Underpowered Group Found BBEG

Retreater said:

My group has bypassed much of the dungeon. By sending out their scout, they found the most direct route to the villain but have avoided exploring much of the dungeon. As a result, they didn't encounter most of the side encounters (and thus did not have the opportunity to deal with them at all - whether by stealth, roleplay, combat, or other means). They have missed out on vital XP and magic items, and now are about two levels too low to deal with the dragon and poorly equipped.

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They didn't deal with them by stealth?!? But you just said they basically did by scouting everything out and finding the most direct route to the villain. That sure sounds like avoiding everything by stealth to me!

Retreater said:

Do you send them back up to "clear out" the dungeon and farm for XP and loot? Let them face the dragon underpowered (and possible TPK)? Handwave the XP and treasure to make them appropriately leveled to fight the dragon? Or something else?

I would normally handwave the XP, but in this case I'm running for a group of newer players, and I think they need to earn the XP (not just mechanically, but they need to learn their characters and how to deal with certain challenges).

What do you think?

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Going back and clearing stuff out would be a real pain in the ass after they played smart by scouting things. Sure, they don't experience one of the narrative tropes of the genre (clearing everything out) or being stuck on the railroad tracks, but I don't really consider that a bad thing. Next time, give them clear, specific objectives such as "Find the Blade of Draconic Sorrow that the beast keeps hidden and under guard somewhere in his domain, for it is prophesied to be his downfall." And they'll realize they have to pick a few fights before they beeline to the big bad.

Sometimes a TPK really is a result of the parties choices. The DM can drop hints if he/she so wishes but it is up to the party to take them. As you say, they are new players and sometimes new players don't understand (or don't care) the consequences of their choices. A DM can only drop so many hints and it could be that character death is the only thing that will drive home this point?

billd91 said:

They didn't deal with them by stealth?!? But you just said they basically did by scouting everything out and finding the most direct route to the villain. That sure sounds like avoiding everything by stealth to me!

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Not really. They didn't actually do any exploring into the lairs and never got to the point of having to make Stealth checks against creatures. They didn't get close enough to actually know there were creatures in the other passages. It was basically "this way looks right" and they went that way. Then when they got to the door that needed a special key to unlock (which would have been found in the secondary areas), they just muscled their way past it.

[We're playing "Forge of Fury" from "Tales from the Yawning Portal" btw]

CydKnight said:

Sometimes a TPK really is a result of the parties choices.

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Sure, but it's unsatisfying when a TPK is the direct result of the parties "good" choices!

Do you really want to reinforce the idea (remember, new players) that the best or even only way is to methodically plod through the entire dungeon and constantly throw yourself into danger, even if a better route clearly exists?

CydKnight said:

The DM can drop hints if he/she so wishes but it is up to the party to take them. As you say, they are new players and sometimes new players don't understand (or don't care) the consequences of their choices. A DM can only drop so many hints and it could be that character death is the only thing that will drive home this point?

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This isn't the result of hints, or lack of hints. It's apparently the result of a flaw in the adventure, where the PCs can bypass most of the dungeon and get to the BBEG early.

I think people who are saying "They must face the dragon as is, and let the dice fall where they may!" are missing the point here. The adventure isn't supposed to run this way - either the designers or the DM goofed and this fact needs to be recognized!

Solutions:

1) recognize that the players DID essentially beat the dungeon and milestone XP them up to the correct spot where they would be accordingly. This rewards them because they can face the Dragon fresh AND it seems fair to reward rather than penalize them for playing well.

2) Really drive it home that they are NOT ready for the Dragon and let them escape without facing it, or (as suggested by a few posters) give them a direct mission to find something else in the dungeon so they can XP up. This will work, but frankly, I don't like it as much as option 1 because your essentially saying - sorry guys you didn't follow the railroad - try again.

3) Break immersion and tell the group "look guys, this won't work well unless you go the route intended by the module." In a published adventure that went off the rails, this is not unacceptable - it's certainly more acceptable that throwing the group into a likely TPK because there was a mistake made by the module! Again though, why not just reward them for good (or lucky) play instead and give them the XP they would have otherwise gotten but for the mistake in the module (or the DM in letting them past a door they should not have been able to open).

I don't like the idea of the DM telling the players what their characters should do. I also don't like the idea of xp farming. Why should they be at a penalty because they were cautious and took the most expeditious route? You'd think they'd be rewarded for that because they used their resources appropriately and put their talents to good use.

