The Mathematics of Survivability

[James McMurray]

Raising the dead must be carefully restricted. PCs must never become blase about death. Never.

<SARCASM>

Thanks for telling me how to run my campaign. I guess me and my players haven't been having any fun for this past year and a half after all. I guess I'd better just scrap the whole campaign and start from scratch.

</SARCASM>

 

[EOL]

1. Raising the dead
-------------------

<snip>

In conclusion, think of asking your god for a raise dead spell as asking your boss for a pay rise. If you've made a very good case as to why you deserve it and you get on well with him, he may well say yes. But don't ask for one too often.

Another example of this is from the series Guardians of the Flame, in the first book (whose title I forget) a character needs to be resurrected and the process is incredibly difficult, requiring sacrifices from all of the party members. Interestingly enough a Guardians of the Flame thread just popped up...

 

[hong]

<SARCASM>

Thanks for telling me how to run my campaign. I guess me and my players haven't been having any fun for this past year and a half after all. I guess I'd better just scrap the whole campaign and start from scratch.

</SARCASM>

I think if you read it as

PCs must nevar become blase about death. Nevar.

it takes on a whole new meaning.

As for magic: I don't mind having lots of magic items in the game. I know that when I'm a player, it's great to finally get your hands on magic stuff that you've dreamed about since low levels. So I'm happy to keep that in my game when I DM. And really, just because the party has lots of magic stuff doesn't mean that the monsters must also have lots of it.

 

[Jalkain]

<SARCASM>

Thanks for telling me how to run my campaign. I guess me and my players haven't been having any fun for this past year and a half after all. I guess I'd better just scrap the whole campaign and start from scratch.

</SARCASM>

Yes, and quickly! You and your players need to start having fun as soon as possible!

Seriously, it wasn't my intention too make grand pronouncments about how everyone should run their campaign. But hong asked a question, one which I've had experience of in the past, and I wanted to set out some guidelines which tackled the issue.

Escalation of magic items, followed by battles that look like small nuclear wars, followed by extensive resurrection, repeated over and over, is something I've seen happen in campaigns, and it's something that other people on the boards have complained about in the past. If it doesn't happen to you, or if you don't mind it happening to you, then my posts do not apply to you.

 

[DM_Matt]

At high levels, the lack of equipment makes NPCs into tissue paper. I tend to give them a lot more items, but make a lot of them evilly-aligned so that they PCs cant use them and will destroy them on principle. (Perhaps it would be less useful in other groups, but since every character in my group is good and religious, if not a cleric outright, they do indeed destroy evil items). Also, the NPCs tend to have the same items that the PCs do (Boots of Speed/SnS, stat boosters), so that the PCs themselves wont really need the items.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I've noticed a few things as the DM of a campaign which has made the transition to mid-levels. It may get different at high levels, but judging by the cost of the really nice items (stats +6, +6 and +8 effective weapons and armor, good cloaks of resistance, etc), I doubt that it will be that different.

1. PC's having wealth close to the recommended wealth by level doesn't necessarily mean that they have a lot of items. I had a 7th level fighter/wizard in my campaign who was fairly close to recommended wealth (actually, he was well over the DMG chart at several points in his career) with just a few items: a flaming burst longsword and a ring of protection +2.

When I created a 12th level PC for an in character thread and actually figured out his items, he had fewer than a dozen permanent magic items:
+4 fullplate
+2 Holy flaming Warhammer
+2 Amulet of Natural Armor
Ring of Protection From Evil
+3 Cloak of Resistance
Bag of holding
+1 heavy mace
he had a few potions, a wand of dispel magic, and a couple of things in addition to that but not too much more.

2. NPCs don't need permanent magic items. An NPC could spend 9000 gp on boots of speed or 700 gp on a potion of haste. Since he's only likely to live one encounter anyway, the potion is just as good as the boots and there's no danger of the PCs getting hold of it. Similarly, my NPC (villain) fighter/Necromancer doesn't need a really nifty magic weapon (although he has a fairly good one). If I don't want the PCs to get a magic weapon when they defeat him, he can just use a scroll of greater magic weapon before encountering the PCs.

Also, if the NPCs serve an evil villain, that villain can probably cast some spells on them himself before sending them out to ambush the party. That will give the NPCs a lot of the durability associated with magic items without actually giving them magic items that will end up in the players' hands.

