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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ketjak" data-source="post: 5306844" data-attributes="member: 1083">This is not the OP's fault[MENTION]Incendax [/MENTION]did only one thing wrong: he didn't warn the players that when they go into the ancient dragon's lair, the dragon is not going to fly away to protect them. That is, sometimes there are places that PCs should not go because the fights there might actually hurt them. This is one of those times.Worse, the player could have turned it into a heroic last stand, but instead only complained about it and likely ruined the experience not just for her, but for the DM.Whether he did it by mistake (poor encounter design) or deliberately (deathtrap encounter) doesn't matter. The players (four strikers - not a single leader) figured they could take the incubi. We don't know their actions leading up to the last character's death, but they were probably not conservative (nor can they afford to be) and they certainly weren't coordinated except to stay out of each others' way (look at the role selection...). This death is partially on the DM's shoulders, but 80% of it rests on the players' shoulders.I had a 15 year old* player tell me "Anything to survive; even if I have to give up all my stuff, I can still come back later and take it back." If the player had role-played that she couldn't resist the dominate (which is what failing the save to throw herself off the ledge really represents, not a choice by the *character*), she might have died (earlier when it was first 1:1, with more hit points, perhaps not). However, she would have been raised and could have come back to try again, this time smarter. Or they could have avoided the encounter. I hesitate to do so, but let's also recall a period now 9 years old in which people chose to face death by plummeting 1000 feet rather than facing potential death by fire. In fact, this is (in the characters' world) even irresponsible: neither the PC nor the player knew that the incubi would not then turn her corpse into a weapon to use against her friends. Faced with that choice, not merely a choice between deaths, the honorable and sensible choice is for the player to role-play the inability to resist and drop, thereby denying the enemy her stuff and undead support.This is not entirely Incendax's fault, nor is it even mostly. The poster who believes the onus of fun is on the DM's shoulders seems to ignore that the players have a responsibility to make the game fun.- Ket, now late for work <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />* He was 15 years old... in 1985. I was also 15. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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