To Kill or Not to Kill?

[Sadras]

In one of the numerous encounters in Chapter 3, The Savage Frontier, of Storm King’s Thunder, the PCs (5th- level) came across a band of orcs which had trapped an owlbear in a net and were busy taunting it with spear jabs. In the process they had wounded it. Needless to say the PCs intervened and with a successful surprise attack they made short work of most of the orcs with a few survivors fleeing deeper into the woods, including their leader who was an orog (tougher orc).

The ranger gave chase, whilst the rest of the party attended to freeing and healing the beast as well as looting the bodies of the fallen orcs before heading back to camp. Orcs were the ranger’s favoured enemy, so not wanting to go into too much detail I quickly narrated him tracking and stealthily sneaking up and slaying the surviving orcs one by one, until he tracked the leader of the patrol, the orog.

I described very much a Warcraft-styled clip of the two combatants circling and sizing each other up before lunging at one another weapons drawn. The orog won initiative and missed his first attack but his greataxe followed through with his second attack doing 14 points of damage. The elven ranger, armed with two masterwork shortswords (+1 damage each, a gift from the Goldenfields chapter) missed with both attacks. Orog’s are generally heavily armoured.
Not wanting to make this all about hits and misses, in the second round I had the orog disarm the ranger with his first attack, sending one of the shortswords flying into the foliage and then rolled for his second attack which die roll resulted in a natural 20. Damage was 2d12+4. I rolled two 10’s, leaving the ranger on 2 hit points with the orog still at full health.

Knowing the elf was outmatched and far away from any allies, the player decided his elf was going to make a run for it and so the elf made a tactical withdrawal, before sprinting back to camp. I had the orog give chase, taunting the elf verbally, shouting racial slurs, making playful swipes at him with his greataxe, essentially toying with him. At all times the orog was keeping pace with the elf.

Now, I suppose I could have had the character killed, but I opted for another route.

In the village of Nightstone, Rillix the tressym (winged cat), had befriended the ranger and had become somewhat of an animal companion to him at least for almost a month. The tressym had been left back at camp.

At some part in the ranger-orog chase, the light from the camp-fire could be seen so the orog started closing the distance readying to finish off the elf and end the game. At that moment the ranger sensed something small and fast dart past him, but he did not make it out. As the orog neared his prey and lifted up his greataxe, from the corner of his eye he saw something leap up from the ground, wings outstretched, and claws. In that moment his attention turned away from the elf to this new creature which was directed at him – instinctively he turned his body and swung the greataxe at the black winged creature slicing it cleanly in two. Rillix died instantly and quietly.
By the time the orog turned his attention back to his prey, the elf was already too close to the encampment. Deciding better than facing the elf and all his allies, the orog disappeared back into the woods.

Was it better that the character survived? I think so. I’m not saying killing PCs is bad, I’ve done it plenty times, including two TPKs, but in this instance it did not serve the greater story (for my table I thought). BUT in order for me to justify the PC surviving there had to be some sort of cost.

The PC lost a masterwork shortsword and an animal companion, he was humiliated, gained a personal enemy and learned a valuable lesson about the deadliness of orogs. Earlier in the session I had a Troll sunder his masterwork bow. That cost was sufficient for me, maybe next time I'm not as lenient and demand a higher cost or maybe there is no next time.

As DMs we face these kinds of decisions/choices often. I find that the way I might run such a scenario very much depends on the campaign and the particular situation.

I'd be curious to hear from DMs, but especially players what they think of when the PCs are, for lack of a better description, let off the hook.
Do they feel cheated? relieved? Does the fiction need to make sense and/or there to be an appropriate cost? Some other requirement?

 

[Maxperson]

I don't think there was anything wrong with the way you played it out, but for myself, I probably would have killed or captured the PC, depending on the motivations of the Orog leader. When you go off alone to chase dangers, sometimes those dangers swallow you up. In this case the ranger made the decision to go alone to chase orcs into the unknown, knowing that if things went badly he would be up a creek without a paddle.

