When You Keep Killing Characters?
- Thread starter Retreater
- Start date
Warren Okuma
First Post
The solution of high casualties? Let them know it's hard style, and run it street legal (no house rules) and have all your combat dice rolls done in front of them so they cannot accuse you of cheating and hand them my tactical notes.
Let them know that Rogues are underpowered and will get their party killed. Replace them with a cheap bag of tricks which you hand out to the party by a grizzled vet who gives the item to the party to take on that dungeon.
Oh yeah, if you or any of your players or anyone wants my tac notes, just have them email me at wokuma@lava.net.
You can give xp for roleplaying. Tell if they don't take rogues give them xp let them expand their horizon, try a druid or a wizard or a sorc or cleric. Incentives sometimes works.
Make them take Profession: Tactician so that you can coach them or other players can, and if anyone dies make them start out one level lower than the highest level. Talk to your cleric and ask him to start healing in combat. And point out that they can retreat and come back another day if they are low on spells.
Have a post combat tactical session.
And when you have a TPK, add the PC's stuff to the treasure pile.
Let them know that Rogues are underpowered and will get their party killed. Replace them with a cheap bag of tricks which you hand out to the party by a grizzled vet who gives the item to the party to take on that dungeon.
Oh yeah, if you or any of your players or anyone wants my tac notes, just have them email me at wokuma@lava.net.
You can give xp for roleplaying. Tell if they don't take rogues give them xp let them expand their horizon, try a druid or a wizard or a sorc or cleric. Incentives sometimes works.
Make them take Profession: Tactician so that you can coach them or other players can, and if anyone dies make them start out one level lower than the highest level. Talk to your cleric and ask him to start healing in combat. And point out that they can retreat and come back another day if they are low on spells.
Have a post combat tactical session.
And when you have a TPK, add the PC's stuff to the treasure pile.
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Let's see. We played again last night. We had 2 combats. The 1st combat was a cakewalk. The 2nd combat, well, let's just say things didn't go well. We had 4 characters (out of 6) die. The deaths included the characters played by the guys who did the paladin, the rogue, and the sorcerer in the previous session (plus our half-orc barbarian who had lived for several months of play).
Potential tactical problems included: casters, rogues, and ranged fighters entering melee combat with a large-sized, CR 8 evil outsider.
It was a tough encounter anyway. Each of the previous character deaths weakened the party's overall power level. (In lieu of getting Raise Deads, players could opt to bring in new characters at one level lower than their previous characters; the party, very stingy, never bought a single Raise Dead.)
The campaign is officially over. It's been a very difficult module, and I think all of the frustrated players are happy to try something else. It's looking like GURPS at the moment.
Retreater
Potential tactical problems included: casters, rogues, and ranged fighters entering melee combat with a large-sized, CR 8 evil outsider.
It was a tough encounter anyway. Each of the previous character deaths weakened the party's overall power level. (In lieu of getting Raise Deads, players could opt to bring in new characters at one level lower than their previous characters; the party, very stingy, never bought a single Raise Dead.)
The campaign is officially over. It's been a very difficult module, and I think all of the frustrated players are happy to try something else. It's looking like GURPS at the moment.
Retreater
Warren Okuma
First Post
What was the cleric doing? The rogue always drags down a party.Retreater said:
Sounds like you had no druids or clerics or if they were there, they were played very poorly.Retreater said:
Ah, I see your problem. Some characters look like they are two levels lower than the front runner. Two levels lower is a death sentence. Look at your game deaths. I never do that that, it just kills your game. Oh it did. Never mind, now you know. Why punish newbies for dying? Let them come back at the same level as the highest level character, but at "just made the level XP." Raise Dead is universally regarded as crap by my group and in every group I played in. A heal scroll is better.Retreater said:
Oh well, hope you like Gurps.Retreater said:
AnonymousOne
First Post
After having picked up D&D recently at College I found that I really enjoyed the tactical part of the game, alas, I wasn't terribly good at it. I had some mini experience playing games like MageKnight and sitting in on a few WarHammer Tournies, but I really lacked understanding of the other players in the game and what they were capable of. As such we rolled out the battle map and the DM allowed us carte blanche to run tactical scenarios. Most of us were pretty new and quite a few of the initial independent training sessions would end in TPKs, however we were learning....
Our Party consisted of Cleric, Wizard, Monk, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue. I played the Rogue and very quickly learned that Between the Fighter and Monk We could dish damage if we bothered to work together. Using a combination of carefully placed crossbow bolts, charges, tumbles, Stunning Fists, and Sneak Attacks, we got into a rhythm. the Spell casters adapted to our style and were more than happy to oblige us with spells to keep various baddies at bay.
Running tactical scenarios is a priceless exercise as is out of game discussions about how you want to play your character... others have stressed it, but COMMUNICATION! Without it, you're toast.
Our Party consisted of Cleric, Wizard, Monk, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue. I played the Rogue and very quickly learned that Between the Fighter and Monk We could dish damage if we bothered to work together. Using a combination of carefully placed crossbow bolts, charges, tumbles, Stunning Fists, and Sneak Attacks, we got into a rhythm. the Spell casters adapted to our style and were more than happy to oblige us with spells to keep various baddies at bay.
Running tactical scenarios is a priceless exercise as is out of game discussions about how you want to play your character... others have stressed it, but COMMUNICATION! Without it, you're toast.
VirgilCaine
First Post
Retreater said:
What the hell. Seriously. What the hell.
They're what, 4th level, is that correct?
And you expect them to pay the 5,000 gp diamond cost for Raise Dead out of their 4,500gp total wealth?
Well, they'll spend more time unconscious and less time dead in GURPS, at least.
I shudder to think what they'd do in a contemporary setting with guns and body armor and whatnot.
Well, if they die stupid deaths, then yeah I punish them. I have players in the campaign who have never died. It's the same couple of people who die every session. And until they can learn some basic tactics on a player's level, I don't think they should play mid or high level characters.
They have more wealth than the DMG average. The reason why: characters keep dying and the others keep taking their stuff. So they could afford Raise Deads.
In my opinion, death must have a sting. There must be some motivation to not just die. Some of these players would bring in characters, have them commit suicide and leave their equipment for the party until they got very wealthy.
Retreater
They have more wealth than the DMG average. The reason why: characters keep dying and the others keep taking their stuff. So they could afford Raise Deads.
In my opinion, death must have a sting. There must be some motivation to not just die. Some of these players would bring in characters, have them commit suicide and leave their equipment for the party until they got very wealthy.
Retreater
What I've been trying to figure out is: What are the other (more tactically sound) players doing during all of this? They've got guys they're playing with who constantly make nonsensical tactical decisions, draining the party's strength, yet they don't speak up and try to direct those players in combat and/or train them up so that the party as a whole has a better chance of surviving?
Do the tactically sound players just not like these guys and hope that, if they die often enough, they'll quit? Or do the tactically unsound ones just refuse to listen to anyone else? If it's anything like either of those, maybe the group just isn't well suited to play together. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but losing a character almost every session is... well, it's pretty far out there. I can't imagine that the decent tacticians are simply sucking that up week in and week out without a reason.
Getting the party to institute a system whereby one of them is the combat leader would be another option that doesn't require too much heavy-handed interference from you. From what you've told us in this thread, it sounds like the Barbarian's player (or someone else you haven't described) should be the "caller" who everyone else agrees to take direction from in combat.
Do the tactically sound players just not like these guys and hope that, if they die often enough, they'll quit? Or do the tactically unsound ones just refuse to listen to anyone else? If it's anything like either of those, maybe the group just isn't well suited to play together. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but losing a character almost every session is... well, it's pretty far out there. I can't imagine that the decent tacticians are simply sucking that up week in and week out without a reason.
Getting the party to institute a system whereby one of them is the combat leader would be another option that doesn't require too much heavy-handed interference from you. From what you've told us in this thread, it sounds like the Barbarian's player (or someone else you haven't described) should be the "caller" who everyone else agrees to take direction from in combat.
One or occation PC slaughterings is player fault. Maybe they were stupid.
Continuous is DM fault. If you know they can't handle something I dunno why you would throw it at them just because you think they should be able to beat it. Even if its just because they're poor players, tone it down.
I used to do the same as you, I thought "this will be so hard, they'll love the challange!" No. Tone it down.
Continuous is DM fault. If you know they can't handle something I dunno why you would throw it at them just because you think they should be able to beat it. Even if its just because they're poor players, tone it down.
I used to do the same as you, I thought "this will be so hard, they'll love the challange!" No. Tone it down.
