Party headed for a TPK?

[The Thayan Menace]

The Master Speaks ....

"TPKs are a hell of a drug ...."​

 

[S'mon]

Just enough changes to make it sound ridiculous instead of reasonable

Yup. LCOB is designed 'old school' with easier and tougher areas (admittedly the area Wulf described is supposedly doable by 3rd level PCs! 5th-6th, more realistically) and players who have got that far into it should be well aware of that. Also Wulf didn't say he was 'snickering' at his players for being in the wrong dungeon. Maybe it's a CHA thing, like Quas says in the other thread. Wulf never came across as contemptuous of his players, whereas in Quas's pseudo-situation he sounded contemptuous, completely unfairly on the information given.

 

[Numion]

It seems as though those DMs that prefer 'Status Quo' style of play, seem to think their games are tough, as if the threat of death by massive over CR / EL makes them hard. Well guess what, your games aren't tough and you're not hard DMs!

The mark of a true hard-ass DM is the ability to turn low CRs to TPKs. Thats what I think. If you find some satisfaction in having players die at 1st level to DC 35 traps and Earth Elementals .. thats just wrong. That takes zero DM skills. However, to punish 5th level PCs with a couple of CR 1 creatures - thats more satisfying. In addition, if it doesn't work and PCs prevail, they still get shafted xp-wise.

END RANT

What I'm really wanting to say .. is that follow the suggested EL distribution in the DMG for once. It includes, what, X% of encounters at party level +2-3 and Y% at party level +4, from memory since I dont have the book with me. As written, the DMG suggests some very hard encounters, so the situation is not like some of you suggested, that the standard only offers encounters where the PCs can expect to smack down. It just isn't the case. Besides, you can cause TPKs even with an EL equal to party level.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I posted this story as a experiment in how people here react to different folks. Compare and contrast the replies/reactions to my post to the replies/reactions to the original post (edited only enough to keep it from being immediately recognized as a copy-and-paste).

I think it was a pretty good experiment, though I do somewhat agree with folks that missing a bit of critical context might have skewed the results.

But if all you needed to know was that I am not only more charismatic than you, but also charismatic enough to be a rat bastard and still have folks coming back for more, well, I could have just told ya that.


Wulf

 

[molonel]

Is it possible, Quas, that this persecution complex is something of your own creation? Have you ever felt this way before? Say, on another forum?

Just something to consider.

 

[Numion]

I really think that in some instances the CR system has done D&D a disfavor.

There are powerfull things in the world that low level characters should avoid, and if the players decide to storm a vampires castle at first level they will get what is coming to them.

..snip..

That said I HATE it when a player starts whining about CR ratings of a creature that just killed him/her.

I'm not saying that whiny players didn't happen to you, but let's see what D&D as written says on the subject of EL's/CR's. From 3.0E DMG, page 102:

10% easy, EL lower than party level
20% easy, if handled properly
50% challenging, EL equal to party level
15% very difficult, EL 1-4 higher than party
5% Overpowering, EL 5+ higher than party

So, if a DM were to follow DMG when designing adventures, there would be no guaranteed victory for PCs in every encounter. Any whiny player you've encountered should take the beef to WotC, since they're arguing against basic principles of the game itself :\

Besides, a whiny player while whine, regardless. If it was not for the CRs, it would be because of something else.

 

[Quasqueton]

For the record, I was not comparing people's responses to me versus Wulf Ratbane specifically. It was actually Morrus' recent post about his game (3 spellcasters and a paralyzed paladin caught in an antimagic field) that got me thinking about this. But Morrus' post was too recent, and the only other such game description post I could remember (enough of for a database search) yesterday was Wulf's. So I used Wulf's story.

This experiment was useful and informative to me. Even the reaction some people have had to the revelation of it being an experiment is interesting. But the experiment is over now. So I'm going to request the mods close this thread. It will only get personal and ugly if left to run further -- some stinky bait has already been dropped in the thread.

If someone wants to continue/reopen the discussion (on the general principle), go for it. But it probably should go in another, more appropriate forum. I've seen the general concept across many threads, regarding many different posters. I think I'm seeing a pattern. This experiment fit the pattern.

Quasqueton

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Actually, Quas has got a point.

I've seen numerous threads of his - discussing hypothetical situations, no less - degenerate into claims of "You're just a bad DM." It got pretty ridiculous there for awhile.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Hey, Quas, I hope you didn't take my post as anything other than (I hope) friendly elbowing and yuk-yukking.

 

[Eridanis]

Closed thread per originator's request.