TPK scenario

[wedgeski]

Fortunately, occassionally a shadow or two flies back to the room they came from and waits a couple rounds. We figure the room heals them. This is kind of bad (healing up the damage we've managed to do), but it is also good (it gives us a break from four attacks).

Do you know for sure the room was healing them? This has the chocolate-y whiff of DM fudginess to me (correctly on the DM's part, I might add).

 

[shilsen]

Do you know for sure the room was healing them? This has the chocolate-y whiff of DM fudginess to me (correctly on the DM's part, I might add).

I agree. As soon as I read this scenario my first reaction was that the DM was fudging and not doing a very good job of it either.

 

[Bullgrit]

Wow. So much negativity directed at DMs, here.

Let's back this up and look at the DM error here. In all the party the only magic weapon is an exotic weapon a non-melee character has proficiency with, a whip for crying out loud, no dependable damage magic, and the players are run through a gauntlet of incorporeal, ability draining undead before being dropped into an overpowering group of regenerating shadows. This has "total party slaughter" written all over it, but with 24 hours to retrieve the MacGuffin and save the world the DM does not really allow for retreat and recovery. When you do try and retreat, the DM makes a ruling to worsen the situation.

There was no DM error from my point of view -- as a Player in the game. [I am the paladin of the group.] As for our magic equipment, the bard chose to have her whip-dagger magicked. I could have had my sword enhanced, but I chose to get full plate armor. [There is irony here, that as soon as I get my heavy armor, our first opponents are incorporeal. Though, from the attitude of the responses so far, I'm sure someone will say that the DM must have chosen wraiths and shadows to screw over my high AC character. :-( ] In our town adventures (against humanoid-type enemies), the bard has been the best fighter, beleive it or not. What with tripping and disarming, etc.

And actually, it's 48 hours to retrieve the item. We have retreated (after the shadows encounter), received healing (restorations) from our patron, and are going back in the dungeon with a cleric ally on our next game session.

I think it's pretty clear the DM wanted all of you to die!

I think it's pretty clear the DM was letting us do what we wanted, and was willing to let the adventure play out as we played it.

When a DM gets the group together he either informs the party that they need a cleric, or he adapts the encounters to make them bearable. Undead CRs are fairly predicated upon the assumption that clerics will be present.

I always assume that if the Players don't make a well-rounded party (with the four core covered), they are responsible for dealing with their weaknesses. I don't expect a DM to tailor the world and opposition to avoid our foolishness.

Personally I think the DM was being rather over the top throwing sequential non corporeal undead against a group obviously unsuited to fighting them.

In hindsight, we should have realized that this dungeon would be occupied only by undead, and should have prepared better for it (including bringing in a cleric NPC) -- we were told it was haunted. The allip, we retreated from (after we pulled out the one PC who kind of fell into its "trap"); and we avoided it the second and third times we had to pass its area. The wraith, we attacked needlessly -- it was only guarding its room, which we had no reason to invade for this adventure.

I'd have teleported out BOTH characters when the sheet of paper was torn. Not strictly in-line with the rules for the spell (I believe it's Word of Recall), but it would save those two, and convinced the other two to "tear out of there too". In justifying later, you could say it was within the weight limit of the spell, or some such excuse, if anyone looked it up and questioned it.

Or the DM could follow the rules and run it as he did, with no need to justify anything later. Those papers were not our only way out of that situation.

Here's a rules problem that the DM should have been more specific about. . . . If Identify was cast on these, it should have revealed whether they would teleport more than 1 person.

I thought the DM was pretty specific about it: one person per torn paper. We did not identify the papers, we were just told by captured bad guys how they worked.

Honestly I suspect the DM fudged at this point to keep you alive but that sort of thing is virtually impossible to know especially just from your post.

I don't think he fudged anything. There was no reason for him to. A TPK (near or full) wouldn't have ended the campaign, what with a town nearby that can supply more adventurers.

Agreed and since you seem to get that, breath a sigh of relief, have a quick talk with the DM about encounter balance, retreats, and time limits, and thank your luck.

I did talk with the DM: I said, "We were fools to stay in that fight. I can't beleive we survived. Thanks for a good game."

Do you know for sure the room was healing them? This has the chocolate-y whiff of DM fudginess to me (correctly on the DM's part, I might add).

Again, I don't think the DM was fudging. It wasn't necessary, and I don't think it's his personality to fudge for "story". (Thank goodness.) As for the room healing the shadows: We don't know for sure, but it was only after being wounded that the shadows flew back to the room. There might have been something else going on there, but we don't know anything for certain.

As soon as I read this scenario my first reaction was that the DM was fudging and not doing a very good job of it either.

Wow. You guys are terribly suspicious. One: If he was fudging, he was doing a great job of keeping it hidden. Two: If he wanted to fudge to save us, he could have done a better job -- like having the shadows unable to leave the room at all (after all, we had a good taste of what they could do after they zapped the paladin in the first round standing in the doorway).

