DM advice: How do you NOT kill your party?

[iserith]

I echo the above sentiments, but on the other hand I'm not a huge fan of situations where the fate of an epic fight is decided by a single bad dice roll. That doesn't feel very epic to me and just feels like playing bingo.

Can you give an example of "the fate of an epic fight is decided by a single bad dice roll?" I suppose there's the possibility of a single villain being undone by a polymorph spell or the like, but that seems to me to be an issue with the challenge's design. But typically, even if the challenge goes awry for one side or the other in a way that was unexpected, there will have been a number of meaningful decisions and other die rolls preceding it.

I don't like fixing fights either, and I generally don't fudge rolls. However I do like to maximize drama.

And there is also the occasion when the encounter builder has failed you and an encounter meant to be difficult becomes impossible.

Let's not all pretend we don't do it sometimes. Of course danger and death should be a real threat, otherwise what is the point? And even the old you're-not-really-dead-you-are-just-captured trick is pretty stupid, cliché and trivializes the fear of death.

Sometimes the dice go bad. The encounter builder fails you. The unexpected happens. I doubt that any DM has never EVER decided that this is not the time for the party to die. What do you do?

I think capture is just fine - if it's telegraphed at the outset of the challenge as the failure condition. "Knock out these fools and take them to the salt mines!" says the villain at the start of hostilities. Now the players know what to expect if they get dropped to 0 hp. If it's done after the fact, it seems cheap and tacked on, like trying to rob the players of the impact of the decisions they made. Better to get that out up front in my view.

For my part, I don't care if the dice go bad. I also don't think the "encounter builder" fails anyone since it's important to realize that the second a player (or DM) makes a decision during the challenge, the difficulty starts going up or down. So if anyone thinks a "Medium" encounter is necessarily going to remain so throughout and not get made "Easy" or even "Deadly" by the decisions of the players and/or the dice, he or she doesn't understand how a challenge works.

If the party dies, then the party dies, I say. Time to get those backup characters out and play on. It's not for me to decide when is a good time and when is a bad time for the party. If the players know it's a possibility their characters may die, there are many ways they can prepare for that and, if they care about keeping certain PCs alive, they should govern themselves accordingly in my view.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

If you are planning a major combat, (such as a boss fight) one that has potential to be extremely lethal, what steps do you follow to keep the party alive?
What tactics do you use to prevent a party wipe without the party knowing you helped them out a little.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an easy DM. I've killed a few PC's in my day, and I'm good with that if it happens here. But this is a boss fight. I want them to win. But I also want it to be dramatic. I want them to survive by the skin of their teeth.

How do you guys create that illusion if you sense things are going very very badly for the party?

I have learned to use the encounter building system (Through Kobold Fight Club), but never to rely on it. I've built encounters I thought were going to crush my party and they wiped the floor with my baddies. And I have built encounters I thought would be a breeze and almost TPK'ed. I'm sure we have all experienced this.

This style of DM'ing always perplexes me (and annoys me a bit, truth be told; I have nothing against DM's that prefer this style of gaming, but it is just so anathema to my views/style that it just, well...'nuff said, I think you get my outlook).

IMHO, a DM should never "want" the PC's to win/survive. He/she should also never "want" the PC's to loose/die. A DM should strive to be ambivalent to the PC's plight. In short, it's not a DM's job to "keep the PC's alive" any more than it is for him to "keep the monsters alive".

It has been my experience that a group that has played together for a while, and wherein the DM is "in favour of the PC's living/wining", WILL know if the DM is "cheating for them". I'd get that idea of you somehow being able to give the players the "illusion" that things are going to go badly for them right out of your head right now. You players KNOW that you will try and keep their PC's alive...so they are just not going to be all that worried about having their PC die. Whats worse is that if you DO end up killing one or more of the PC's, they are going to be upset with you...because they were expecting to not die due to the fact that you "want them to live" and probably have fudged the game in their favour up until that point. They will feel like you "tricked them" into getting killed because in their mind, you were playing as Mr. NiceDM for most of the time, and then you suddenly turn into Mr. MeanDM and kill them all.

With the way it sounds like you DM (again, not knocking it for YOU, but for me...just oil and water!), you don't have the option of "not worrying". You've kinda boxed yourself into a corner; you have taught your players that you will try and pull punches when it really matters. It will take a lot of hard, cold PC deaths for them to unlearn that. This is one of the major reasons I fully support the "Neutral DM" ideal. My players know I will happily let their PC get killed and eaten by a pair of giant rats, just as easily as I will happily let their PC get immolated by a huge red dragon. It's not my job as DM to keep them alive; that's their job.

