Level Up (A5E) Removing Pointless Death (+)

[Micah Sweet]

Party comes across room of 4 men who are actually wererats. Rogue gets drop on Initiative and walks into room and attempts to sneak attack - hoping to kill "just a regular dude." She fails. Is dropped on next round. The paladin who had just stepped into room is flanked and sneak attacked to death in one round. Final wererat moves past dead paladin and engages cleric, who attempts to run and is dropped.
This leaves back rank wizard to be utterly surrounded and killed the following round.

Bad luck. Did the paladin not see what happened to the rogue? Seems they could have potentially waited for the rogue to do their thing before walking in.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

If I roll behind the screen, they suspect I'm cheating.
If I make silly tactical mistakes on purpose, that also looks like cheating.

Yikes! I would find new players. I would never play with a DM who I don’t trust to play a cooperative RPG. D&D is not player vs DM, everyone plays together. If the DM or players don’t understand that and thus there is no “cheating” then I would just move on. No a t group I want to play with.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Party comes across room of 4 men who are actually wererats. Rogue gets drop on Initiative and walks into room and attempts to sneak attack - hoping to kill "just a regular dude." She fails. Is dropped on next round. The paladin who had just stepped into room is flanked and sneak attacked to death in one round. Final wererat moves past dead paladin and engages cleric, who attempts to run and is dropped.
This leaves back rank wizard to be utterly surrounded and killed the following round.

PS - if you don’t quote the person who asked you the question they may not get notified that you responded.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Party comes across room of 4 men who are actually wererats. Rogue gets drop on Initiative and walks into room and attempts to sneak attack - hoping to kill "just a regular dude." She fails. Is dropped on next round. The paladin who had just stepped into room is flanked and sneak attacked to death in one round. Final wererat moves past dead paladin and engages cleric, who attempts to run and is dropped.
This leaves back rank wizard to be utterly surrounded and killed the following round.

Without some more detail on the players and encounter that seems like a very odd and foolish way for a group to approach the proposed situation.

Now if you want ideas for PCs to recover from being unwise, that could be difficult if you are not willing to handle things on the DMs side

 

[Retreater]

wererats are only cr2! what level was the party???

3rd level.

 

[Retreater]

Bad luck. Did the paladin not see what happened to the rogue? Seems they could have potentially waited for the rogue to do their thing before walking in.

He wanted to be positioned at the door to stop the enemies from getting to the more vulnerable casters. And just really underestimated the targets inside.
Even if he hadn't, he wouldn't have wanted to leave the rogue to die. And the cleric would've wanted to save the rogue and paladin when her turn came up.
My TPKs usually happen because one party member wants to save another, then you have two dying characters, and it just compounds.

 

[Retreater]

Yikes! I would find new players. I would never play with a DM who I don’t trust to play a cooperative RPG. D&D is not player vs DM, everyone plays together. If the DM or players don’t understand that and thus there is no “cheating” then I would just move on. No a t group I want to play with.

Yep. They are usually secretive about their goals and plans so I can't even fudge properly to help them succeed. They discuss strategies in text messages at the table to try to get one over on me. Even if I try telling them I want them to win.
Still, I have the problem of frequent TPKs with most groups, not just this one.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

3rd level.

oh, well no wonder, then. you threw a cr 8 encounter against a level 3 party of 4 characters - that's beyond a deadly encounter by a5e encounter design guidelines (which also say a hard encounter - which would be cr 6 for this party - can be equivalent to a deadly encounter for a tier 1 party).

 

[FrogReaver]

@Anonymous3 Party comes across room of 4 men who are actually wererats. Rogue gets drop on Initiative and walks into room and attempts to sneak attack - hoping to kill "just a regular dude." She fails. Is dropped on next round. The paladin who had just stepped into room is flanked and sneak attacked to death in one round. Final wererat moves past dead paladin and engages cleric, who attempts to run and is dropped.
This leaves back rank wizard to be utterly surrounded and killed the following round.

Do A5E wererats have sneak attack?

 

[FrogReaver]

oh, well no wonder, then. you threw a cr 8 encounter against a level 3 party of 4 characters - that's beyond a deadly encounter by a5e encounter design guidelines (which also say a hard encounter - which would be cr 6 for this party - can be equivalent to a deadly encounter for a tier 1 party).

The party also seems to have went in 1 at a time at least at the start.