Dead in one blow

[Darkness]

That is how Criticals with big axes work out.

Just look at a vanilla Orc. A Critical is likely to do ~30 damage. That will instantly kill many low level PCs.

Yeah. I think that's why the MM 3.5 orc warrior's weapon was changed to a falchion.

 

[RFisher]

just bad luck, bad play or sick monster?

"You make your own luck." D&D uses dice. That means chance is involved. You want to do everything you can to tilt the percentages in your favor. Ideally, you'd always tilt them to 100% success. There will always be times, however, when it makes sense to take a risk. That means there will always be a time for bad luck to ruin your day.

I don't know if the player did everything he could/should to tilt the chances in his favor. I don't know if the attempt here was worth the risk. I don't know how well the player or character could assess the risks/rewards in this situation. So, maybe it's good play, maybe it's bad play.

I firmly believe that it's OK for PCs to encounter monsters that totally outclass them. I feel they should generally have a chance to recognize it, though, & decide what risk they want to take.

I'm not, however, a big fan of critical hits. I think they are too much in favor of the monsters over the PCs. If I run a 3e/d20 game again, I will most likely either drop critical completely or make them a PC-only feature.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I'm beginning to think Gary was right in the 1e DMG. Critical hit systems are a bad thing. They cause PC deaths but don't help the PCs all that much.

 

[rgard]

In last nights adventure our 6th level psychic warrior came up against a Minotaur Zombie.

after failing his jump check to run up the walls and around him, he got criticaled for 58 points of damage (greataxe)

dead, dead, dead

my scout spotted the creature in advance - but it was blocking a corridor and we needed to go through it. Artificier instead of a mage / sorcerer so we couldn't stand off and blast, arrows not much use on a zombie...

only the warforged in the group would have survived that hit (but down to single figure hp)

just bad luck, bad play or sick monster?

(my ranger with undead favoured enemy and the warforged fighter eventually hacked our way through, though we both needed healing midway through - luckily no-one else got criticaled)

It was two bad rolls for the PC...failed the jump check and then got crit'd. It happens. I've seen the reverse...PC needs a natural 20 to tumble through an opponent in order to get at the mage in the back rank. PC rolls the 20, PC attacks mage, gets a crit and the mage dies.

Just bad luck.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Terraism]

I'm beginning to think Gary was right in the 1e DMG. Critical hit systems are a bad thing. They cause PC deaths but don't help the PCs all that much.

I don't know if I agree entirely, but I can certainly sympathize with the sentiment. I've been considering modifying crits to require an action point to confirm - which would mean PCs and BBEGs-only. Unfortunately, one of the guys in my game is a keen rapier wielding swashbuckler-style fellow, who'd be horribly disappointed.

 

[pawsplay]

just bad luck, bad play or sick monster?

A little bit of all three. First, it's a heavy hitter, which means people can get hurt very badly. However, that can be neutralized by good strategy. The player should not have attempted to run past it... what was he going to do by himself on the other side, anyway? Instead, the group should have engaged the zombie, using careful tactics. Still, they would have gotten away with it, but for a few bruises, without the failed check and the crit.

Bottom line: zombies are tough but slow, and have no ranged attacks. With some patience, they can be engaged with no danger whatsoever.

 

[Ry]

The randomness of the rolls makes death meaningless, especially if the DM makes a mistake with his challenge ratings.

Upper level spells try to remove this with spells, but this only trivializes death even more.

Solutions where the PCs essentially can't die trivialize death yet again.

Solutions where the DM decides whether players "really" die are just as capricious as the existing rules.

I wrote a house rule that makes death nontrivial, but it takes power away from the rules and the DM. They're the "Raising the Stakes" link off the wiki in my sig.

 

[GlassJaw]

To me, the best situation is for a DM to push the players to brink where they aren't sure if they will be able to survive but they end up pulling it off. As a DM, that's the most fun I can bring to the table, because that's what it's all about.

Throwing a random encounter at the players and killing them from a lucky roll isn't fun. Many times, I HATE killing characters because I know it will slow the game down and won't add to the fun factor. If anything, it will just be frustrating, and I don't even mean the player that's going to pout if their character gets killed - I don't really play with people like that. I'm just talking about the pace and flow of the game. The party is instantly crippled because they just lost a member, the player has to make a new character, and I have to figure out a way to bring them back. It's just annoying.

As a DM, I'm almost inclined to go so far as to say I won't kill characters in non-climatic battles. It's not fun. Don't even get me started on random encounters. I flat-out don't use them.

Action points do help in this respect, especially if you have a last gasp option. It gives me a little more confidence that the characters can blow AP's to stay in the game.

 

[The_Gneech]

Hey, look at this way, he's got a great story to tell, now.

As a player, I generally don't mind characters getting killed, myself -- I always have another concept I want to play with.

So let the dice fall!

-The Gneech

 

[Phlebas]

............

The player should not have attempted to run past it... what was he going to do by himself on the other side, anyway?

...

we were in a 10' corridor so only the warforged and one other could fight. my ranger was up front as undead = favoured enemy so the dead PC was trying to get a flanking bonus (and get involved). Since that blow would have taken me to -20 it wasn't entirely due to the reckless jump manoeuvre - though we did think it wasn't the smartest thing ever done....

we did start the combat by soaking the zombie in oil but the psychic warrior missed with the torch throw (lousy rolls began here) and then it closed preventing us from any manouvering / lighting. with hindsight we probably should have either lobbed flasks of oil, alchemical fire and jogged away, and/or all piled into the room and surrounded it, but that wouldn't have prevented the first attack being a critical and a killer (though it would have reduced the number of rounds it stayed swinging)