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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Ghost" data-source="post: 5064087" data-attributes="member: 60281">A few months ago I was running a 3.5 D&D campaign with four 5th level characters: Wizard (illusionist), Paladin, Ranger, and a Cleric. The party had heard a rumor that there was a band of orcs raiding farmsteads close to an inn that the party was staying at and took it upon themselves to rid the people of this threat. After investigating some of the farmsteads and talking with the farmers they determined that there were a half dozen to a dozen orcs and, at least, one of them was a spell-caster. After a few hours of wandering through the wilderness the PCs spotted the orc campsite. The Ranger scouted the surrounding terrain and they determined what their best course of action was. They set themselves up on the battlefield and I rolled a couple of Spot/Listen checks to see if the orcs noticed them. The party took their surprise round and charged in whiffing on all their attacks. A couple more attacks rolls later (one hitting for middling damage) the orcs got to go. The orc cleric cast bless and the rest of the orcs moved into position swing their falchions - five attack rolls, five hits, three potential criticals, two confirmed. Two rounds later I had three dead PCs, one dead orc, and a Ranger running for his life. Gruumsh truly smiled on this combat.The orcs let the Ranger escape back to the inn. There, by fateful chance, were three new adventurers (my players three new PCs, a Favored Soul, another Wizard, and a Knight) looking for, well, adventure. The Ranger explained what had happened to him and the new adventurers all agreed that this menace must be stopped. The following morning they set out for the orcs campsite. I took the dead players character sheets and looked over their possessions and spread some of their items around the orc horde, a healing belt for one, an amulet of Natural Armor +1 for another, etc. A few hours later the party came to the orc campsite and began making preparations for battle. This time, though, the orcs heard the PCs coming and readied themselves. Five rounds later I had three more dead PCs, four dead orcs, and a Ranger running for his life - again! At the end of the day we were all rolling on the ground laughing at the ineptitude of those particular PCs. What did we learn from this? Be wary of the DM when his dice are hot! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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