DMs: Fight to Win or Fight for Fun?

[swrushing]

Re: Ghouls. IMC it all depends on how hungry they are. If these are fairly well fed ghouls, then they'll be coniving, evil, and devious. If they're starving, then they'll pursue food until sated, taking bites out of paralyzed enemies even if it isn't tactically advisable. After a CDG (they've gulped down some flesh) they might realize they need to fight off the others or they might just keep eating! Usually ghouls are in packs, so this isn't as suicidal as you might think. That's how I do it at least.

The difference between us on this is pretty simple... I dont see a "starving guy takes a bite to slack his hunger" as a CDG.

A CDG is a well placed specific attemopt at killing someone.
A CDG takes longer than a normal bite or claw, as evidence by the full round action.
it takes more CONCENTRATIOn and FOCUS than a normal bite or claw, as evidenced by the AoO it provokes.

If the ghoul was overcome by hunger and just *has* to get a bite in, wouldn't it just take its bite/rend immediately, as a standard attack action, not suffering a AoO which might keep it from feeding, and why take longer and do it carefully and with precision if he is not thinking clearly?

The notion of making a feral starving sort take a bite from a helpless or downed foe, rather than make sound tactical decisions, that i can get.

But having him out of hunger not take an immediate bite but instead to carefully focus and with precision strike a killing blow... that doesn't speak of ravenous hunger to me.

 

[Kelleris]

On the ground? I hope you mean falling prone for +4 to AC Vs. ranged attacks, because if Disintegrate sends them to 0 or lower HP [into the negatives] they are dusted.

Aargh, you're right of course. I should have said "out of the fight", especially since even the successful save potentially kills you. I spoke too soon. Getting whacked with a disintegrate and blowing the save generally means a hasty retreat, if possible, what with the 7/caster level average damage. Or you're dead, of course, which is another way of getting out of the fight.

You'd think I'd remember that since I just made a disintegrate variant a couple of days ago, but I seem to be prone to not thinking on ENWorld.

EDIT: Ah! I've figured it out! I was wrong because making a snarky correction to someone else's post automatically causes an error to occur in the correcting post. It is the Law of the Internet!

 

[Pielorinho]

Now, the question becomes some form of "did the players or their characters have any way of knowing that ghouls in your worlds react this differently from other "significantly above average intelligent creatures?" That ghouls typically place getting one more kill over their own survival?

I disagree: unless the characters have any way of knowing that ghouls are significantly above-average intelligent creatures, then the question doesn't involve the ghouls' intelligence at all. Given the fact that ghouls live in graveyards and feast on the flesh of humanoids living and dead and are themselves dead and animated only by an evil force, the characters may safely assume that ghouls are motivated by something different from their own motivations. If the characters assume that ghouls value their own survival as much as the characters value theirs, the characters may suffer as a consequence.

As for a bite equalling a CdG, I think that's a perfectly reasonable interpretation: a ghoul who sees a downed enemy may be overwhelmed by hunger and may temporarily drop his defenses as he scrabbles down to get at the lovely soft flesh of a throat or belly. When he drops his defenses, that provokes an AoO; and he may spend a full-round action eating his fill instead of just gnashing at the flesh in a normal attack.

An attack that causes a grievous wound, takes a full-round to inflict, and provokes an Attack of Opportunity is functionally identical to a Coup de Grace. The differences are only in the window-dressing.

As an alternative, the ghoul may not be motivated by hunger so much as by desperate hatred. Here it is, shunned by humanity, inflicted with a terrible and unnatural craving for human flesh that has driven it insane, and relegated to the stinking crypt from which it was reborn; terrified to venture far beyond its crypt, terrified of sunlight, terrified of the living for which it hungers. And, in this miserable last bastion, humans come in and try to kill it, and the ghoul, filled with maniacal loathing for itself and for these nasty murderers, may decide to taste flesh once more before its inevitable final death, may decide to let these nasty humans feel a bit of the misery in which it has existed for so long.

It's kinda fun to come up with motives for inhuman creatures, and a lot of the fun is finding a way to rationalize those motives while keeping them terribly inhuman.

Daniel

 

[Buttercup]

I think in the circumstances, you didn't do anything wrong or unreasonable. Would I have done it? I'm not sure. I've only had a PC death now and then, and never a TPK. But then, I don't allow resurection in my games, so dead is dead. I certainly wouldn't kill the character of an inexperienced or new player, lest I frustrate them or scare them away from the game. I guess it depends on the situation.

 

[coyote6]

What I did correctly - in my mind, after much thought - is have Mr. Ghoul go for a CDG. Having a ghoul grab a hostage and say, "Back off, or this one dies!" is ludicrous to me. In my campaign, a ghoul doesn't act like that. This is a ghoul, not an orc. Maybe that doesn't make a difference in some campaigns. I dunno.

