D&D General What do you think?

[Miccc]

I have been playing 2024 lmop with a party of 6 members for about 3 months now, using discord. This was a very homebrew edition of the module, with a "very competitive" DM who would throw big enemy numbers and sometimes overleveled npcs at us. I was playing a wizard, the rest of the party was mostly composed of melee characters and we had no cleric, so, to compensate, I took magic initiate (cleric) to be able to cast healing word and spare the dying.

Due to backstory reasons (my pc was a wiz who was kind of bad at magic) DM offered to apply a homebrew mechanic called "dangerous magic" which added a chance to harm myself whenever I cast a spell. It felt bland, but I took it since it made sense for backstory reasons and I demanded no buffs in change.

Over the course of the campaign, there where several times the party almost got wiped out. My character often ended up wasting his slots casting healing word, acting as a cleric, or stabilizing incapacitated teammates. We ended up surviving, since the enemies never attacked downed teamamtes. This felt like a precedent set by the DM, and the rest of the party members never cared to aid downed teammates since it is was implicit that they would get aid after the combat ended. I guess you can see now where this is going.

Fast forward to the final battle with BBEG. This was a heavely modified BBEG with invisibility, legendary actions, fireball, spider summons, non concentration spider climbing and such. At this point I was heavly invested in the campaign and the character, and the master had said that he intented to continue with the icespire peak module after finishing and we would be able to continue with our characters if we wanted to.

BBEG casted a fireball at us and my PC barely made it alive with 1 hp. I casted fly on one of the melee party members so he could get him down (he was climing above us, out of melee reach). In the next turn I casted lighing bolt and used one of my portent rolls to make him fail the save

The spiders focused me, and I went down, while the main baddie was being now focused by the rest of the party. In his next turn, he ordered the spiders to eat my character while he was incapacitated. I had passed the first death saving throw, but with two attacks, I was instantly kiled. No chance to give last words, or maybe make a last action. The fight just went on

I feel targeted and I believe this DM wanted my pc out, or he killed him just to make a point to the rest of the party members, or create drama. There was silence when it happened and the fight went on and I left the voice chat when I saw they were about to reach the ending without me.

Next day the DM sent me the ending and he had my pc revived by some deus ex machina. It felt cheap. He said BBEG targeted me because I was a mage (same as he) and thus knew my capabilities. I decided to leave the table. Accepting the deus ex resurrection would make my character feel bland, and I don't think I could play a new character. The ilussion was broken, for me at least.

How would you feel?

 

[Sulicius]

Well, I am already noticing some of your issues with "wasting spell slots on healing word" and the like. Healing is never a waste, but it can feel like you have to give up your turn to give someone else their turn. Especially since you don't seem to feel like the other party members would do the same for you.

Still, the DM seem to love challenging you guys in combat, is that what you and the other players enjoy?

Your biggest pain point seems to be the feeling of being singled out and resurrected without proper setup. I think there's a lot the DM could have done to make this more interesting, fun and rewarding, but they don't seem to understand this.

Yes, it is totally fair for a smart enemy to target you AND kill you. It would have been a good idea for the DM to announce upfront that this villain might do such a thing. It ups the stakes and gives the players a better understanding of what they are facing down. Many DMs might think the players shouldn't know this for drama or because it's meta, but that's just wrong. In this situation, your allies did not heal you while unconscious. Does that feel unfair?

Then, the death itself. You are bothered that you didn't get any last words or final action. When I was a new DM, I made this mistake as well. The death of a character is caused by the DM, but how the character spends their final moment should be given to the player. It's a final farewell to the character they got attached to. A character is a player's strongest connection point with the campaign. Sure, you might not get a chance to cast another spell, but maybe the DM asks you what your final thoughts are. Do they fear the afterlife?

I have gotten into the habit of RP-ing the afterlife with players, which has been very rewarding. Getting picked up by the boatsmen at the River Tartyx in Theros, or meeting the trapped souls of Barovia can be really fun to play out in the turns that the pc would otherwise skip because they are dead.

