What happens to Adventurers who don't prepare?

They die.
/end DM rant

Uh...kay?

I'm tuned in for another one of These. :)

It's called general discussion, you can't end it in the first post.
So here we go :) what do you do with unprepared combatant. They make a round last way longer, don't now what there own spells/skills do, and don't add much to the team (offcourse someone who just throws a fireball on a daily basis adds something). Also it hard to calculate apl when a player is far from optimised. But the player comes to have fun because he/she likes tabletop rpg's and you don't want to ruin that. Any ideas?

They can also find themselves in extremely embarrassing situations.

I don't know why I'm thinking of it now, but this thread reminds me of the time I got almost an entire party to voluntarily walk into a pit trap one after the other because they though it was an illusion.

Granted, there was an illusion of a fire trap placed on top of the pit trap, but still.

It's called general discussion, you can't end it in the first post.

So here we go :) what do you do with unprepared combatant. They make a round last way longer, don't now what there own spells/skills do, and don't add much to the team (offcourse someone who just throws a fireball on a daily basis adds something). Also it hard to calculate apl when a player is far from optimised. But the player comes to have fun because he/she likes tabletop rpg's and you don't want to ruin that. Any ideas?

Tell them to figure out how their character works, have references for their usual spells readily available, have cheat-sheets for their rolls, and research the things they're unsure about outside of the session or at least ask for help.

I mean holy crap I realize that it takes awhile to learn things and if you're new then it's no problem, but when you've been playing for awhile and you know there are things you have trouble with, for the love of all that is holy please ask for help and try to prepare. I don't want to sit there for 25 minutes doing nothing because you couldn't be bothered to figure out how your spell works before you decided to cast it. If I sound bitter it's because I am.

It's called general discussion, you can't end it in the first post.

So here we go :) what do you do with unprepared combatant. They make a round last way longer, don't now what there own spells/skills do, and don't add much to the team (offcourse someone who just throws a fireball on a daily basis adds something). Also it hard to calculate apl when a player is far from optimised. But the player comes to have fun because he/she likes tabletop rpg's and you don't want to ruin that. Any ideas?

My old standby is just throwing waves of low-level enemies at them. Big mobs of small critters can actually be dangerous to inexperienced players, but they still get to feel like Rambo mowing down lots of goblins and such.

Actually APL assumes about an average level of player mastery so unless someone is virtual dead weight it is usually not a problem. In my experience "over optimization" by players makes it much harder to get a handle on "actual" player APL when it comes to designing challenging encounters. This is especially true if some characters are optimized and some are not. That usually lands you in the "solo" zone where 1 or 2 characters do everything and everyone else watches and gets bored.

It's called general discussion, you can't end it in the first post.

So here we go :) what do you do with unprepared combatant. They make a round last way longer, don't now what there own spells/skills do, and don't add much to the team (offcourse someone who just throws a fireball on a daily basis adds something). Also it hard to calculate apl when a player is far from optimised. But the player comes to have fun because he/she likes tabletop rpg's and you don't want to ruin that. Any ideas?

Someone bit.

As a DM, having a shortlist of prepared spells for the regular classes with some brief descriptions of effects might make game play faster. I run my games on my laptop and either have pdfs open or run through d20pfsrd.

Oddly I was referring to the characters in game not being properly prepared for combat. I hope that player death becomes a learning experience so they understand they can't just stand still and hit things.

Are we talking "I didn't bother to calculate my HP, is that important?" level unprepared, or "encumbrance?" unprepared, or "alchemical items...?" unprepared?

With luck, adventurers that don't prepare take the hard lessons to heart and learn. That is part of experience outside of those shiny class skills and abilities. We all had to learn tactics and strategy from somewhere.

There should be rules that provide benefits for keeping henchmen around. For instance, you are disarmed. You could spend a Move Action to pick your weapon back up, or, as a Swift Action, your lackey can throw you your spare weapon! ;)

Hilarity sometimes ensues. :)

Are we talking "I didn't bother to calculate my HP, is that important?" level unprepared, or "encumbrance?" unprepared, or "alchemical items...?" unprepared?

We are talking: "My character hates magic so he doesn't use it therefore when the enemy is a flying wizard all I can do is stand still on the ground and rage at my DM."

So the Wizard casts fickle winds and fly on himself and his reach weapon martial buddy (with Lunge, or enlarged for 20 ft reach)

How do you respond? Well my current 6 man party of level 9 would probably wipe vs these two level 9 characters because they don't believe in preparing Dispel magic.

Had a BBEG cast Displacement, fickle winds, and Mirror Image (refreshed it midway through fight) and they went at it the hard way. It would have been a TPK if it wasn't for a lucky crit that made it through all his defenses.

Those who fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

So the Wizard casts fickle winds and fly on himself and his reach weapon martial buddy (with Lunge, or enlarged for 20 ft reach)

How do you respond? Well my current 6 man party of level 9 would probably wipe vs these two level 9 characters because they don't believe in preparing Dispel magic.

Had a BBEG cast Displacement, fickle winds, and Mirror Image (refreshed it midway through fight) and they went at it the hard way. It would have been a TPK if it wasn't for a lucky crit that made it through all his defenses.

This is essentially what happens to my players.

Fly and Dispel Magic are core spells, and they are staples that appear on multiple spell lists. Haste also. If you aren't prepared to deal with these things, then you are going to die.

As players, and as DMs, you should be very well aware of how these spells affect the game by their usage. I believe it is referred to as 'narrative power' nowadays, and it matters.

Ignoring it on either side of the screen will result in quick and seemingly one sided death.

