I killed a character, twice!

[Riastlin]

Wow, it's amazing just how much difference in philosophies is revealed in the discussion here.

While I want to be supportive of the OP, I have to side with the "Are you nuts?" crowd. If I were one of those players (not just the one who died twice) I think I would be pretty ticked off about that encounter. The Dominated status is not fun, and the way it was used seems harsh.

I think we all agree that the encounter could/should have been designed better; however, mistakes do happen and the poor design really did not result in a player being singled out

As for the comments that a party with 4 strikers was the cause of the defeat, it's hard for me to picture how a couple of healing surges triggered by a leader would have helped, or how a controller forcing one of the five flying incubi to land would have made a difference. Sure, there are places where a balanced party would make a big difference, but I don't see it in this case. Can anyone give an actual example of how a non-striker could have turned the tide?

Defender marks one or more of the incubi (potentially all of them depending on which defender/items/powers/etc.

Controller stuns/dazes/dominates/etc.

Leader not only has the two standard heals but usually has powers that heal (heck the cleric has at-wills that heal/grant temp hps), can grant extra saving throws (frequently with bonuses), boost ally defenses/attacks, debuff monster defenses/attacks.

Any of these things would have helped immensely in this situation.

Overall, I think that death by falling is far underrated as a source of total or partial PKs. In the campaigns I play in, fully half of all character deaths have been by falling. Frankly, I think it would be worth the time for the esteemed creators of 4e to do an article on how to add risk of falling to an encounter without making it unexpectedly deadly.

Agreed. And has been mentioned its the drop as much as anything that made the encounter so difficult since once a PC was dropped he/she was effectively out of the encounter given the 100 foot climb to get back into combat.

Finally, let me just make a plea to DMs: You ask us - nay, beg, implore or even require us - to come up with great, detailed backgrounds for our characters. You want us to roleplay with relish and gusto, to dive into the character and make it come alive. And then, more often than I think is appropriate, you kill them off. The net result is that with each successive character generated, your players feel less and less excitement about doing all that great background stuff. Why bother, when the character's family, friends, former lover, second grade study partner, and latent lycanthropy never make an appearance at all due to premature demise?

Obviously, this is worthy of its own thread, so I will leave it there.

I'll just be brief here since it is a bit of a derail. Certainly there are bad DMs out there (just as there are bad players). But despite my sometimes harsh words about PC deaths do/should happen, I can only really recall about 8 PC deaths over 10+ years of DM'ing and numerous campaigns. Just because I'm not afraid to let a PC die doesn't mean I kill them off with regularity. Ironically though, the players seem to be having more fun as the campaigns become more difficult (I use to be pretty care-bearish toward the PCs).

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Finally, let me just make a plea to DMs: You ask us - nay, beg, implore or even require us - to come up with great, detailed backgrounds for our characters. You want us to roleplay with relish and gusto, to dive into the character and make it come alive. And then, more often than I think is appropriate, you kill them off. The net result is that with each successive character generated, your players feel less and less excitement about doing all that great background stuff. Why bother, when the character's family, friends, former lover, second grade study partner, and latent lycanthropy never make an appearance at all due to premature demise?

This drifts heavily into another favorite subject of mine: managing player expectation.

If the player comes to the table with an Aragorn style back story for their PC, they are going to be very disappointed when giant frogs kill the character.

If a player comes to the table with Bob the Farmer, he's probably going to be over shadowed if the game is a Lord of the Rings style Epic.

The DM, before the start of the game, should discuss what style of game the players would enjoy. If the group, both DM and players, decide on a gritty, life is cheap and death is common game, the DM should encourage simple character backgrounds with few hooks. Gameplay should define the character more then their back story. When orcs kill Ted the Butcher's Son, Bob the Farmer will grow to hate them.

Likewise, if an Epic style game is agreed upon where player back story is used heavily for inspiration, killing off characters quickly will hurt the game. The player has made a heavy time investment before the start of the game and the DM is not respecting the effort he put into crafting the shared universe of the game.

 

[Aegeri]

It's because of trying to think and behave in a way that makes some sort of sense plus does not use metagame thinking for the decision-making process.

I could argue you're doing the exact same thing. You're metagaming assuming there must be a chance of survival staying on the roof. In reality, daemons are known to tear their victims to shreds and do horrific things to them. Even death is preferable to being outnumbered and captured by daemons.

So in effect, you're metagaming just as badly, which is ironic given this is your primary defense. I'm seeing no problem with "running" from a fight than dooming myself to be horrifically mauled or eaten alive by daemons like the Incubus. Also, in defense of me and degrading the strength of your point is the observation that both the previous characters who fell off survived. This would indicate there is a chance of survival falling off.

No chance of survival staying on there. In all honesty, the daemons didn't need to push her off, a few trivial coup de graces next round and dead either way.

