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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Werewolf_26" data-source="post: 2154334" data-attributes="member: 1317">I recently had three PC deaths in the same combat.  It was within a dungeon that had orcs, vampire spawn, and a necromancer using magic jar to jump around and cause havoc among the party.  The Party (or as we call it, the Small Army) traveled deeper into the depths of said dungeon to find a vampire cleric that has been ruining things for the PCs, their families, and their towns for several decades now.  Anyway, the necromancer split the party using a well placed black tentacles spell, putting 4 PCs on one side of the battle field and 7 on the other.  A small group of vampire spawn assaults both parties which is taken care of in a few rounds, as both groups are well prepared for the vampires and their lesser minions.However, they did not expect the Necromancer to hide more minions in the room.  A trio of orc barbarians with great axes laid in wait behind illusionary walls, listening for when the necromancer gave the command word in orcish to them to strike (they had discussed the plan before hand, gone over what they were to do, and they knew the PCs were coming and generally who they were.  The bad guys have been keeping tabs on the party for over a year game time).  The Necromancer takes over one of the characters, and through him casts a ghoul touch on the other wizard traveling with the 7.  The party's monk knocks out the Necromancer, while the Wizard stands there helpless because of the ghoul touch, leaving the druid, war mage, cleric, fighter, and rogue to deal with the three barbarians.  Luck was not on their side.  A bit of confusion, goes a long way.  The Orcs lucked out, and were able to deliever coup de graces to the helpless wizard and the knocked out Necromancer's host.  Which quickly resulted in the party focusing their attacks on those two particular orcs and the death of those two in the following round.  The last remaining orc, on a final swing against the rogue, criticaled dealing enough damage to send the poor rogue to -14.The villains had a good trap set up, a plan they could follow, and luck on their side. I've found that most of our player deaths these days result in the following ways: 1. Random roll of the dice (either a failed save, or an unexpected critical)2. Unwise actions on the side of the player (doing something without really thinking it through)3. Lack of cooperation and tactics between characters in the game.4. Forgetting an ability that would have been really useful (would have saved them)What I have noticed, in the evolution of our playing group in particular, is that they tend to play a lot more cautious and careful than they used to.  The newer players pick up things quickly, and the older players have become better teachers to the new players.  If we've seen a decrease in character deaths, its mostly due to more careful players than the game system.  I do my best to write challenging and interesting encounters and I do find that the Challenge Rating system is helpful in setting up some of the battles, but when you have a group as large as ours (it varies between 6 and 12) sometimes it doesn't seem to work as well.Players do seem to have a lot more options and tricks to stay live in this edition, but I've also found that with so many tricks available, its sometimes hard for them to remember all their tricks until its too late.I've also played with a few groups that played the game for the battle aspect of the game, they enjoyed combat, but none of the parties they made were particularly organized.  Not saying that they were ineffective, but they approached things as individuals and never really meshed together as a group.  And when things got difficult, or confusing, as combats sometimes get, they had a tendancy to crumple under the pressure and one or more characters ended up dying each game session just because they really didn't discuss how to do things TOGETHER.  I stopped playing with those groups and focused more on trying to get my players to better cooperate, to avoid the cycle that the other group I played with was stuck in.Deaths are something I don't strive to get from the games as a DM, but I allow them to happen when they do.  The dice fall as they may and the players do their best to deal with the challenges I've set before them.  If anything, most of them have learned how to avoid shameful deaths and do a much better job of working together than they used to.</blockquote>

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