Disappointed to survive?

[Noldor Elf]

The last three battles of our group have left a bitter feeling to me. I feel like my character should have died but was saved by the DM. Gave also me feeling that our group never had real change in any of the battles.

Here is info about the group:
Fire Genasi Ex-Paladin1/Cleric of Gond 7 (Replaced by Tiefling Cleric 3/Sorcerer 1/ Prc 3 for the last fight (can summon shadows as spell like ability))
Human Druid 8 (Replaced by Elf Druid 5/Master of Many Forms 2)
Halfling Rogue 3/Cleric of Kossuth 4 (/Blackflame Zealot 1) (me)
Deep Ilmaskari Telepath 5/Thrallherd 2 (Replaced by Deep Ilmaskari Wizard 5/Incantranix 3)
Elven Ranger 7
Human Fighter 8 (Replaced by Dwarf Rogue3/Ranger 4)

First battle was against an illithid. We tried to ambush it (telepath contacted it for a negotiations). The Super-intelligence illithid turned our ambush to a counter ambush with two minions (some kind of spellcasting demons) capable of invisibility. The group also had two grimlocks (thralls of the Telepath) on their side and the illithid had two Kua-Toa, apparently with Monk and Fighter levels (at least 2 attack / round both).

The party concentrated their fire on illithid and managed to take it down. At the same time the Kua-Toas teared our main fighter apart (poor fellow got only one round of attacks, he was down after two full attacks by both Kua-Toas). After the fighter was down, the Kua-Toas moved to our druid, who wildshaped into a lion but was dead in couple of round too, but he managed to take one of the Kua-Toa with him, while the other was practically unharmed.
The demon things stayd near the ceiling of the cave and peppered party with spells, slowing the ranger and bringing the Fire genasi cleric and the ranger to negatives with couple of Lightning bolts. The other demon concentrated on my halfling cleric, attacking with some kind of ranged attack (roll to hit, no save) after I evaded one lightning bolt. The demon was capable of doing two attacks after a move.
Our telepath managed to manifest share the pain, forced to both demons and that in conjunction with Produce flame attacks from my cleric brought both demons done.
At that point my cleric had cured the fire genasi cleric and situations looked following: tha party had both clerics standing with one digit hit points and telepath with near full hit point (thanks to Vigor), but no power points left against Kua-Toa Monk with two bladed gauntlets, almost full hit points, displacement running and two attacks after a charge, three (1 off-hand) in full attack.
Then the Kua-Toa seem to shake-off the mind control of now dead illithid and offered us a deal to get rid of the last illithid controlling the Kua-Toa city and elevate his master, the Prince as the Priest-king of the city. Not suprisingly, we agreed.

Second fight was to fullfill our deal. The dead druid was replaced by druid/MoMF and the palyer of the now-dead fighter was missing. We had three Kua-Toa on our side: the Prince, the Duke (with whom we had made the deal in last fight) and one other.
We stormed throught the entry hall of the Kuat-Toa palace with ease and entered to the Thronechamber to confront the Priestking. In addition to the Priestking there were the mount of the king, a fiendish squid, two Kua-Toa guards, illithid and two huge (5th level) astral constructs.
The illithid (as usually) wins the initiative and made some ectoplasm cloud to the area where we were, hampering vision to 5 feet and dealing damage. The group splits to different sides of the cloud while main melee strenght (Druid and Kua-Toas) charge forward towards the throne, while the astral constructs wait at the edge of the cloud.
After we got out of the cloud, the ranger managed to get clear shot to the illithid, without managing to disrupt the manifesting of third astral construct. The Fire genasi cleric made some area buff to the are where main combat was, while our melee fighters managed to do some harm to the Kua-Toa guards.
Next round the illithid moved the cloud to block vision of our archer towards him and disintegrated the fire genasi cleric (who also carried the bag of holding with most of our unidentified loot, OUCH!)(would have needed 16+ roll to save), vapouring him. After the archer and telepath moved to clear position they werer confronted by the priestking and his mount. My cleric managed to move towards the illithid and out of the cloud.
In the melee first of our Kua-Toa allies went down against the Astral Constructs but our druid managed to take one of the Kua-Toa guards down.
Next round the illithid did Psychic Crush to my cleric and after a bad roll on save he went to -1 HP. Telepath did not manage to break illithids power resistance, but the ranger get few good hits (favored enemy: aberrations ;-)) on illithid. On melee both sides traded blows with astral constructs dealing far more damage than they were taking and took second of our allied Kua-Toas down.
Next round, illithind Psychic Crushed our druid who tried to get to him. Another failed save and third member of party down. Our ranger managed to make necessary damage to illithid, killing it and making the astral constructs also disappear.
After that the Priestking and his mount attacked first our telepath and then the ranger. They needed 6 rounds to bring both to negatives, during which time the druid managed to stabilize, my cleric not being at -7. As our last member went down, only remaining fighters were the priestking and one of the Kua-Toa guards on opponents side and the prince on our side. The DM told us that we woke up, healed as our side (the prince) had won. After the last of our party went down, no dice were rolled.

Do you have similar experiences? For the fight in the Thronehall, the DM mentioned later that we were at lower level than what was supposed, as we had taken the most direct route to the Kua-Toa city and therefore missed some of the experience on the way.

How should I deal with the situation? Most recent fight had felt kind a pointless, as things feel to be out of my/our control. Our party tactics had though so far been horrible or nonexisting, which might also have effect to the difficulty and increase the feeling of futility. (Like in last fight when our wizard casted Solid Fog and only members capable of fighting within it were the shadows summoned by our necromancer.)

 

[Yair]

I am a big supporter of rolling in the open: I roll my dice as DM in public, not behind some DM screen, and let the die fall where they may. I found this adds a significant degree of tension to the game, perhaps you should ask your DM to adopt this technique (if he isn't)?

