The old soft shoe...

[Greenfield]

The title refers to the tendency of some DMs to pull punches, to avoid killing PCs.

It came out in a D&D 3.5 session the other day in a relatively extreme fashion.

A PC Bard with 9 hit points left got thwacked for 24 points of damage. He's dead, even with our house rule that you don't die 'til you reach the negative of your CON (he had a 12 CON, went to -13).

Raise Dead and its variants are pretty much unavailable in this game world, at least until we go up a few levels. (We're currently 5th-ish).

The DM tells the player not to make a new character yet. He says that the Bard's spirit is in line to enter the next life, but the line isn't moving. For some reason the gates to the underworld are closed, so nobody can actually die right now.

The PC's heal the (more than) mortally injured Bard, and life goes on.

Now we had no problem killing the enemy in that battle, and while it might be a neat plot point the fact is that 5th level PCs don't go solving cosmic problems on other planes. It's well beyond anything the party is capable of. At the moment, in fact, the only way to go to where the "problem" is is to have everybody die.

Now I have to admit, as pulled punches go this one was handled better than most. But the fact that the last remaining monster just sort of lost interest and wandered away in the middle of the battle kind of gave away the fact that it was a pulled punch.

So, colorful examples aside, how do you as a DM deal with the situation where your monster keep rolling crits and the PCs keep rolling 1s? When you're looking at a TPK that shouldn't have even been that much of a fight?

Or, to put it more simply, when is it okay to pull the punch?

 

[Alexander123]

I generally try not to pull punches.

If you die, you die.

The reason being that IME players like it better when they know they are not being kidded and that their actions have real consequences.

Now you say that raise dead is not available. Why is that? At your level you should be able to afford such magic.

 

[Animal]

if other players are ok with it - why not? it all boils down to what drifts your dm's and players' boat. in my recent group we actually agreed to never pull the punches. at first this led to either boring fights (normal opponents) or PC casualties (challenging opponents). so quite soon our style of play changed drastically. we always think strategically and never fight if we doubt in our victory. in my previous group people didn't even realize that retreating or fleeing was ever an option, in this group we really act like mortal people, who may risk their lives but won't throw them away thoughtlessly. i never leave town without a panic button (escape) and some potions of invisibility.
in short, if you want your dm to stop pulling punches, start playing smart.

 

[Greenfield]

... Now you say that raise dead is not available. Why is that? At your level you should be able to afford such magic.

It's a game world constraint. We got tired of games where character death meant little more than a cash outlay. So in this world, the only way to bring back the dead is to travel to the Land of the Dead, find their soul, and walk them out again. Think of the legend of Orpheus and Persephone, or Balder's tale from Norse mythology.

Functionally, this calls for a Plane Shift spell, at a minimum, or Shadow Walk. You can't gate/plane shift directly back to the mortal world and have it work. All you've brought back is their spirit. You need to face the guards and hazards of the journey for them to earn back their lives.

It's a neat story construct, but it calls for some spell power we don't have yet.

And I agree on pulling punches: If you can't lose, winning doesn't really mean anything.

Oh, in case anyone was wondering, it was my character who got killed. I think that, if and when the gates of the underworld open up again, he'll have to die. You can only cheat Death so far, then you have to pay the price.

 

[Alexander123]

It seems stupid on the part of your DM to make such a constraint and then pull his punches, don't you think?

Wouldn't it be easier to simply allow raise dead spells and have the player face the consequence of the level drain instead of trying to shield the character from the consequences of his actions?

 

[JamesonCourage]

It seems stupid on the part of your DM to make such a constraint and then pull his punches, don't you think?

Wouldn't it be easier to simply allow raise dead spells and have the player face the consequence of the level drain instead of trying to shield the character from the consequences of his actions?

If that were the case. Though, I'd say saying what his GM did was stupid without knowing more might be jumping the gun.

Yes, it's possible the GM is setting the players up to feel immortal, which would not be a positive thing (in all probability, anyways).

It's also possible that players have died in this type of game before without this happening. If that's the case, I suppose it could potentially be a good story plot if handled extremely well. Especially if the character that should have died ends up having to die later on, because he cannot escape his fate.

I don't play with bringing people back to life in my game. I find it cheapens the characters somewhat (not much, but some), as well as makes death seem acceptable -or sometimes preferable- to tough situations. I dislike that.

Bottom line, I like the chance of paying the ultimate price in my game. Yeah, it doesn't feel good when I kill off a PC if a player is attached to the character. It really isn't a warm, fuzzy feeling. But my group prefers the ever-present chance of ultimate consequences, and I agree the GM might be shooting himself in the foot unless he's really careful.

Sounds like you're not having a bad time, though, which is a good thing. In the end, play what you like, and have fun

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

For me as a DM, I tell my players this as soon as we start:

"My job is not to kill you. My job is to challenge you and make sure you have fun. I may, emphasis on 'may' fudge a die roll here or there to make sure you don't die. However, if you do something stupid, like taking your first level character and challenging the ancient red dragon, then you're on your own and the dice will fall as they may."

My current group (4 3rd levels, 1 2nd level and 2 1sties) seemed to appreciate that because they aren't 100% certain I'm going to save them, so they are tending to think a little more strategically. I think as long as the group understands that ruling and are having fun, it's okay to pull punches.

