How Do you stop players from making suicidal decsions?

[National Acrobat]

Ok, a little background. First off, I dm a party of 10 characters. All are 12th level and I am running a Liberation of Geoff/Against the Giants 3E campaign. Most of Geoff is free and recently they negotiated the surrender of Gorna from the Drow leaders that were holding the city, allowing the drow to leave in order to prevent uncessary bloodshed and to spare the lives of the slaves in the city. The group is good aligned and decided that allowing the drow to exit the city in order to allow the slaves to avoid perishing in the battle for the city was wise. Having said that, the drow, wanting to save their butts, abandoned and turned over their ogre and giant allies and evacuated. The Drow in question are a trio of females, a Clr3/Ftr4/Blackguard8 of Kiaransalee, a Fighter4/Wiz7/Bladesinger8 and a Cleric 15 of Kiaransalee, plus they have a bodyguard of 5 9th level Female drow fighters and 2 9th level wizards, one an enchanter and one an invoker. The Cleric 15 was taken as hostage for the sake of guaranteeing the drow sticking to their words, and when the appointed time to hand her back was arrived at most of the party argued but the LN Cleric of Ulaa and the Cleric of Heironious reminded them that a negotiated surrender with terms was agreed to and since the drow honored their end, they should as well. The drow then asked for a parley a few days later to negotiate the return of one of their own who was captured and a settlement was agreed upon. The exchange has just taken place outside some dwarven ruins about 30 miles from the Hall of the Fire Giant King that the characters are searching for signs of a passage to the underdark, in order to seal it off. They have just decided to attack the drow listed above because now they are tired of making deals with them. Here is what they have:

Psion 12
Clr9/Abj3 of Ulaa
Rog6/Clr6 of Erevan Ilsere
Rng6/Rog6
Cleric 12 of Heironious
Wizard 12
Rng1/Ftr6/Foe Hunter5
Barb1/Ftr10/Rgr1
Ftr7/Clr5 of Clangeddin
Ftr3/Wiz5/Arcane Archer2

The Drow, having a detect thoughts up during the negotiations, have realized that they are about to be attacked. The party didn't prepare spells for a combat with specialized foes. They prepared spells for an exploration mission. The Drow have stuff like Cat's Grace, Stoneskin, Bull's Strength, Resist Elements, etc. already cast based on their Detect Thoughts knowledge. The Blackguard has Divine Might, Extra Turning, Extra Smiting, Heroic Surge, etc. and everyone knows about Bladesingers. These 3 are supposed to be long term villains and I know that this is gonna be a fatal fight, they weren't intended to combat them yet and the drow are in the process of leaving the area but now that they have picked up the group's intent, they are preparing for a fight. I know and several players believe that they cannot win, but the character's aren't smart enough (one has a 7 int and the other an 8) to figure it out. What do you do?

 

[Furn_Darkside]

What do you do?

Let them do as they intend- then the drow capture them and have some captives of their own for negotiations.

FD

 

[ForceUser@Home]

Suck it up. Your players threw you a curve ball; it happens. Play out the fight accordingly and let the dice fall where they may. The great thing about villains is that you always have more. Next time, if you want your bad guys to have a chance of survival, make sure they have an escape plan (such as a plane shift spell or teleport spell). If someone in the party dies during the encounter, well, that's what resurrection spells are for, no? If you have a TPK, well, the players will firmly remember that the next time they encounter drow.

That's my best advice to you.

 

[Tharkun]

Yup

I would have to say if they decided to attack the drow after they negoiated with them they deserve whatever folly befells their heads, also should that be reason enough to have a slight alignment adjustment?

If I were in that situation I wouldn't have attacked the drow but kept my word. Don't pull *any* punches for them as they messed with drow when they didn't need to...yea "unneeded bloodshed" right.

 

[DynaMup]

Turning things around...

I agree with all the above. Let the dice take their course, and let your players react as they wish. If they are -only- making this apparently suicidal decision because their characters have a low intelligence, I would also reward them for acting in-character. It takes a lot of guts to do things that -YOU- know are stupid, but your -CHARACTER- doesn't.