So, what is my suggestion?

First, don't "build encounters to the PC's capabilities". The only real thing you should kinda keep in mind is their general level. LEVEL, not Race, Class, Magic Items, Skills, etc. All you need to know is the parties average Level.

Second, "build" your world and setting based on your, well, world and setting. If the PC's are all 2nd level and decide to take a short cut through the "Forest of the Dead", known for it's ghosts, banshee's, zombies and other undead horrors...and they all get killed by a random encounter with a vampire. Well, not your problem. They chose to go there and they had opportunity to learn about it, seek advice, then say "Nope!"...but they didn't. If you only have them encounter skeletons at most, you are teaching your Players that you will "only have them encounter winnable situations based on their PC level". This is, again IMHO, a BAD thing.

Third, if you REALLY want the Players to "get it" that this boss battle is for all the marbles...ROLL ALL YOUR DICE IN THE OPEN! It will scare your players for sure (as they are likely expecting you to 'fudge' stuff in their favour). When they see you roll a claw/claw/bite combo on the cleric and your dice come up 20, 18, 20...then they see the damage dice and realize the cleric just got turned into swiss cheese...panic will ensue.

That's my suggestion. Without knowing the exact make up of your group and your groups PC's, it's pretty much impossible to give you and mechanical suggestions. It's a style thing I think you are having problems with. Either embrace your more narrative/story based "PC's Are the Assumed Heroes" and let the PC's kick ass...or try and ween the players from that into a more "narrative/story is based on Players choices...and the PC's have to ACT Heroic to be Heroes".

Then again, I'm what is nowadays termed a "Killer DM" (in fact, just TPK'ed a Hackmaster campaign we only got to play three sessions in just last week). My new'ish player commented "I get what you said about him not being afraid to kill PC's" as they were leaving the session to go home.

^_^

Paul L. Ming ("Killer DM" and sufferer of Grognardian Crumudgeonitis)

 

[Satyrn]

As a DM, I try to avoid "fixing" fights, but have done so on rare occasions, because I am a total PC fanboy and secretly root for them to win the entire time - even when I am controlling the dragon that is in the middle of eating the cleric.

Three ideas, when things are going sideways:

* Invest in a DM Screen, and be willing to fudge a roll or two - there's no way that Big Evil Bad Guy crit the cleric twice in one round!

* Don't advertise max hit points for the monsters. Some DMs like to "count down" hit point damage for the villains, to give players a meta idea of how well they are doing (mathematical short hand for reinforcing that the villain is in bad shape or might just need one more hit to defeat). While I like the idea of the running tally from a meta-perspective, I find it better to count up than down - that way the upper limit (hit point total) can be changed if you need to fudge it.

* Telegraph "dramatic opportunities" early in the encounter - Example: if the Big Evil has minions (say, calling for reinforcements that are charging through a narrow tunnel), make sure the PCs have an obvious way to deal with them (like making sure the PCs know that the tunnel is easily collapsed by removing/destroying a keystone), turning a certain defeat into a probable victory.

I like your third point.

But I do the exact opposite of your first 2. I roll in the open, and openly count down on monster hp specifically so that I can't fudge them when I'm tempted to . . . which means that your first 2 points are good advice for the DM looking to fudge.

 

[Satyrn]

And there is also the occasion when the encounter builder has failed you and an encounter meant to be difficult becomes impossible.

Retreat needs to be an option for the players. So as a DM, I have committed to let them flee even if the story suggests the foe they're fleeing from would relentlessly pursue them. Either I'll say the foe is just too tired to bother, his forces are expended enough that he doesn't want to risk them, or they have a plan and are okay letting them escape (like the Millennium Falcon fleeing the Death Star).

Whatever. When a fight is impossible, I want the players to know that escape is an option, and so I make it easy for them to do so. If they don't, their deaths are on them.

 

[Ranthalan]

Added to the excellent advice above, I've thinned a group of baddies beating up the party by having some of them abscond with some of the PCs possesions.

 

[jgsugden]

1.) Don't equate lethality to drama. A great boss fight doesn't necessarily need to threaten the lives of the PCs - it can threaten other things they care about. For example, I recently ran a campaign that culminated in a battle in which the PCs were trying to take down an army of monsters before they made it to the shelter where the townfolk were hiding. The monsters were more focused on getting to the center of town than they were on stopping to fight the PCs. Accordingly, despite it essentially being one looooooong combat that stretched on for 38 rounds that was effectively 15 times the Deadly XP... but there were only about 20 attacks launched at the PCs in the entire fight (that stretched on for over three hours). And most of those attacks tried to stop the PCs from stopping the army by delaying them, stopping the PCs from being in position to cur the monsters off, etc... No PC ever felt in jeopardy of dying, but there were a lot of great up and down swings in the encounter.