Insain Dragoon wrote:

So the Wizard casts fickle winds and fly on himself and his reach weapon martial buddy (with Lunge, or enlarged for 20 ft reach)

How do you respond? Well my current 6 man party of level 9 would probably wipe vs these two level 9 characters because they don't believe in preparing Dispel magic.

Had a BBEG cast Displacement, fickle winds, and Mirror Image (refreshed it midway through fight) and they went at it the hard way. It would have been a TPK if it wasn't for a lucky crit that made it through all his defenses.

This is essentially what happens to my players.

Fly and Dispel Magic are core spells, and they are staples that appear on multiple spell lists. Haste also. If you aren't prepared to deal with these things, then you are going to die.

As players, and as DMs, you should be very well aware of how these spells affect the game by their usage. I believe it is referred to as 'narrative power' nowadays, and it matters.

Ignoring it on either side of the screen will result in quick and seemingly one sided death.

God forbid a GM throw a an archer with Fly casted on them right?

master_marshmallow wrote:

Insain Dragoon wrote:

So the Wizard casts fickle winds and fly on himself and his reach weapon martial buddy (with Lunge, or enlarged for 20 ft reach)

How do you respond? Well my current 6 man party of level 9 would probably wipe vs these two level 9 characters because they don't believe in preparing Dispel magic.

Had a BBEG cast Displacement, fickle winds, and Mirror Image (refreshed it midway through fight) and they went at it the hard way. It would have been a TPK if it wasn't for a lucky crit that made it through all his defenses.

This is essentially what happens to my players.

Fly and Dispel Magic are core spells, and they are staples that appear on multiple spell lists. Haste also. If you aren't prepared to deal with these things, then you are going to die.

As players, and as DMs, you should be very well aware of how these spells affect the game by their usage. I believe it is referred to as 'narrative power' nowadays, and it matters.

Ignoring it on either side of the screen will result in quick and seemingly one sided death.

God forbid a GM throw a an archer with Fly casted on them right?

Brokensauce OP DM bullsh*t right there.

Eh, you never really know how to deal with an encounter until it's already killed you once. It's hard for new players to know what questions to ask sometimes, so it's very easy to go into an encounter that you have no answer for that you didn't realize you needed an answer for (I've been guilty of this more than once, in many different games). You learn, and if you don't you probably stop playing the game.

Eh, you never really know how to deal with an encounter until it's already killed you once. It's hard for new players to know what questions to ask sometimes, so it's very easy to go into an encounter that you have no answer for that you didn't realize you needed an answer for (I've been guilty of this more than once, in many different games). You learn, and if you don't you probably stop playing the game.

Yeah, but when these players have been playing longer than I've been alive I think it's their problem and not mine.

New players or inexperienced players I can accommodate for. Stubborn ones who expect to win because they are playing the game I cannot.

I was actually pretty nice to my players. I knew they didn't know how important dispel magic was and they had 3 days to get to the BBEG lair, so every night I had the BBEG planar bind an outsider (flying), give it obvious magical buffs like blur and mirror image, then super speed it to the players. The players hated me because they had tons of trouble killing the outsiders with buffs and it took tons of rounds, would fly away at low HP then sneak up later for a blaze of glory (Soul Eaters FTW).

I did this 3 nights in a row then it was 7pm so session over. After the session my players were like "wtf why is mirror image so OP" and I respond "Well it's not if you dispel it"

Next week they fight BBEG and almost wipe because he stacked buffs and they never dispelled the bigs ones (Displacement and Fickle winds yo). I did pull one punch by not having the guy fly because the group is real weak to that.

Hmm, yeah. Wish there was an answer for that. Never really been able to understand that mentality myself, many of my favorite video games are the type of things to be completely unwinnable without a degree of system mastery. Mirror Image is cake next to some of the stuff Intelligent Systems or Atlus will throw at you. All you have to understand is that there is a counter for everything, and if there isn't a counter for it then why aren't you using it? I don't see much of a point in a game that doesn't target your weaknesses or forces you to approach a problem differently than how you expected to.

But of course I'm preaching to the choir here, the people who don't understand that probably aren't going to.

I hope that player death becomes a learning experience so they understand they can't just stand still and hit things.

Not sure how the players are learning anything if they're dead ;)

master_marshmallow wrote:

I hope that player death becomes a learning experience so they understand they can't just stand still and hit things.

Not sure how the players are learning anything if they're dead ;)

I see what you did there.

Ah, "Extreme Pathfinder!"

If your character dies, so do you. New reality show in the making?

A hardcore remake of the cartoon, wherein a table gets sucked into the campaign of their GM and their real lives are on the line (they can, however, be restored via resurrection magic, so long as its used before the gampaign's indeterminable end.)

Ah, "Extreme Pathfinder!"

If your character dies, so do you. New reality show in the making?

On the plus side, at high enough level you get to learn the real spells.

They try and fail?

Ah, "Extreme Pathfinder!"

If your character dies, so do you. New reality show in the making?

I believe there's a Chick Tract to that effect...

Warning: written by a religious nutjob cashing in on the old 'D&D is evil' scare of the 80's. Don't bother clicking on that link if you don't think you can get a laugh out of his misrepresentation.

They try and fail?

Failure is but a step on the path to success.

I've only played a couple games of PFS, but one of the things I got out of it was that at a certain level, everyone in the party should be prepared to deal with darkness; another level, invisibility; another level swarms; and so on. None of my current players play PFS regularly, so I just told them.

One guy didn't listen. They're low level, enter a tomb...swarm of flying skulls. One PC is surprised and goes down; another uses his action to get his buddy out, taking some damage; a third hurls his acid flask; the unprepared guy? "I shoot acid splash". He was upset later that they just couldn't seem to kill the swarm.

After that I had my suggestions printed on a sheet of paper. I carry said paper with me to my games. