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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aboyd" data-source="post: 4837227" data-attributes="member: 44797">I agree that the players sound hopelessly dense.  However, let's assume the opposite.  Let's assume krupintupple portrayed the stories in a way that minimizes his culpability.  Maybe some critique from that perspective will help krupintupple to see ways to aid the players in future circumstances.This could be the player's fault, certainly.  However, did you (krupintupple) describe the lion properly?  I mean, a 3rd level character might think that he could solo a lion, if he doesn't know anything about a lion's stats.  Then on top of that it's a more-powerful-than-normal lion.  So, did you explain this?  I mean, something simple like this should suffice: "The beast is menacing, dangerous, with a hungry look in its eye.  Even with your weapon drawn, the creature is undaunted.  You get the strange feeling that he views you less as a person and more as food."Hey, maybe the shadows hadn't done a lot of strength draining while the characters were there as a team.  So of course the rogue would assume that there would be very little strength draining!  I mean, we just don't know what went down before the rogue... went down.(Yeah, OK, I'm stretching it here.  This one is hard to defend.)Wait.  You explained it to him and still had the character fall to his death?  I'm in the habit of explaining game mechanics and then letting players rethink.  You could say, "OK, so you know that you need to be a spellcaster to activate that wand.  You sure?"  And if the player says, "Not sure, can I take it back?" then the DM says YES.In addition, maybe the fighter had UMD.  Did you at least give him a roll?While it was good of you to explain that game mechanics don't mirror TV, if the character had a decent explanation of what he or she was doing, and it seemed to be based off some real-world logic, then I think you owe it to the player to reward such smarts with a +2 circumstance bonus.  Maybe it would have made the difference if you'd played along a little bit.Let's play this out.DM: You come across some chanting barbarians.  One sees you and approaches.Player: Oh, crap.  Can I get a swing in?  Are we in initiative?  Does he have surprise?DM: Really?  Damnit.  Fine, you get in a swing, and he's dead.  He was unarmed, unarmored, and had his hand out in a gesture of friendship, you idiot!Of course, telling the players how friendly the barbarian was after they've already done the killing is useless.  The DM needs to describe the scenarios up front.(One should note that almost all my rebuttals were made tongue in cheek.  However, if krupintupple really did present these 5 character deaths in such a way as to make the players look dumber than they were, I'd hope that maybe even my goofy responses provide food for thought.)</blockquote>

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