In general, the most common trap I see DMs fall into is the mistaken belief that if there is no real chance that the PCs will die, the encounter is a waste. There are a lot of ways to fail that do not involve dying themselves. Defend something, stop the ritual, capture the fleeing enemy, escape the collapsing dungeon, activate 3 to 5 switches simultaneously (that are in different parts of a dungeon) while the bad guys try to stop you, etc...

2.) When you do want the PCs to fear for their lives, mock up the battle first. In the first round of the mock up, have the dice go as bad as possible for the PCs. Then simulate the rest of the combat and see how they do, I can simulate a 7 round slug fest that takes an hour with a group of 5 players in about 6 to 10 minutes. I then tweak the combat accordingly to make it tougher or easier.

3.) Look for the glass cannons. A lot of PCs, especially higher level PCs, have vulnerabilities. Make sure your big bads (or their allies) are not targeting the weak spots on your party. I played in a game where all PCs had an intelligence of 8 and nobody was proficient in Intelligence saves. When we encountered a Psychic monster (homebrew) that attacked with Psionic Blasts that targeted Intelligence Saves with a DC of 18 (stunned until you made a save) that recharged, we ended up with the entire party stunned. The only reason we did not all die was DM fiat.

4.) Feel free to cheat to increase the drama. The players don't (usually) know how many HPs a monster has. I have been known to stretch or reduce the number of HPs a monster has in order to make sure the end of the battle is a bit more dramatic. I've even done this as a player by lying about a die roll to turn my PC's hit into a miss to make sure his BBEG survived long enough to be impressive. As a DM, I've let monsters that still have 20% of their hit points fall because the PCs were overmatched...

5.) Kill them. There is nothing wrong with the occasional TPK. Some of my greatest memories in D&D are the TPKs. They were dramatic - and the best ones had ramifications that we felt in the next campaign. When one group failed to stop the forces of Hel from getting together some artifacts (and died along the way in a major battle due to one betrayal we did not anticipate, but should have...), the next session was a new campaign that started 10 years later after the forces of Hel had conquered a few continents.

 

[MNblockhead]

And good advice to DMs should start with "know your players."

One group of players I DM for who are veteran roleplayers. They like tactics and are also fine from a roleplaying standpoint with character death.

I also DM games for my kids. My youngest isn't even comfortable with too much description of violence and would take character death very badly. My older son is "fine" but would not enjoy it and it would decrease his interest in playing if his characters died.

So, first, you should know:

1. What is the likely impact of character death on the players' enjoyment of the game? Some won't want to play without their favorite character. Their enjoyment may largely come from seeing the development of their character from level 1 to 20. Some may hate any death. Some maybe okay with death as long as it isn't permanent (e.g., if you are used to video games, also this is basically how Adventurers League is run). Others WANT death to mean something. It is want creates excitement for them.

2. Does your story arc depend on specific characters?

3. How easy is it to work new characters into the session so a player can continue to play without too much delay? Do you have NPCs that the player can take over until they roll up a new character?

4. How accessible is resurrection magic in your world?

If, based on the answers to the questions above, you feel that you need to avoid death, I've used some of the following:

1. Knock out/capture the PCs

No Thank You, Evil!, a Cypher System RPG for kids uses the "konked out" rule. Nobody dies, they are just konked out. DnD 5e allows a players to decide that when their characters bring a foe to 0 HP they can knocked out the foe instead of killing it. Same should be true for the NPCs/monsters.

Often the NPCs will want to interrogate the players. If this is a boss fight, this is the scene where the hero is defeated and the big boss gloats only for the hero to find an escape and save the day after all. E.g.: nearly every episode of the old Adam West bat man TV show and nearly every James Bond movie).

Or, just say that the foe leaves the unconscious characters for dead. Assume they made their saving throws but are unconscious. They wake up much later.

2. Give the party an opportunity to run away.

If you don't want the party to die no matter what, then don't make it a fight to the death. Make sure there are other options, including escape.

3. Have the big bad run away

Even if the big bad is winning, if it has taken a lot of damage, it may still run away to avoid risking death, even where it seems to have the upper hand.

4. Saved by allies at the last minute.

Just when all seems lost, the Knights of the Vale ride in and save the King of the North. You can think of plenty of scenese from TV series and movies where this happens. Use it in your game.