 

[El Mahdi]

First off, it's not necessarily a tendency of some DM's, sometimes it's very much a preference of some DM's and groups. Now if that's not your group, cool. However such preferences are also just as cool.

I understand from your posts that your group (DM included) previously discussed not liking the ability to buy your way out of death, and as a result took away resurrection magics (or delayed them to higher levels). Cool. DM and group discussed the common preferences of the group, consensus was reached, and much fun was had by all (as it should be).

But, why are you assuming that the DM is pulling punches?

You stated that the whole "heaven is closed" thing seemed like a nice plot point, while also assuming it was just some way to keep from killing your character...okay, which is it? From the information you provided, it could be a plot point, a pulled punch, or both...how can you be sure without asking your DM...? How is it that the last remaining monster losing interest, is also assumed to be a metagame pulled punch, rather than also possibly being a plot point? How do you know the Monster didn't lose interest for some other reason? Maybe the point of the attack was specifically to kill the Bard, and once he was down the mission was accomplished... Maybe the monster was under the control of someone else, and that control was interupted or broken...perhaps it was even controlled by one of the monster you defeated prior to it's "losing interest"... Without further clarification or evidence supporting a pulled-punch, I don't see how the assumption is valid. Possible? Yes. Certain? No.

As to 5th level characters not handling things of Cosmic importance...Why Not? For every story filled with heroes of mythic proportions, there's a story filled with unqualified underdogs succeeding against all odds. How do you know this isn't what your DM has in mind? Or maybe this is a seed being planted by your DM, for when you are capable of handling things of cosmic importance? It could also be possible that your Bard character is important to the DM's plot, at least for the short term. Or, maybe your DM just thought it wouldn't be fun to have to make up a new character at that time. I guess you could ask your DM about this if it's really a big problem for you...but then that runs the risk of ruining the adventure for you. Or you could just trust that the DM considers your fun as the highest priority, and is acting in accordance with that...

With only the information you provided, I can make at least a dozen other assumptions than the one you made.

So, my big question is this:

Why are you talking to us about this, and not your DM...?

If this is a style of gameplay that you don't like, explain this to the DM and ask if he can refrain from saving your characters in this manner in the future. If the group also feels this way, then that needs to be expressed to the DM.

I'm sure that if you all talk this out, you'll be much happier and satisfied than you could ever possibly be by enquiring about this to us.

 

[Tovec]

I don't think it is a matter of pulling punches but I know in our groups when a PC dies they are meant to die in one way or another. For example, my most recent PC death occurred when fighting a dragon. I wanted to give that grand feel of fighting a dragon, being out matched and still winning. One PC died but that was exactly what I was aiming for. 1-2 PCs dying was the expected outcome. What can sometimes happen is that the fight starts to go sideways. Either the monster(s) are more powerful than expected or the PCs seem to streamroll them more easily. When it comes to the monster(s) being over or under powered then it is easy to recalcuated some saves or attacks and adjust the fight accordingly. When the PCs are kicking ass and taking names then all the power to them, they are the heroes and that is what they are meant to do.
As a DM I am good enough to adjust the battle as we go and get the desirable outcome. Overall I never seem to find a need to pull my punches or vastly increase an enemy's powers during battle. That being said I have often dropped a damage reduction or added (sometimes up to double) HP to a monster.

 

[Greenfield]

A couple of points about our game, one general and one specific.

Our game world is a collective one, where each player also takes turns as the DM. We have an over all campaign goal that each adventure is supposed to work towards, but it's more a campaign theme than a hard objective. We came up with a wold concept, set a goal, and then have fun with it.

Changing the way Raise Dead works was a group decision, not something imposed by a single DM. It makes bringing back the dead an adventure in and of itself, and rare enough that it's the stuff of legends.

The minimum needed is Plane Shift, which happens to be the same level as Raise Dead (conveniently enough). According to the SRD, it deposits you on the "first layer" of layered planes, which in this case would be the gates to the Land of the Dead, or "Death's Door" as some might put it. You can't shift, gate, portal, etc. directly *from* the underworld, you need to get back outside those gates.

I can't really complain about the "No raise dead" rule because I'm the one who suggested it. We've used it in other campaigns and it worked out wonderfully. It made for grand adventures and a depth of story that gave the tales the feel of a legend. Good stuff all the way.

The more specific point is that the battle didn't run at all the way anyone expected. The DM rolled a total of seven critical hits on our main meat shield over the course of three rounds. That's right, natural 20 after natural 20, round after round, right in front of everyone.

And our dice were as cold as I've ever seen. Not just missing our attacks, but natural 1 after natural 1, round after round. Our main meat shield managed to hit exactly zero times over the course of 5 rounds. My Bard managed to roll 1s every round for 3 rounds.

The way the dice were rolling, we would have lost that fight to a girl scout troop.

But you know something? That kind of thing happens, and knowing when to run away is part of good strategy. The fact that we didn't was our fault, not the DM's and not the dice.

But all of that is beside the point, a freak event in a single game.

The DM has every right to alter any dice roll any way he or she wants, and if they say that there's an eclipse two days in a row, then that's what happens. So I'm not exactly complaining about my character not dying on schedule. I'm just asking how others how the feel about pulling punches in a game.