 

[aco175]

I like to encourage players taking bold action, but not reward them for foolishness. At some point the ranger realized that he was in over his head and I may have had the orog let him escape since that is just what he did to get away from the party. He may be thinking that the rest of his friends was about to close in. I most likely would have taken his sword to make him come and get it later. Maybe a better solution would have been to let the owlbear show up and kill the orog helping the PCs.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's your table, so you'te the best judge of what your players prefer. I think you did well, esoecially if the character death would have been very disruptive to the table. Again, that's not something I can say anything about. I can say that at my table the character would have been dead or captured, deoending on the tone we had set at the beginning of the game, but that just my table.

The player made choices that led to that situation, so the bad consequences are a direct result of player choice. To me, that's exactly when the DM gets to step up the nasty: when a player chooses a risky action and fails that's when the rat bastard DM claws come out. I dislike screwing over players when they don't make a choice or the choice is underinformed, but here your player chose to chase after a numerically superior foe all alone, got the benefit of their class abilities to reduce risk, and then lost the challenge they chose to engage. Perfect time for RBDMing.

 

[iserith]

I make the stakes clear at the outset of the conflict and, if the PCs lose, they lose (whatever that means in context).

I've noticed DMs often just go into the scene without thinking about this and then, when the characters are doing poorly, they start backing off or changing the stakes. To my mind this is a mistake of not setting the stakes ahead of time and robbing the players of the impact of their choices. If death is not a possible outcome, then I prefer to present the conflict that way from the outset.

 

[Maxperson]

I make the stakes clear at the outset of the conflict and, if the PCs lose, they lose (whatever that means in context).

I've noticed DMs often just go into the scene without thinking about this and then, when the characters are doing poorly, they start backing off or changing the stakes. To my mind this is a mistake of not setting the stakes ahead of time and robbing the players of the impact of their choices. If death is not a possible outcome, then I prefer to present the conflict that way from the outset.

In my game, it has been made clear at the outset of the campaign that all reasonable outcomes to a situation are possible, so I don't need to make it clear during an encounter. The player of the ranger would have known that death, capture, loss of items, escape, etc. were all possibilities.

Back onto the original example. If the Orog had captured the PC, the party would have lost its ranger and I assume best tracker. They might have been at a loss on how to find the ranger, which would have been a perfect opportunity for the Owlbear to notice the concern of the party and note their glances in the direction their comrade went. I would then have had the Owlbear start snuffling around that area and after a few excited bounces, head off rapidly after the ranger. The party would then have headed out after the Owlbear, which they now name Snuffles and head after the Orog. Some time later they find the severed head of their comrade impaled on a stake. Muahahahahaha!!! *Cough* Sorry, got carried away. Some time later they catch the Orog and perhaps a few more orcs around their companion, who has still lost his weapon and free him.

There are lots of cool ways to go with something like this, including death. There's no right or wrong as long as everyone is having fun.

 

[mortwatcher]

I personally don't like this. We had a fight that went rather poorly for us, so I opted for tactical retreat. Others decided to be big heroes and stay... got promptly killed for their heroism, but woke up days later with a player missing an arm (no mechanical impact, as they made metal arm for him). This happened again in another combat later down the road, party got wrecked, one player got RP punished, and that was that. Sort of took the danger feeling out of the combat, knowing that is we don't succeed, we only get slapped on wrist and move on.

edit: as for the OP example, maybe do not let the ranger just free kill bunch of orcs, might have made him overconfident in his capability to 1v1 the big bad guy, and overconfidence is slow and insidious killer

 

[FrogReaver]

In terms of outs to prevent pc death I like it. However I’m not a huge fan of preventing pc death. I am in favor of preventing a TPK though.

 

[Umbran]

If the Ranger really liked the tressym, then I think that works pretty darned well, actually. A price was paid for the miscalculation.

 

[5ekyu]

What you did was fine.

The only difference I would have done is **not** make it an NPC ssve of the PC as you did but a tease of something more.

As the chase moved on with the Orog closing in, I would have had the ranger pass over an unfamiliar patch of **insert something odd** that causes the Orog yo pull up short just before **insert something very dangerous sounding** causes the Orog to turn tail and run, abandoning the chase.

This kinda rings in old themes where cowboys run into burial grounds and Indians stop pursuit etc (many other genre examples ) and gives a hint of more at play, more at risk, etc and avoids the cliche NPC companion is more than seems saving the PC.

But then, I always plant more seeds ahead of time than ever get harvested. Never know when you will need to pick some flowers...