Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 1181541" data-attributes="member: 1465">Do you think your players will be disappointed by losing their characters in this adventure? Do you think they expect to play their PCs for a long time? Do you think a TPK would spoil their pleasure to play?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> If you think so, take a deep breath and twist the encounter to raise their chances to survive. Lower the encounter level by changing a couple of monsters (maybe the side ones), play on purpose a couple of mistakes by the BBEG, put the characters in a favorable position on the map (if it's not too late).This is just a modest proposal from a not very experienced DM, but although as a player I love tough and challenging adventures (and I don't mind if my PC dies since I always have many ideas for the next ones <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ), as a DM I had players who used to be really disappointed when they faced dire consequences not because of bad playing or bad luck but instead because the encounter was over their possibilities.One trick I have used more than once before is to partially deplete the foes' resources: after all, why shouldn't be possible that the villain has already cast some spells in some daily activity, or has already faced other opponents today?In any case, I wouldn't use the deus ex-machina more than once or twice in a while campaign: it gives the players the feeling that you are always going to save them, so it's best to avoid doing it again (although the way you handled it the first time seems very smart, that they planned it beforehand by roleplaying friendship with stronger NPCs).</blockquote>

Verification