A shift in lethality. What's fair warning?

[Psion]

I am on board with forshadowing. Both overt (the bad guys start gunning for the PCs and let them know in no uncertain terms) and mysterious.

May I ask why the decision to amp up the lethality-level?

Er, why so concerned? There are a number of reasons, not all of them that might be considered praiseworthy.

First off, it has always been my philosophy that the potential of death adds a lot of tension and excitement of the game and combats. However, I have sort of slacked off on this lately, and I think that is one reason that combats aren't all they used to be to me.

My players seem to be in their comfort zone and I'd like to get them moving more often and keep the pace up.

Second, I also like a little investigation, and like my players to think twice before resorting to combat.

Finally, in reply to this:

If the players have had their characters for a while and have had a chance to build strong attachments to them, it might be better to wait until that campaign concludes. Then, when you start the new campaign, you can easily let them know that this campaign will be a little tougher, a little more dangerous, and that as a consequence, character death will be more likely.

I'm not totally on board with that philosophy. I mean I am -- their characters are their characters. But some characters seem a little stale and I don't think that it would hurt the players to play a different character. Some players even have multiple characters and don't stick to just one; it may be an opportunity for those players to switch over to the new characters they have been itching to try.

 

[Clueless]

Shemmy warns us of this by dropping out of character for it actually. He'll look at us over the screen with that maniacal grin and say "So. Plan this like a shadow run." And we go 'Oh... we are *so* screwed.' And start planning.

 

[DonTadow]

No offense, but this seems cheesy and heavy-handed to me. As a player, I would much rather just have the DM tell me, out of game, that he wanted us to work better as a team, than to have some deus ex machina explanation in-game that involved summoning me to a demi-plane to have it explained by a DMPC who should be dead.

I mean, I'm supposed to be worried about the consequences of death when the NPCs don't stay dead?

Let me explain the situation more. The NPC has always summoned the PCs to his demiplane. The NPC is a divine Agent of Lathander, whom is monitoring the pcs movements on Chrystaria (my world) because the plot involves LOlth and Seredess from Faerun. He can not travel to Chrystaria because of the world's god.

In Season 1, the demiplane was a homebase for the pcs. However, at the beginning of Season 2, the pcs raided a timemages tower and destroyed one of his prized artifacts. The wizard traveled to the homebase demiplane to kill the pcs for their actions. However, the divine agent intervened and the two battled it out as the pcs took on the nine-headed chrono hydra pet of the wizard. The two powerful beings destroyed the floating rock that the homebase was on, causing the pcs to make an emergency teleport back to Chrystaria. They had no way themselves of traveling to the demiplane as they always were summoned there after completing a task. When the pcs teleported away, they saw the divine agent and the time mage each through large rays at each other of undeterminable magic. Because of all the destruction they assumed both were dead.

However, towards the end of season 2, the wizard resurfaced in the body of his apprentices (he can not manifest his sorceror abilities in the apprentices body) . He told the pcs that he killed the divine agent. The pcs managed to get away from him and believed him.

They have no evidience that the divine agent is still alive. They only assumed that the wizard was telling the truth because they had not been summoend by him in months.

Now, the beginning of season 3 starts off with them on the ship to the elven lands where no one has been for centuries. The wizard has stowed away on the ship with some of his cronies, hiding and using invisible magics. Hopefully the pcs will discover him, either that or he will reveal himself. Whatever happens, the pcs are summoned either after they defeat the wizard or before they reach the elven lands. If they defeat the wizard, the wizards body will teleport to the plane with the pcs.

At that point the divine agent will tell the pcs he needed them to think he was dead so that the wizard could reveal himself and so the pcs could defeat him in a weaker body. OF course if anyone knows priests of lathander exagerate from time to time and the real reason is because the fight left him too weak to summon them as much as he used to.

He will then tell the pcs to be more careful as their carelessness to check the ship (which they opted not to do at the end of our last session in favor of "one last round before the big trip"). That's when he'll hint to them about working together and teamwork.

