Armour Dilemma: Am I Wrong Here?

[Grishnak]

fusangite you were right with the situation, possibly drop a lot of hints like the sounds of battle are moving closer to the building some explosion even closer to them to possibly motivate them, but at the end of the day if you've done what you set out to do and the PC's refuse to move then what are you going to do?? Being both a player and a DM I know that a player places his trust in me to face him off against a challenge which he can deal with in whatever situations, so the players must know that you had planned to make it tough but you wouldn''t being killing them all. And a simple fact of a Greater restoration cast at the end of the encounter sorts out the negative levels so it's not that great a threat anymore!!

 

[Numion]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ?

But as the above quote shows, you did.

So it does

Ok, I'll back down now, nothing to see here

I'll call it a day on this thread.

 

[Nail]

A couple of point I got from mining the thread

You mined this thread? You read it all over again and selected out the shiny bits?

Oh, you poor fool.

 

[Steverooo]

No way!

Anyone who would put on armour rather than help innocents who will die is a thoroughly evil act, IMHO.

IMHO, it is a thoroughly neutral, self-preserving act, with no evil component. A NG PC could get away with it, a CG one could, if they felt like it. Even a LG could, unless they had a code of protecting the weak, regardless of likelyhood of their own death.

It isn't clear (to me) how much info the PCs had (regarding the Vampire's levels, abilities, and state) when combat began... To me, an encounter with 21 Vampire-Wizards and X(?) Vampire Spawn sounds unwinnable. Even if I knew everything Fusangite has told us, my PC wouldn't go rushing into battle! My vampirized PC would be no help (and a medium danger) to anyone!

 

[Elvinis75]

“ Wait. So it's OK to hose the players over an hour, but not over four minutes?”

No you’re missing my point.
4 minutes or 40 rounds isn’t a long time. 600 rounds is. Waiting 600 rounds is out of the question. Played out better they should have sent one person to see and had the others help the others with their armor and planned a little. That cuts it down to roughly 10 rounds that they were going to be waiting. IMHO the 4 that decided to fight an encounter planned out for 7 players should have got their butts handed to them.

It’s not ok to hose players out of playing period.
I have said it in the past. They were (PCs and DM) both wrong.
The players should never split up like that.
The DM never should pose a set of choices that leads only to trusting that the DM will not put them up against something that they can’t handle
Or
Sit out as players as their characters get ready.

This style of play is both leading the characters and cuddling them.
i.e. Play the game my way and trust that you will be fine or sit out.

“ Isn't it un-fun to go into a combat without your defensive spells? You might get hurt! You might lose!
Heck, as a rogue player, isn't it un-fun for me to fight undead and golems and similar things that I can't use my Improved Critical and Sneak Attack on? I'm going into combat with my abilities crippled!
Wizards are going to find it un-fun to fight golems, too, since their abilities would be crippled - so I guess we should just throw them out entirely, right? ”

This isn’t the point. Whether these characters can use their abilities or not isn’t the question at hand. It might very well be less fun fighting without all of your abilities being effective however I think that is where some of the fun comes in. Though as I started off staying this isn’t the point. What is more important to this is whether or not sitting out is fun. It is certainly more fun playing than not. However a player shouldn’t have to decide between him/herself having fun and the logical character choices.
Logically it can be proven that there high level vampires wisards that were waiting for the characters. They had high enough spells to bring into the battle things like dire lions, tigers, and bears oh my! These creatures don’t care if the clerics have NEP spells on them or not. You ever see how fast a dire bear goes through a character with AC 14? The players thought that it was better to put on there armor. I agree with the decision that they made at the time and with the hindsight that it would have been better to go in knowing how it was going to turn out.

“And then of course you've got the guy who whines as soon as he takes a hit. It must be un-fun for him to take damage, so it's important to make sure he's invulnerable to everything. Right?

So...why are the heavy armor people supposed to get special treatment again? ”

No special treatment is needed. 4 players leave to fight a battle that they shouldn’t be able to win. They get routed and hurt in the process and return to the clerics to be healed and they launch a second wave. That how I would have handled it. No special treatment for the people in or out of combat.

Sometimes combats don’t go the way that a DM planned and he is forced to dynamic and think on his feet. He usually doesn’t have to bend or break the rules just think creatively.

 

[mmu1]

Re: Re: Re: Armour Dilemma: Am I Wrong Here?

Anyone who would put on armour rather than help innocents who will die is a thoroughly evil act, IMHO.

Professional soldiers are not "innocents".

 

[drnuncheon]

“ Wait. So it's OK to hose the players over an hour, but not over four minutes?”

No you’re missing my point.
4 minutes or 40 rounds isn’t a long time. 600 rounds is. Waiting 600 rounds is out of the question.