Well, most ghouls in my game would probably not be much for negotiating, either. However, when asked if they had a way to escape, you indicated that they had no way to escape, which gave me the (probably mistaken) impression that if he had an escape route he might've taken it. If he was interested in escaping, then a temporary "back off or he dies" might've made sense.

(Of course, a CE flesh-eater would probably go ahead and kill the hostage no matter what.)

Also, I missed the fact that another PC was straddling the paralyzed PC. Did the nearby PC miss with his AoO?

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

An attack that causes a grievous wound, takes a full-round to inflict, and provokes an Attack of Opportunity is functionally identical to a Coup de Grace. The differences are only in the window-dressing.

Well, we will just have to disagree here. Hunger might drive you to eat the nearest and easiest exposed flesh of the bleeding part, which is a far cry from going for the vital spot needed to kill.

I would have a blood crazed or hunger crazed attacker be more likely to spend time gnawing off your figngers and hand or gnahs at your bleeding shoulder wound before I would have it go for a lethal kill shot.

If its goal is feeding on flesh that doesn't mean it goes for the throat or heart, but for the meatiest most available parts.


As an aisde, for the hunger-crazed guys in the audience, look back at the first post, where the Gm outlined his reasons. Not the absolute lack of "hunger crazed need to feed" and the list of reasoned considerations... Int 13 creature, creature judged the fight was lost, plundering his home, opportunity to take one down with him...

When your justification is "its a smart creature and here is why it was the smart thing to do" tossing in the crazed hunger when other, perhaps smarter options are presented, speaks more of "trying to justify an earlier choice no matter what" than simply assessing whether the move was appropriate. At least to me.

As an alternative, the ghoul may not be motivated by hunger so much as by desperate hatred. ...craving for human flesh that has driven it insane, ...terrified to venture far beyond its crypt, terrified of sunlight, terrified of the living for which it hungers. ... may decide to let these nasty humans feel a bit of the misery in which it has existed for so long.

Snipped the majority to keep the emotional elements forefront...

driven insane... desperate hatred etc... you describe a wonderful adversary here... but not one i would normally represent with 13 int and 14 wisdom.

there seems to be an odd synergy going on here. at the same time the intelligence of the ghoul is highlighted as relevent to the encounter, all the descritions seem to want to portray it as an animalistic, feral , out of control, insane thing.

There seems to be at the same time, in order to rationalize the choice the Gm already made, a goal to consider it intelligent enough that it has the wherewithal to do a considered CDG instead of more instinctive reactions to active enemy stiking at it (attack threat, run away) and at the same time to also explain why it didn't make other considered choices by ascribing insane irrational feral drives it cannot control.

I cannot speak to what others would do, but for me it works like this...

if before making the monster's choice for it, i decided it was a feral thing driven by rage or hunger and not really a reasonable, intelligent creature, then its reactions would be instinctive, not calculated, and choices like "run away" or "fight the one trying ton hurt me" or even "take a bite at exposed flesh" would be reasonable given the inhuman nature of the beastie. none of these make sense as a focused, precison strike such as a CDG.

if before making the monster's choice for it, i decided it was an intelligent and wise creature and would act accordingly, then "reasoned" or "calculated" options such as "take a hostage" or other choices geared for survival would be the choices i would lean towards.

About the only cases where i would tend to fall towards "take one down with me" suicidal vengence thingy would be for a fanatic kind of thing, like a cultist or something who believed dying this way was a virtue.

The joint arguments trying to support the decision after the fact based on "its intelligent" AND "it doesn't have to make sense" seem a lot like searching for after the fact justification for a decision made on grounds other than that.

It's kinda fun to come up with motives for inhuman creatures, and a lot of the fun is finding a way to rationalize those motives while keeping them terribly inhuman.
Daniel

For me itsa more "fun" to come up with these before the action isn chosen and to have my game run so that when my NPCs do something "unexpected" the reactions of the players are more "yeah, we should'a seen that coming" as opposed to "uhh... are you sure thats what it would do?"

 

[swrushing]

I disagree: unless the characters have any way of knowing that ghouls are significantly above-average intelligent creatures, then the question doesn't involve the ghouls' intelligence at all.

they had already been engagingn these ghouls and killed most of them. Whether they had encountered other ghouls before or not, they have at least this encounter to draw on. I am assuming he runs intelligent adversaries noticeably different than unintelligent ones, so there are clues for the characters to pick up on.

