Wolfspider said:
Well, I'm sorry that you feel that way. If you look back at what I wrote, I never claimed that YOU or any of the players in your group were stupid. I said that your tactics were very bad, bordering on stupid. A smart person can do something stupid. Heck, I do stupid things all the time, and I think I'm somewhat intelligent.
Actually, calling someone’s tactics stupid is somewhat tantamount to calling them stupid. YMMV.
In this case, I considered this to be a slam dunk. The Cleric is out of reach of the Golem. The Golem is in reach of the Cleric. I thought the DM might just rule that since the Golem is mindless, it continues to attempt to get at the Cleric, but cannot. Eventually, the Cleric hits it enough times to kill it.
But, with the Critical Fumble rules of the DM, he considered that there was a slim chance that this would not occur. Since we did not know of these rules beforehand, it turned out that we were unsuccessful the second time, even though it could have gone either way.
And, the difference in outcome basically consisted of the Cleric going unconscious. In the long run, probably not that much of a difference.
Wolfspider said:
Don't take this so personally. You came to this forum with a gripe, and I decided to respond to your condemnation of the adventure with a different viewpoint. That's what these forums are for, after all. Discussion. Which is what we're having right now.
I wasn’t really taking it that personally, even though it might not have been apparent from the language I used. I was mostly pointing out that one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. In this case, I thought the tactics were so good for the “second combat” that there was virtually no chance of failure. As it turned out, the DM had other plans.
The generic “rest up and come back later” idea is typically a fine idea. It is not always applicable. In this case, I felt the posters who were stating that this was the fault of the players (yourself included) or the DM were being overly harsh and critical. No plan, even one to rest up and regain spells is ALWAYS the best plan.
I think a lot of experienced players get in the mode of using the same well worn tactics (such as resting) so often that they cannot even conceive of anything else. Their loss. I try to not be so predictable and single minded. I try to think outside the box.
And, if it was not for the players actions to continue the first fight and have the Cleric stabilize the fallen, 3 party members instead of 1 would have probably died in the first combat. The Ranger who died could have easily ran away and save himself, but as it turned out, he gave his life to save 2 or 3 others. To me, that is much more heroic than anything the “The fault lies entirely with the players” posters way of thinking results in. To me, thinking like that results in a game of chess. All tactics and strategy and no roleplaying and heroics (and as it turned out, the tactics did save several PCs).
Personally, I think the second combat should not really have even occurred. The DM should have had the mindless Golem follow it’s programming to attack the nearest creature, it should have failed, and the Cleric should have killed it. The plan should have been that good.
But, c’est la guerre.
All in all, I thought both combats were well played. Multiple PCs were saved in the first and the second should have been just a mop up except for an unknown house rule. So, I think you can understand why I disagreed with and was even slightly offended by all of the “fault of the player” posts.
