DM lethality

[Gundark]

just a question? How lethal are the other DMs out there? My 10th level party fought a beholder recently and they complained that I capitalized on their weaknesses (ie. flesh to stone on someone who had a poor fort save). I did this to give the party a challenge. The two mages were turned to stone and the monk was killed however the mages were turned back and the monk raised. How often do your PC's die? The afore mentioned monk died again the next session to a fire giant and did not want to raised. PC deaths do not happen very often in our campiagn and the incident with the monk was an isolated event. Just wanted to get others thoughts on this.

 

[jgbrowning]

just a question? How lethal are the other DMs out there? My 10th level party fought a beholder recently and they complained that I capitalized on their weaknesses (ie. flesh to stone on someone who had a poor fort save). I did this to give the party a challenge. The two mages were turned to stone and the monk was killed however the mages were turned back and the monk raised. How often do your PC's die? The afore mentioned monk died again the next session to a fire giant and did not want to raised. PC deaths do not happen very often in our campiagn and the incident with the monk was an isolated event. Just wanted to get others thoughts on this.

we'll the gist of your question is not about lethality, its about fun. some people run games where death is not uncommon and their players have fun. others run games where death is very rare and their players have fun.

are your players having fun? did they have fun when they died? did it kinda suck, but they know thats how it happens some times and they picked up their chins and carried on? did it throw a pall over the game, reducing the total "fun amount"?

you just have to assess your group and not worry too much about what others are doing. if your concerned with your DMing ability- using NPC or monsters intelligently is not a flaw, it is a *hell, im getting old.... the opposite of a flaw thingy* or to quote martha stewart, "its a good thing". you should play the monsters smartly, and as long as your goal is not the death of the PCs (thats easy when your DM) you're doing ok.

joe b.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Well, npcs don't know which characters have poor fort saves, that's a metagaming term, BUT they do know that tough fighters shrug off spells and spell effects that do physical damage, rogues dodge fireballs, and charming a wizard isn't easy. So you did nothing out of the ordinary. Had it been me, the beholder would have drank a potion of haste and had a couple of fire giant buddies with fire seeds or a necklace of fireballs. Beholder delays, fire giants throw seeds, globes, beholder fires rays, opens antimagic eye. Rinse and repeat. What doesn't (or sometimes does) kill them, only makes them stronger!

 

[Fenes 2]

As has been said before, playing monsters smartly (as long as they are intelligent foes) is a good thing. Playing monsters with ooc-information is generally not that good, but it may be appropriate when playing a genius-level monster in order to better simulate the extraordinary amount of intelligence.

As far as lethality is concerned, I don't kill off PCs in my game. It takes, at least for me and my group, the fun out of a game.

 

[the Jester]

In my game they drop like flies.

Well, maybe that's a little exaggeration, but I like to have that reputation. The larger the party, the higher the fatality rate- there's enough "cushion" that you keep some continuity with the rest of the group. The higher the fatality rate, the greater the sense of achievement the players get when they survive, beat the bad guys, and get their accolades.

I think high fatality rates are only a problem if they stop the fun. My players keep coming back for more, and it's been a long time since anyone quit my game out of frustration with the game itself (frustration with another player is a different story, sadly).

I don't randomly kill pcs for no reason, but my evil bad guys fight smart (assuming they are smart) and dirty (except when they're honorable). I don't pull punches as a general rule.

 

[papa_laz]

Im not being a smart ass or anything, but how does a beholder drink a potion, they have no arms. This applies to other things aswell, like large dragons, their fingers would be too big to pick up the potion and direct its flow into their mouths.

 

[BMF]

I think another issue is the question of game balance. 3e is supposed to be designed so a CR 10 creature poses a fair and fun challenge to a party of relevant level.

There is also the question of the role character death plays in "game balance." Somewhere on Monte's site he talks about how he believes that when a DM or game designer plans a game, he should plan situations that require the characters to use their abilities to survive and overcome the obstacles, as opposed to the common 2e way of doing it (arbitrary DMing that disallows various spells and powers such as teleport).
If you think about what that sort of logic means to the game, you realize it means he thinks that characters that can raise dead should be having their friends killed, so they are required to use their abilities to overcome the situation. In other words, if you are playing at 9th level or higher, expect the rate of death to be higher than it was at 5th or 6th level. That is just a part of game balance.

But what you ask is more of a survey question. I can tell you that my friends and I have talked just recently about this same issue. In that conversation I said, "we have been pretty rough on the characters over the past 2 years or so." And we have. I can't even count how many characters we've lost in that time. I know this has happened with us because we have been trying a "hands off" approach to DMing. We've been playing a lot of WotC adventures, where we used to write all of our own. We are doing this for several reasons, one is to get a better understanding of what "game balance" in 3e is supposed to be (in WotC view anyway).

I can empathize with your friend who played the monk. No one in our group likes being raised or resurrected. It seems kind of lame. When we game above 9th level, we just deal with it. I like it that way because it makes the game more challenging.

 

[Mark]

As stated above, intelligent monsters should be acting intelligently. It could be, however, that your players are not experienced enough to have graduated from tee-ball to little league. If they are having this much trouble, you should ask them if they wish to begin a lower level campaign and learn to use tactics and stratgies more effectively so they have a better chance of surviving at those mid-levels. (...and I mean this with all due respect. Some players just try to jump into a difficult game far earlier than they are ready to handle some of the problems posed at those levels.)

Im not being a smart ass or anything, but how does a beholder drink a potion, they have no arms. This applies to other things aswell, like large dragons, their fingers would be too big to pick up the potion and direct its flow into their mouths.

Telekinesis

 

[papa_laz]

Hmmm, I dont know about that. But im willing to let it go...for now.

 

[Mark]

Hmmm, I dont know about that. But im willing to let it go...for now.

Do you not allow Beholders to use telekinesis or do you not allow telekinesis to be used in this way...for now?