Forked Thread: What would you have done?

[ExploderWizard]

However it is extremely strange to me that a conversation about bringing in an NPC to save the party takes place between the DM and the players, and even stranger that the players refuse such help on the grounds that they want a couple hundred more XP. Tales like this make me appreciate my current game groups even more than I already do.

Yeah this bugged me too. If the players are not doing everything they can to survive (and this includes thinking) I would not be inclined to offer any help at all. The fact that the players were more concerned with geting full XP than even surviving the encounter shows that they are not really into thier characters and are not willing to think outside the powers menu list to survive. If this is the case then you have real problems in the group as a whole which should be discussed openly.

 

[mlangsdorf]

That's a hard fight, and hard fights do tend to make PC's brains shut down. That said, it isn't an impossible fight:

Round 1, everyone should delay until the Cleric can Turn Undead. Hopefully, he gets most of the skeletons adjacent to the well and sends them plummeting below. Even if he doesn't get those guys, he'll get several of the undead (roughly half?) which should provide the opening for the party to retreat. The wizard can use Thunderwave to open up some more space if needed.

Likely places to retreat:
Reform the party into a square where they are.
Hide in a house.
Move to the space between Houses 2 & 3 and form up a square - no flanks exposed!
Climb onto a house rooftop.

Now that the tactical situation is less completely suck, everyone proceeds to use action points and daily/encounter powers like they're going out of style. This obviously a hard fight (2:1 odds against non-minion foes, and wraiths are HARD) so there's no point in hoarding. But use the powers intelligently: as soon as possible, the cleric should be moved to the back of the fighting line so as to take advantage of Lance of Faith versus undead.

It sounds like the group has some tactical issues.

 

[zillah]

Again I will start off by saying the group isn't optimized so it can't handle hard battles. For example, the fighter is greatsword focused, which means he had no shield, which means his AC was lower with his reflex as well making him easier to hit.
Fire your wizard. Because a real wizard wouldn't nuke their own party, but figure out ways to help them. For example, readied action to do a control spell to the wraith when the wraith moves closer to the fighter.
I will agree that your players are in fact idiots, and expect you to hold their hands every encounter. The simple fact is, they chose to nuke a teammate as an easy way out, but not 2 doors...how does this make sense?
Why wasn't the cleric spamming radiant powers?

TLDR- players are tards. they mortify me. their fault, not yours.

 

[ValhallaGH]

I didn't bother reducing the encounter because I thought they would use the terrain (such as the well) to their advantage. ONE guy (I think the thunderwave wizard) tried it ONCE. He hit three guys towards the well, but only managed to knock one in. He didn't bother after that, instead tyring to create ill-timed openings.



The rogue (way late in the battle) opened the door he was adjacent to (minor action), shifted in (move action), and then closed the door behind him (minor action).

The battle could have been easily winnable if they had pushed a few more skeletons down the well and/or retreated through a doorway (then the party could deal with the two wraiths and only one skeleton at a time instead of the wraiths and all 8 skeletons. Hell, they all could have retreated into a house and clsoed the door behind them, leaving only the wraiths to deal with (since they can fly through walls).

Instead they made it much, much harder on themselves by adopting the v3.0 fighter philosphy (just stand there and pound away) and wasted TONS of resources which they will surely need later on. The damned wizard didn't even bother conjuring up her flaming sphere until she was almost dead!

And they still got two encounters after this!

After reading your initial post, I had to wonder.

After reading this further expansion, I can confidently say the following:
Don't feel bad because your players are tactical morons.
I mean, killing a party member to prevent having him raised, when you could just shove a healing potion down his throat or let him use his second wind if he's still got it through a Heal check, is both selfish and short-sighted. Two traits that seem to define every member of your party.

There is a solution. About round 3 of a fight that's turning into a TPK, take off your DM hat and talk to your players like you were a member of the team. Hammer out a plan with them, then encourage them to act on it. Then resume DMing, ignoring your OOC knowledge of the party's plan.

It's not a perfect solution (and you may already be doing it), but it can help.
If they ask you for input, a couple fights later on, then give it in a similar (if less detailed) session. Once you feel they've had enough examples handed to them, tell them to think of one themselves (giving some help if they need it the first couple of times). Eventually, it will beomce a habit with them and you'll stop seeing crap like this.
If they don't ever ask you for input in later battles then merilly slaughter the moronic band of adventurers, performing Natural Selection upon the denizens of your fantasy world.

