I killed a character, twice!

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Checking the DMG's advice on falling distance (page 44). It has a table listing what heights would be appropriate for groups at a certain level, depending on how dangerous you want the fall to be. For 10th level characters, a 70' fall would be considered "deadly", which is to say, be appropriate in an encounter in which you are expecting to see someone die. This is comparable to the 100' drop you have, as your 10d6 is pretty close to the 7d10 the system assumes.

Thus, a 100' drop with monsters who are specifically designed to be easily capable of driving PCs off the roof... means you stacked the deck to try and kill the PCs, without accounting for the height in the challenge of the encounter. It sounds like this was accidental, but yeah, the encounter design here could use a lot of work.

The fall could have been a thousand foot drop for what it's worth. It was basically instant death / removal from combat if tossed in it. Furthermore, it works well with the incubi (incubuses) since they can fly (thus the battle is on their terms). The party should have realized "this is bad" and acted accordingly (parley, surrender, retreat, bribery). Instead they showed a shocking display of overconfidence and got whipped because of it. Defeat, death, and learning should come from this, not an apology from the DM.

The party make-up is also insane. 4 Strikers (Avenger, Monk, Ranger, and a Sorcerer) means that the party needs to prepare for things like providing their own healing surges and generating additional saves. The regenerating character in the first fight should have been smart, not heroic. Getting up at low health and not tending to your own wounds first is going to get you killed, especially if you don't have a leader to tend your wounds or a defender to protect you.

The PC who died twice did so because of her own actions and the actions of the party as a whole.

 

[TarionzCousin]

First, Incendax, you are doing a wonderful thing by posting this here and encouraging the player(s) to come and see what people say and/or comment. That is truly setting your ego aside to become a better gamer.

And that's what my comment is going to be about. I think others have covered the salient points about encounter design, a noble death, smart PC tactics, and fudging die rolls. IMHO, the important thing to learn from this encounter and thread is "What could we/should we do next time?"

Perhaps you'll mix up your encounters. But if not, how would the players handle a similar/identical situation the next time (knowing what they know now)? Would the player of the dead PC act any differently? Why or why not? Would the other players think to try to catch her character? Did they even know that was a possibility before?

I have been a teacher and an adult educator, so I feel confident in proclaiming this: people learn more from their mistakes than from any other situation. This is an opportunity for everyone in your group to become better gamers. Make the most of it.

 

[Aegeri]

The fall could have been a thousand foot drop for what it's worth. It was basically instant death / removal from combat if tossed in it. Furthermore, it works well with the incubi (incubuses) since they can fly (thus the battle is on their terms). The party should have realized "this is bad" and acted accordingly (parley, surrender, retreat, bribery). Instead they showed a shocking display of overconfidence and got whipped because of it. Defeat, death, and learning should come from this, not an apology from the DM.

I agree with your point but we have two problems here, both are going to lead to entirely different discussions away from what the OP bought up.

1) The first is that being a game, players never think to themselves "This encounter has been designed in a way that makes it unwinnable". 90% of the time, PCs will stay in a fight even if it is obviously unwinnable and won't consider retreat (in this case, retreat can be synonymous with "falling"). You can see the attitude easily in previous posts as some won't consider deliberately falling a better idea to being outnumbered by monsters that clearly outmatch you and will beat to death. It amuses me that falling is seen as suicidal, while standing unable to do anything (constantly dominated) against 5 daemons is seen as not being suicidal as well (it's hardly heroic either).

But that's exactly the kind of attitude that players have in many cases. Even if you are completely doomed they won't do things like retreat, so often a very difficult encounter only ever goes one way: A TPK. I'd like to point out had the creatures involved just use their dominated actions to attack, this was a TPK easily and their "odd" tactics (to me) of trying to push the PCs off actually wasted most of the creatures attacking potential.

2) Following on directly from the first point, the DM needed to indicate to the PC that this fight was turning into a one sided murder fest. With a 10d6 drop and monsters that were focused mostly on throwing the characters off the DM should have adjusted. With two PCs "dead" - let's bear in mind that is effectively what happened here - the remaining two PCs should have retreated/allowed themselves to be forced off. But the DM needs to suggest such a course of action, so the PCs know standing and fighting is pointless. Especially against creatures that can chain dominate so - it's not as if she ever actually *fought* back period.

This is where the DMs judgement was somewhat off, because he choose to attack the PC - dropping her HP and effectively preventing any chance of survival due to the high fall. I can't say with 100% certainty, but if she had not taken the 2-3 claw attacks before, I think even with rolling high on 10d6 she probably would have got away with falling. As it was the tactics varied from attacking an effectively "helpless" target and trying to push her off. Knocking her unconscious before throwing her off was almost guaranteed to kill her. Attacking the PC was not required given the situation and would have dramatically increased the chance of survival (despite the fall).

So you can view it from either side. The PC didn't "retreat" when she had the option and the DM changed his tactics to using melee attacks, when that wasn't a requirement and only guaranteeing a death from the excessive fall.

 

[Gradine]

I think, ultimately, Infiniti hit the nail on the head with only one minor exception. Of course, there were several mistakes from a DM's perspective. 5 controllers versus 4 strikers over a large cliff is asking for trouble. As far as encounter designs go, I've seen much worse, but I think we can all (or shockingly mostly) agree that the encounter design was flawed. And of course the party made some poor decisions, starting first and foremost with their party makeup. Every poor player decision made here (from getting back up several times, to trying to go toe-to-toe in poor conditions, not retreating in a 3v1 fight) is is a clear sign that you've got a case of players thinking only as themselves and not as a team.

And yes, death could have been avoided had the final character willingly flung herself off the cliff. I do agree that it's not your job as a DM to suggest that she do it, and it probably would not be a good idea to make such a suggestion. Of course, the other players might have suggested it, and it certainly would have been wise.