 

[KarinsDad]

Someone earlier in this topic pointed out that while the PC's may survive 5 ambushes like he described, the 6th one may kill them.

The important thing to ask yourself is, "Why are you ambushing your PC's over and over again?"

Actually, I was the one who mentioned 6 ambushes. And, it is not a matter of doing it over and over again, it is a matter of doing it once in a while and eventually, it ends up with a TPK. And, this is just one possible scenario.

The point is, either you spoon feed your players, or you play the villains like villains.

Evil cult. Has several near PC level spell casters. Do you just let the PCs wipe them out, or do you play them intelligently?

We typically have 1 to 3 combats per session. We used to play once a week (hope we can get back to that). With 2 combats per week on average, 45 weeks out of the year, that’s 90 combats. Are you saying that 6 ambushes out of 90 combats is somehow unfair? No, it is just a reasonable level based on villain capabilities. In fact, it might be considered by some to be on the low side.

Plus, sometimes that is with reoccurring villains. Shouldn't those villains learn from experience?

Basically, you will run into ambushes. Even without them, you will have bad dice days where most or all of the villains win initiative. You will even have multiple PCs missing saves that they normally would make. The difference is that the odds appear stacked against the PCs at high level from getting out alive. Sooner or later with instant death spells and paralysis spells and silence and blindness and a wide variety of other severely inhibiting spells combined with DCs appearing to increase faster (every other level for highest level spells) than saves, it would seem like it is just a matter of time until a TPK or a near TPK occurs based on the numbers. At low and mid levels, it appears more that it is just a matter of time until a few PCs die, but typically not the entire party. IMO.

 

[jgbrowning]

yep

Basically, you will run into ambushes. Even without them, you will have bad dice days where most or all of the villains win initiative. You will even have multiple PCs missing saves that they normally would make. The difference is that the odds appear stacked against the PCs at high level from getting out alive. Sooner or later with instant death spells and paralysis spells and silence and blindness and a wide variety of other severely inhibiting spells combined with DCs appearing to increase faster (every other level for highest level spells) than saves, it would seem like it is just a matter of time until a TPK or a near TPK occurs based on the numbers. At low and mid levels, it appears more that it is just a matter of time until a few PCs die, but typically not the entire party. IMO.

Really the problem is this.. if the spells are balanced, ie... the PC's and the NPC's have pretty much the same level of power for spells and the same chance for saving throws. (I know PCs have some bonuses here, but not that much more) a PC using disintegrate will kill many many creatures during his run as an adventurer. And thats the way it should be.

However, it only takes ONE successful NPC to use disintegrate against a PC. And it will eventually happen, becuase the game is pretty well balanced in that respect.

Honestly, although i have not run a high level party and dont really have plans to so take what i say with a grain of salt, what i see happening if i continue to DM in the same manner i always have (ie.. smart, dammit! those NPC's many not have as much stuff as the PC's but they still have a friggen 18int and 15wis and they have just as many spells/almost as many spells) the PC's will continue to die over and over until level progression becomes virtually impossible.

And this will happen ONLY because i have an unlimited number of NPC's, and statistics will catch up to the PC's. I dont' need TPK's to ruin everyone's fun. I just have to kill one person a session (not unreasonable if i dont fudge the dice in the PC's favor) and every 4 sessions everyone is down a level, and perhaps they gain a level every 4 sessions?

And when that happens it becomes even harder for me to balance encounters because each character isn't going to die, it will probably be one or two dying more often than the others, and once they are weakend they will die even faster.

I never, ever try to kill my PC's. That is obviously easy. But i do play my NPC's just as smart as their statistics indicate, and when doing so the PC's will, again IMHO, bite it. Over and over and over.

joe b.

 

[reapersaurus]

KarinsDad - did you catch the discussion a while back where we talked about the insta-kill spells and such? (the over-prevalence of magic, etc.) Was it called "How to stop the powerwizard"?

We touched upon quite a few of your points, and unless you have Resurrections as a common thing in your campaign, which James McMurray has in spades, than I think this is a problem in higher-level campaigns, as well.

Very important point: this is only IF (big if there) you play your villains as smart and they don't secretly want to die.

 

[James McMurray]

If the spells weren't meant to be used, they wouldn't have been made so readily available (you can raise dead at 9th level).

Granted, some people like to play games where death is more final, and my next campaign may be something along those lines (I may use the Raise Dead replacement spell from Spells and Magic by Bastion Press).