit rude of me to just off the character.

I'm not concerned that this was unfair in terms of relative power levels, only that it was perhaps too abrupt for the player (I was not able to warn the party without giving away the fundamental twist behind this encounter, though I figured someone might die, so I said nothing beforehand.)

Also, in general, is using a template like WtW unfair? I agree that it would be ridiculous to face a Worm that Walks at 5th level, but is there a rule of thumb that dictates when a template is good for play? I more or less eyeball these things. (For those not familiar with 10+ player campaigns, I should explain that having one player death in a fight between two parties of equal EL is pretty tame and by no means a worst case scenario.)

 

[Crothian]

As long as the player is happy and not complaining about it being unfair, you are okay. I think it is fine.

 

[Jarrod]

Ahh, the Worm that Walks. Lovely beast, isn't it? Tiny CR increase, but it was in the Epic Level Handbook.

Is it fair? Well, no, but many things at high levels aren't fair. A flat 100 damage is actually pretty small at that point - think of a maximized flame strike (ooh, fun) or a charge-and-smite mounted warrior. Was it fun?

'sides, there's always Raise Dead.

I'm actually using a variant of that template for a lower-level caster. I think I might have the Engulf damage go off hit dice or somesuch, so that it's survivable for 10th-level characters.

 

[Shade]

The problem with the worm that walks, as well as the paragon and pseudonatural templates (epic version) is that although they can be applied to creatures with a resulting CR of 20 or lower, they are really geared towards epic level play. I'm not saying that they can't work...just excercise caution.

In this case, at 17th level, there are plenty of spells and effects (as well as criticial hits from Power Attacking fighters) that could deal 100 points of damage at once, so it was probably reasonable.

 

[moritheil]

The player has yet to react, as she was previously only idly commenting that she wouldn't mind starting over with a new character with less LA. I may yet get berated for taking that comment at face value.

 

[werk]

If you want to make a 17th level omlette...

If anything, it's lucky that it happened in the first engagement before the player got attached to the dead character.

10 PCs? You may want to make sure that you don't have any single creatures much over CR14, if that's the highest party member. What was the CR of the WtW?

 

[moritheil]

CR 13 (kobold sorc 10, WtW.) Nothing was CR 14 or higher. Though I suppose CR is misleading here, because WtW gives a flat 100 damage.