Do you let your players...?

[Norfleet]

Re: Re: Do you let your players...?

In fact, it is so common for a sorcerer or wizard to accidentally catch his comrades in his area-effect elemental damage spells, the group's cleric often casts Endure Elements on the front-line fighters before going into combat, as a safeguard.

I've never seen this problem in NWN before. You see, in our group, we have this little thing about etiquette, where, before one cuts loose with an area effect, it is considered polite and proper to shout "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" before cutting loose. In response to seeing this, everyone scatters from the target area like rabbits. As a result, we've never had a friendly fire incident of this sort.

We *HAVE*, however, had a player who played a sorceror that was far more dangerous to himself than to the enemies. Many times, he would cast a spell at the enemy. The party would be unscathed. The enemies would be unscathed. The sorceror, however, would be caught in the blast and killed instantly.

 

[ThomasBJJ]

Just the other night my Monk got knocked unconcious in battle. The party cleric runs up to me to case a cure spell.

The player asks me "what hit points are you at?"

I say "There's no way for you to know that exactly, I'm unconcious and bleeding."

He says "I want to know if I should use a cure ligh or a cure serious, WHAT HIT POINTS ARE YOU AT?" I say

"I cant answer you, I'm unconcious, and your character doesn't know what hit points are, there's no way for you to know."

Cleric says "JUST TELL ME HOW MANY HIT POINTS YOU ARE AT!?!?!"

Me: "Nope, it doesnt work that way, you wouldnt know."

Cleric: "FINE, I'LL JUST LET YOU FRIGGIN DIE!"

I dont allow that kind of stuff when I DM, I'm not going to contribute to it as a player.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

We don't have any fixed rules that I know of, and my DM hasn't commented yet so I'll give the impression of what we do here. We work in the middle zone of all of this.

Some comments are allowed especially where rules are concerned. AoO in particular is a prime example. Not all of us are up on what causes them but it accepted that our characters would so if we make a move that draws an AoO and the person making the move doesn't acknowlege it ("I move here taking the AoO") then it is fair game for anyone else to point it out and the person drawing the AoO is allowed to reconsider thier action. This applys to both players and DM with both pointing things out and both having an opertunity to reconsider taking the rules into account. AoO is the best example but any rule based decision is fair game.

One thing we don't do however is discuss tactics durring the combat. There is no you go there and I will do this. We keep quiet, or mostly so with painful grimaces at other peoples actions, about our individual plans. If you want to give tactical advice or any in game verbalization you have 6 seconds on your innitiative to do it (Sometimes this goes a little longer and I am normally the one who says "6 second people"). The tactical mistakes that come from this sometimes are so amusing that they are remembered for a long time afterwards. Certainly if we have preperation time before a battle we may discuss tactics at that time, but once the battle starts we shut up. This has not realy been a problem for us as several times when I thought our party was in deep trouble someone would do something comepletely unexpected and save us.

As for hit points and determining healing we vary in the level we play at. First off it is the responsibility of the person taking damage to yell "medic" if they need help immediately. If they don't they are not always first priority. If I have a chance to heal people on my turn and it makes sense even if no-one has yellled medic I try to keep it non hit point based. I ask how people look (he "looks" ok 75%+, or somewhat damaged 50-75%, or bad 25%-50%, or realy bad <25%) and try to base a judgement from that. Often times people respond that they are at X hps and I try to ignore the exact number they give. The only time we deal in more exacting numbers is after combat when we are healing up and have time to do a more thoughough assesment of peoples wounds. No one has ever complained though so I guess for our group we are are doing fine.

For determining spell placement we have not talked about why, but both the DMs and players will count out spell ranges to get the most benifit without harming his own side. I have no problem wth this as I see it the we don't need to Role-Play our high strength score and this is the way to deal with Role-Playing a higher Int score than we may personally have. Now sometimes we do get tagged by our own sides Area Effect spells but generally after our character say something like "Do it, don't worry about me" on thier innitiative. This is not realy tactics since our wizard won't neccesarily drop a fireball, but it would not be unprecidented since he does seem to like the Area Effect spells in general, we are just giving permission not to worry about us and to try to take out as many of the enemy as possible. Genenerally we say things like this when we figure we can take it (energy protection, improved evasion, or just plain high HPs) and are surrounded by ennemies.

 

[Joseph Elric Smith]

Yep If i was the cleric I'd let the character die too, but then again all the dm had to do was intervene and allow a heal roll for the cleric to get an idea of how bad the wounds were. My group is in agreement though if one of us did that, then we probably wouldn't waste a heal spell on the character either.
ken

Just the other night my Monk got knocked unconcious in battle. The party cleric runs up to me to case a cure spell.

The player asks me "what hit points are you at?"

I say "There's no way for you to know that exactly, I'm unconcious and bleeding."

He says "I want to know if I should use a cure ligh or a cure serious, WHAT HIT POINTS ARE YOU AT?" I say

"I cant answer you, I'm unconcious, and your character doesn't know what hit points are, there's no way for you to know."

Cleric says "JUST TELL ME HOW MANY HIT POINTS YOU ARE AT!?!?!"

Me: "Nope, it doesnt work that way, you wouldnt know."

Cleric: "FINE, I'LL JUST LET YOU FRIGGIN DIE!"

I dont allow that kind of stuff when I DM, I'm not going to contribute to it as a player.

 

[Mark Chance]

When considering brief bits of IC advice here and there during combat, there is no problem, and it is quite realistic even.

Of course, if the PCs can hear the ranger calling for fire, then so can the NPCs.

 

[WizarDru]

Intelligence does not denote grace, or acuity in a stressful situation. I have never heard anyone claim that Audie Murphy was brilliant, but he did handle himself well under combat conditions.

Well, let's be honest: Audie Murphy had a great Will save and some good Endurance feats. Smart in the book-wise sense, no...but tactically, you betcha.

Hmmm. Now I feel like watching "To Hell and Back..."

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Yep If i was the cleric I'd let the character die too, but then again all the dm had to do was intervene and allow a heal roll for the cleric to get an idea of how bad the wounds were. My group is in agreement though if one of us did that, then we probably wouldn't waste a heal spell on the character either.
ken

*snicker* yeah, even if the idea is sound, he could have given a useful answer instead of being deliberately unhelpful. All he had to say is "I'm subdualed unconsious, not dying unconsious" if he wanted to not give a number. But even without a heal check, a cleric should be able to assess general health. without a detailed description and then medical discussion giving a rough HP count makes perfect sense.

The funniest thing is that he apparently thought being deliberately obtuse and literalist is good roleplaying.

Kahuna Burger

 

[tburdett]

This is very true - it seems a bit unfair though to alter NPC tactics based on what you know the PCs have planned!

If the NPC's understand the language that the PC's are using, I think that it is very fair.

 

[Quinn]

In general, I'm fairly lenient when it comes to this. I allow some table talk as far as flanking, spell placement, etc. However, I do have my limits and it usually involves the pacing of the battle and the game. If players table talk for a minute or longer, my tolerance for it grows shorter. The problem is that it typically becomes one or two people controlling everyone's characters during a battle. At this point, I start to give warnings about it: "Make your decision quickly, or you're going to lose your turns this initative". If the problem persists, I'll usually give a final warning: "Alright, enough tabletalk, from here on you make your decisions yourself. You're slowing the game down." From that point on, I follow up by telling people they've lost their turn when they do it again. That's my general rule of thumb as far as DM crackdowns: warning 1, warning 2, and then follow through if the problem continues.