1. Do they have any reason to explore the rest of the dungeon? Have you dropped any clues that there are magical goodies that will help them defeat the dragon? If not, why would they bother?

2. if they actually think their characters can 'respawn', you need to have a good out of character chat with them. Ask them how often their real-world pets respawn when they get hit by a car. On one hand, a TPK against the dragon could be a good lesson but, that said, I think before they encounter the dragon, you should have a conversation about the reality that you are willing to kill off their characters. Ask them if they are willing to make new ones. You need to do this so they know what the stakes are. If they think they will 'respawn', then they will never consider retreating. This is a viable tactic. And then they can start going through the dungeon trying to recruit help from the other denizens living there.

3. Does the dragon have to kill them? Maybe the dragon just knocks them out to eat them later. Maybe another one of the denizens comes in and helps them escape and asks the PCs to rid them of the dragon and offers help.

There's lots of opportunity for story-hooks. Please don't make them farm xp.

Even after the dragon....however that’s handled....ifthe PCs defeat it or of they run from it, won’t the rest of the dungeon likely be aware?

Based on te more recent comments by [MENTION=42040]Retreater[/MENTION], it seems like it’s more a flaw in how the dungeon’s presented. I think that based on that, it’s a bad idea to punish the PCs for poor design. Have a group of villains come along and the PCs can get dragged into combat which then alerts the rest of the denizens. Or have them hide and overhear about the magic gear that was taken from the last group of adventurers that came through.

There are several ways you can take things. I’m not familiar enough with Forge of Fury to know the whole scenario, but there are plenty of general solutions.

Retreater said:

My group has bypassed much of the dungeon. By sending out their scout, they found the most direct route to the villain but have avoided exploring much of the dungeon. As a result, they didn't encounter most of the side encounters (and thus did not have the opportunity to deal with them at all - whether by stealth, roleplay, combat, or other means). They have missed out on vital XP and magic items, and now are about two levels too low to deal with the dragon and poorly equipped.

Do you send them back up to "clear out" the dungeon and farm for XP and loot? Let them face the dragon underpowered (and possible TPK)? Handwave the XP and treasure to make them appropriately leveled to fight the dragon? Or something else?

I would normally handwave the XP, but in this case I'm running for a group of newer players, and I think they need to earn the XP (not just mechanically, but they need to learn their characters and how to deal with certain challenges).

What do you think?

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This happens to everyone eventually. I call it STRAIGHT TO THE NAGA syndrome. I was running N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God and my party of over achieving players located a secret door and bypassed almost the entire XP generating dungeon to face a spirit naga as 1st & 2nd level characters. They died.

Let events unfold naturally. If the players have thus far assumed that any encounter is a winnable straight up fight then now is the time to teach them otherwise. The strategic decision to engage, or perhaps do some scouting and retreat for the time being is something for the players to decide. You won't help them become better players by 'fixing' things so that they are more evenly matached against whatever they happen to run into.

If the players are aided every time they try and bite off more than they can chew, they will get accustomed to victory being more or less assured regardless of planning, preparation or capability. Armed with that kind of certainty why not just seek out Orcus at 5th level? Heck the DM will make sure that it will be a winnable fight so why not? That kind of attitude needs to be nipped in the bud before it takes root.

If you expect your players to behave as if they could lose then the possibility has to be real.

ExploderWizard said:

This happens to everyone eventually. I call it STRAIGHT TO THE NAGA syndrome. I was running N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God and my party of over achieving players located a secret door and bypassed almost the entire XP generating dungeon to face a spirit naga as 1st & 2nd level characters. They died.

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Did the group have any clue that they were completely outmatched? Was there any way (other than go through the dungeon "correctly") for them to, if not win, then escape the encounter? One problem with just about every iteration of D&D is that running away is ridiculously difficult and often not the option it should be.

If this was a case of the group, through good play, has essentially doomed themselves - and that's not satisfying at all.

It's essentially a Tomb of Horrors "you've turned left instead of right and now you're all DEAD mwahahaha!!" scenario, and for a home game - that's usually the exact opposite of fun.

ExploderWizard said:

Let events unfold naturally. If the players have thus far assumed that any encounter is a winnable straight up fight then now is the time to teach them otherwise. The strategic decision to engage, or perhaps do some scouting and retreat for the time being is something for the players to decide. You won't help them become better players by 'fixing' things so that they are more evenly matached against whatever they happen to run into.

