PCs who protect their own skins. Help!!

[Numion]

The dragon was hovering above all of them. She never charged forward. She just used a full attack on the dragon and could not move away. Instead of staying at her side, they used their actions to run away, leaving her alone under the dragon.

They said that they wanted to avoid another breath weapon attack, but most people could be sure that the dragon could not use it immediately after the first attack. They meta already, but it seems that they "selectively" meta'd in this case.

Actually this was good tactics; if they had bunched up near the dragon, they could've all bought it if it had breathed. Without a cleric this would've been problematic. The bard would've been dead anyway (or at -9), and the rest of the group would've been joepardised too.

BTW, how did they know the bard was at -9?

 

[Lord Zardoz]

The DM told them!

He mentioned that he had to beg the Wizard to save the bard, and that the Wizard only saved her because he told him that she was at -9.

If your players are always letting the bard get reamed in combat, then its time to encourage the players by rewarding the bard for it.

The flip side is that if your Fighter is the type to complain every time you manage to land a hit on him, then he is sure to complain when the Bard starts to get rewards that the rest of the party is not getting.

Anyway, any situation in which the behaviour of humans is involved is often intractible. I wish you luck. Your going to need it.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Dr. NRG]

Keep in mind that what you're doing is asking your players to metagame. You are asking them to use the out-of-character knowledge that the bard is controlled by a newbie player in choosing what their characters will do. It seems to me more appropriate to ask the players to act, as players, in helping the bard's player understand what may happen if she acts in certain ways.

This is distinctly different from asking them to modify the way their characters are acting. If they, as players, don't want to do this, you should let them all know that the bard is likely to make some stupid mistakes that will cost them as a party -- through no fault of her own. She simply isn't experienced enough to know that a full attack from a dragon needs to be avoided like Creed... erm, I mean the plague.

Btw, fear is a great motivator, and if the party comes to believe that not acting as a team will result in a TPK, they will act as a team. It sounds to me that since you haven't killed anyone at all for months, they don't fear death. Having no fear is a great thing to claim, but if you've ever seen it in a life or death situation, you'll realize that it can be hazardous to your health.

NRG

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

If the Bard is the extent of the healing in the party, it won't be difficult to teach them a grim lesson in necessity of keeping the bard alive.