Too Rat Bastard?

[Elephant]

If they get completely swamped, it may help for future adventures to talk to them about their tactics. It kind of depends on your group, but a friendly message from the RBDM might help them consider alternatives to the "kick the door in and start swinging" approach.

 

[Len]

If the players can't stop themselves from running in without forethought it's their problem. And if they continue in the same way it's their funeral.

Unfortunately, "they are trapped in the place now" so it sounds like they can't break it off. It seems like a pretty dire situation for them, but that's what happens when you barge in the front door of a Githyanki fortress.

From a player's point of view, this isn't too rat-bastard as long as the party had some warning that they were walking into the stronghold of a superior force.

That's just about what my group spent the last two weeks not doing. We'd been told it would be suicidal to bust into the evil temple and take on all of its monks at once, so we used guerrilla tactics: ambushing their patrols, picking off guards, retreating when attacked by a large force. It was still a tough fight when we went into the temple; it would have been deadly if we'd gone in immediately.

 

[the_mighty_agrippa]

From a player's point of view, this isn't too rat-bastard as long as the party had some warning that they were walking into the stronghold of a superior force.

*sigh*

So true.

Here's the overview of the campaign. Admittedly, there have been times when I have forgotten details but the same is true of the players, so I don't feel too bad.

I run a homebrew world and the Githyanki invaded. The PCs had seen some collaboration with a goblin-king underground, where the Githyanki were providing arms and alchemical assistance to the goblins in exchange for some upcoming service.

When the Githyanki came, they came into the world full-force. They invaded a hobgoblin kingdom via astral gates and sent in an armada. The PCs got to witness one of these attacks firsthand, being sneak little bastards. The Gith ships would encircle a city at a high altitude. Troops would form into ranks on the ship, then step off in file as Gith sorcerers casts Feather Fall. As the combat units slowly drifted down in whole order, dragons systemically destroyed the city's defenses.

Realizing the Gith would soon march against the human lands, the PCs started looking for a way to stop them. Since they had no cleric at the time, I gave the dwarven mage access to a chalice in a hidden dungeon. The chalice would fill with a liquid gold that, when consumed, allowed the mage to speak DIRECTLY with Dumanthoin. I gave her 2x character level questions as Commune but with whole answers.

After getting some answers about the Gith, a critical question crept up and I know this happened because the player had this in a notebook months later.

Q: Are there other races who might be able to defeat the Gith?
A: The dragons possess such power. Look ye, to Murilanthenese of the Unceasing Spire. (Thank you , FR comic)
Q: Other than the dragons, who else might fight?
A: Their ancient cousins in Limbo, who are also Gith. The Maleboge, the Illithids.

So, they go off looking for allies. Mind you, the NPCs are not sad to see them leave. Not because they're PCs but they are not interested in joining the army to fight the Gith and that's all the NPCs are focusing on. So, the PCs are now trying to find allies with no authority to do so.

They reach the ancient dragon of the Spire, who is a plot device designed to answer historical information they might want to know. The PCs want two things - allies and more allies. So, Muri tells them the metallic dragons may aid them but many are sleeping and are not easily awoken. It will take time to get them off their asses. Again, the demon princes of Maleboge are mentioned, so the PCs decide to go off and wake the sleeping evil over the horizon. To recruit allies on behalf of the human world, the PCs being led by a dwarf and an earth genasi.

Long story short, they keep trying to find allies with no king or religion backing them up but the Githyanki are two steps ahead of them, having planned for certain contingencies. I originally built the game to match their kick in the door style of play, envisioning a game of skirmishes leading to guerilla warfare in the occupied lands until they could plane travel, then rolling back the incursion by attacking the Gith outposts one by one. Instead, they went off trying to find ally after ally when virtually no one in the party had any ranks in Diplomacy.

For this battle, I had a highly placed Githyanki informant give them critical intelligence on the base. He provided the names of the commanders, the number of dragons, the number of Sarths and the number of troops. He mentioned the two flesh golems, the undead and the tower defenses. I gave them extra experience to perform Communes, but only one question in the spell was directed towards the necromancer and nothing against the undead! Once they burn 4 of 6 Dispel Magic in breaching the tower's magical defenses, the monk announces that the back-up plan is to kick down the door and start killing. He announces the back-up plan at the door to the fortress. No questions are asked about getting into or out of the place, other than the windows. In fact, they almost decided just to Teleport in without doing anything else.

So, that brings us around to today.

 

[the_mighty_agrippa]

The necromancer knows exactly who is in the fortress but is still afraid tat they are just an advance team for a larger force. She's trying to cut off the PCs, kill them and hold out for Gith reinforcements.

Even if they kill her and tear the place down, they have left scores of witnesses who have seen them running all around the place, which mean the Githyanki will be looking for them.

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

Dear, good, lord!!!

Or, as one of my old groups used to say, holy moly cowly!

In any such campaign that I'd be running - that movement to the backup plan on entry would be grounds for the 'are you insane?' death enabling - akin to the semi-recent groups attempt to tackle rumors of a dragon in the hills... at 3rd level (?!?!?)

I'd say you weren't being rat bastard at all. They know whats in there. Whats in there is almost sufficient to kill them all, if they are not extremely careful. This 'charge and kill all' motif is just a plain bad idea on their part...

That said, they do have the right, nay the privilege of making horrendous mistakes

I'd be careful in one respect - i'd make sure that no one was a) bored or b) tired with/of the current campaign... are they happy with the game so far? anything they'd like to see change or different?

The reason being - this seems like suicide on their parts, a way of 'ending' the game...

 

[the_mighty_agrippa]

I can tell you that I'm bored with the pace of the game. It takes forever to get things going, but I like the campaign. Unfortunately, getting feedback from my players is like pulling teeth. We play two campaigns and neither DM gets feedback unless it's from the other DM playing his game.

I use a Yahoogroup to help them organize and keep track of the game. I encourage the use of Communes and other game-breaking magics on it so I can be ready prior to game time. Sometimes, they're still making up replacement characters 3 hours into the game after they died the previous weekend. Regardless, there's almost ze-ro traffic on my Yahoogroup.