Another TPK - Sigh.

[Hjorimir]

Why, no, that is not my contention at all. nope, didn't contend that either. No, not at all. 0-for-3 there.

At lease we agree then that nothing happened that couldn’t have happened. I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy now.

I believe the original post said something about extreme of medium range, which for a 5th level character IIRC is about 150'. So, no, i don't know exactly how far those flawless ogres were. My bet would be something along the lines of "as close as they needed to be" though.

What is your DMs opinion of a Listen check DC at a range of roughly 150 feet?

and i do not disagree with this sentiment. it also works well, IMO, when it also applies to NPCs as well as PCs.

Now that is something I totally agree with. NPCs can (and do) make mistakes. I’ve witnessed this first hand in ForceUser’s games, by the way. But just because they sometimes make mistakes, there isn’t any real reason why they needed to in this particular situation.

 

[swrushing]

Did ForceUser say, “TPK guys, you messed up.”

As a point of clarification, maybe i am giving forceuser too much credit here.

i am assuming he knew that the taking of what was supposed to be a tough fight for the players, having it turn into an ambush of sleeping players, getting them unprepared and the initial entangle was OBVIOUS to him as a tpk. his description shows how lopsided it was.

I am assuming that BEFORE they played it out he knew at least enough, had at least so minimal a grasp of bal;ance and capabilities, to see this was a TPK.

I am assuming the following was not a complete surprise to him:

Caught completely by surprise, the group didn't have much of a chance. They all died.

So, in my eyes, yes, foirceuser did say "tpk guys, you messed up!" he just took a little playtime to get the woirds out.

This all goes back to his initial post...

Could I have let them slide and not followed the logical outcome of their actions, based on the monsters' capabilities? ...

I believe in adhering closely to the rules and the capabilities of my NPCs...

What would you have done?

logical outcome of their actions = ogres come after them? Sure, no problem.

ogres exectue flawless seek-n-destroy commando raid on group who has a sentry posted? This does not leap to me as the "logical outcome of their actions". That sure does not leap out to me as "adhereing closely" to the capabilites of the NPCs.

Sure, as Gm its within his right to decide "everything goes right for the ogres. They have no terrain issues, no int 6brain farts, no leadership woes at all and they make all their stealth rolls." There are certainly dramatic reasons why, in some cases, the Gm might want to do this for the story and setup.

But deciding to add that "flawless execution" fiat to an already clearly lethal result is a far cry from the "logical outcome of their actions."

At least, it is to me.

it may not to you.

 

[takyris]

swrushing, that might be a harsh assessment. I could see springing that as a pretty challenging fight, a good wake-up call for a team that was acting lazy or not thinking of the consequences of its actions.

From ForceUser's post, I recall that the sorcerer missed twice on a scorching ray attack, and the ogre druid didn't have a ton in the way of touch attack defenses -- meaning that the sorcerer rolled pretty badly (natural "1" on at least one of those, if I recall correctly?). If at least one of those rays hits the leader, that changes the scope of things pretty heavily.

A challenging fight is not a bad thing for the GM to throw at the players now and then. It's unfortunate when a challenging fight combines with cruddy dice rolls at important moments, but sometimes it happens.

 

[Hjorimir]

I game with a bunch of suburban geeks who have never gone camping. If one of 'em is a Ranger with a +27 to Survival and Knowledge(nature), it would be sort of idiotic of me to not secretly make a roll for him and say, "Hey, your woodland skills suggest that the weird bumpy hillocks I just mentioned aren't natural, and might be the sign of some burrowing creature that makes its home in this area." Or "Given the sparse tree cover and the clear weather, it's possible that somebody could find your campfire."

I’m a suburban geek myself (I can get lost in my own neighborhood). I also give out information to those characters knowledgeable in a given area (for example, telling a druid that the trees she is looking at don’t belong in the given climate or moss grows on the north side of the trees). But I don’t think Knowledge (nature) is an indicator of telling somebody they are visible. I certainly don’t possess Knowledge (nature), but I’m aware enough to look around and see if I’m in a good hiding place.

Just like, in my d20 Modern game, I would help somebody who'd never touched a computer in his life but was playing a Computer Expert Smart Hero with a +19 on his check. "Okay, you can definitely sign into TechnoDemon Industries, but with your knowledge (technology) expertise, you think that unless you take some precautions, there's a good chance that they'll be able to trace your hack back to your home phone number. You can do whatever you like -- that's just what you've learned in your years of study."

Yeah, I would tell that to a player as well the first couple of times. Once it has been established that if the hacker isn’t careful he might be traced, I don’t feel obliged to consistently remind him of the fact. But hacking computers is hardly within the realm of common sense knowledge. The aforementioned scenario, in my opinion, clearly is.

By the same token, if my real-life computer expert player is playing a sharpshooting cop with no computer skills, he'd better not be using his real-life knowledge (unless he's doing it out of character to help the clueless guy playing the computer expert). He's actually been really good about that. "So, Steve, that looks like a computer thing. Can you, uh, Java that? Maybe you can, um, make it firewall with your ethernet? Steve? Steve, why are you crying?"

