Worst Session Ever!

[Flexor the Mighty!]

The Band of Infinite Vengence
Lorrick - N Human Wiz8/Rog1
Ubin Goldstein - N Dwarf F9
Wolf - N Human Rgr6/F3
Along with two charmed trolls.

Ok so the party travels to the closest big city in Veluna to have long lost comrades raised. The 1/2 Orc Paladin Throkk(P6), and Tejron cleric of St. Cuthbert(C7). They have two charmed Trolls they decide to keep and use when they make the trip back to the southern region of Veluna to keep fighting the bad guys. Well these are not run of the mill trolls, they are plate mail armored servents of the Eye*. With only the Wizard and his staff of charming to keep the trolls in line they make the journey, planning to teleport back after securing a scroll. The journey goes ok until they make camp outside the city. For some reason the Wizard heads into town with the rest of the party leaving the cowardly ranger to watch the trolls. Bad idea. The trolls start fighting with each other as they are prone to do and one hacks the other down. No problem as it will regenerate. Then the troll that won moves towards the Ranger Wolf, who he hates of course. Wolf runs, runs fast. The troll chases him. Along the way Wolf runs past a family picnic out on the edges of town. He yells run and keeps legging it. The troll then finds the family and does...ooo terrible things to them. He then procedes into town. Meanwhile the other troll regenerates and wanders off looking for the other troll. He comes into the outlying areas of town himself. During the troll rampage many guards are killed and lives are lost. Lorrick returns and gets one troll who wandered back into the woods while chasing Wolf. The other was killed in a battle with city troops. Lorrick then decides to stay outside with the troll invisible and recharmed to allow the ressurection to take place. Ubin & Wolf get thier two comrades raised and after some discussions with the city guard over a half orc in the city when suspected forces of Iuz are on the loose. Now we have two LG characters returning to the party with a CE troll that has already rampaged through the outskirts of town. Lorrick tells Throkk who at the moment has his +1 greatsword and an AC of 19 to attack and kill it. The player wants Throkk & Tejron to slay the troll and grab some xp to get them closer to leveling as they have fallen behind the party while dead. Ubin who could slaughter the troll by himself goes to the wagon to get a drink. In the meantime I pull out the large red dice of death and procede to hit Throkk for 28 HP. He hits with his charge but doesn't do enogh and the other two PC's that helping miss. Troll hits again for 14 more damage putting the freshly raised Throkk at 1 hp. Ubin still keeps hammering his keg and Lorrick the "leader" of the band still does NOTHING. The next round Throkk is hit for 34 damge and I kept the hot dice rolling completing 8 straight hits on Throkk. Throkk is dead, very dead again! The party at this time is whining about my red hot dice rolling, whre they could see it BTW, and are saying I screwed them. Lorrick fireballs the troll, nearly getting Ubin in the process, who had attacked by this time. Now they want to just raise Throkk again, twice in one day. Lorricks player says, "don't worry about dying, we can keep raising you". I don't do level loss, instead having the PC lose a CON point, and Throkk wouldn't lose any more HP with one more point lost. This kind of angered me as it plainly showed that the players figured this was like Icewind Dale or Baldur's Gate. No it's not.

So they finally got one of the players favorite PC of all time, Throkk, raised. Then through pure idiocy they get him killed less than four hours after he is raised. I don't think I'm going to allow him to be raised again. That will make death seem like a minor thing if I do allow him. Now he's going to lose his favorite PC forever, but I can't see someone being raised twice in one day. What would Nerull say? Ressurection sucks, I'm going to disallow it entirely next game I run. Imagine if Boromir had known he could be raised for a few thousand gold? It would have killed any power his death had, same as it does for every PC in D&D as far as I'm concerned.

Man that session sucked.

 

[hong]

So they finally got one of the players favorite PC of all time, Throkk, raised.

Your players care enough about their characters that they're willing to go to the trouble of having them resurrected, as opposed to making up new ones. Why is this a bad thing?

