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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 6721979" data-attributes="member: 3586">Originally posted by Fallstorm:~~ All of the supposed things you state the designers may have been trying to do with Cyanwrath is possible without building an encounter that is designed to kill PCs. Many story arcs and adventures have reoccurring villains in them and those villains (while a legitimate threat) are not guaranteed to flat-out kill player characters. I have issues with point number one. I have no problem with a PC dying due to poor decisions being made, or because there was a string of unfortutitous roles happening with the dice, etc. But for a PC to die because he has been placed in a situation that is designed from the jump to kill him and an adventure that pressures the character to take this path (being the hero and accepting Cyanwrath’s challenge in order to spare a bunch of innocent people) I have a problem with. Also, it is an inconsistent argument to state that DND 5E is based on 3 legs (combat, role-playing, and exploration) and then say losing a character after 1-2 sessions is no big deal, because if you do value role-playing then changing characters shouldn’t be like changing a tire. Here we had a Player who made up a character. While we are min-maxers and tactical minded gamers we do put thought into our characters and this guy had come up with a concept and background for the character. He was a half-orc fighter, the result of a noble woman who was accosted by an orc tribe. His noble family shunned him and didn’t claim him, but the character himself was deeply pious and honorable and strove to be a paladin. He fell short of the glory so to speak so he was just a highly lawful and honorable half-orc fighter trying to overcome the prejudices his family and some segments of society had against him. To lose such a character not through the characters wanting to fight his way through every situation, not through a string of bad rolls, not through poor decisions on the players part, but because the adventure pits him up against nigh unwinnable odds is poor encounter design.Point number 2 seems more acceptable and still does the job of showing that the cult leader is not a grunt and inspires characters to try and pursue this villain later. It does so without needlessly killing a PC. Players do and should have an expectation of the game and DM being fair when designing an encounter. I mean, yes a DM could for example throw a group of 1st level PCs up against a Pit Fiend but what is the point. In all honestly the Adult Blue Dragon is one of the reasons my group is having problems accepting the believability of this adventure. Don’t get me wrong we appreciate the fact that the Blue Dragon is not designed to kill PCs outright and if he takes a certain amount of damage (I think around 30 pts) he just flies away as he doesn’t have enough interest in the keep but to me that just seems bogus. To me it would make more sense to 1) not have a monster in the party in the first place that the characters could not win against in a hard fought fight. I mean the Bug Bear if I recall in Lost Mines of Phandelvar was scary and we had a PC go down but it was a fair fight because you had 5 PCs going up against a foe that was a few levels higher than them, but in a straight up combat there is no way for 1st level PCs to stop that blue dragon so I question why a dragon had to be rampaging the keep vs a more manageable and level appropriate monster. Secondly, it seems lame to me saying the dragon just loses interest and flies away. What would have made more sense to me (and some of my fellow players) was to have the dragon only have a few hit points left (say 50 or so) from where the keeps ballista and such had been striking him and archer arrows (the archers of course would all have died valiantly trying to defend the keep) and the PCs come and finish the dragon off by doing the remaining hit points of damage. The PCs would get the same amount of XP they would get for driving off the dragon as they shouldn’t get the same XP they would for killing an actual dragon. Yet, to me this second approach does the exact same thing as the first except is more plausible and gives the PCs an actual sense of accomplishment. After the brave death of our Half-orc fighter (Paladin wannabe) our group discussed this encounter. Our DM was kind enough to let us read some of the stuff around the challenge and I’m sorry dude this adventure did pretty much railroad you into accepting the challenge for all practical purposes. I mean, what good aligned PC is going to let a battered down guard accept the challenge in his/her place or not take up the challenge and allow the keep to be raised. Heck, from what the DM showed us in the adventure afterwards if the PC decides not to accept this challenge they lose all support from the mayor/keep and are on their own going forward. So, while it does present an option of not accepting the challenge that option is really a bogus one and de facto railroads one of the PCs into accepting this death trap and that is what it is a PC death trap. I mean, by this logic the mafia gives people choices to either pay up or we break your legs but is that really a choice? Thank you for your feedback however I do think you offered good tip (via the solution of non-lethal option) under point number 2 of how to keep the PCs alive while not downgrading Cyanwrath's villiany. Unfortunately this will not bring our half-orc back but it can serve as a guide for future DMs who utilize this adventure.</blockquote>

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