"Run away! Run away!" ... what if they don't?

[hawkeyefan]

Yes, though at that point, the chances were vanishingly small. Still non-zero.

I have it set up where encounters occur at a distance of 3d20+30 feet. I don't see stone giants as likely lurkers, so I would not have it try to be stealthy. In this situation, the players chose to have the characters travel at a normal pace, so they are not moving stealthily.

While generally peaceful, stone giants see the world outside their lairs as dreams, so it's possible the giant could be violent since it doesn't need to account for its actions in a dream. I can imagine a scene where each group sees each other and the giant chucks a rock near the PCs on a whim to see what they do. What happens next is up to the players. If they decide to engage in social interaction, I could very quickly spin up a challenge where the stone giant effectively tries to take up a lot of their time. If they decide to fight, well, we have backup characters ready. If they decide to flee, perhaps the stone giant gives chase and we go into the Chase rules to resolve it. Ultimately that would probably come down to the characters being able to hide from the giant, which is a DC 15. If they can't, then perhaps the giant smashes one or more PCs to make a new color that it uses to paint its cave walls.

Okay, the Stone Giant may not have been the best example....I forgot they're less hostile than most giants.

But I think your comment about "if they decide to fight, well, we have backup characters ready" is more what I'm talking about. Sure, it's unlikely they'll win against such a creature at low level, but I don't know if it has to be that they all die.

Really, I'm not against PC failure or death....but a full TPK seems pretty insane to me.

Let's say the giant squishes one of the PCs and the others realize their error and run.....would he really feel the need to chase them down and smash them all?

And if they keep fighting....does he really have to kill them all before they decide to run?

Again, you're being very reasonable in your approach, and I am not trying to criticize your play....I just thought your example was useful for discussion.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I am playing in a 1e game over roll20 currently. After 20 sessions in we are all 2nd level. Yesterday we literally ran into a Hill Giant throwing boulders at us. A Hill Giant encounter at 2nd level. Needless to say we did not attack and had we attacked our fate would be entirely our own making. We ran and went somewhere else.

Just because you are 2nd level does not mean you live in a world without Hill Giants.

Sure, I get that.

My point is that even if you did decide to attack (a foolish action, but hey, we've all done foolish things as players) it doesn't have to result in a TPK.

The DM is the one who put the Hill Giant in your path. So he's contributed to the situation. Now, you may have a bunch of players who are experienced enough to know that a Hill Giant is deadly to low level PCs. But other players may not know that. And if the DM tries to convey it, then it's a matter of DM skill, isn't it? He has to do a good job of accurately portraying that the PCs will be outmatched in a fight.

That can be tough at times.

So my point is that the DM need not wipe out the party in such cases. Sure, they can face consequence for failure. I just don't think that consequence needs to be a TPK every time.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think you're underestimating just how difficult a full TPK really is.

There's always at least one character, and more often several, who will have some sort of escape clause or "getaway car" handy to get out of a sticky situation: invisibility/stealth/rope trick at low levels, flight/haste/wraithform at mid-levels, teleport/planeshift/etc. at higher levels; never mind illusion or deception of any kind at any level. These can all come from either spell or device.

Another variant of the "getaway car" is to have a party martyr along for the trip, a heroic-stupid type who will gladly sacrifice him/herself in order to allow the others to escape. Paladins are good for this.

So of a party of 8 you might well kill 6 but there'll still be those two who escape, and who can then rebuild the party (i.e. recruit the other players' new PCs) and carry on. As player and DM I've seen this scenario play out probably a dozen times or more, but I've only ever seen one true TPK with no survivors.

Lan-"adventuring parties are like the most resilient of weeds - no matter how harshly you prune them they just keep coming back"-efan

No, I get it. I'm not the one offering a TPK as an answer to the question. I'm not questioning the difficulty of a TPK....just questioning how readily it's offered as a "solution" to the problem in the OP.

 

[iserith]

Okay, the Stone Giant may not have been the best example....I forgot they're less hostile than most giants.

But I think your comment about "if they decide to fight, well, we have backup characters ready" is more what I'm talking about. Sure, it's unlikely they'll win against such a creature at low level, but I don't know if it has to be that they all die.

Really, I'm not against PC failure or death....but a full TPK seems pretty insane to me.

Let's say the giant squishes one of the PCs and the others realize their error and run.....would he really feel the need to chase them down and smash them all?

And if they keep fighting....does he really have to kill them all before they decide to run?

Again, you're being very reasonable in your approach, and I am not trying to criticize your play....I just thought your example was useful for discussion.

It would depend on the context, but if the PCs attacked, one character died, and the rest fled, I'd probably drop into the Chase mechanics and see how it resolves. Maybe they all escape the stone giant or maybe another PC gets pasted while the rest get away. "I don't have to run faster than the stone giant - I just have to run faster than you!" That'd no doubt be pretty exciting to play out.

 

[5ekyu]

Sure, I get that.

