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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fajitas" data-source="post: 2903745" data-attributes="member: 377">Let me state first off that I really hate stupid character death.  I don't mind killing PCs, but I feel like there should be appropriate drama or intentionality involved.  Character deaths that come as a result of sheer dumb bad luck, bad die rolls, or a grotesque and unavoidable lack of the information needed to make the right decisions... those kind of deaths suck to me.I have, in the past, employed GM fiat to avert stupid deaths like that.  In fact, I'd already done it for Lira, <a href="https://www.enworld.org/index.php?posts/1283452/" target="_blank"> during the Mages' Academy fire</a>.  She, the 2nd level sorcerer, had been left at the back of the party lines to face the Shadowbeasts.  The party, at that point, had no way of knowing that that was the worst tactical move they could possibly make.  So I let the crit I rolled against Lira during that fight apply to a random student who ran in between her and the Shadowbeast, giving the party an extra round to get their act together and save her.*  But you can't do that all the time.  So...That said, the decision to give Lady Tempeste the surprise round was based on two things:1) The fact that Lady Tempeste, being trigger-happy by nature and knowing the PCs were suspicious, was going to shoot first and ask questions later (if at all).  Lira, on the other hand, was still trying to talk.  She had no intention of starting a fight with her question.  She wasn't even sure that Lady Tempeste even knew that the healing potions were fakes.  Honestly, Spyscribe's face when I told her Lady Tempeste attacked was the very definition of flat-footed.  2) Lady Tempeste had the Quick Draw feat.  She was pretty well optimized to kill you before you even knew the fight was on.Yes, Lira's death here did involve a lot of bad luck.  The crit when she was down to 1 HP was pretty much the clincher.  If it hadn't been a crit, she would have been in a lot of trouble, but likely still alive (I let PCs go down to negative Con before death).  From the armchair quarterback's perspective, there were, to my mind, two things Lira could have done differently: first, back off farther, getting out of range of the reach of the spiked chain (tho' this would likely have meant jumping off the barge, and Lira doesn't have any points in swim).  And second, not magic missile Lady Tempeste.  She wasn't trying to kill Lira in particular, she was trying to kill the entire party.  Absent the magic missile, Reyu probably would have been the more dangerous looking target (assuming, of course, that Lira hadn't taken up the cleave position next to Reyu like she did).  That said, Spyscribe made those decisions for character reasons, rather than tactical ones,  and I gotta respect that.  She was P.O.'d at having been jerked around with the healing potions and she was P.O.'d at having been attacked like that.  She didn't want to hide and heal herself, she wanted to rise to the occassion like an Ehktian.  She died on her feet, and really, really messily.  What Questor could ask more?Besides, I don't think I've ever seen the party quite as ready for bloodshed as they were after this.  Any lingering fears I had about them hemming and hawing about going up against the proper legal authority on the islands pretty much evaporated in that mist of red and the cries of one angry weasel...* (Note that I wouldn't do this the next time the party encounters Shadowbeasts; they know too much about them for that kind of tactical blunder to be a forgiveable sin.)</blockquote>

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