Help, my players are scared!

[arwink]

1) How familiar is the group with high-level 3e play? I know the first time I had a group reach 11+ levels, they were very tentative because they'd never really ventured that high with characters they had played from 1st levels. I don't think they were ever entirely comfortable with what they could do or what they could defeat - ingrained 2e-isms like Beholders being a terrifying monster for any character rather that something you meet at EL 13 meant a single beholder was seen as a threat even when they were a 17th level party. Eventually I started setting up a variety of battles that existed simply to show them that their old beliefs weren't necessarily all that accurate.

2) Run adventures that average an EL or two below the characters. So for a 12th level party, pitch adventures designed for level 10 characters. Let the monsters use particualr good tactics, which give you your chance for thrilling combat, but most of them shouldn't set off the parties alarm bell and cause them to leave. Let the tactics make up the shortfall in challenge rating as much as you can, and gradually start bringing in fights applicable for their level.

 

[kolikeos]

i see nothing wrong with this style of play, in my previous game the players just wanted to fight everything they came upon even if it was obvious that they will lose, i would greatly like to have a party that tries to stir away from fights unless they have no choise, after all people try to avoid fights in the real world whenever possible.
avoiding fights and still advancing towards their goal should be just as challenging as fighting their way to it, just running away whenever they see enemys wouldn't help them much because they'll just end up where they were before, or worse, the enemys may try to follow them.

 

[Nyeshet]

I've read most of the thread, and there are some good ideas here. One you may wish to consider: the characters are getting into higher levels and do not wish to have to start over if something goes wrong. Some possible solutions:

(1) Low Int monsters (zombies, vermin, etc). These tend to have poor - if any - tactics, making them easier to deal with despite their increased resistance to various forms of attack / damage. If their opponents are less skilled in battling / reacting to changes in battle, perhaps they will gain confidence due to their own ability to plan and prepare for battle (at least against these types of monsters). Also, fighting non or low Int monsters is less a question of morals than fighting humanoids. A monster that is a threat and cannot be reasoned with is fair game.

(2) Perhaps their foes do not wish to harm them, per se. Perhaps a powerful foe has asked for his followers to capture the advanturers. That's -4 to attack (to deal subdual) right there, thus an easier time resisting and a better chance at winning. And if they lose, at least their characters have not died. They can engage in diplomacy (perhaps) with their captor, they can plan jail breaks (perhaps also removing another hostage / prisoner of some importance, etc), etc.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Here's a rules point about groups that back up to buff up before a fight: it changes the ECL of the encounter. Ambushes on either side alter the odds. Buffing up qualifies as an ambush to me. You should have been giving 50-75% of the normal XP.

Now the problem is that your PCs have no ability to judge threats when unbuffed. So start hitting them. They sneak up on baddies. They retreat to buff. They return to find the baddies gone. An hour later the party finds the baddies again and once more retreat to buff only this time midway through the buffing the baddies attack the party.

Make it an a fight with something visually intimidating, preferrably something they are unreasonably terrified of, but at a reasonable ECL for their unbuffed state. It'll be a harsh fight but they should win while unprepared.

Now start upping the spot/search/listen of the baddies as well as adding more alarm & scrying magics (FYI: commune w/ nature will provide lots of information and a Hallow with Detect Magic highlights buffed/invised creatures with a glow). When the PCs sneak up they get spotted more often, buffed or not. When facing a buffed party the foes retreat behind defenses that take to breech, allowing the buffs ot fade. Simple, but hard to stop, traps are triggered (giant blocks of stone crushing the party) while the baddies run for the rear exit while a non-sentient rearguard slows the PCs down more.

 

[Allandaros]

I've gotta say...if the party has a Priest of War in it, and a "great warrior", then they're quite wimpy if they're fleeing from combat (or at least these two are). Have the god censure the priest (the head priest, no less! How blasphemous!) and have the townsfolk jeer at the warrior for being a bully and a braggart.