If the players are aided every time they try and bite off more than they can chew, they will get accustomed to victory being more or less assured regardless of planning, preparation or capability. Armed with that kind of certainty why not just seek out Orcus at 5th level? Heck the DM will make sure that it will be a winnable fight so why not? That kind of attitude needs to be nipped in the bud before it takes root.

If you expect your players to behave as if they could lose then the possibility has to be real.

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I certainly agree that coddling the players is bad and doesn't do them any favors.

But putting them in a no win scenario isn't good either -especially if it's as result of poor design.

I rarely use dungeons per se in my campaign, but I do have a lot of questions about this scenario. So I'm kind of ignoring the whole "what do we do now" aspect of this for a moment.

I think a bigger question is "How did a scout find a shortcut?" and "Why is there a shortcut?". Here's the thing. When I come up with an adventure arc, I never plan for the path the PCs are going to take. I don't plan out "if they do X then Y but there's this other path Z that could bypass X". Instead I think about who's who, what the structure is, what are the motivations. Detailed maps aren't set in stone until they've been used. If I don't want the PCs to find a shortcut, the shortcut doesn't exist even if I'm running a mod or I had one in there I thought they'd never find.

Don't get me wrong, I don't change things to **** over players because they came up with a creative solution. Creativity should be rewarded but part of the game is providing a reasonable challenge which may include facing an extremely deadly encounter with a way to escape. The goal is for everyone to have fun. You should discuss with the group how deadly they want the campaign to be but in general a TPK is no fun.

So how to deal with this now? BBEG is a dragon? Okay, those adventurer types are crunchy and taste good with ketchup, but they're pesky. I'm a dragon who has survived centuries because I'm paranoid. I'm not going to leave an unguarded back door. If I do leave an unguarded back door it's really a trap that leads to an illusion to trick novice idiots. So instead of facing the dragon, the group finds themselves in a situation where they are trapped and have to fight their way out. It should be an inescapable trap, but there's an unexpected ally that comes to their rescue or the trap is so little used there's a door that has practically rusted through. There are several stories that could come from this idea - is the ally really on the PCs side or is it just someone using them? Does the ally pop in now and then to aid the party, or are they just trying to gain the PC's trust? If the trap is so old that it's falling apart, is it simple negligence or is the dragon getting complacent?

For the rest of the dungeon, there should be a reason for it to be there other than to give the PCs something to kill. Even monsters that are sent in as fodder have a reason and motivation for being there. Getting to the BBEG should not be possible without getting through the front lines.

Mort said:

Did the group have any clue that they were completely outmatched? Was there any way (other than go through the dungeon "correctly") for them to, if not win, then escape the encounter? One problem with just about every iteration of D&D is that running away is ridiculously difficult and often not the option it should be.

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The group came in silently at the rear of the creature's lair and had a chance to observe the monster without being seen. They thought that the element of surprise would be enough to ensure victory. They were mistaken. Yes they could have seen the creature and exited as quietly as they entered but opted instead to attack.

Ambushing PCs with overwhelmingly powerful foes when nothing has been done to invite such an encounter is not really fair I agree. When the players have options and choose to charge forth that is another matter.

Mort said:

If this was a case of the group, through good play, has essentially doomed themselves - and that's not satisfying at all.

It's essentially a Tomb of Horrors "you've turned left instead of right and now you're all DEAD mwahahaha!!" scenario, and for a home game - that's usually the exact opposite of fun.



I certainly agree that coddling the players is bad and doesn't do them any favors.

But putting them in a no win scenario isn't good either -especially if it's as result of poor design.

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I would like to address the the concept of poor design for a moment. Too often poor design is thrown out as a catch-all excuse whenever an "un-winnable" combat scenario is a distinct possibility within the context of the adventure. I don't expect to be able to chop through any and all situations with brute force in a role playing game. There are choices that can be made that don't involve hitting something with a sword or fleeing for your life. Some situations might require parley and negotiation to resolve. It becomes difficult to resolve such encounters when the players always almost without exception, start fighting first.

One issue that contributes to the problem of every obstacle looking like a nail is that all PC classes in the last few editions of D&D have been forged into hammers. When every member of the party is more or less a top tier fighter in their own right, it naturally follows that hitting things first becomes the go to mode of operation, the logic being that they wouldn't have all those combat abilities if they were not supposed to use them allthetime.

Once the mentality of being a berserk murderhobo in any conflict and the experience of this actually working take hold it is difficult to expect sane, rational, or prudent behavior from players.