How Do you stop players from making suicidal decsions?

[madriel]

It really is only one player spurring this on but he has appealed to the alignments of some characters and played to the stats of the others, i.e. the characters with the low wisdoms and intelligences. He has told me that being a dwarf and anti-drow, he wouldn't stand for this constant harassment by the drowm and regardless of the outcome, priests of Clangeddin view dying in battle a glorious end.

Wish I'd looked at this thread earlier.

I doubt Clangeddin views dragging one's comrades in arms to their deaths just because you're tired of an enemy to be a good thing. A godly vision of the perils of impatience and arrogance might have influenced the hothead. Or the cleric of Heironeous could've received a vision from his god of the danger.

Piety is not an excuse for stupidity.

Sorry if that sounds kind of catty, but I had a similar problem with a fellow player's dwarf PC in our last campaign. He mindlessly charged anything he decided was a racial enemy. He got two other PCs (my cleric included) killed and only the arrival of some of my PC's friends who were trying to warn her of the ambush averted a TPK. The enemy even stopped the combat to demand our surrender again, but Dwarf-boy declared no surrender and kept fighting.

 

[National Acrobat]

Sucidal Players-Results

Well, the dwarf doesn't have to worry about that anymore. His character was one of the ones that have gone to meet their god. The battle took place after the group met for Pizza and planned for about an hour. The funny thing is that they did an excellent job of prepping and finally worked together. The bad news is, that while it wasn't a TPK, it was fairly damaging. The worst part was that they charged across about 1,000 feet of open field to strike where the drow were located. Both sides had the usual spells upon their characters: Bull's Strength, Cat's grace, Protections from Arrows, Various Resist Elements, Divine Might, Shield of Faith, etc. so it ended up being more evenly matched. Once they got into battle however, things didn't go so well. The invisibility purge that the drow had up negated 3 characters and their invivibility spells (the Rog6/Cleric6; Psion12 and Cleric 12 of Heironious) and once they found that out they just set up for group melee. The Priest of Heironious died first, failing a save against a Destruction spell. The Half Orc Rgr1/Ftr6/Foe5 died next, being killed by the bladesinger in melee. He was quite surprised by her stoneskins and was even more surprised to find out that someone had cast stoneskin on one of his fellow party members and not him. It should be noted that the other big fighter in the group was handling the Blackguard and the Dwarf Ftr/Cleric was handling the priestess of Kiaransalee. The Wiz12 got a fireball through the spell resistance of the Drow fighters and killed 4 of them. Big cheer from the party. Then the Dwarf died, failing a save from a Finger of Death. The Half Ogre finished the Blackguard, which can be summed up to fickle dice on my part, I couldn't roll a decent hit to save my life and the guy playing the Half Ogre was hot with the dice. The Drow enchanter cast 7 Enchantment spells on the big Half Ogre and he made all of his will saves. Giving up on him, the enchanter cast confusion on the Psion and he failed his save. Go figure. I think they are still laughing at him. Anyway, the Drow evoker and the Arcane Archer traded fireballs until the Elf Arcane Archer was dead. No one even bothered to help him until they realized he was in trouble. The Priestess of Kiaransalee was finally killed by the Rog6/Clr6 and the Half Ogre Brb1/Ftr10/Rgr1, but the bladesinger, who had been barely scratched killed him the next round, her +4 Keen Scimitar ignoring his stoneskin. It was at this point that the rest of the party surviving called for a truce and the Bladesinger agreed at this point, having lost her 2 lieutenants and myself not wanting to kill the whole party agreed. It was then that the bashing of the dead dwarf started. Characters were spitting on his body. Anyway, for those keeping score:

The Drow lost 4 7th level fighters, a 15th Level Cleric and a Clr3/ftr4/Black8. Surviving were the Ftr4/wiz7/Bladesinger8, two 9th level wizards and 1 7th level fighter.

The Party lost

Half Ogre Brb1/Ftr10/Rgr1
Cleric 12 of Heironious
Ftr3/Enchanter6/Arcane3
Ftr7/Clr5 of Clangeddin
Rgr1/Ftr6/Foe5

Surviving

Psion12
Rgr6/Rog6
Clr6/Rog6
Wiz12
Clr9/Abj3

Should be interesting next week. The nominal leader of those left is the Clr6/Rog6 and she only wants to try to raise the Clr12.

 

[Maldur]

Intense combat, How long did it take?

If I were you I would harres them with drow all the way home (and beyond).

Attacking under a flag of truce, bah!
Why did the bladesinger accept the truce iso asking for their surrender?

 

[Needleman]

Quite a body count! You might want to convince the Clr6/Rog6 to raise the half-ogre, the arcane archer, and the Rgr1/Ftr6/Foe5 as well, perhaps by having a church superior commending their efforts in the battle. It sure sounded like one hell of a battle!

EDIT: On second thought, does the Cle12 (soon to be Cle11) have any plans to raise other fallen party members once raised?

 

[National Acrobat]

The fight took the whole session last night, that was all that we did. The Cleric, once raised, is raising no one except the Half Ogre, or at leas that is the way it stands at this point. The Rgr1/Ftr6/Foe5 doesn't want to be raised, the Dwarf worships Clangeddin and their ultimate blessing is to die in battle so he doesn't want to to be raised. I think the Rog/Clr is going to argue for raising the Arcane Archer, even though he routinely disagrees with everyone (the typical aloof elf).

 

[justa goblin]

How did the players react to the bloodbath? It sounds like it you had a good time.

 

[National Acrobat]

Everyone had a good time with the exception of the people playing the Arcane Archer and the Cleric. Of course, they both died so they weren't happy. The Cleric was very upset at failing a fort save against a destruction spell. He was invisible until hitting the invisibility purge field, then dead the next round. Otherwise everyone had a great time although I don't expect them to do anything like this for awhile.

 

[Lela]

When someone dies in the first round or two of a LONG combat I usually give them something to do; something that makes my job easier ("Here, you handle inititive").

Anyway, sounds like you still have a 19th level character to be the long term vilian and the party took out some major evil (the cleric should be mostly happy). Glad it all worked out.

Let me also say that they wouldn't have survived if they hadn't agreed to work together. It might be good to mention that at the next session.

 

[madriel]

Glad to hear the party came through in as good a shape as they did. A little strategy goes a long way.

It's a good suggestion to give players with dead/incapacitated PCs something to do. I ended up sitting on my hands for nearly an hour one session because my cleric failed a will save for the first time in five levels in the first round.

 

[National Acrobat]

One of the guys ended up going to play Grand Turismo on the xbox or what ever and a couple of the other players with deceased characters went and ordered a couple of more pizzas. They just wanted to get away from the battle I think and clear their heads.