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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8712090" data-attributes="member: 6801228">The anger I'm reading in your post right now? The "Oh, so now it is MY fault". That's what I've been getting from your choice to say it is the player's "poor decisions" that lead to their death. You want to say that "poor decisions" and "miscalculating" are equivalent statements, but they aren't. "Poor decisions" carries with it much more negative conotations, including the implicit "and they should know better" part of it. I've never seen someone say "Oh, they've miscalculated their life" but I have certainly met and known people of whom it is said "they make poor life decisions" Honestly? I don't think PC death is anyone's fault, except in the most egregious of circumstances. The DM has an incomplete picture of what they think the party will do and what they are capable of, the party has an incomplete picture of the challenges the DM has arranged and what they can do, and then the dice throw everything into the blender. Sometimes it works out okay, sometimes it works out great, and sometimes the PCs are making death saves and everyone is thinking "what the heck just went wrong?!" And I know you've added the caveat of it possibly being luck, but you've also doubled down again and again and again that it is usually because of the PCs "poor decisions" and every time I read that, I get "The PCs made poor decisions. They should know better, and if they had made better decisions, this wouldn't have happened." But unless player's are actively acting up, they aren't making plans that they think are poor plans. They think the plan will work, that's why they made the plan.And I brought up you being the DM, because I have often found for myself, that I forget how much additional information I know compared to my players. It is very easy to watch a player do something that I think is obviously dumb, then realize that I think it is obviously dumb because I know something the player has no knowledge of. It is much harder to appreciate a plan that relies on a lack of knowledge that you do not lack.On your Second "mistake", do you think it was a mistake to attack the Zombie because you know a 22 hp Zombie can't be taken out by a 1st level character's single attack. Unlike the only other creature this player had ever fought, a 9 hp Cultist? If you assume that the PC thought they could take out the zombie in a single attack, does their plan still seem so terrible? For the third "poor decision", this was a new player. Did he know that Dodging was an action he could take? I'm assuming he attacked again instead of dodging, perhaps still thinking that he was dealing with a threat he could take out. I'm also assuming that he was a front-line character like a fighter or barbarian, and so likely he was told at some point during character creation that his literal job was to get on the front-line, attack, and take attacks. Could that have played into him getting on the front-line, attacking, and not dodging in the back line instead? And frankly, it seems like splitting the party did nothing, and the entire thing was predicated on those exploding zombies. But can you see how the player who kept getting up and attacking might not have seen their actions as "poor planning?"So, still new players, only two weeks of experience in the game. And your 1st "poor decision" is a tactical choice to hold off a monster so the others can escape, which is poor because the new player, likely dealing with a new spell, "knew" that invisible creature's can't be hit by opportunity attacks? Man, I've been playing with people for years and we STILL sometimes forget that. Also, Minotaurs are CR 3... as in a single group of 4 adventures (what is sounds like you are dealing with) should be able to take 1 of them. We have two, and they ambushed the party while the party was invisibly scouting the maze. That's basically a deadly encounter right there. Also, you are really a big fan of dodging, but Minotaurs have 75 hp, a 3rd level character is likely dealing 7 damage a round. In other words, they have to land at least twenty hits to stand a chance. If the PC started dodging and didn't stop for multiple rounds of combat, they would have just died slower. Especially since he had JUST seen that disadvantage on attacks didn't stop his friend from being smashed by these things, since invisibility didn't help. Of course, they also don't KNOW how much health the enemy had, and were maybe hoping they could kill it before they got smashed to paste.Also, yeah, they were told the area was dangerous. But "this area is dangerous" and "You can't survive two attacks from these enemies" are VASTLY different things. Yes, clearly from our perspective it is obvious they should have run. But they'd played what? Three sessions total? They didn't have any context to know that this was basically an unwinnable death trap and their only option was to flee. If this is your best example of character death being because of "poor decisions" from the players... man, I don't know. I'd say sending two minotaurs after four newbie players is incredibly harsh. A single minotaur would likely have dropped most if not the entire party at that level. And would have been a far better way to indicate to them to avoid that area like the plague. Seriously, if I had been the DM, I would have been much heavier handed in telling the players that running was their only option, because there was no way to win that fight.</blockquote>

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