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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 8564909" data-attributes="member: 19857">At this point I will fall back onto the idea of a &quot;campaign loss&quot; from 13th Age.&nbsp; The lich will win the battle but - for its own reasons - leave the PCs alive. But once they come out of the dungeon they find that that survival comes with a cost. The lich has taken something from them that they care about - a person, a place, an item - something that the player of each character actually cares about. And if they want it back they'll have to do something for the lich.&nbsp; Something they likely won't want to do.&nbsp; (This relies on your players having something they care about in game.&nbsp; When in doubt you can always steal their favorite magic items, and honestly my players have been happy to keep their characters alive in exchange for their flamebrand sword, especially if I'm giving them a chance to get it back.&nbsp; I've also used &quot;the bad guy has stolen one of your special abilities from you&quot; like stealing spell slots or extra attacks, or have stolen memories or things like that, but that is really for high-level high magic type games).Is that because the fighter is irritated that the spellcasters are not spending their daily spell slots and instead are casting their less effective cantrips?&nbsp; If that's happening that's another reason you're likely seeing the PCs fail when you think they should be winning - if the spellcasters aren't releasing their big guns on this bad guy I'd be irritated too.&nbsp; (I don't know that the solution to that is to limit cantrip casting but instead to have the other players say &quot;um, Bob, can you maybe skip the Ray of Frost here and throw a fireball or something instead&quot;).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jer, post: 8564909, member: 19857"] At this point I will fall back onto the idea of a "campaign loss" from 13th Age. The lich will win the battle but - for its own reasons - leave the PCs alive. But once they come out of the dungeon they find that that survival comes with a cost. The lich has taken something from them that they care about - a person, a place, an item - something that the player of each character actually cares about. And if they want it back they'll have to do something for the lich. Something they likely won't want to do. (This relies on your players having something they care about in game. When in doubt you can always steal their favorite magic items, and honestly my players have been happy to keep their characters alive in exchange for their flamebrand sword, especially if I'm giving them a chance to get it back. I've also used "the bad guy has stolen one of your special abilities from you" like stealing spell slots or extra attacks, or have stolen memories or things like that, but that is really for high-level high magic type games). [I][/I] Is that because the fighter is irritated that the spellcasters are not spending their daily spell slots and instead are casting their less effective cantrips? If that's happening that's another reason you're likely seeing the PCs fail when you think they should be winning - if the spellcasters aren't releasing their big guns on this bad guy I'd be irritated too. (I don't know that the solution to that is to limit cantrip casting but instead to have the other players say "um, Bob, can you maybe skip the Ray of Frost here and throw a fireball or something instead"). [/QUOTE]

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