Being a hero doesn't mean one has to like combat, or choose it over other alternatives, or not be afraid. But it does mean facing that fear down and rolling the dice in the face of adversity. Sounds like your guys aren't doing that. Maybe it's just my DMing style, but I say let them have the proverbial double-barreled dose of rock salt.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

If I wasn't bent of giving my player the broadest range of options available for resolving conflict, I would not have asked the board for help on this matter anyway, I would just 'force' my players to solve some conflicts by combat. But by rewarding alternatives I may have deprived myself of a part a like about the game: challenging combats.

Quick thought:

Have you said to the players, "Guys, I have to admit that the fact that we don't have many challenging combats lessens my enjoyment of the game. One of the reasons I like GMing is getting to do that. Any ideas how we can work it so we all are satisfied?" I think it's worth a try.

It sounds like you've implied this very strongly through in-game events, but sometimes just backing away and talking person-to-group helps a lot.

 

[Gold Roger]

I've got to say I can really understand your players. They have played those charakters for a very long time (9 years if I understand right) and never expirienced a charakter death. It's not that they think they will always die, but they want to minimize the chance of charakter death.
One option would be to retire the PCs and start over. It should be reasonable for PCs of theyr level and status. I'd speak with the players about this. Tell them that you miss the tension of real combat. And that it's dissatisfieing to take the time and effort to prepare all these NPCs and Encounters only to see them either avoided or sweept away.Ask them what they think of the issue.

 

[Janx]

It sounds like they are very risk averse, and that's probably the crux of the problem.
Because of this risk aversion, they like to have the odds heavily in their favor.

Now factually, the player perception that 3e is more deadly is ridiculous. 2e had way more balance issues with spells and determining encounter strength. Nowadays, there's some pretty decent metric for designing an encounter. Perhaps approaching the players and discussing your adventure design with them might help. Take your last adventure and show them the encounter notes (the combat stats, not the secret political info or what-not). Basically your approach should be, "Y'all seemed overly concerned about the encounter strength. Let me show you what you were really facing, so I can assure you that in each adventure, the fights are challenging, fair and reasonable for your PCs to win."

With 2 war & battle oriented PCs, retreat and buff should NOT be a common tactic. Granted only fools rush in, but you should not expect those 2 PCs to be so combat afraid. Most war gods enjoy a good close fight, and heroes are those that face tough challenges. In short, those 2 aren't likely playing their PCs in character, due to the player's paranoia.

It seems like you basically need to work on reactions to PC actions:

If the PCs avoid and buff then:
-NPCs are disappointed in their bravery
-bad guys continue on in their plan
-bad guys sense coming threat and buff as well

Quickleaf had some good ideas for new directions to take things. Basically, non-combat political threats. Given time, the PCs might yearn for an oponnent they can kill with a blade. What better enemy than one you can't fight for fear of hurting your position.

A good extreme idea to try is to run several sessions that don't have an obvious combat solution. Basically, no MM critters. Just in-town talking and dealing with situations. Investigations, rumor collecting, parties, and gossip.

Janx

Janx

 

[Celebrim]

"One of the comments I got from the players earlier was that they always felt they were on a tight schedule, or had no choice but to act or else people or ideas their to them would suffer. In response I 'relaxed' the time-table of some missions. But now they just use the extra time to flee at the first sight of trouble and return super-prepared, turning a challenging encounter into a walkover. Smart, yes, fun, no."

Everyone, meet the real world. Real world, everyone.

In the real world, bad guys don't set around in thier dungeons doing nothing but waiting for heroes to show up to slaughter them. In the real world, sometimes you don't always have time to plan and debate. (I could tell a great story here about Caulerpa taxifolia, but some might interpret it as a political statement, so I'll leave it to the interested reader to google up some material.) In the real world, if you take time to advance your plans, then your opponents spend that time advancing thier own plans. Thus, there is a trade off. Every momment you spend preparing is also a momment your enemy spends preparing and growing in strength. Depending on the situation, your enemy might be using the time more productively than your are. Or, you might be using the time more productively than the enemy.

