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DM advice: How do you NOT kill your party?
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<blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 7397348" data-attributes="member: 2629"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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... </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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...</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jgsugden, post: 7397348, member: 2629"] 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. [/QUOTE]
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