If I'm on the roof of an office building and there are five guys up there trying to beat my ass to death... my thought process goes this way

Where in this is the observation that bob from accounting threw himself off just before you and survived? Your argument about metagaming rings hollow, because we already know the character would have noticed her companions survived falling off and daemons have a reputation for being utterly merciless. In fact, I'm going to argue YOU are metagaming, because you assume that the DM will ensure the game is even or winnable (EG there is a way to survive the encounter by staying on the roof, instead of a quick horrible death at the hands of the daemons).

So in effect, you're metagaming worse than I am with my suggestion.

better proposition that definitely dying from a 100 foot fall.

What's definite about it? Two characters have already survived that exact fall. It was being knocked unconscious and thrown off that killed the character.

Perhaps you should read the situation again, because right now you're metagaming terribly.

So for this PC doing everything in her power NOT to go hurtling down to certain doom was in no way a bad decision looking at it purely from a scenic point of view.

It's still a bad decision, especially when two characters have already survived it and the chance of survival staying on there was zero. Oh look, staying on there got the character killed! I think that supports my argument a bit better from what actually happened than yours.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Wow, it's amazing just how much difference in philosophies is revealed in the discussion here.

I agree with you. There are so many comments in this thread that I want to debate, I'm just not sure I could field them all. Besides, others seem to be handling the discussion well enough, and I doubt I really have anything new to add.

In short, however, it takes brass balls to make a post like this, and invite the players. To the OP, take all this as constructive criticism and your game will increase tremendously in the fun factor department. To the OP's players, give him another chance. As much as every player wants it, DM's aren't perfect and it's really a hard job, so give him a chance to make mistakes--as long as he learns from them. And by posting here clearly he is willing to learn.

PS. To the OP's players, you are not absolved from your poor party makeup. As noted in this thread, expect more deaths, even from well-design (but tough) encounters. Anything that can challenge four strikers can easily turn into a TPK. Keep this in mind as it will take significant effort to keep coming up with challenging, interesting, fun, and well-designed encounters. I strongly recommend you take this back to the party and reconsider two players creating new characters (leader, defender).

PPS. To the OP, consider using a companion NPC to add a fifth element, as it were.

 

[Aegeri]

PPS. To the OP, consider using a companion NPC to add a fifth element, as it were.

I tried this in one of my games to add a defender and it just drained my will to live and interest in the game. The PCs don't like controlling a character that isn't theirs - honestly that is fair enough - so I usually had to play it. If there is something worse than playing "chess" against yourself then I don't know what it might be. It was the worst decision I ever made, instead of just manning up and talking to my players about one of them switching to a defender.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What's definite about it? Two characters have already survived that exact fall. It was being knocked unconscious and thrown off that killed the character.

When exactly in those 12 seconds (2 rounds) of fierce battle did the fighter (when not fighting off the domination and/or trying to save herself from falling off the building) find the time to turn away from a half-dozen monsters trying to kill her to glance over the edge and see that ONE HUNDRED FEET BELOW HER that her friends somehow landed saefly amongst the hard rocks, got up and then ran off? I don't know about you, but I'd be a little busy at that point. Never mind the fact that surviving a 100 foot fall is practically impossible and thus the idea that one of her friends might have survived was foolish at best... thinking that ALL her companions survived the fall is nigh on ridiculous. UNLESS the fighter's player just happened to be sitting at a game table to witness the players of her PCs friend's happened to roll damage in such a way that they all somehow survived this miraculous fall.

But whatever, dude. I'm not going to convince you... you're not going to convince me. So be it.

 

[Aegeri]

When exactly in those 12 seconds (2 rounds) of fierce battle did the fighter (when not fighting off the domination and/or trying to save herself from falling off the building) find the time to turn away from a half-dozen monsters

There were 2 creatures attacking initially with a third technically removed from play. That is less than six at the time there were only 2 characters on the roof. So it's not actually that bad at the time.

Also if it WAS half a dozen of them, facing six daemons that are definitely going to kill me or a fall that will potentially kill me, so this isn't a hard decision to me at all. Unless you're metagaming heavily like you are and assuming the DM will have the daemons spare you mercy or not outright just tear you to pieces easily when they hugely outnumber you. That would, in the situation you identify it as being a game inherently so the actual monsters would be less lethal - completely against the fluff and concept of daemons as a whole - than a drop that you've already seen three of your companions survive.

trying to kill her to glance over the edge and see that ONE HUNDRED FEET BELOW HER that her friends somehow landed saefly amongst the hard rocks, got up and then ran off?

The general shouting and whole concept of "They aren't actually dead", plus the fact they are being forced to go over the edge to notice that in fact, their friends would be alive and moving down there. Good to see you're moving the goalposts now though as your original argument is firmly crippled.

