What to do with a party that keeps dying?

[Mallus]

What do you call a 15 year old with training wheels on his bicycle?

The same thing you call a man that spends his free time pretending to be an elf.

 

[werk]

The same thing you call a man that spends his free time pretending to be an elf.

I think you missed where I was going with that ...

 

[Xini]

Then some slightly different suggestions. But first the Dwarven Fighter sounds really good, combined with the Cleric of Haela you have a nice front row.

Cool. I am being tempted with faith healing (maximised cure light to those of your faith) but my non munchkin side is trying to resist.

You seem low on the scouting function and ranged weapon back-up and during combat healing. On scouting does the Wizard have a familiar and is that a good idea in this campaign? Some settings are fairy harsh on familiars depending on what they can do, how well they can be targeted, and how much they stand out.

Scouting hadn't occured. The familiar idea is wonderful, I'll see what he says.

On in-combat healing I'm thinking an NPC healer (since your party does not seem to have someone who realishes that role) or potion, magic item support in that area especiallys something the Illusionist/rogue can use.

Oh we have a wand of cure light per cleric and potions. Still we fall!!!

You may be stuck on the ranged combat power, or instead of a healer NPC get a archer NPC. Is it possible the Rogue could get good at throwing things to help in ranged combat?

Ranged hasn't been thought about much. The rogue like person uses a hand-crossbow so he's not much cop but the wizard isn't bad and the ranger/ cleric is a fair shot with a bow he just deals fairly pantsy damage at the moment.

I'm waiting for the rogue to get higher caster level. Once he can pull off a few tricky spells he should be useful. Till then *sigh*

From what I bellieve are related threads it seems that there is a lot of investigation, so I imagine this is where the Illusionist/Rogue can shine. Maybe he can up those social skills and get you some good deals on healing ppotions. Maybe he can help you parley and make allies during the adventure (if such is possible in the setting/adventure). I'm not sure of his spells, but they are likely only going to help in a distraction sense to your opponents which can be good if you can split them/fool them into traps/ambushes. (I know I keep mentioning that but it is the one way a weak-on-paper party can overcome adversaries by luring them into areas where there attacks are restricted, the party can attack flanks, the party gets attacks of opportunity, etc.)

Oh I have high hopes. The only problem being is the rest of the party has charisma as a dump stat and could really mess up the diplomacy

P.S.
Got the e-mail on e-mail difficulties, if you'd like me to e-mail you at work let me know, otherwise I will refrain until your e-mail is back full time.

Go for it. I can't get PMs here to work (perhaps I need to read the rules or something equally tedious?). Word to the wise though it's easter. I'm not in work till Tuesday

 

[Mallus]

I think you missed where I was going with that ...

Could be. Where you serious about the OP teaching his group to play better?

 

[Ellie_the_Elf]

If you are concerned with the amount of character deaths occurring, why is the new 4th level character coming in with only 3,000 GP when standard wealth for his level is 5,400 GP?

Are you planning on giving the party some extra treasure soon? If you aren't then it seems like this will result in more character deaths, something you want to avoid.

Olaf the Stout

Just want to clarify as a few people have brought this up - I was concerned that the PCs didn't have enough treasure, so I did a wealth audit last week. Bottom line was that everyone had approximately the right amount of stuff for their level. Xini's PC who just died had 7000 ish near the end of 3rd level, including a Heward's Handy Haversack, which was shared between the party. This stuff will be either sold or shared out between the survivors and his new PC, so I didn't give him full starting gold to compensate for this fact.

 

[Mort]

Slight correction.

The current party is
Elven Wizard
Elven Urban Ranger/ Cleric of Corellon Larathien (going towards the exalted harper thingy, good with a bow)
Dwarven Cleric of Haela Brightaxe (two handed sword, quite good in melee, has cleave)
Human Illusionist/ Rogue (Terrible mage at this level, not that good a rogue, awful in combat)

I'm planning on bringing in a heavy Dwarven fighter myself but that's covered in a different thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=192605).