But, why? Why is the line somewhere between 40 rounds and 600 rounds, and not between 4 rounds and 40 rounds? Isn't it completely arbitrary?

Played out better they should have sent one person to see and had the others help the others with their armor and planned a little. That cuts it down to roughly 10 rounds that they were going to be waiting. IMHO the 4 that decided to fight an encounter planned out for 7 players should have got their butts handed to them.

I would never predetermine an encounter in this way. If the 4 were sufficiently clever enough to actually beat the encounter, then more power to them - I obviously underestimated my players. I'm not going to arbitrarily change things to make it so that they must have the others. (But I'm not going to make it easier on them because they left people behind, either.)

If anything, that is what is not fair - you're hosing the PCs for making good choices and winning when they weren't "supposed to".

It’s not ok to hose players out of playing period.

But you just said that 600 rounds was too long. What if the wizard said "I'm not going unless I'm full up on spells"? Aren't you 'hosing him out of playing? Or is he hosing himself? And if he is hosing himself out of playing...aren't the people insisting on the armor doing exactly the same thing?

“ Isn't it un-fun to go into a combat without your defensive spells? You might get hurt! You might lose!
Heck, as a rogue player, isn't it un-fun for me to fight undead and golems and similar things that I can't use my Improved Critical and Sneak Attack on? I'm going into combat with my abilities crippled!
Wizards are going to find it un-fun to fight golems, too, since their abilities would be crippled - so I guess we should just throw them out entirely, right? ”

This isn’t the point. Whether these characters can use their abilities or not isn’t the question at hand. It might very well be less fun fighting without all of your abilities being effective however I think that is where some of the fun comes in. Though as I started off staying this isn’t the point. What is more important to this is whether or not sitting out is fun. It is certainly more fun playing than not. However a player shouldn’t have to decide between him/herself having fun and the logical character choices.

But it is indeed the point - what you are talking about is the same choice as I am! Logically, a rogue wouldn't want to fight undead or golems. Logically a wizard wouldn't want to go into a big combat without a full complement of spells.

So what do you do if the rogue says, "No, I'm not going to that golem fight"? Or the wizard says "I'm not going to go save the city until I've had a good night's rest"?

No special treatment is needed. 4 players leave to fight a battle that they shouldn’t be able to win. They get routed and hurt in the process and return to the clerics to be healed and they launch a second wave. That how I would have handled it. No special treatment for the people in or out of combat.

Sounds to me like your NPCs are the ones getting special treatment, because you've already decided the course of the battle.

J

 

[jdavis]

Re: No way!

IMHO, it is a thoroughly neutral, self-preserving act, with no evil component. A NG PC could get away with it, a CG one could, if they felt like it. Even a LG could, unless they had a code of protecting the weak, regardless of likelyhood of their own death.

It isn't clear (to me) how much info the PCs had (regarding the Vampire's levels, abilities, and state) when combat began... To me, an encounter with 21 Vampire-Wizards and X(?) Vampire Spawn sounds unwinnable. Even if I knew everything Fusangite has told us, my PC wouldn't go rushing into battle! My vampirized PC would be no help (and a medium danger) to anyone!

Quotes from fusangite on what the characters knew: (oh it was 21enemies total, 8 vampires and 13 spawn; big difference from 21 vampires and x amount of spawn)

This was, indeed, how the choice was perceived by some players. However, from a metagaming standpoint, this was not really the case because (a) it was clear to anyone arriving at the combat that the vampires had their hands full controlling and herding into their tower the 140 guards outside (b) it was clear to anyone arriving at this combat that the vampires had cast all their high level spells to mind-control so many troops and to surround them with walls of stone, fire, etc. (c) because the primary objective of the vampires was to turn the guards, not kill the players, no one disengaging from combat with the vampires was ever pursued

Right. However, once people arrived at the tower, their ideas about their chances immediately changed. Those players who showed up at the combat realized immediately that the vampires had expended virtually all their spells and that, by taking the offensive, the vampires had provided them with their best-ever opportunity for a counter-strike.

It is perhaps because of my lax attitude to metagaming that the sorceror chose to seek help from the duke of the city instead of returning to the characters' house and telling his comrades to come to the battle without their armour. Nonetheless, he could have, in four rounds, reached the house with Fly and summoned his comrades to the battle. Similarly, the other characters at the battle didn't think to tell the characters they couldn't afford to take the time to don armour because the players already clearly knew this.

Nonetheless, the sorceror took 4 rounds to go to the ducal palace and grab the duke instead of taking 4 rounds to go and get his friends. According to him, he did this because the players had made it clear that they would not send their characters into battle without armour regardless of what information he told them about the vampires' depleted state.

Certainly the paladin did because he realized (a) his ride skill could be used to augment his armour class and avoid melee attacks if he rode his griffin into battle (b) even as vampires, wizards suck at melee attacks and deliver an average of 7 points of damage per round with slam attacks, assuming they hit (c) the two clerics had multiple Negative Energy Protection spells memorized for themselves and thus, would only be subject to normal damage.

Even so, the vampires, themselves, suffered casualties not inflicted by the players during the battle -- both from the duke and from the more senior officers in the city guard who were in possession of magical weapons.

 

[fusangite]

I was going to leave this thread alone but the comments by some people are so weird, they've grabbed my attention. Bear with me:
1. Elvinis75 and others are arguing that the reason I shouldn't have allowed my adventure to go the way it did is because it prevented some members of my group from "having fun."
2. Their definition of not "having fun" is, apparently, going into a battle at a severe disadvantage and possibly losing their lives. Even though I've conclusively disproven that this would happen, they continue to allege this.
3. The solution proposed by Elvinis75 and others is to cause the 4 characters who go into the battle to be utterly thrashed, be placed at a severe disadvantage and probably lose their lives, at the time to as the other 3 players sit out the battle, allegedly not having fun either.

It seems to me as though you're not so much arguing that everyone should "have fun" but rather that if one person isn't "having fun," everyone should be prohibited from "having fun." Am I missing something here?

By the way, what people also seem to be missing is that the PCs were not the vampires' target. They were only the target insofar as they interposed themselves between the vampires and their actual target. The characters did, in fact, "lose" the battle because instead of saving all the guards, they saved only half of them -- 70 people lost their lives because of the PCs' failure; it's just that none of those 70 were PCs.

One final thing about the metagaming aspect: I'm not arguing that player knowledge in the absence of character knowledge should ever be sufficient for making a decision. However, I do think that the player knowledge of what was actually happening could have coloured the characters' realization that the sorceror who went to scout out the situation should have been back in less than 10 rounds wasn't back in 15 nor were any of the other characters who should have been back in 10-12 rounds.

 

[Elvinis75]

But, why? Why is the line somewhere between 40 rounds and 600 rounds, and not between 4 rounds and 40 rounds? Isn't it completely arbitrary?

Because there is a difference. No it not arbitrary. Time is passing and things will happen.
The difference between those to times and waiting is huge. If the first is deemed necessary the players might accept that the first battle is going to be lost without them. They chose to regroup at full strength and counterstrike.
The 1 hour later is accepting a much greater loss. And things would have to be vastly different to justify that.

I would never predetermine an encounter in this way. If the 4 were sufficiently clever enough to actually beat the encounter, then more power to them - I obviously underestimated my players. I'm not going to arbitrarily change things to make it so that they must have the others. (But I'm not going to make it easier on them because they left people behind, either.)
If anything, that is what is not fair - you're hosing the PCs for making good choices and winning when they weren't "supposed to".


The DM has already predetermined the combat in that he said that he wanted to make the players fight without their armor. I didn’t think that he should have changed anything either in the combat. He did however fall back on the NPC jumping in to save the PCs(at their request). IMO not a good thing to happen as it further keeps the 3 players out the session and yeild more situations were the players split up. BTW if 4 players could have beat the enemy then I think that it would have been poorly planned.


But you just said that 600 rounds was too long. What if the wizard said "I'm not going unless I'm full up on spells"? Aren't you 'hosing him out of playing? Or is he hosing himself? And if he is hosing himself out of playing...aren't the people insisting on the armor doing exactly the same thing?

Yes, based on the situation, as I said above the two different amounts of time have different affects on the battlefield. The above situation becomes unreasonable because of the difference in times. It isn’t arbitary. I have never met a player that always expected that he would have his full compliment of spells for every battle. Like I said before it is a false analogy. To put them on the same level the 3 wizards (in our hypoth. Group) would have had to all lost all their armor related defensive spells but had good offensive touch spells the required that he get into melee yet had the option to find and cast the armor spells but they needed in 40 rounds through their own searching or 20 rounds with help and maybe less with haste to cast those spells.

But it is indeed the point - what you are talking about is the same choice as I am! Logically, a rogue wouldn't want to fight undead or golems. Logically a wizard wouldn't want to go into a big combat without a full complement of spells.

So what do you do if the rogue says, "No, I'm not going to that golem fight"? Or the wizard says "I'm not going to go save the city until I've had a good night's rest"?

The example above have different answers so here it goes:
I guess we are just going to agree to disagree about our points be we see this point differently.
Logicaly a rogue isn’t going to want to fight a golem but that doesn’t make our situation. If he could go find something that made him and two other rogues like him more effective ….that is our situation.
I addressed the situation with the wisard scenerio above.

Sounds to me like your NPCs are the ones getting special treatment, because you've already decided the course of the battle.

Which NPC is getting better treatment? I don’t get this statement.