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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 6721974" data-attributes="member: 3586">Originally posted by thorbardin:quote from the adventure: "Cyanwrath is the likely winner of this match, whether he's fighting Sergeant Markguth or a character. When his foe drops, he strikes one more time; the last blow kills Markguth or inflicts one death roll on a character." So the game designers knew the likely outcome. Why would they do this? To set up a nemesis for the players to want to kill later. To make it a little more believable that their leader is more than a 1st level grunt, even if they players are only 1st level. To make being a hero a little harder than killing a bag of rats. To make Cyanwrath a badass villain. And perhaps on a meta level, for people to remark how hard this adventure series is. What does the DM do in this situation... if he rolls lots of damage on a hit in front of the player. 1. The DM follows the dice and kills the character. The player rolls up a new one, and the other characters swear vengeance on his death. "He was a good man, snatched too soon, his whole life ahead of him." I'd start the new character at level 2, because everyone should level at the end of this encounter. No biggy, the player has lost a character he's invested one or two sessions in. or 2. The DM fudges the dice, or says Cyanwrath holds his blade at the last moment, not severing the jugular... and almost kills the character.. knock off an additional failed death save. The blow was vicious and would've killed anyone else, now he has the ugly scar to remind him of his loss. Cyanwrath spits into the face of the fallen character in contempt of an easy challenge and stalks off. Vengeance! His friends rush to his aid as his lifeblood pumps out on the soggy ground. I think the expectation gap for players ("what the hell is going on?") is if their DM never puts the players up against challenges that could outright kill them, and then that "everything must be fair" DM runs this adventure verbatim. It's a brutal wake up call. Similar conversations have been about the deadly Adult Blue Dragon. The advice given in the adventure text is for the dragon to not immediately engaged the PCs, to rather show the dragon's awesome power by killing lots of guards (1d4 at a time). The subtext is to see if the players can think up a strategy to effectively help without being idiots and standing out in the open on the battlements with all the other noobs who are being slaughtered. If the DM shows the danger beforehand, the players should be smart enough to not openly engage the dragon and still help to drive it off. Last comment re: being railroaded in this situation... I have to politely disagree. yes, there are many pointers for the PCs accepting the challenge (the quest giving mayor would appreciate it, the PCs are SUPPOSED to be the heroes of the story), but if the DM foreshadows the power and strength of this guy before the combat, just like the dragon above, then the player knows what he's actually accepting, and can say no. The adventure continues if they do say no, which isn't a hallmark of a railroaded encounter. If the player doesn't know he's going up against a CR 4 enemy and just says "Yes"... well then the DM hasnt communicated the threat sufficiently. If the DM has, and the player still thinks he can take him, it's a noble (and perhaps stupid) death. Hope this offers a different perspective. It may not have been the material (or not at least all the source materials fault), it may also be how it was delivered to and digested by the group. </blockquote>

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