I could of course be mistaken, but he did go to pains to give us spoecific mention of the critters int and the rational reasons it did the things he had it do, so I think i am somewhat safe in assuming the ghouls played intelligently before that too.

But, as reasonable Gming (possible reasonable storytelling) when you want to put a life or death drama into your scene, it does well to make sure they know its there. I know my players would not expect suicidal "take-you-down-with-me" choices as a standard thing. When i decide to add that degree of fanaticism to an enemy, i show them before it is a PC life or death surprise. There are, as described earlier, lots of good, established STing techniques to do so.

If the players knew the take-then-down-with-me was a part of this story, the scene would have, as described earlier, turned into everyone trying to stop the ghoul. A paralyzed teammate becomes everyone's immediate focus and a lot of great heroic drama ensues. If the guy dies anyway, its "we did not save him" as opposed to "uhh, huh, wny would it do that?" The focus of everyone's attention is "what we did" and "what our character's tried" and not "why did the GM do that".

It sounds like the players left that scene thinking about "the GM" and not the scene or the bad guy and so forth. By not setting the stage before hand, by not putting the "paralyze-CDG whammy" suicidal ghoul thingy "on the mantlepiece ahead of time, the Gm made the dramatic point of the scene about HIM, the GM, and not about the in character stuff.

When i used priests with the death touch ability in my games as a dedicated foe, I had several scenes and info gathering moments before the PCs came into "they are after us!" conflicts so the PCs knew what it meant when those hands started glowing black and the priest moved towards you. twice they got thru and did the Dt thing only to have it LUCKILY not succeed. I literally saw a player sweat over his roll, knowing if it failed, his character was dead and done. But, since it was already established and "set on the mantlepiece" that this was what they did and how things happened, i didn't get a single "would they do that" or "why did they do that" or "why did steve try to kill me" kind of thing.

 

[swrushing]

BTW, in an effort to give proprs where due, in one of my games when fighting against a pack of ghouls, in order to save a paralyzed character, my party's sorcerer ran up to him and hit him with gaseous form. The immunity to criticals prevents any CDG and the DR helps a lot.

At the time, i thought it a right clever solution.

 

[pogre]

D-man -

I don't think I would have pulled the trigger on this one. It's safe to say my players fear death IMC, but I don't use CDG until everyone is down or the threats are gone.

As you know I have a propensity to end campaigns with TPKs and I was feeling a bit battle-weary after the last one. In the current campaign I am much more careful with CRs and make it OBVIOUS when the PCs are overmatched. Even with that I have a PC die every few sessions or so.

But, it seems it was the right thing to do in your campaign. Your player even said so. Good call.

 

[3catcircus]

Therein lies the problem - you *assume* it is "DM vs. Players" when you should be looking at it as "NPCs vs. Players." Unless the DM is *actively* going out of his way to target the characters (every bar-wench and street urchin is an assassin in disguise, the main thorofare in town has traps every 10 feet, etc.), then you are wrong (yes - I said it - wrong) to feel offended if a DM plays his NPCs to the same extent that the players play their PCs.

I've had this same argument with other players in my group (I'm a player, not the DM). There is one player in our group who has the attitude of "monsters aren't NPCs," and "NPCs aren't as important as PCs." He has the attitude that monsters are nothing more than chunks of XP and NPCs are there to do the PCs bidding and step aside to allow the PCs to collect the treasure and to solve the riddles for the PCs.

How many DMs throw hordes of baddies at the PCs and then have the BBEG stand his ground and get killed?

How many DMs throw *half* the horde of baddies at the PCs, have the BBEG fight until he realizes he needs to regroup or escape, and then flee while throwing the *other* half of the horde at the PCs to aid in his escape?

The point is - DMs should play *every* NPC to their abilities. The more intelligent the baddie, the greater the threat to the PCs that one of them will get cacked or that the baddie will escape to fight them again.

How many DMs complain when the PCs CdG the baddies? Perfect example of this - I was DMing 3.5-ized UK2/UK3 modules. **SPOILER ALERT**

There is an area in the keep where gnolls are sleeping off a drunk. The PCs managed to quietly sneak into the room without arousing any of them. And proceeded to slit the throats of all of them.

Did I, as DM, whine that it was unfair that they CdG'ed all of my NPCs? No - so why should they complain if their PCs are in a situation that warrants getting killed? For a flesh-eating undead, such as a ghoul, ghast, or wight, the urge to extinguish the hated positive energy of the living would probably be overwhelming, so they would go for the kill.

Now, a vampire or lich would've never gotten into combat in the first place, if it could have avoided it.

To answer the question in the subject - Fight for Fun. I hate it hate it hate it when a DM gets the "DM vs. Players" attitude. That's the one thing that has made me actually leave a group.