Yeah, DMs need to watch for metagaming and put a stop to that. The one I see the most is the fighter trying to tell the wizard how and when to cast spells. I go through a lot of pain to keep those things as mysterious as I can to the characters who have no working knowledge.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that a good GM will make it clear to his players one way or the other -- either they're playing the characters closely in-character, and shouldn't use any of their outside knowledge (but should benefit from knowledge of skills they don't have in real life), or they are playing fast-and-loose, and are free to use their real-life knowledge (but only benefit in minor ways from whatever ranks they put in knowledge skills). Saying, "You don't know anything that your character wouldn't know, and also, if you don't know what your character knows, I'm not going to tell you," is less than fair. The character gets both sets of limitations and neither set of advantages.

I agree, characters should benefit from their Knowledge skills and I make sure they do. But to reiterate, avoiding ogre posses probably doesn’t come up during one’s study of nature.

And for new/inexperienced players, this includes telling them when they might want to ask the GM whether their character knows something. For players who are either completely new or trained on CRPGS, the experience of asking the GM, "Hey, does my guy with all the outdoor survival experience think this is a viable strategy?" is pretty unfamiliar. Very new players won't even realize that they're allowed to ask follow-up questions, like, "What kind of trees are we in? You said this was hilly terrain. Is it hilly like 'Can't put a football on the ground without it rolling away' or hilly like 'Occasional hills off in the distance'?"

I make sure to have a discussion about these kinds of things prior to the game when I have a new player. Two things that I make abundantly clear is that they can ask as many questions as they want and that I will happily explain the mechanics of the system as they are playing until they are comfortable. Britt, who played one of the deceased in ForceUser’s campaign, played in my game a few times (until her work schedule became an issue, pity…she was a fun player). I made sure to even mention things like casting defensively, taking a 5-foot step not provoking attacks of opportunity, etc. There was never an issue of her messing up because she didn’t understand the game.

And for the record, I am on occasion horrible at this kind of thing. In a mystery game, I didn't want to give away information, so I didn't exactly spell out the fact that the murders all bore the trademarks of a certain mythological genre (they were all patterned after different Greek myths). When it finally came out, one of the players approached me and said, "Okay, I know nothing about mythology, but my character has a +14 to Knowledge(Arcane Lore). I didn't know that I should have asked about that, though, since, well, I didn't know that it pertained to it."

Nobody is perfect (least of all, me). Things that seem completely obvious on the DMs side of the screen are often completely missed by players. I struggle with this often myself (and I’m betting most other DMs do as well).

We agreed that next time, I should be a little bit more generous in tossing stuff his way, especially since his character has such skill in that area, and the player does not. There are times when the players don't know what they don't know, and those are the times when the GM should take a look at their skills and delicately offer information. Not suggestions, certainly, but information.

I keep index cards with some important PC information (Knowledge skills, saves, Perception-type skills, etc.) to reference while we play. I still miss some opportunities to give out some good information. If that is the case, I usually make amends. We’re all there to have fun after all.

 

[Hjorimir]

"We go kills de squishies dat killed Smok. Yub."

"Nos noises when we go for dem. Yub, yub. When Iz get close me makem de trees snach dem. Den juu runs up and squishy the squishys."

"Gud, gud."

That isn't exactly a flawless commando raid where a crossfire attack is established with various rendezvous points made (each with its own order of preference and scenarios). Nor was there any indication of predetermined targets or complex strategies. Sounds to me like a bunch of ogres just came up and used the hurt-sticks.

 

[takyris]

Sounds good to me. If these are city slicker PCs, it even makes sense for them to do something that dumb, since in a city campaign, a rogue who goes around a few corners can pull off his hat, adopt a slow, confident stride, and feel justified in having escaped into the crowd.

The one point I'd disagree on is about the use of skills. I might not consider it Knowledge(Nature), but I'd definitely consider it Survival (no pun intended). If anyone in the group had tracking and Survival, it would be important as the GM to mention "Hey, the guys in full plate are leaving a pretty identifiable trail." And anyone with lots of outdoor experience (ie, Survival) is going to know that the light from a good-sized campfire can be seen from miles away by anyone who climbs up a large tree and looks for the faint glow or the smoke that blurs the stars ever so slightly. (I honestly don't know whether that's a Spot check with a synergy bonus from Survival or the other way around -- and I have no idea if that's how it works in reality, given that I only camp occasionally, and I rarely have to track people to get to my campsite.)

- If none of the PCs had Survival/Track and the Ogres did, I have no problem.
- If none of the PCs had Survival/Track and the Ogres didn't either, I'd question the ease with with the ogres found the PCs. If it's that easy to find them without having Track, it seems that it's easy enough that it should be obvious to the PCs as well (say, secretly rolling a spot check for the PCs as a group to notice that they've left enormous footprints and various and sundry broken branches behind them).*
- If the PCs had Survival/Track, I'd have rolled secretly and, based on a decent result (15?), told the player in question that he thinks they've left a pretty noticeable trail, and that it's possible somebody could track them from the ogre cave to their campsite. I'd do this just like a secret Spot check rolled to notice hidden opponents when the PCs have no idea that anyone might be around, and I wouldn't consider this cheating in their favor.