Never mind the fact that surviving a 100 foot fall is practically impossible

Three characters already did the impossible, disproving your argument entirely as without merit in this case. The idea of you and I surviving such a fall is one thing, someone who is especially hard and trained as an adventurer is - that's entirely a different story. Also the OP never specified how many rounds it was between the first two going over and the final two PCs failing their saves. She could have had more time, but the time given is still more than enough and a few shouts or similar would indicate they were still alive (those are free actions, BTW and what else do they have to do anyway at the time?).

and thus the idea that one of her friends might have survived was foolish at best...

Except for the whole them being alive aspect after surviving a fall you claim is impossible three individual times. That's not impossible to me.

UNLESS the fighter's player just happened to be sitting at a game table to witness the players of her PCs friend's happened to roll damage in such a way that they all somehow survived this miraculous fall.

There are numerous individual reasons this never comes to metagaming whatsoever. Personally, you're the one metagaming in this situation now because I dispute heavily the character wouldn't be able to realize the others survived in this situation - given they are going over the edge enough to get a good view.

100 ft is hardly out of a persons sight and many spells have such a range. Being able to see the companions below who might be seriously hurt, but actually alive gives a strong argument that standing and dying to four daemons is a dumber idea. One of us has a suggestion that gets their character killed - who would you listen to?

 

[Infiniti2000]

I tried this in one of my games to add a defender and it just drained my will to live and interest in the game.

And I tried it and it worked great. It works great for others who post on these boards, too. Therefore, there's strong evidence it could work for Incendax, but he won't know until he tries. One thing's for sure, though, is that it will make designing the encounters a lot easier and will make for less deadly combats. If that's a goal, then this is a good option to investigate and pursue.

 

[bbjore]

After my earlier post, I've mulled over your problem for a few days, and I think I left out one key piece of advice. I think the problem is that your player feels you singled out her PC. There's one really easy fix for that. You should just mercilessly kill every PC over and over and over. Pretty soon, all your players will be grateful any time they manage to survive, and nobody will worry about whether or not you were being unfair to them.

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

I've read the whole thread and I've killed plenty of characters over the years in various editions and other RPG's so some quick thoughts:

1) No, you didn't target the player in the first death - she got up during combat and apparently did not try to escape but instead tried to continue the battle - big mistake and a good way to get killed. The character was "blinded by rage" or something similar and died for it. It happens. If she had remained still or tried to stealthily slip away I doubt she would have been focus-fired. She made a choice, the monsters responded as you thought they would, end of story.

Side Note to 1: Do you not allow players to look up rules during the game? I think if I'm using regen and I'm unsure about how it works, I'm going to look it up - the DM doesn't have to do it, let the player do it. It saves time for you and it ensures they get to know their own capabilities. If you do find out later that a rule was handled badly then I usually handwave/retcon serious bad things like PC death and it sounds like you handled this OK.

2) No you didn't unfairly target her in the second one. The party failed a sneak challenge. Once they see what they're up against, it sounds like a retreat and regroup may be in order - "What they can mind-control us AND there's a 100' drop right there? EVRYBODY BACK DOWN THE STAIRS!" would be a perfectly reasonable response. Especially after seeing the party composition! Fighting flyers next to a steep drop is bad tactics if you cannot fly or hover or otherwise mitigate the fall. Assuming the party charges in anyway, when you find yourself the last man standing against 4 or 5 demons that have handled the rest of your party, then you'd better have a big bang ready to go off or you had better run - you're not going to beat them with Basics & At-Wills. She mentioned "ignoring opportunities to hurt other players" in your original post - if they got thrown off the ledge first then it sounds to me like the pain was pretty evenly distributed and she's just quibbling about the order

Side Note to 2: As far as balance, aside from any encounter design issues, you are trying to use a balancing system designed around the "1 of each" type of party as a baseline to balance up a mono-roled party. It's going to get weird because there are holes in their capabilities that "lots more damage" (the only real benefit from an all-Striker party) isn't going to offset. Even one leader could have made a big difference in that fight through Saves, Heals, and Defense Buffs. One Controller, depending on powers, could have made a big difference there. I think 3 Strikers + a Leader would have fared quite a bit differently in this one. This may be one of those "talk to the players" kind of things to get it resolved.

Finally, no player should ever come to you with "you could have fudged it". That's not something they get to decide, and it's one reason you should never discuss or admit to fudging at all IMO. Down the road if the player holds onto this "you could have fudged it" feeling and then thinks that you did fudge it for another player, now you have a bigger problem. It's a can of worms better left unopened. If asked, you don't fudge. Period. Even if you secretly do. It's a DMing tool for you alone and requires no input from your PC's.

Just remember that it you ever have a character die and the player is happy with how it happened, you've done an awesome job. The rest of the time, they're going to blame at least part of it on you. It's just the way it works.

Hopefully you learned a few things and your players learned a few things and everyone is happier next time.