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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jbear" data-source="post: 6349768" data-attributes="member: 75065">It is the players job to wreak havoc on the DMs plans. It is the DMs job to accept this and not have plans which are set in stone but rather ones that dynamically change and adapt according to the actions the PCs choose to take.The mechanic is squarely placed in the DMs hands, which means the pacing is also placed squarely there too, which means that the game will only 'slow' in that moment the DM deems to be suitable to invoke the powers of chaos. It also allows the DM to choose how much focus s/he gives that player and avoid it all becoming about them. Have they been in the spotlight already this session? Don't invoke Tides of Chaos again just yet until you have spread the spotlight love.It seems so easy to avoid a feature like this wiping out a party in any case. Say the party has the ill fortune of their wild mage sparking a fireball tha wipes them out mid battle at low levels. I can think of any number of scenarios where I can choose to continue the adventure because in the end the rules are a guide, and being the DM I can choose how and when to exactly apply them that will be the best for the game. If you want to play by RAW and restart your campaign, go ahead. If you prefer to say that the enemies that survived the fireball stabalised the PCs and took them back to their lair to be salted and peppered on a rotissarie stake over the fire one by one so that the meat does not go off, then do it. Problem solved. If the fireball can wipe the party it can also wipe out all the enemies. So everyone started dying ... while they were rolling death saves the local tribe of brownies who had been watching the battle fearfully, swept in to help the heroes who had stood up to those nasty brownie-gobbling enemies. Or whatever.I haven't really read through the table, but certainly placing the power of chaos in the Dms hands (with limitations that as soon as s/he invokes it this benefits the player by giving them Tides of Chaos back, which in turn benefits the party, the  DM can no longer invoke chaos until Tides of Chaos is used again AND another spell is cast) is not 'terrible design' in my opinion. (It's very clever actually) This will only be terrible in the hands of terrible DMs. But what isn't?</blockquote>

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