Walking Away from the Table in Possibly Lethal Situations

[kapow]

Please I need help from any VC's with this one I'm also emailing my areas VC to get his feedback on this one.

Situation Description from First Steps Part 2:

I have a situation where in First Steps II a party of players befriended Maurit and allowed him to accompany them in exchange for all of the details she can provide. They then proceeded to go after the kelish writings and the following room triggering the blindheim combat.

This put the PC's in a situation where all level 1's where versing 2 CR 2 combats simultaneously.

The PC in question proceeded to play through the combat until the point where everyone had failed their fortitude saves and where blinded, 2 characters where unconscious and either stable or bleeding out and the creature although his character was blind threatened his square.

He proceeded to post this comment: "Guys I'm not going to bother to do this. Its getting to be absolute b+&!+##% so Idc if I get credit or not."

And left the table (This is an online game for transparency sake).

At this point in time no combats had been completed or anything in regards to that.

I do not know if he left out of self preservation well knowing what he was doing or if he left because he had an issue with me and how I was running it.

I've looked for the exact wording in the Organized play pdf several times for when a player leaves the table what happens to their Character. I also spoke to some of the other GM's who where available at the same time and not a part of the scenario to get the least biased opinion possible at the time. Coming to the conclusion if a PC leaves the table while in an active combat their character becomes an NPC who tries their best to leave combat. Before his character's next turn he was incapacitated after triggering an AoO from his readied action he had made before he left the table.

He had a readied action to shoot anything that attacked him with his musket. The monster having no other threatening targets in the room the others all already having fully withdraw from the fight attacked the PC triggering his readied action when then provoked an AoO rendering the PC unconscious. Please not here that this is what the character was going to do before the player left the table.

I as a DM am then put in a situation where there are 3 unconscious/stable or bleeding out characters and nothing else for the creature to attack as the others have completely high tailed it. 2 of these players remaining at the table and the PC who had left. I assigned each character an equal opportunity of being the first target that would be killed by the monster and the result of the roll was the PC who had left the table.

I did this because there where 3 characters that could be attack and so as not to be biased left it completely to chance and that first person who was killed was the PC who had left. I believe that this was the only truly fair way to determine who was attacked.

The monster then managed to drag off and between bleeding out from failing stabilization rolls and being attack further 1 of the PC's out of the 2 remaining at the table was killed as well.

I want to make sure I am doing write by all of the players involved both remaining and the 1 that left the table.

I can not say whether or not he left intending for his character to be removed from play if that is the ruling for a player leaving to avoid his character possibly dieing or if he took issue with my GM'ing of the scenario and as such would appreciate a or multiple VC's input as to the outcome of this situation.

Without question the PC who left recieves no xp/fame/gold and has the First Steps Part II marked off as being played for that character. On a side note I will not be allowing the player to participate in any further scenarios that I GM unless at any organized paizo event or other special circumstances where my personal opinion of the matter should be shelved for the betterment of paizo's and or Organized Play's public image.

However in addition to the above should the Character be marked and reported as being killed?

I personally believe yes, because the player deliberately took an action that harmed his allies whom he knew where already in trouble and contributed to the death of one of the remaining PC's.

I do want to be fair and be sure of my decision before I actually make it and report it. So if there is any further information required please inform me and I will provide it otherwise please can you help me out with this dilemma?

[wraithstrike]

dotting.

I am interested tp see what comes of this.

[kapow]

My apologize for not originally having the spoiler tags in here they have been added.

[Alexander_Damocles]

In my opinion, a player who leaves the table in order to avoid a character's death, still has that character die. Otherwise, we would all leave when things get dicey.

I have also run First Steps 2, and that is a *nasty* fight, especially if the party does not pay attention during the briefing.

Spoiler:

If a faction head says to do something, or beware something, you had better be paying attention. If you don't...the consequences fall on your own head.

[Jukka Särkijärvi]

In my opinion, scarpering like that in the middle of an encounter is unsportsmanlike in the highest degree and would have likely acted much in the same way as you did - run the encounter with the PC present and if they were still alive after the dust had cleared and phase them out. Either way, the player would get mailed a really depressing scenario chronicle.

Also, first-level characters are expendable. Losing a PC in the middle of First Steps is not a big deal. Now, if this situation had occurred in a game with a higher-level character, someone with the chance of coming back from the dead... then it'd be complicated, especially if the rest of the group was reluctant to cough up the cash.

[Michael Brock]

Send him a Chronicle with 0 GP, 1 XP, and 0 PP. When reporting the event, mark the character as dead.

[kapow]

Thank you gentlemen for the replies.