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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kris" data-source="post: 3300967" data-attributes="member: 3745">I think I ran a pretty poor game tonight... which ended in a character death.To cut a long story short, one of the guys was spending the day getting a new animal companion and the rest of the guys carried on without him. One other guy stayed behind with a group of soldiers gathered at a ford (where they all hoped to defend against a oncoming orc legion) while the other two guys (lvl 7) went off to harass the aforementioned horde (of at least 100 orcs and a possible giant).No stealth involved... just ride down the road to meet them in their camp :SThe encounter ended with the wizard fleeing (flying and invisible), the bard captured, and their horse (who could not be successfully controlled in combat) killed.During the battle the wizard fire-balled the orc host when they came into range (unfortunately a failed spot check didn't let him notice the prisoners in their ranks... prisoners who were to be executed as a sacrifice before the main battle).So... the bard took their place. And no rescue party came for him that night <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />Here's where it got messy. He was beaten unconscious and then gagged and bound. I used the crucifixion rules from BoVD and had the PC hung on the cross (after midnight) in a place that would be visible to the 'good guys' the next morning (to demoralise the enemy - from the orc's point of view).Unfortunately this didn't give the PC any real chance of escape (my bad... he could not beat the escape DC) though I thought he would just be able to hold out until morning and might be saved in the nick of time by his comrades. Unfortunately some of his antics got him smacked with a mace before the orcs left him... so his HP were down and, needless to say, he did not make it through till morning <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />So, although I think the group's actions were a little reckless,  I'm kinda annoyed with myself for putting the PC in a situation that meant certain death (it's what was planned for the original prisoners - but not very good D&D from a player's point of view). Things had not gone how I expected (death of the original prisoners/capture of the bard)... so I just carried on with the BBEG's agenda when I probably should have thought a little quicker on my feet and done something to make this into an interesting encounter rather than a death sentence.So tonight I consider myself a bad DM... though I guess I'm lucky that the player is not too annoyed, and is happy enough to roll up a new character.Just needed to get that of my chest.</blockquote>

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