Then, the Deus Ex Machina. What exactly happened? If I were the DM, I would take a moment and put a few options before the players: 1. Your character died, do you want to make a new pc? 2. Would you want to be able to return at a cost? Maybe your cleric spells are lost as some powerful being revives you, and you have to complete a quest to regain them. 3. There might be a healer in the area, do you want to go on a quest to resurrect the PC? And would you want to play an NPC or something in the meantime?

Reading between the lines, I feel like you had more problems with this campaign than just your PC's death. Leaving the table is a very drastic thing to do, and I think you acted on emotion. If it was just your PC's death, talk to your DM that you don't want to play in a campaign where such a thing happens again. Talk about expectations and issues like a grown-up person first. I think you might have had some, but all I can read is that you asked the DM for his justification, and then left.

I have my own issues with my DM, but in many cases it is not all on him. Emotions play a role, expectations and built up frustrations will cloud judgement. In the end the question is: is this how you want to play the game? Can you talk about it?

From what I can read so far, I don't think you did the right thing, but that is easy to say without experienced it.

 

[500 Toads]

There's red flags all over the place in my view.

You had a fairly large party that seemingly had poor teamwork; for instance, it's not solely a caster's job to stabilize characters when anybody can use a healer's kit to do the job reliably and cheaply, in addition to administering the occasional potion when available and worth it. In addition, it sounded like there was injudicious positioning (e.g. grouping up against what a known caster, and then the party's caster seemingly being abandoned by all the melee characters who couldn't be bothered to maintain any kind of line against melee monsters despite there being five of them). I also personally wouldn't design an adventurer whose shtick is that "he's actually pretty bad at the thing that he's supposed to do", i.e. wizard who is somehow bad at casting magic. That sort of thing is OK if you're playing a normal, even perhaps extremely sketchy, individual in a survival horror scenario where you weren't chosen for a group assembled to specifically seek out trouble; but adventurers in a traditional adventuring campaign should be reasonably competent enough so that other adventurers would actually be happy to work with them.

There's heavy homebrew, between a hugely-buffed enemy and a bizarre debuff. I've played through LMOP; the 'Big Bad' is not meant to be anywhere near that nasty. Granted, he's often considered a bit of a pushover as written and you had a large party, but a milder buff to him and adding more allies and hazards would have been better than what was done. D&D 5E is not the most perfectly balanced system to begin with, but that's not an excuse to get silly with it.

Then there's the shift in combat tactics. I personally wouldn't pull punches, by conspicuously not attacking the downed; but I prefer to consider NPC tactics in view of what they would be aware of and what their motivations are. Conscious foes would tend to be prioritized as greater threats than unconscious ones for obvious reasons, but a significant threat who was downed and clearly could be revived is obviously a significant threat that may be worth finishing off; and finishing off a downed enemy may be the obvious practical thing to do if the next alternative is a far more difficult target. Intelligent foes with ranged capabilities may withdraw to better ground, potentially opportunistically attacking any targets whether conscious or not. Some enemies may prefer taking prisoners for enslavement, interrogation, nefarious experiments, etc; or to drive away intruders without necessarily starting a blood feud or otherwise bringing on more trouble (e.g. it's one thing to be wanted for the occasional robbery, but another to be wanted for multiple murder esp. of the 'intruders' seem likely to have some official status); but it really depends. Combat should be deadly when it makes logical sense for it to be, as it certainly would when you're invading the operation of the 'Big Bad' and trying to shut down his plans.

I also wouldn't have offered a Deus ex Machina at that point; but might have pointed out that in the Forgotten Realms, with it being as high-magic a setting as it is, and the possibility that somebody might take an optimistic view of the long-term potential of the Forge despite its current condition... it's not entirely implausible that you may be able to find a patron in time who'd be able to arrange for a Raise Dead ( given the deadline of ten days, and that Wave Echo Cave isn't that far from civilization) -- for a price (as in, owing them serious favors ) even though Revivify may not be entirely practical.