 

[knifie_sp00nie]

What everyone else has said.

Did anyone ever try a bull rush? Just a basic shove-- Str vs. Fort and the skeleton has a fort of 15. Something even a lucky roll can make.

Once there was a hole the party could hit-n-run until everything was dead. Not sure how the cleric could be so ineffective, especially with the creatures being radiant vulnerable.

Did the party play a lot of 3.5 before switching editions? I always found combat in 3.5 to be a very static affair, almost punishing movement that wasn't a charge to the front lines.

If you were playing on a map, maybe you could have drawn the doors clearly? It doesn't sound like you were vague about the doors, but maybe the players are overly visual?

I think they just suck at tactics. Maybe you could make the next adventure involve getting hired on to a mercenary company or something and have a "Sarge" character try to whip them into shape.

 

[Griogre]

Two things to the dm. 1) I like that you didn't change the encounter level. Good on you. 2) I don't like that you offered to bring in the missing character. This has a cheese factor on many levels. Shame on you.

1) Personally I always run missing PCs as this avoids you having to adjust encounters when someone misses which really might have been the straw that should have prevented what should have been a those four dying. However, if I did drop PCs in and out of each session if the player couldn't make it I would have adjusted the encounter. Fair's fair - if you are going to weaken the party by pulling a PC then the encounters should be adjusted to match the party size. I agree you should not have changed the encounter *level* but that was not the same level encounter when you were missing a PC - it went up a level.

2) I would have never brought in someone to save them. For victory to be meaningful there has to be the risk of failure. There are really two aspects of RPG games. There is the storyline with the characters and there are the player group dynamics. Bringing in someone to save their characters tells the players the DM will always save them and their choices do not matter. There is no incentive to get better at running your character if the DM is going to save you.

As some have mentioned, you should never really expect your players to do certain things. Players are unpredictable - that really is one of the joys of an RPG from the player viewpoint - they can do whatever they want - and they do.

If you want your players to run their characters better you need to give them an incentive to do so. While I am much gentler with new players – I’ll suggest things like bull rush or Turn undead – I probably would have killed those characters assuming they just fought it out.

I do want to point out some things in your player’s defense. Opening a door to an unknown area and possibly triggering another encounter when the current encounter is kicking your ass is only something your do when you are desperate and there could have been undead in those houses. Also, the players may well have believed they couldn’t out run the monsters. If the party believes they have no chance of getting away – they will *never* run. Doesn’t matter what the odds are. Also, some good characters simply will not run and abandon their slower friends.

 

[Obryn]

I don't think there's anything wrong with encounters it's best to run away from.

With that said, if wraiths are chasing after you, running away is difficult at best.

At any rate...

(1) This is an incredibly hard encounter for a group of 2nd-level PCs. Just the skeleton warriors alone would have been bad; the wraiths made it insane.

(2) Did the cleric ever turn? It's a complete game-changer in battles vs. undead. Even if it misses, it's still dealing deadly-to-undead Radiant damage. When it hits, the undead move way the hell away and get immobilized.

(3) Running through houses is, again, less of a good tactic when you're dealing with wraiths.

-O

 

[bganon]

Maybe I missed something...

This is a 1600 xp encounter. You have EIGHT soldiers (with their high defenses) of one level -above- the party. Plus two level lurkers three levels above. The encounter level is basically 6 even for a six-member party. This should've been a near-TPK even in a good situation. The DMG, in fact, specifically recommends against high-level encounters that are soldier-heavy.

Did your players react in a poor way? Sure... but it looks like you set them up to fail.

 

[Ravingdork]

The simple fact is, they chose to nuke a teammate as an easy way out, but not 2 doors...how does this make sense?
Why wasn't the cleric spamming radiant powers?

The fighter who got nuked--it was his idea. Out of game he was practically screaming NUKE ME I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR A TPK. Also, the cleric was spamming raidant powers and healing both, as much as he possibly could.

After reading this further expansion, I can confidently say the following:
Don't feel bad because your players are tactical morons.
I mean, killing a party member to prevent having him raised, when you could just shove a healing potion down his throat or let him use his second wind if he's still got it through a Heal check, is both selfish and short-sighted. Two traits that seem to define every member of your party.

See above. As far as I know, the wizard (of all people) was in a position to heal him BEFORE the wraith could do the coup de grace, but the fighter turned it down, fearing he would drop again in the next round and be right back at square 1.

