Had a weird one the other day...
The setup
The players were dealing with an appropriately difficult rendition of the Forge of Fury module. After storming the first level and clearing out most of the occupants, they fought the level's big bad boss and won, but one of the characters was dropped to below 20% hit points. Because it was late in the evening, we called it a night soon after.
Yesterday, after I awarded xp from the previous session resulting in a few new level-ups, the party decided to check out the rest of the level and search it thoroughly in case they missed anyone/anything. During the course of the exploration, they fall victim to a trap.
Now, party hit points are maintained by one person, where everyone can see them. In general it makes for less hassle, as the cleric doesn't need to ask around to see who's hurt, but can look directly to see who needs healing. It also makes for less scraps of paper lying around.
Well, the players roll saving throws and I tell them to apply some damage. The player maintaining hit points pulls out the sheet where he was doing so and realizes that the previously damaged rogue is dead. Not "unconscious" dead, but "dead" dead.
Complications:
1) The rogue was a native outsider, so "raise dead" won't work, and there's nobody nearby willing or able to perform a "ressurection", "miracle" or "wish".
2) The campaign is in the mountains, at the start of winter. Getting to a location where those spells may be available is extremely hazardous due to weather conditions alone.
3) The party averages only 6th level, so higher level resurrection magic isn't available from party members, and isn't likely to happen anytime soon, either.
4) Had the player who's character bought it remembered or known he was damaged, his character would have logically used his wand of cure light wounds a few times, or bugged the party healer for some TLC.
5) Now the player who lost the character is fine with rolling up a new one, but the player who maintained the hit points tally feels incredibly remorseful and guilty over the whole affair.
Post-mortem: *cough*
My take on it was everyone was a little overconfident after their success, and got a little careless. We all made mistakes, myself included. It's not like I reminded everyone to check hit points at the start of the session. A few bad rolls were involved. The rogue missed spotting the trap, even though there were plenty of clues, and then failed his reflex save. The healer didn't bother to see if anyone was hurt at the start of the session. And some players were excited at having leveled up with new spells and abilities.
The problem is that some people feel that the character would have known he was seriously hurt, and would have either asked for help or used his wand of cure light wounds to help himself. That the character's player didn't know was because of a book-keeping oversight. As a DM, however, I'm not all that big a fan of assuming things, especially in retrospect. After all, hindsight is 20-20 or better, and if I let this slide, where does it stop? Most people being especially attached to their own characters over the course of this campaign, empathize with the prospect of losing all that hard work, and so there's a fair bit of guilt that they all screwed up flowing around my gaming table that I feel shouldn't be there. After all, it is just a game and we're supposed to be there to have fun.
So the question: What, if anything, should I do about it?
The setup
The players were dealing with an appropriately difficult rendition of the Forge of Fury module. After storming the first level and clearing out most of the occupants, they fought the level's big bad boss and won, but one of the characters was dropped to below 20% hit points. Because it was late in the evening, we called it a night soon after.
Yesterday, after I awarded xp from the previous session resulting in a few new level-ups, the party decided to check out the rest of the level and search it thoroughly in case they missed anyone/anything. During the course of the exploration, they fall victim to a trap.
Now, party hit points are maintained by one person, where everyone can see them. In general it makes for less hassle, as the cleric doesn't need to ask around to see who's hurt, but can look directly to see who needs healing. It also makes for less scraps of paper lying around.
Well, the players roll saving throws and I tell them to apply some damage. The player maintaining hit points pulls out the sheet where he was doing so and realizes that the previously damaged rogue is dead. Not "unconscious" dead, but "dead" dead.
Complications:
1) The rogue was a native outsider, so "raise dead" won't work, and there's nobody nearby willing or able to perform a "ressurection", "miracle" or "wish".
2) The campaign is in the mountains, at the start of winter. Getting to a location where those spells may be available is extremely hazardous due to weather conditions alone.
3) The party averages only 6th level, so higher level resurrection magic isn't available from party members, and isn't likely to happen anytime soon, either.
4) Had the player who's character bought it remembered or known he was damaged, his character would have logically used his wand of cure light wounds a few times, or bugged the party healer for some TLC.
5) Now the player who lost the character is fine with rolling up a new one, but the player who maintained the hit points tally feels incredibly remorseful and guilty over the whole affair.
Post-mortem: *cough*
My take on it was everyone was a little overconfident after their success, and got a little careless. We all made mistakes, myself included. It's not like I reminded everyone to check hit points at the start of the session. A few bad rolls were involved. The rogue missed spotting the trap, even though there were plenty of clues, and then failed his reflex save. The healer didn't bother to see if anyone was hurt at the start of the session. And some players were excited at having leveled up with new spells and abilities.
The problem is that some people feel that the character would have known he was seriously hurt, and would have either asked for help or used his wand of cure light wounds to help himself. That the character's player didn't know was because of a book-keeping oversight. As a DM, however, I'm not all that big a fan of assuming things, especially in retrospect. After all, hindsight is 20-20 or better, and if I let this slide, where does it stop? Most people being especially attached to their own characters over the course of this campaign, empathize with the prospect of losing all that hard work, and so there's a fair bit of guilt that they all screwed up flowing around my gaming table that I feel shouldn't be there. After all, it is just a game and we're supposed to be there to have fun.
So the question: What, if anything, should I do about it?
