Misery, looking for company

[MithrasRahl]

So I thought I'd share a story from last night. I know most of you have read all sorts of "man, THAT sucks" threads/stories, but I just needed to share.

So we're playing Shackled City, and we've had 6 party deaths (before last night) so far. As it stands, from what I've understood, we're supposed to be at level 12, and because of the deaths we range from 10.8-12. However, lately we've been playing smart, and the deaths haven't happened for a while, until...

Our party is setting up an Inn we've just purchased, in an attempt to a) get chummy with both off duty guards as well as potentially shady people, b) have another way of gathering info, and c) just wanting a place to crash and display our many trophies of adventuring.

As we're in the room, the DM says "as you're setting up, the door smashes open and INITIATIVE!"

We all proceed to roll between 2-8 on initiative (a sign of things to come), and on their surprise round they run in. On the second round, most of them go first. The enemy Barbarian charges our only healer (see other threads I've talked about him, probably the best healer I've ever seen) and hit him for 51 damage. Uh oh, roll for massive damage. I have a +9 on Fortitude, and we're playing with action points (1d8 at this point) so even if I roll a 2 I still have a 1/2 chance of surviving. I roll the dice and.... 1. Ugh.

Next round, the barbarian charges our psychic warrior and does 54 damage. Another save vs massive damage! Luckily our psychic warrior has a +11 to his fort so he's fine... 1. Ugh.

I know these things happen, but talk about weak sauce.

 

[shilsen]

And that's why I booted the massive damage rule even before I began DMing 3e and never regretted it. Once you hit about 15+ in levels, you'll be rolling massive damage saves every fight and sometimes multiple times a round. In a heavy dungeon crawling game like Shackled City, that means natural 1s will happen often enough for a lot of random deaths.

 

[AnonymousOne]

I'm with Shilsen, get your DM to jettison Massive Damage.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I modified it in my campaign so that failing a Massive Damage save puts you at -1 and bleeding. There is still a chance that you will die from it (if someone attacks your unconscious body or drops a fireball in your area for example) but it isn't the immediate death that the current rule makes it.

Olaf the Stout

 

[MithrasRahl]

I just might do that, though I'm currently leaning towards not mentioning it because the rest of my group isn't as rules/balance heavy as I am, so it always comes off as if I'm complaining in the politest way possible

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Yeah, Massive Damage is an optional rule. I've never felt it necessary in 3E to introduce optional rules to make things harder for the PCs.

Ken

 

[akbearfoot]

I'd have been annoyed...

Especially if the barbarian got to charge through tables or chairs that should have likely been all about the place.

Generally a bad thing for the GM to mess with your groups 'home base'. Makes the game less fun, especially if he ambushes you and didnt give anyone listen checks or spot checks to notice the fully armed gang that was approaching through a window or something.


Even if you didnt fail the death from massive damage rolls, something that hit's for what...half of your characters hitpoints in 1 swing is obviously a mismatch in CR and or specific DM statblock editing.

The shackled city game I was playing in until recently didn't need DM editing to make it hard for us. We were getting our butts handed to us anyways. Thats how the module is designed.

 

[Lord Slaw]

I don't really like Massive Damage, either - the idea of my small but powerful main villain going down to one lucky swing (before he even has a chance to monologue - that ain't right) from our Power Attacking Barbarian makes my skin crawl. Oh, and I suppose I don't want to kill my players, either. I've toyed with the idea of coming up with a formula to scale Massive Damage to level, as well as size (though I don't make it any easier for small characters to fall prey to it - I reason that their bodies aren't necessarily frail, just compact).

But, yeah, if that wouldn't work, I'd be happy scrapping it altogether. I make a lot of ad hoc calls for ridiculous amounts of damage, though - for example, dismemberment. If a Fighter with 80 HP is hit for a 50 damage critical hit from a raging Barbarian with a Large Greataxe, I rule that the Fighter's arm is now three feet to the left and down from where it used to be. Better than instant death, but still sucks majorly - he'll deal with it until a regeneration spell, at least - and it certainly makes combat more realistic and interesting. I try to avoid implementing that sort of rule before medium levels, though. Getting a leg hewn off by a Kobold is... just unnecessary.

In short, death = bad. Dismemberment = memorable and enjoyable.

 

[Deset Gled]

I make a lot of ad hoc calls for ridiculous amounts of damage, though - for example, dismemberment. If a Fighter with 80 HP is hit for a 50 damage critical hit from a raging Barbarian with a Large Greataxe, I rule that the Fighter's arm is now three feet to the left and down from where it used to be.

The flat number is my biggest gripe with the MD rules. It makes sense that a 55hp wizard would go into shock when they take 50 points of damage. A collosal dragon or a 20th level fighter should be able to take a lot more. The MD point should probably be based on total HP, but I'm not sure if the added complexity is worth the work. I'd rather just scrap the rule, altogether.

 

[Nail]

Generally a bad thing for the GM to mess with your groups 'home base'. Makes the game less fun, especially if he ambushes you and didnt give anyone listen checks or spot checks to notice the fully armed gang that was approaching through a window or something.

This is the point that would have teed me off.

No listen checks? Ambushing us while we're setting up a non-optimized home base?

Please.