It sounds like earlier you gave the players a tight schedule which is often realistic. The player's basically knew that at all times the enemy was using its time more productively than they were, and the only way to protect thier interests was proactively disrupt the enemy plans. But inevitably, this really meant that the players were always forced to do no more than react to your fiat decisions about how the world work. Not only is this stressful, but it can leave the players feeling that they don't have alot of freedom of action. It's also not always realistic. The PC's shouldn't always arrive just at the last momment and save the world with seven seconds left on the clock. Being a considerate DM, you relaxed the time line, but now you are finding that the players are doing what skilled players always do and prepare good plans. It's worth noting that this problem is as old as D&D. In fact, alot of Gygax's modules pretty much assume that PC's will scout, withdraw, return prepared, and then wear out the bad guys in a war of attrition. If you read his early modules, and the 1st edition DMG, you'll see him giving alot of advice and guidance on how to handle this situation, and particularly on how intelligent creatures will respond to it. What you are actually experiencing is I think typical of the evolution of a group of player's. Eventually, they get smart and stop fighting the bad guys on the bad guys terms.

So, you are going to have to adapt again.

My suggestion would be set up a realistic agenda for the enemy, and give the enemy a time line. I would suggest this because few DM's can rely on fiat alone to determine what is fair for an enemy to do and accomplish. Figure out ahead of time what reinforcements the bad guys will get, what they are trying to accomplish, what advantages they will acrue over time (spells are completed, magic items acquired, defences improved, etc.), and what sort of raids and undertakings they will attempt while the PC's are away. It doesn't have to be overly detailed. You might just note that at time t+7 days (or whatever), the orcs in room #6 will get 6 new recruits, or the ogre in room #9 will gain a level of fighter, the giant plant in room #2 will add an extra HD, or the wizard in room #23 will complete a potion of invisibility, or the evil forces will raid the local temple and possibly kill the friendly cleric and make off with treasure (and probably lose some orcs from room #6 in the process). Each day that goes by, the difficulty of the encounters get incrementally worse. This won't necessarily mean that spend a day or two making a plan is a bad idea, but it will mean that unnecessary stalling will eventually put the PC's in a bad position for which they will have nothing to blame but thier own indesciveness and cowardice.

In this way, you have minimized DM fiat and with it the dangers that come from having full freedom and spontanity as a DM you won't railroad your players and probably will treat them a little more fairly. The PC's still have freedom to work up solutions. But you haven't given the PC's full freedom of action, because the bad guys are working proactively against the PC's as well.

One example of this in a published module was I6: Ravenloft. Strahd was given explicit mechanics for knowing about the player's plans, and explicit resources for intervening proactively to advance his own agenda. The longer that the PC's took to confront Strahd in his lair, the more time Strahd could spend wearing the PC party down. I wouldn't necessarily suggest giving the PC's as powerful of an advesary as Strahd, because no NPC in the history of the game was better suited to winning a war of attrition against the players than Strahd (to the point that the module was basically unwinnable when Strahd was run by a ruthless DM against a party of PC's of the suggested level), but it does give you an idea of what sort of challenges that a party can run into when they adopt a slower and more cautious approach. If the PC's try to scry the NPC's, then if the NPC's have the resources they are probably trying to scry the PC's. If the PC's plan a well prepared raid, then the NPC's will probably also plan well prepared raids on resources important to the PC's. If the PC's plan to ambush the NPC's in thier lairs, then the NPC's will probably be trying to figure out where the PC's are resting and recuperating and will try to ambush the PC's in thier strongholds.

The most dangerous NPC's of all know better than to lose the initiative by holing up in a dungeon and announcing to the world, "Here I am, come and kill me." That's like a sniper taking up position in a water tower. It doesn't matter how good the view is from the water tower, by taking up position in the water tower you elimenated most of the advantages that a sniper has.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Switch to Call of Cthulhu. You're supposed to run away from comabt in that game.

On a more serious note, have the local bards sing about them. A lot. If they're heroic, they'll probably love the attention it generates all over the city. If they're cowardly, they'll probably hate the attention. Then have the local NPCs act toward them accordingly.