I'm amazed that I'm having to defend the DM's game. I'm a Player in the game, and we nearly had a TPK purely through the stupidity of us Players (and all of us have agreed on this point), I post the miracle on a message board for discussion, and then I have to defend the DM. I expected to have to defend my dumb actions and poor play, not the DM's reactions and good play.

By the way, the adventure is part of an ENnie and Origins award winning series that we've been playing from 1st level. There have been some side stints between the main adventures, but this particular adventure is, I beleive, right out of the book.

The DM has also been running another group through this same series, and he has, here and there, mentioned how the other group handled some of the encounters (in the whole series). The other group has a mage and cleric, and so handled this part much better than we. But our group handled the city-based adventure better than the other.

Wow, I'm surprised. Posting and discussing an interesting game anecdote on ENWorld isn't as much fun as I expected it to be.

Bullgrit

 

[ForceUser]

Our party:

Human Paladin 4
Human Rogue 4
Human Bard 4
Elf Fighter 4 (archer)

I need read no farther than this. TPK? Duh. No healer.

 

[wedgeski]

Again, I don't think the DM was fudging. It wasn't necessary, and I don't think it's his personality to fudge for "story". (Thank goodness.) As for the room healing the shadows: We don't know for sure, but it was only after being wounded that the shadows flew back to the room. There might have been something else going on there, but we don't know anything for certain.

To be clear, I have no problem with a bit of fudge here and there, and if that is what was happening in this instance, I support it given everything else you've described about the encounter. I have noticed the blame being piled upon the DM in this thread too.

I always assume that if the Players don't make a well-rounded party (with the four core covered), they are responsible for dealing with their weaknesses. I don't expect a DM to tailor the world and opposition to avoid our foolishness.

I don't agree with you here. The game design really has to have a core group in mind, but I have found the need to tinker with encounters for 'deviant' parties (of which I've had my fair share). The balance to your point is that I don't want to force players to take certain classes simply because they feel the party is missing them.

I thought the DM was pretty specific about it: one person per torn paper. We did not identify the papers, we were just told by captured bad guys how they worked.

Given that, I would probably have applied le fudge and allowed the paper to be abused in this way, especially if it seemed like the only alternative was a TPK, but totally his call at the end of the day.

Wow, I'm surprised. Posting and discussing an interesting game anecdote on ENWorld isn't as much fun as I expected it to be.

I'm having fun.

 

[buzzard]

I always assume that if the Players don't make a well-rounded party (with the four core covered), they are responsible for dealing with their weaknesses. I don't expect a DM to tailor the world and opposition to avoid our foolishness.

Do you expect a DM to choose adventures at your given level of experience or do you just accept that he's throw whatever he purchases at you no matter the specified level? It really is the same thing. Throwing an encouter like this at an unsuitable party is like throwing a +1 or +2 module at a group. You certainly can do it, and heck some would even see it as realistic, but I don't see it as good DMing. Part of good DMing is gauging a suitable encounter. This wasn't one for the party in question.

In hindsight, we should have realized that this dungeon would be occupied only by undead, and should have prepared better for it (including bringing in a cleric NPC) -- we were told it was haunted. The allip, we retreated from (after we pulled out the one PC who kind of fell into its "trap"); and we avoided it the second and third times we had to pass its area. The wraith, we attacked needlessly -- it was only guarding its room, which we had no reason to invade for this adventure.

You probably could have mitigated it somewhat. However the DM ought to react as well. He could have offered that NPC cleric. If the Big Bad Event is coming, maybe someone would have offered to help who knew about it. As DM I generally try to help things along so that there is at least a decent chance of success.

buzzard

 

[haakon1]

I always assume that if the Players don't make a well-rounded party (with the four core covered), they are responsible for dealing with their weaknesses. I don't expect a DM to tailor the world and opposition to avoid our foolishness.

Nod, but as a DM, I try to make sure the players know they are going into battle without the right tools, and I tend to make replacements a little more available. For example, the NPC who hired this party might say gravely, "No cleric? Oh dear, my friend Rupert can sell you some Cure Light Wounds potions, but that might not be enough -- legend says those ruins are haunted!"

 

[krunchyfrogg]

If I were the DM, the Rogue would be getting tons of extra XP for actually running away.

 

[Sanackranib]

I just have 2 questions:

1)ere was the party cleric? a 4th level cleric could have 2 lesser restorations per day. if you are adventuring for yourselves this is when you go back to town and spend a few days healing up (not to do so invites death) or if you are adventuring on behalf of some one else or an organization ie: church you go get healed up from your ability damage or trade that whip dagger in and get a wand of lesser restoration. (the group I run had to do that very thing although it was a misc magic item not weapon that they had to trade in for a partially charged wand)

2) exactly what constitues an "emergency" if I was the paladin when i saw the shadows or was walking arround with a 6 strength id have torn that paper in a second . . .