Lost our first 3E character last sunday...

[Mark Chance]

Death to the PCs!

I'm amazed more haven't died.

First game session: The barbarian who foolishly charged the Large skeleton guardian.

Second or third game session: The ranger who got too close to an ettin.

Some time thereafter: The wizard who thought jumping off of a wall to tackle the retreated orc adept/barbarian was a good idea.

Fairly recently: The paladin technically died, but a house rule-ish god-call empowered her to fight on (with consequences pending in the near future).

The party almost lost its diviner one session to a half-dragon/half-dire ape. The "Deathless One" came close to capping a couple PCs a couple of sessions ago.

Of course, it doesn't help that I think an EL equal to party level + 3 is a good way to go.

 

[Greybar]

Mithriltooth:
Sounds like a fine and noble death. Hurrah to the player and the DM. Games vary greatly in the likelyhood of PC death. I tend towards a similar level of lethality that you're at. Deaths tend to be notable and preferrably for good reason, rather than numbingly regular (as I might see it).

To each their own!

John

 

[Kichwas]

Re: Re: Re: Lost our first 3E character last sunday...

lol BUT, Im allowing him to return with a newer elf.

You don't allow players who lost a character to come back with a new PC sometimes?

Your phrasing there -which I doubt meant what I implied above- reminds me of a DM I knew in high school who had a policy of kicking out any player who's character died.

So they ended up having to play under the other DM I met who felt he was a failure if more than one PC survived a session...

People were always trying to get me to play D&D back then (80s) ... But I just couldn't stand the mechanics of the game. DMs likt the above two didn't help though...

EDIT: Much like the size of my laptop keyboard isn't helping muh spell'n now...

 

[Shirt Guy John]

Our group had no deaths in our first adventure (Sunless Citadel), but we wre almost wiped out completely by the dragon priest... well, more by the pit before the dragon priest, since I - the fighter - went down witht he first friggin hit.

Unfortunately, I had to leave the group for quite a while, and I missed out on the next adventure (umm.. Forge of Fury i think)... wherein one character (and a lot of magic items) was lost trying to cross a pc-made rope bridge and fell to his death. Then with his next character, said player slaughtered half the party (the wizard and druid... they were evil he said, and he was a paladin... and the DM was very inexperienced and impartial. It was quite the bone of contention, since the same idiot player left the next week. Overall, I think we lost three characters to deaths in the course of 3 adventures, and about twice that to players coming and going.

 

[Mithriltooth]

Mithriltooth:
Sounds like a fine and noble death. Hurrah to the player and the DM. Games vary greatly in the likelyhood of PC death. I tend towards a similar level of lethality that you're at. Deaths tend to be notable and preferrably for good reason, rather than numbingly regular (as I might see it).

To each their own!

John

I am in complete agreement. Though I have been easy on them slightly, I fudged a few lethal die rolls at times, it's all part of being a good DM. Thank Heavans for a DM screen to hide behind.
btw, I was the DM.

 

[Mithriltooth]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lost our first 3E character last sunday...

You don't allow players who lost a character to come back with a new PC sometimes?

Your phrasing there -which I doubt meant what I implied above- reminds me of a DM I knew in high school who had a policy of kicking out any player who's character died.

lol
I always allow a new character, these arent just gamers to me, they are close friends. Being that this is our first 3E campaign, I kind of asked for no special types of characters (i.e. Drow), though I offered the Dark Elf after such a valiant death.

If my friends would have really wanted special types for their first 3E characters, I would have allowed it (they need not know this little truth though )

 

[hong]

We just had another character death on Saturday, in our 16th level campaign. This campaign has been averaging about one death every session for the last few months, with a nice DM. I'd hate to think what a nasty DM would do to us.

 

[Gunslinger]

One of the campaigns I'm playing in has been running for 2-3 moths, and so far we've lost 11 PCs. You get rather used to deaths in the party playing in games like this.

 

[ArcOfCorinth]

I DMed a campaign that went from 1st to 8th level...with the only death being a TPK at the end. There had been a close call before that I fudged when an ogre mage wiped the floor with the party's fighter. Why did they survive so long? Well, here's the party:

Elf Fighter 8 who managed to have some powerful allies, one of which gave him the Flame Tongue sword (DMG) upon death.

Human Rogue 6/Sorcerer 2

Half-Elf Ranger 8 (he was a tad insane, talked to inanimate objects quite a bit)

Half-Orc Barbarian 8

Another Half-Elf Ranger (though he rarely attended sessions)

Human Monk 8 with boots of speed and potions of flaming fists.

Spellcasters gave them trouble until leadership netted them cleric and wizard cohorts.

They fell to a hobgoblin tribe when they invaded their heavly fortified lair. I threw a few interesting foes at them: A half-fiend hobgoblin fighter, his fiendish sons, a red half-dragon/hobgoblin, a tauric hobgoblin/displacer beast and a weretiger hobgoblin (courtesy of WOTC's Fight Club). They made several stupid decisions and I grew tired of fudging rolls. The rogue survived the endfight but she failed to escape the half-fiend's hellhounds. They eventually trapped her when she took a wrong turn down a dead end.

 

[Bastoche]

Since the dawn of 3E, I've seen only one death. We don't play that often though. And our DMs are sissies. They just can't kill players up to a point that it's unbelievable. I don't mind a little fudging as long as it's transparent. But systematically not killing PC makes me ill. Ever heard of a fire Giant making 1 of damage? Me neither, until one of our PCs got too close to one