Odd story of joining a Campaign in progress

[Crothian]

I just joined a campaign in progess. Everyone seems to be about 6th or 7th level (I'm a 5th level cleric with an ecl+1 race). Today we had two seperate combats and throughout both of them every party member dropped to negative hps, and one died. Except me. I didn't take a single point of damage. I felt pretty bad. I don't have a super AC or anything like that (it's a 21 which is respectible, but one guy has a 26 plus the feats to increase that). I stayed back and played smart using ranged attack spells, and a rod with a ranged attack. And I healed, and healed, and healed.

The rest of the party didn't play bad, they just made some mistakes. The half dragon charged a hill giant, and then got surrounded by that one and another. The other cleric tried to protect in innocent who turned out to be a Hag and it killed her. The fighter (the guy with the 26 AC) just couldn't take being the melee guy as people started to drop. And the Bard and Rogue were really less then useful. I don't think either of them know how to use their character effectively in combat. They both tried ranged attacks, but ended up getting caught in melee and they were taken out rather fast.

THis isn't a complaint about the group, I like them and we get along great. It's just I thought it was funny that the new guy in the campaign gets off scott free when ever siungle one of them went unconsience and one died (and actually it should have been two, but I think the DM allowed the rules to be bent so it didn't happen).

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

I'm not 100% clear if your PC was healing only herself or others in the scenario above.

Either way though, it sounds like your example may help them to become smarter players, and that's a great thing ( if they are smart enough to learn by it... )