Did anyone ever try a bull rush? Just a basic shove-- Str vs. Fort and the skeleton has a fort of 15. Something even a lucky roll can make.

Once there was a hole the party could hit-n-run until everything was dead. Not sure how the cleric could be so ineffective, especially with the creatures being radiant vulnerable.

NOT ONCE DID ANYONE EVEN ATTEMPT A BULL RUSH--at least not the heroes. The cleric ended up in the well (landing on a poor skeleton thunderwaved in their previously by the wizard) and spent much of his time climbing out again. He would have been a little more effective otherwise.

I would have never brought in someone to save them. For victory to be meaningful there has to be the risk of failure. There are really two aspects of RPG games. There is the storyline with the characters and there are the player group dynamics. Bringing in someone to save their characters tells the players the DM will always save them and their choices do not matter. There is no incentive to get better at running your character if the DM is going to save you.

The players asked me (at the very last possible moment) to bring him in to save their butts. Even then, it was only under the stipulation that I split the XP 5 ways (despite their having been 6 characters in the battle). Another reason to bring the missing PC back in was so the player of the now dead fighter could continue to play without being bored to death.

(1) This is an incredibly hard encounter for a group of 2nd-level PCs. Just the skeleton warriors alone would have been bad; the wraiths made it insane.

(2) Did the cleric ever turn? It's a complete game-changer in battles vs. undead. Even if it misses, it's still dealing deadly-to-undead Radiant damage. When it hits, the undead move way the hell away and get immobilized.

(3) Running through houses is, again, less of a good tactic when you're dealing with wraiths.

Turn undead immobilizes undead? Player never mentioned that to me. He must have missed it somehow. He turned them, a bunch of them went flying like 7 squares, then the undeads turn came up and they all charged back into position.

Running into houses is still an excellant tactic if it reduces your foes from 2 wraiths/8 skeletons to just 2 wraiths!

This is a 1600 xp encounter. You have EIGHT soldiers (with their high defenses) of one level -above- the party. Plus two level lurkers three levels above. The encounter level is basically 6 even for a six-member party. This should've been a near-TPK even in a good situation. The DMG, in fact, specifically recommends against high-level encounters that are soldier-heavy.

Did your players react in a poor way? Sure... but it looks like you set them up to fail.

The D&Di encounter generator said it was the hardest encounter I could pit against my players and it still be balanced. That of course assumes a 6-member party. We only had 5 up until the last 2 rounds.

 

[WalterKovacs]

It was not only a "hardest" encounter for them to go up against, there were a combination of factors to make it more difficult. The monsters starting the encounter swarming them put the characters [especially those without melee/close attacks] at a significant disadvantage]. That ups the difficulty of the encounter. In general, opening doors in combat is a big no-no. One of my players learned that the hard way, as he brought a solo into a fight with an elite, after the party had already used up some encounter powers on minions because the elite waits to show up until a few rounds into the fight.

One way for the fight to have been a bit more possible for the players to fight would be for some of the monsters to come in later, perhaps the Wraiths hanging back for a turn or two.

Still though ... the players definitely missed out on the obvious benefits of trying to toss the skele's down the well. There are few powers at 2nd level that can dish out damage comparable to 5d10. [Speaking of which, a 50 ft well, at 2nd level, is also highly unusual ... as it can easily kill any of the PCs on a decent damage roll, not to mention it would take an extremely long time to climb out even under optimal conditions.]

It was a mix of an encounter that was obviously more than they could handle when they weren't at full strength, made harder by terrain [the 50 ft well] and the monsters instantly being next to them at the start of the encounter [the infamous TPK situation with Iron Tooth is high level relative to the PCs, but is broken into waves to make it easier], some sub optimal choices from a player construction stand-point [having the fighter have a shield would have let him get a higher AC/reflex AND the ability to push monsters around while he damages them and the ranger not using twin strike to deal out better average damage than careful shot] and on top of that, some sub-optimal choices by the players during play [including forgetting the part about immobilization from turn undead].

All of that adds up to TPK. If they had the two weapon ranger from the start, they would have had 2 strong characters, which would have at least meant 2 people able to push somewhere around 50% to 55% of the time. So, a full party and some different tactics would have turned the problematic terrain into something they could use to make things a bit easier.

EDIT: Having looked at the character sheets ... the archer ranger just seems quite odd ... I believe those stats are spread way too thin ... and why a magic sword but no magic bow?