Ressurection sucks, I'm going to disallow it entirely next game I run. Imagine if Boromir had known he could be raised for a few thousand gold? It would have killed any power his death had, same as it does for every PC in D&D as far as I'm concerned.

That's easy for you to say. It's not your PC.

 

[Airwolf]

You could always use the old supply and demand adage.

Maybe resurrection is done by only a very few (or one) people in the town. Since he as brought back two today already, the third may cost more.

In the game I play in and one I DM in we don't follow the book prices for magic items and the casting of spells. Typically the cost is 5x what the PH or DMG suggest.

Of course when the PCs sell a magic item it only brings the suggested cost.

Good Luck

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

The bad thing is that death is but a minor annoyance in D&D. It's nothing to be feared unless you are poor. Hell lets raise PC's two or three times a day! They have the cash! I suppose the rich folks of d&d never die of anything other than old age, since any disease and wound can be quickly healed up.

 

[hong]

This is the rule I'm using for resurrection in my current campaign. Note that raise dead doesn't exist (nor do destruction, slay living or reincarnate).

A creature to be resurrected makes a level check (d20 + level/HD), against DC 10. Each previous time it has been resurrected increases the DC by 5, so the second attempt is at DC 15, the third at DC 20, etc. The presence of an expert healer (typically an NPC) confers a +2 circumstance bonus to the roll. If the creature to be resurrected has no levels in a PC class, the DC increases by 20. There are no level or Constitution penalties for being resurrected, but a creature that fails its level check is forever dead.

The campaign started at 3rd level, and currently the PCs are about 4th-5th. Thus resurrection is relatively easy at first, but if you die too often, it starts to become harder. In theory anyway; so far, the one character who's died rolled a 1 on his level check when all he needed was a 3....

 

[hong]

The bad thing is that death is but a minor annoyance in D&D. It's nothing to be feared unless you are poor. Hell lets raise PC's two or three times a day! They have the cash! I suppose the rich folks of d&d never die of anything other than old age, since any disease and wound can be quickly healed up.

Aw c'mon, Flexor. Raising has never been a pain-free process. Even in 1E, there was the small matter of that -1 Con penalty per raise or resurrect, plus the resurrection success roll. 3E makes it easier, but there's still the level penalty.

Just be glad they haven't got around to looking for a true resurrect.

 

[starkad]

The fun starts when the group can CAST True Resurrection.

hehehe

 

[Numion]

I don't think I'm going to allow him to be raised again. That will make death seem like a minor thing if I do allow him. Now he's going to lose his favorite PC forever, but I can't see someone being raised twice in one day. What would Nerull say? Ressurection sucks, I'm going to disallow it entirely next game I run.

You have to ask yourself will the game be more enjoyable if death is permanent? If you think so, your players seem to disagree, since they're the ones using resurrection.

In the end the game's about fun, not minding about the opinion of the death god.

 

[Fast Learner]

If you outlaw raise/resurrection are you going to use more dm fiat to avoid killing the characters? If not are you going to allow players with dead characters to play a new character? Will the new character be at the same level or lower? Will the new character get to join the group instantly or will the player have to sit out for x hours/sessions if the group is, say, deep in a dungeon or the woods or some other place where it makes no sense for the new character to come wandering in? Why do new characters join a group that has had people die (potentially repeatedly)? Will the end result be more fun for you and the players or less?

These are all things you'll need to work out if you plan to get rid of raise/resurrection.

 

[Magic Rub]

Re: Re: Worst Session Ever!

In the end the game's about fun, not minding about the opinion of the death god.

Very true!

If your players are having fun with the PC's they have why take that fun from them. Sure you could make it more difficult to Res. them, but IMO you shouldn't ban it, if the option is possible let them. There will be times when PC's will die, & there will be no way to Res. (Trapped deep in a dungeon, or something like that.) I agree with Numion, the game is about fun. It's no fun to lose your Fav. PC ever IMO.