I mean look, fantasy fiction (and hell, even "realistic" action flicks) have characters flinging themselves off of large drops all the time to avoid capture/death. But I do think it's certainly to the point to ask the player why she didn't just drop when she had more health and regroup with the party, because, tactically, it would have been sound thing to do. Nobody in 4e ever succeeds alone, especially against those odds.

While the encounter design left quite a bit to be desired, it's your player's party mentality that ultimately needs to be looked at more carefully.

I think your party needs a refresher in group tactics.

 

[Aegeri]

The incubus is actually a lurker, but his dominate power allows him to dress up as a controller on weekends.

 

[Dan'L]

Do you think I singled her out?

We've seen lots of response to your other questions, but this is the one that I'm going to focus on answering.

Yes, do not delude yourself, you absolutely did single her out. You had your reasons for doing so, which you outlined in your post, but you made the final decision each time to focus inherently swift lethal tactics against her PC.

Situation 1: the bad guys forgo attacking other PCs to focus fire on her; this is pretty much textbook singling out. The "why" of it is only your justification of taking the action of singling her out.

Situation 2: the bad guys throw everyone off the cliff, except for her who they claw, stab, pummel, and spit on and then throw off the cliff. Sounds like special treatment to me. Again, the "why" they/you did it does not erase the fact that they/you did it.

Should she feel picked on because of this? Maybe not from a logical stand point of "it could have been any of the PCs, it just happened to be her," but logical placebos have little to do with gut-level emotional responses to a situation. Add in that it happened twice in one session to her, and not once to another PC, and it's easy to see why she'd feel singled out. (On a tangential note, how common is PC death in this campaign?)

Life's full of "coulda-woulda-shoulda's." This is a game, you and your players all want to have fun. There are so many other things in life more worthy of regret than a D&D game. If it were me, I'd probably suck it up & apologize that she felt picked on, and promise that I'll endeavor to do better in the future (and then actually endeavor to do so.)

-Dan'L

 

[Gradine]

The incubus is actually a lurker, but his dominate power allows him to dress up as a controller on weekends.

My bad, never actually seen a write-up for the incubus... from the description of the encounter it seemed like quite the fancy dinner party

 

[Aegeri]

It's another example of how post MM3 creatures have got a considerable upgrade in power. The dominate power, dream control not only allows them to dominate a target but it removes the incubus from play and removes any "focus fire" opportunity to kill him. In reality, the PCs probably had a huge amount of time not even being able to optimally attack the incubi because of this. They are exceptionally brutal when you have them in numbers due to the whole thing of protecting themselves when removed from play.

Worse still, on their own turn they can still make you attack/take a move action. Effectively the PCs wouldn't have stood a chance once they got enough of them thrown off.

But again, I think we've covered 90% of the valid criticisms of the encounter. We really should move on. Hopefully his player will turn up and add her feedback.

 

[Riastlin]

It's another example of how post MM3 creatures have got a considerable upgrade in power. The dominate power, dream control not only allows them to dominate a target but it removes the incubus from play and removes any "focus fire" opportunity to kill him. In reality, the PCs probably had a huge amount of time not even being able to optimally attack the incubi because of this. They are exceptionally brutal when you have them in numbers due to the whole thing of protecting themselves when removed from play.

I'm curious to see how the new MM3 and beyond monsters will end up affecting campaigns at large. They certainly did up the power of the monsters (in response to increased healing and power of the PCs), but I can already tell that it will take a decent bit of adjustment on the part of DMs. I have not had a lot of experience with MM3 monsters yet, but I could certainly see problems brewing if/when I start throwing more of them at my players.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

1) The first is that being a game, players never think to themselves "This encounter has been designed in a way that makes it unwinnable". 90% of the time, PCs will stay in a fight even if it is obviously unwinnable and won't consider retreat (in this case, retreat can be synonymous with "falling").

Sadly, this is true. PCs are used to winning and have been conditioned by the game system to believe that any encounter is winable. This should be violently beaten out of the players' minds.

2) Following on directly from the first point, the DM needed to indicate to the PC that this fight was turning into a one sided murder fest. With a 10d6 drop and monsters that were focused mostly on throwing the characters off the DM should have adjusted. With two PCs "dead" - let's bear in mind that is effectively what happened here - the remaining two PCs should have retreated/allowed themselves to be forced off. But the DM needs to suggest such a course of action, so the PCs know standing and fighting is pointless. Especially against creatures that can chain dominate so - it's not as if she ever actually *fought* back period.

I think we get into some stylistic differences here. I rarely think it's the DM's job to suggest a course of action.

This is where the DMs judgement was somewhat off, because he choose to attack the PC - dropping her HP and effectively preventing any chance of survival due to the high fall.

The tactic change here was justified. The Incubi were repeatedly unsuccessful in throwing the PC off the tower. Instead, they knocked out the PC then threw her off the tower. Seems a reasonable change in tactics to me.

The First Death
In light of the party make up and player actions, I'm happy pinning the first death on the party and player. The PC could and should have used different tactics after regenerating back to consciousness. If the PC is going to keep swinging away, they need to accept the consequences of being heroic instead of prudent.

The Tower Toss
The only thing I question was the tower toss after downing the PC. While the incubi have shown that was their preferred tactic (and because of that, I have no qualms about the DM doing just this), keeping the victim with them in the tower might have been in character for them (especially if the PC was female). There are fates worse then death. For example....

Incubus Replacement PC: The incubus has a change shape ability. I would have used it (with the PC's permission) to replace the last PC. The real PC would have been captured by the remaining incubi. The party will now have to figure out that one of their members is a demon and mount a rescue attempt.