*Even based on softer ground than usual for the outdoors (DC10, where the usual DC is 15), seven party members (-2 to DC), and bright moonlight (+3 DC) instead of an overcast night, the DC is 11, which is higher than 10 and therefore impossible for someone to follow unless they've taken the Track feat.**
** Of course, this doesn't rule out the ogre druid speaking with animals or using a wolf animal companion or something to find the party, even without any of the ogres having Track. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying that it's something to consider.

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

What is your DMs opinion of a Listen check DC at a range of roughly 150 feet?

Ok i will answer this but before i do, understand this is IMO way past the point of concern. The point of concern isn't "at 150'" which is the "what the gm decided" stage, but how close should they have gotten before.

At 150' the sentry had a listen check of -15.

The ogres had base checks of -8. Thats for one ogre. assuming seven ogres, i would asses at least another -4 (one ufc for the first doubling from 1-2, another for the 2-4, and since they did not quite make another doubling and 8 ogres, no penalty.) thats got them to -12. (Note that instead i could roll for every ogre individually, but thats practically guaranteeing a failure.)

Now, this produces two opposed rolls... the pc at d20-15 plus his listen skill vs the ogres at d20-12.

Who is on watch? one guy out of seven, three watches a night, that means its likely the guy on watch is not their least observant. with 5th level characters, thats gviving us a range of +0 to conservatively +10 on spoit checks (limiting to only +2 for wisdom max and no feats involved.)

if i split the difference and go with +5 for the guys listen, we get to d20-10 vs d20-12.

Thats a die roll that favors the party. its maybe 60-40 in their favor but it favors them. Was this rolled? I got no clue. The sense i got was no, it wasn't, but thats primarily to the entire "can the ogres pull off this ambush" being treated as not hardly important, not in question.

But, to me the question of "what happened at 150;" is off base. In a forest medium, the rolls for spot are limited to 2d8x10'. So, unless the ogres got really lucky, 150' isn't the closest approach. In dennse woods, its down to 2d6x10'.

Is it possible for the ogres to make every roll (or the gm to just decide they did or not even ever stop and ask the question?) sure it is. it just did not have to be nor was it likely to be.
That "wild luck" or "flawless by fiuat" moves it well outside the range of "the logical outcome of their actions" and into "well if things go tragically bad for us".

But just because they sometimes make mistakes, there isn’t any real reason why they needed to in this particular situation.

There is MORE reason to assume int 6 stealth-8 ogres make mistakes when executing a plan that relies on surprise than their is to assume it works flawlessly the other way.

Why? because those are the traits they are bad at.

the presumption is you are going to make more mistakes at the stuff you are bad at and fewer in the stuff you are good at.

this Gm seems to have reached the conclusion, perhaps by fiat, that these ogres were flawless in the execution (Note that i consider the flawless right up to the actual fight itself. once he actually put figures on map so the players to see, its likely the flawless ogre bits dropped in the face of "the players actually see whats going on now" and dice)

 

[Hjorimir]

Yeah, those are some decent points, takyris. This kind of thing doesn't come up within my game too often as the players are pretty paranoid (I'm sure I'm to blame for that, but it makes for a more interesting game) and tend to be rather cautious.

If I want to drop a hint I usually hide it a bit in descriptive dialog as opposed to flat out informing players. Perhaps something like, “You cut a trail leaving the cave at your back and find a decent campsite only about a half-mile away up on a little hill.” If players are paying attention they will be pretty quick to notice something doesn’t seem quite right with that scenario.

 

[swrushing]

swrushing, that might be a harsh assessment.

to be clear, the flawless execution i am talking about was the part right up to the fight itself. All the parts that led from the ogres in camp to the "caught completely by surprise" part. Thats what turned this from a fight to a slaughter.

I do take his own comment seriously in gauging how close the fight was...

Caught completely by surprise, the group didn't have much of a chance. They all died.

Now, again, my thinking is that he knew this, that he was competnent enough at LEAST to recognize a "the group didn't have much of a chance. They all died." situation when he threw it at them.

if people want to argue that thats not the case, that he did not even have enough sense of balance to recognize that out-of-whack a setup, that his sense of balance is that broken, then they can but i prefer to give him at least that much credit, particularly given this aint his first tpk in a game running nearly a year.

i will agree that, if it is true that his sense of balance is that far out-of-whack, a discussion on that would be of more use, because any discussion of how to keep scenarios going etc and Gm options is for naught if he has no idea whether a scenario is a tpk or not.

 

[Hjorimir]

I would be stunned to learn that ForceUser didn't allow a Listen skill check. Not saying it is impossible, but he's never done anything like that as a DM to me.

I don't know what the exact mix of classes the player characters were and don't really have any way of determining what kind of Listen skills were available for watch.

The point is moot. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the probability or appropriateness of how close the ogres got to the camp before detection.

So far, the best point somebody has made on this thread was asking how tired the ogres were from their raiding trip and did they have any damage or had they used any spells. It is a good practice for the DM to be as critical of the NPCs as he is the PCs.