5. Make the goal something other than the death of the big bad.

For example, I've had encounters where the big bad was a deadly encounter or even a near impossible fight at their level. But their goal was to distract long enough to get a MacGuffin, or just disrupt or destroy some evil artifact--something other than just killing the big bad. E.g., given them a magic item that will teleport tham back to the a teleportation circle. They are tasked with infiltrating the lair and grabing the macguffin and teleporting out. If you want to further death proof the encounter, state that the magic item automatically triggers when some takes a certain amount of damage. The rogue is trying to get to the macguffin while his party members who are covering him and creating a distraction are one by one being teleported away as they take massive hits from the big band. This could be as exciting as a full out fight.

6. Fudge stats, not die rolls.

I like to roll in front of the players. Also, while the die rolls are not sacred, I like for the dice to land where they may. Sometimes, however, if I realize that I wildly misjudged the difficulty of an encounter--either making it too easy or too hard--I may fudge the stat block or make other on-the-fly changes to the encounters. If you find that the battle is going to be too deadly for the characters consider:

• Decreasing the foes' hit points
• Decreasing the foes' AC
• Decreasing the number of minions
• Making the minions like 4e minions. If the players hit, the minion dies. Less to manage and fewer opportunities for minions to hit

 

[Blue]

If you are planning a major combat, (such as a boss fight) one that has potential to be extremely lethal, what steps do you follow to keep the party alive?

I routinely throw very difficult encounters at my party, as well as traps and situation that I don't know how they will get out of. My between session planning is usually deadly*.

(* Or cakewalk - there are times they need to curbstomp foes to remind them of how badarse they are now, and with super easy foes (goblin patrols for level 8s) I just let them montage and each gets to tell quickly one cool thing they did in slaying/capturing them all.)

BUT, while I often throw at them twice or more what a fair fight would be, at the table I'm their biggest cheerleader. My group regularly comes up with plans on how to turn the tides, using the interesting hazards or clever uses of spells/items, and at that point I say YES a lot. Now, it's off "YES, BUT...", with some cost to their action, but I remember I run a heroic and not gritty game and let them get away with things the protagonist would get away with in a good book - not straining disbelief, but cunning, foresight and audaciousness can be rewarded, even if they come at a price.

Had a battle on a skyship and the rogue failed a Dex check and slipped off the sdie and then natural 1'd to climb back up. Would have fell a few miles to his death but another character was at a ballista loaded with a harpoon w/ chain, and shot him through. Character was out of it for the combat, but didn't die.

Oh, and I roll all my dice in front of the players - they know a streak of luck can spell doom and that I'm not fudging anything to save them. Gives them great incentive to plan and think.

For all that, I haven't had a single combat death this campaign, which is 4+ years. Had it be most everyone down, had characters one shoted from perfect health without a crit, and still they pull it off if they know you're cheering for them, no matter what slaytastic craziness you've designed between sessions.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I find that more and more I prefer stakes that don't rely on reducing on side or the other to 0 hitpoints. I especially find it to be true at higher levels.

But that may be off topic for the thread.

 

[Dausuul]

My rule of fudging is, only fudge numbers that the players can neither see nor deduce. (And fudge as little as possible. PCs tend to be tougher than you think, or at least tougher than I think.)

Thus, I'll never fudge a monster's AC or the save DCs of its abilities, because the players can usually figure those out quickly. If a PC missed the monster with a 15, and I later allow a 14 to connect, any player who's paying attention will know that I'm cheating in their favor. Likewise, since I roll in the open, I don't mess with a monster's attack rolls or saves. (If I rolled behind a screen, attack rolls and saves would become fudgeable, but AC and save DCs would not.)

So, what's that leave? Well, a couple of things. The big one, of course, is the enemy's hit points. There's no way for the players to know how many hit points a monster had at the start of combat. If I think the combat is headed for a TPK, I might mentally knock a bunch of hit points off the monster(s)... or, if an encounter that was supposed to be a big climax looks like it's about to end in a single round, I might put some more hit points on.

Another option is, when the monster has a powerful ability that it hasn't yet used... simply don't use it. Or if the monster has used an ability, convert it on the fly to X uses per day, where X just so happens to be the number of times it's been used. (You can't do the latter if you've been rolling to recharge, though.)

Finally - and this is my preferred method - you can simply be generous about rewarding player creativity. When they come up with crazy ideas to save their fellow PCs, figure out a mechanic on the fly that gives them good odds of success. This will often involve people acting out of turn, which I resolve by requiring the rescuer to expend his/her reaction.