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Message: <blockquote data-quote="500 Toads" data-source="post: 9862440" data-attributes="member: 7056434">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.</blockquote>

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