My point is that even if you did decide to attack (a foolish action, but hey, we've all done foolish things as players) it doesn't have to result in a TPK.

The DM is the one who put the Hill Giant in your path. So he's contributed to the situation. Now, you may have a bunch of players who are experienced enough to know that a Hill Giant is deadly to low level PCs. But other players may not know that. And if the DM tries to convey it, then it's a matter of DM skill, isn't it? He has to do a good job of accurately portraying that the PCs will be outmatched in a fight.

That can be tough at times.

So my point is that the DM need not wipe out the party in such cases. Sure, they can face consequence for failure. I just don't think that consequence needs to be a TPK every time.

*You see three hill giants. Two are feadting on a carcass while the other, smaller giant seems to be hauling wood into a cave.*

... "These must be the giants that group said they escaped from."

"Get em"

Thud thud whomp whomp...

"This is not going well and the third is coming back. Only one giant is down and..."

KATOONKA

"Did the little one just blindside the big one?"

"Yeah..."

"Do we stay and help or get Darius and Laileia out of here?"

Tune in next week...

 

[Kurotowa]

Alll of that brings me to that matter of "evaluating" an opponent's power. The tools to do such a thing are not really emphasized in D&D 5. I suggested to my players that they should, when they spot something or someone and things start going south, they should try and evaluate the threat. I'd ask for insight or perception or investigation checks. I also tried to tell them, especially since they're growing in power, that intimidation might be a powerful tool and avoid them to spend some valuable resources. But I don't know... it feels like they distrust those methods... they don't feel like it's very intuitive. But I have to admit, the game isn't built around them. There are lots of spells to burn or ice your ennemies, but none to tell that they'll most likely tear you to shreds. Only clue my players seem to value for that matter is basic lore, my intonations, and meta-gaming clues ( It's that kind of monster, I know it's bad/fair game/useless...)

I should probably think of some elegant powers and spells meant to evaluate the power or the offensive abilities of a foe.

It's a bit of a Catch-22, isn't it? The DM says, "Well of course you died, you foolishly rushed in to attack a monster that clearly outmatched you." The player retorts, "I don't want to metagame so I didn't memorize the Monster Manual, how was I supposed to know what its CR was?"

Aligning everyone's expectations sometimes requires something that comes poorly to a lot of us: clear, open, direct conversations about how we want the game to run. Does the DM actually expect the players to be able to cite monster CR immediately and make their in-character decisions based on that? Then best to make that explicitly clear. Do the players plan to try and restrict themselves to in-character knowledge and perception? Then the DM really needs to feed them clear information about what the PCs know and perceive in a dangerous situation. It's the clashing expectations where the DM throws in deadly encounters that aren't obviously deadly until the party is engaged and the first PC is making death saves that really cause hurt feelings.

 

[jgsugden]

Intentionally playing badly isn't really role playing, at least role playing anyone else should be playing with for their own safety. Role Playing "my character always fights, goes on suicide missions and doesn't care if he lives or dies" is just another way of telling the DM "No" to everything he is working hard on, and the players "too bad" if they are enjoying the game or their characters.

"Intentionally playing badly" is poor word choice, here. Both players and DMs need to consider the group when they design.

D&D in an RPG - a role playing game. Characters play a role in a story. The players and DM work together to tell a fun and engaging story. Neither the DM, nor the players, should make choices that they know will be 'unfun' for others in the group. However, a character doesn't have to be the epitome of logic to be fun.

If the DM speaks with the players to find their interests and crafts a world of intrigue, diplomacy and espionage in response to the groups requests, and then one player creates a dwarven barbarian that charges in head first and ignores all warning signs, that player is likely betraying the agreed upon design that the DM and players settled upon. If, however, the group is running a published module that is essentially a stand-alone dungeon delve, then the player may not be doing anything wrong by playing a careless and nearly suicidal dwarven barbarian. If he dies, then he can be easily replaced - and it may be fun for the entire group to have the 'Dwarven Trap Detector' in the group.

To respond to another note: TPKs in 5E are easily possible when a party is facing a difficult challenge and they have a little bad luck early. I've seen more than a few. The death save mechanic gives you a chance to save them, but not if everyone goes down, or if there are a lot of damage sources to give them those auto failures. Flying PCs can end up dying very easily if they go unconscious.

 

[Bawylie]

There are Chase mechanics in the DMG. I'm starting to think I'm the only one who uses them.

I don’t care for them at all. In fact I have yet to see chase rules that I WANT to use. That’s another thread altogether though.

 

[iserith]

I don’t care for them at all. In fact I have yet to see chase rules that I WANT to use. That’s another thread altogether though.

They ain't great, but they work well enough in a pinch.

 

[shadowoflameth]

You can use the phrase,' You can attempt to fight that thing *that hasn't noticed you yet, or that lives here but you've not seen,* but it looks suicidal.

If your party is really think on the uptake, have an NPC know what's coming tell them and say 'this foe is beyond any of you. Run!'

And yes, character death should be rare but possible. It isn't scary or heroic unless it can really happen.