I hope that better explains it and is not as cheesy as it sounded without explaintion.

 

[KB9JMQ]

When my players leveled up their characters to 4th, I told them flat out that it was going to get tougher.
I figured they new their characters well enough to know all their good and bad advantages and I felt if I killed a character it wasnt due to low HP and bad rolls only.

Of course they are 7th level now and I have only really scared one player but they have been warned

 

[philreed]

DM: Hey! Who took the last Coke?

Players: Sounds like the dungeon's lethality just shifted.

 

[PatrickLawinger]

I have been thinking of turning up the heat in my games a bit. I have yet to claim a character in my current game, but I think that a change of the lethality level is in order.

I don't precisely want to announce this, but I don't want to just dump the players into it cold. I had considered just start gradually pushing them closer and closer to the line, but I think that fudging for them to avoid the results if I go overboard the first few times would be the exact wrong thing to do.

Without knowing your game it is impossible to say if this might work. In the past I have had the party (or just 1-2 PCs) discover the body of someone/thing that they knew was more powerful than them. It tends to set off alarm bells. It is hard to suggest a way to do this without knowing your campaign though.

I haven't had to do that for a long time. My present group plays well, and is quite content to run the hell away when they have to. We also have, and expect, fairly high lethality as we feel this adds excitement and tension to the game. It isn't fun for us if we know that we can do something stupid and the DM will find a way not to kill us.

If your players/PCs don't run away when overwhelmed, and you think they didn't get the in-game hint, you might want to make an out-of-game hint (throwing M&Ms at them and shouting, "Run you idiots!" has been known to work).

Patrick

 

[Dieter]

I don't precisely want to announce this, but I don't want to just dump the players into it cold. I had considered just start gradually pushing them closer and closer to the line, but I think that fudging for them to avoid the results if I go overboard the first few times would be the exact wrong thing to do.

I'd subtley turn up the heat. A good way to do this is for the party to have an encounter with a (insert monster/NPC) that they are familiar with and have had dealings with in the past. Make the NPCs/monsters remarkably harder, thus throwing off the party's general conception of what they were expecting. Give the monster a new special attack or perhaps give the roaming band of brigands long swords instead of daggers and short bows.

The encounter should be difficult enough for the party to have to take a step back and say "Hey, that was kinda tough." Giving everyone a bloody nose and perhaps causing a casualty will enough to have the party reeling but not completely intimidated.

 

[Psion]

I'd subtley turn up the heat. A good way to do this is for the party to have an encounter with a (insert monster/NPC) that they are familiar with and have had dealings with in the past. Make the NPCs/monsters remarkably harder, thus throwing off the party's general conception of what they were expecting. Give the monster a new special attack or perhaps give the roaming band of brigands long swords instead of daggers and short bows.

Well, if I have no reason to do that, that buggers with my sense of consistency.

But I am sort of planning one encounter in this vein. Last session, the players met my dragonmage pirate (see here.) I sort of rectally extracted his statistics, so I didn't play him up to his potential. But onceI have him fleshed out, I plan on re-instroducing them with the classic "I have underestimated you, but shant do so again. Prepare to meet my wrath" speech.

 

[Dieter]

Hmm. That's a mighty powerful NPC you've got there. What's the APL of your group?

I didn't mean to completely throw the party for a loop, but knocking them off-balance when they expect Event X and you give them Event Y. Perhaps the first group of NPCs were just skirmishers and such.

In any event, it's hard to push new material on (what appears to be) an already seasoned group of adventurers. It's like telling Buffy and the Scoobies that the vampires they used to be able to just stake now require staking/cutting of the head/burying the remains in seperate boxes.

 

[Psion]

Hmm. That's a mighty powerful NPC you've got there. What's the APL of your group?

10.5 or so. The character is meant to be a thorn in their side for a bit.