If some, or all of the characters die, your drow could resurrect them for use in some other fiendish plot. If the drow are slaughtered, perhaps they are replaced with other, tougher villains - and are in fact only a much smaller part of an overall grand plot.

The possibilities are endless, but I never stop players making "suicidal" decisions - because more often than not, they throw up some very, very interesting roleplaying opportunities.

Hope that helps!

 

[Henry]

While "Suck it up" wouldn't be my choice of words, Forceuser has it dead on. Sometimes, the players just have to learn from mistakes. Do keep in mind, however, that the Drow as you described them are not interested in destruction; they are interested in escape. If the fight gets disastrous, then have the drow escape as soon as they have an unopposed escape route.

Perhaps the remaining bloody party members still conscious can drag off the broken bodies of their comrades for help and healing. Lord knows it happened twice in my recent campaign, before the players learned you don't pick a fight that could bury you. One rather mobile fight came all the way down to the party wizard, with no remaining attack spells, PUNCHING out the last opponent, and then dragging the party one by one to a bolt-hole. It was learned that day you do not run through a dungeon picking fights with multiple enemies, to have them gang up on you. (Affectionately known as a "train" in Everquest parlance.)

 

[National Acrobat]

Well, in this case the Drow are going to get an opportunity to eliminate the pesky party that has been foiling their plans for about 2 years now. Now that they are aware the party means to fight, the Drow are going to respond in kind. The other problem with this group, and as a dm, I don't discourage players from doing what they want to, because that isn't my role. The F3/Wiz5/Arcane Archer is a 5th level Enchanter. Yes you heard me, enchanter. The 12th level wizard likes spells that are "neat" not damaging. He takes very esoteric spells. I personally feel that I am gonna slaughter them. The campaign has lasted 2 years or thereabouts and in this case, a couple of charismatic PC's have convinced the rest that the time is now to end the Drow menace. I dunno, I guess the dice will fall, but I am dealing with a bunch of people that cannot agree with what time it is and now this. Very frustrating. From the Drow standpoint they cannot believe this. The group has dogged them with armies for several years, defeating their allies and retaking the land and now they get them alone out in the open. Oh well, new campaign time.

 

[Rube]

Hehehe

Something like that happened to our party too.

We had been manipulated, hounded, and generally terrorized by the same enemy since we were level 5, and when we were 17th level we actually got a chance to meet the creep face to face. Now, the creep was a 22nd level (or thereabouts) Illithid Lich, who was fully expecting our arrival and had had time enough to prepare for a possible attack.

There were five of us in the party, and four of us KNEW that to try to attack the Lich in that setting meant death. Our foolhardy halfling sorcerer, on the other hand, had gotten tired of dealing with the Lich (like your party) and against the Alathune's advice began casting a spell, something the Alathune had warned us beforehand that he would consider an aggressive action.

He wiped out our entire party in 1 round.

The only reason our campaign hadn't ended right there was that the wizard and the sorcerer who had caused the whole thing, had managed to escape via their contingencies. They came back and had us raised from the dead.

We don't let the halfling make group decisions anymore.

-Rube

 

[TiQuinn]

It's the PC's call. Heck, some of them even know they're going to get their butts handed to them! One idea though: Can the Drow summon any kind of reinforcements? Is the party bound and determined to fight to the death? It seems like capture by the drow may be a good idea here. It's plausible: The villains have the PCs where they want them, and are going to make the classic villain mistake...they're going to bring them back to the Vault of the Drow as slaves....trophies, so to speak. The trick here is making sure the party doesn't fight to the death, and putting them up against overwhelming odds would help. Right now, it sounds like the party thinks they can take the drow one on one. But if they found out that 30 drow were waiting for them....it might be different.

 

[ForceUser@Home]

PCs are notoriously difficult to capture. Lots of them prefer death and rolling a new character to being a hostage, in my experience.