I know you said trying to stick to core only - but as others have mentioned PHB II stuff - maybe the illusuionist/rogue should consider a beguiler - same concept, much better execution.

Also I notice you said Druid and Barbarian are off limits - is this a flavor thing? or is it a "they're broken" thing - because if it's the later you should possibly reconsider.

Finally, shackled city is a meatgrinder - even for experienced groups. I would actually be surprised if inexperienced groups DON'T have characters dropping left and right.

 

[DonTadow]

You should tone down the combat. You don't have a traditional party playing it, so some things need to be either deleted or replaced. Case in point, we don't have a rogue, so the DM has lowered or deleted some of the traps. However, we have 3 fighter type classes and a tougher creatures.

Whenever you havea module, you rarely can run it as is. You have to go through it and change it depending on your parties needs. Sometimes its a lot of feeling around to find the right sweetspot.

 

[werk]

Could be. Where you serious about the OP teaching his group to play better?

Seriously serious, but I'm a tough love kinda guy.

A 15 year old with training wheels on his bicycle is someone who wasn't allowed to fail.

 

[Mallus]

A 15 year old with training wheels on his bicycle is someone who wasn't allowed to fail.

What I was saying was that, from a certain perspective, a grown man who enjoys pretending to be an elf looks just as ridiculous as a 15 year old riding a bike w/training wheels.

On a more serious note: there's no shame in playing the game on 'easy' mode, if everyones cool with that. It's only problematic if the players disagree about the desired level of campaign difficulty.

It's just a game, you should find a way to make it enjoyable. For some people that means extra lethality, for others, not so much.

 

[Xini]

Well we seem to have fixed the problem for the moment.

We played on Monday from 14:00 till 23:30. In all that time we had several fights including one against a werebaboon thingy, (who writes this stuff and why haven't they been arrested for posession yet?) which I've been told is considered deadly, and not one PC died. Okay so the Rogue/ Illusionist dropped at least twice (once down to -9) but I figure that was more due to being caught out a couple of times and a lingering prepensity to get dangerously brave!

Melee whent much better. Did I mention I whent with the heavily armoured Dwarven fighter in the end? Anyhow it seemed to develop into the tactic where I would always engage first and keep the enemy back from our weaker members and occupied in melee. The melee cleric with his zweihander would then move in (perhaps after buffing, depending upon the look of the fight) and would set about doing the damage.

I'm not sure what had been said to our Ranger/ Cleric who had previously become irritated by having to wander around with a sword in one hand and a wand in the other when he was supposed to be playing an archer. Not only did he not once object to filling gaps in the melee and dashing around trying to keep people alive and healthy but he's also taken to trying to buff more often. I think that if he can feel comfortable fulfilling this role then he's going to be one of the finest clerics I've ever seen played (and no I don't include the selfish ones who buff themselves to high hell and try to make themselves godlike because that's just powergamey and should have it's back broken by any decent DM).

We do still have a few problems within the party. For example, if we get hard pressed in melee and the other cleric comes in to help then we'll have no healers. If the ranger/ cleric drops mid combat then to bring him back up to health we may well have to halve the melee line, which could spell doom for anyone not designed for the rigours of combat!

In reference to the Rogue/ Illusionist, I am still a bit at a loss as to what to do with him (in terms of encouragement and inclusion in tactics). I did suggest that he could for the eyes of the party (skill based and gives him a role in combat which should keep him out of danger) however unfortunately he's not too skilled at that either. I reckon that he'll become the swiss army knife of the group later though (as long as he's sensible) so I'm not too concerned.

Healing seems to be less of a problem now. With the dwarf taking more hits but having a stout enough AC to avoid the damage most of the time we don't seem to crumble so often (I started of with AC23 and now with having boht my armour and shield enhanced to +1 25!). Even the werebaboon thingy was having trouble hitting (boy does that thing hurt though if it hits!) which gave the melee cleric enough time to go and retrieve the only silver weapon we have from the party's HHH.

All in all a good turnaround.