When Do You (GM) Kill PCs?

[DonTadow]

You must not have felt that way when you posted "Originally Posted by DonTadow
The thing that makes checking for traps important. The reason clerics are always in the party."

?

My first statement is just listing the importance of death in a campaign. I was trying to list why pcs try so hard to prepare to avoid death. I could have also replaced the examples in the first statement with my second and the thesis of my statement still reigns true. Pcs prepare for death. A majority of the things a pcs buy and do is to prevent death.

 

[JoeGKushner]

My first statement is just listing the importance of death in a campaign. I was trying to list why pcs try so hard to prepare to avoid death. I could have also replaced the examples in the first statement with my second and the thesis of my statement still reigns true. Pcs prepare for death. A majority of the things a pcs buy and do is to prevent death.

And that I can agree with. Usually that means having one of each of the main four represented in the party (rogues for traps, clerics for healing), but with the right mechanical tweaks, even those "standards" if you will, go by the wayside.

 

[The_Magician]

Other

When their players make me pay for the pizza

 

[Corsair]

i don't kill PCs. the players do it themselves.

What he said.

 

[Hjorimir]

Let the dice fall where they may...and I roll them in the open so there is no screaming at the DM...just scream at the dice.

Seriously, once you start ignoring die rolls or fudging them the dice lose validity. The entire conflict resolution part of the system disintegrates. Those of you who protect the PCs from die rolls are slowly teaching them that they can overcome opponents that they shouldn't be able to overcome on a regular basis. This, in turn, leads to the DM cornering himself as the PCs become more and more brazen in their approach. Smash-door becomes the status quo tactic for the group.

Then when you want to tighten the game back down again the players think you're being overly harsh. So now you're the bad guy/gal because you were trying to be nice. It just isn't worth it. Let the dice fall where they may and encourage the players to be creative in their tactics and careful on who or what they face in combat. Knowing that the dice are very real and that the result of a conflict may include PC failure (including death) raises the level of dramatic tension. It is in that same tension that the very best moments of gaming are to be found; whether the conflict is combat or social in nature.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I can't speak for other people, but I've turned criticals into regular hits. I've seen 2nd level fighters killed by 1st level warrior goblins with a critical for example. Was that player fighting an opponent that they shouldn't be able to overcome on a regualr basis? The answer is "No."

If there were no critical hits, random rolling would loss a bit more of it's sting.

Let the dice fall where they may...and I roll them in the open so there is no screaming at the DM...just scream at the dice.

Seriously, once you start ignoring die rolls or fudging them the dice lose validity. The entire conflict resolution part of the system disintegrates. Those of you who protect the PCs from die rolls are slowly teaching them that they can overcome opponents that they shouldn't be able to overcome on a regular basis. This, in turn, leads to the DM cornering himself as the PCs become more and more brazen in their approach. Smash-door becomes the status quo tactic for the group.

Then when you want to tighten the game back down again the players think you're being overly harsh. So now you're the bad guy/gal because you were trying to be nice. It just isn't worth it. Let the dice fall where they may and encourage the players to be creative in their tactics and careful on who or what they face in combat. Knowing that the dice are very real and that the result of a conflict may include PC failure (including death) raises the level of dramatic tension. It is in that same tension that the very best moments of gaming are to be found; whether the conflict is combat or social in nature.

 

[Sigurd]

-Number is definate improvement

Having a point at which the pcs are forcibly decapacitated and must stop doing whatever stupid thing they are doing is a real improvement. I like the negative Con Value in hps.

Brick is fighting fine at 1hp and dies at 0 doesn't help the game development. Being carried bloody from the field and surviving because the army won the day and you shall be healed is good story telling.

hp 0 - your dead is not good story telling.

 

[Arnwyn]

Where do you fall?

"Let the dice fall where they may" pretty much describes how we handle the possibility of character death in our campaign.

Also, how easy is it to be ressurected in your game,

Whenever the PC cleric can cast raise dead or better.

and does this effect your willingness to kill PCs?

Not one bit.

 

[Hjorimir]

I certainly won't fault you for playing as you prefer. The whole point of the game is entertainment, which is subject to taste.

That being said, I would kill the PC with the critical. Yes, it can be harsh (and has been at times), but I really believe it elevates the level of gaming experience. Just this weekend I killed a PC in my game that has been played over the last year and a half. A 9th-level barbarian and without a doubt the toughest member of the group. What killed him? A lowly ghast performed a CDG while he lay there paralyzed.

The player was completely fine with what happened; he knows I don't hold back and he wouldn't have it any other way even though he truly loved the character. In the same combat, the PCs managed to finally down a necromancer who they had been meaning to kill for about...oh seven months now. This necromancer has had his way with the group on quite a few occasions (and was responsible for the first PC death in the campaign).

When he fell my players literally jumped out of their chairs and cheered. There were many high-fives being dealt out and one of them started running victory laps in my house ala Rocky. The player who had died stuck around just to cheer the others on and joined in the celebrations.

I'm not exaggerating one bit.

Now, I don't know how many others of you get these kinds of reactions out of your players, but it is one of those things that I really cherish from DMing; emotional investment in the campaign. The level of danger I put on the PCs, the utter lack of mercy, the evil laughs I give when they fail (although inside I'm always rooting for them) all add to this.

We finished up the game after about nine hours of play. Most of the players stuck around my house until well past midnight talking about the great game along with a ton of Monday Morning Quarterback analysis of the big showdown with one necromancer and a fallen companion.

 

[leporidae]

I dislike killing characters, to the point where I kept skewing die rolls in their favor when someone was low on hit points. The other thing I disliked was that taking into account how fast healing occurs the best tactic for intelligent monsters would be to keep hacking at unconscious PCs until they actually die. My solution (pre-UA) was to make damage between 0 and -CON similiar to 0 HP in the RAW, that is, if you make a FORT save you can continue to take partial actions. Damage more than -CON was applied against the physical attributes (STR, DEX, CON) and the character could keep making FORT saves (at larger and larger penalties) to stay conscious. The death threshold was -(2 * CON + DEX + STR).

The attribute damage would heal slowly (usually weeks), and wouldn't be affected by normal healing spells. So there was a serious game effect from characters getting injured, but I felt better about cutting loose with the monsters. It made for some interesting and heroic combat options: Would an injured character retreat, or go for one final attack? How would they prevent the monster from attacking an unconscious and bleeding party member?

I liked the way it worked, but the math could get complicated - I'm considering the UA rules for my next campaign.