From where I'm sitting, your DM did pretty well. On the first encounter you were losing badly, and he offered you a way out. Cool. On the second encounter NPCs were left when the party came down and since he doesn't want to play D&D without players he made a judgment call on who won. Also cool.
The only thing I would have done differently is to share my contemplation at this point with the players: I would hmm, tell them the status and power of the remaining combatants, decide on a % their side pervailed, and make one dice roll to see if it did (in the open).
I don't see anything wrong with the way your DM acted.

 

[Hand of Evil]

As a DM I do not like to kill players and I want my players to have fun, I llok at it as if I am publishing a story, I have a plot and an outcome in mind, the actions of the players is the unexpected.

I do not see any thing wrong with your DM style, there was no need to continue the combat, your party was out of it, all that mattered was the outcome, your side won, the story continues.

Now, having said that; talk to your DM, if you are not happy with the outcome or the flow get with your DM to see if there is a plan/plot/view and your characters role in it. You may find that knowing how you DM is going to running the game will change how you play the game and your DM MAY address your concerns, re-thinking encounters.

 

[S'mon]

Personally I'd probably do the "% chance your side won" approach Yair advocates, but your GM's style seems perfectly reasonable to me. If you would prefer a harsher approach (with lots of dead PCs) just let him know.

 

[Noldor Elf]

As a DM I do not like to kill players

It is always nice not to kill players...

Well, I am a visitor in a group so I probably will go with the show for the remaining coule of months. I do understand the decision of the DM and playing by the rolls could have easily ended the whole campaing on that occasion. The situation then felt frustrating, as we kinda knew that the fights were over our head, but couldn't create any other possibilities. Still I feel kind a cheated.

While it can be more due our lack of group tacktics and my minor experiences to deadly gaming style (my normal group had pretty much no character deaths during 8 levels of gaming), but after the described battles there has been two fights which to meel feel like incapability/unwillingness of the DM to evaluate the true power level of our group.

First one ended up in chaos with Solid Fog and Darklight by wizard and necromancer screwing other party members at least as much as enemy. Finally Elminster dispelled all the magics and made the enemy disapper (we were fighting at the door of the Elminster's house).

Second was against 5 Phase Spiders in dead magic zone (which turned out to be pretty severe penalty to our magic heavy group). We ended the session with spiders dragging aways bodies (mostly stabilized) of 3 party member with 2 that ran away trying to track them down (one player was missing).

So far the campaign has seen very little drive from players, but in most of the situations I don't think that we have had logical reasons to do something else. Of course situation is now a little strange, as my character joined the group in a middle of quest to free some captives from Underdark and now all the members of that group have died or left, so we have no real connection to that quest anymore. Luckily the DM had offered some additional hooks leading to same way that fit for some of our new characters.

 

[diaglo]

been there. done that. bought the t-shirt.

my hat of DM's pulling punches knows no limits.

 

[S'mon]

If you don't like GM pulling punches but your group is too crappy for the GM's scenarios, maybe suggest to the GM that he use Fate Points as in the Conan system. PCs start with 3 and can spend them to avoid death eg when reduced to -10hp, or to get a lucky break like Elminster intervening or your side winning the battle. PCs can earn more FPs for major achievements. This would let the GM run his tough adventures while putting control back in the hands of the players; I use them in my current D&D game & they work well.

 

[Henry]

I dunno - at first I was about to say it was, like you presumed, "pseudo-cheater's remorse", but after re-reading it the first fight played well, and the second one, while feeling a little out-of-sorts, still had a logical conclusion.

In the first fight, after the Kuo-toa Fighter/Monk shook off the domination, he realized he was surrounded by THREE-TO-ONE odds. Ignore that you were in single digits - you were still standing, a little haggard, but for all he knew you still had spells and power left, and ready for business, and each of you were a match for him by your selves. It's logical for him to try to use such strong opponents to his advantage.

The second fight had two glaring problems:First, was the prince by himself a match for the two remaining creatures? If he was, and he was healthy while the two opponents were not, then he could well have won, speaking of averages. The guard could have plausibly turned on the Priest King when it was just him and the Prince.

Second, Evil creatures often do not save other creatures who are down and out. However, if the Prince was Lawful, then he may have felt obligated to do so. Taking a metagame viewpoint, the DM may have wanted to reward your group for the sacrifice that they undertook for a bunch of creatures you had no obligation to, to fight to the bitter end for a cause you technically didn't even believe in, to free a group of sentients. From that standpoint, a Lawful prince could have felt obligated to save you all, since you risked so much for the Kuo-toa people.

It's not impossible, even if the last fight may have stretched it a bit, But I'd say the whole encounter sounded pretty neat, and would have made for some good reading.

 

[Psion]

I share the "let the dice fall where they may" sensibility. The only time I generally fudge is when I realize that an encounter is more deadly than I had intended due to my misjudgement. I generally like the players to reap the benefits and consequences of their own actions however.

I give the PCs action points. I figure if that's not enough to get them by the tough scrapes, they probably were in it too deep to begin with.

 

[MetalBard]

I share the "let the dice fall where they may" sensibility. The only time I generally fudge is when I realize that an encounter is more deadly than I had intended due to my misjudgement. I generally like the players to reap the benefits and consequences of their own actions however.

I give the PCs action points. I figure if that's not enough to get them by the tough scrapes, they probably were in it too deep to begin with.

Yeah, I do the same, and I found that when my group first started playing 3rd edition, I was fudging things rather frequently. After about a couple of months, I got the hang of things and stuff got legitimately deadly quite quickly. The players were smart/cautious though and it was only during the over-confidence of levels 13-16 that they started getting killed.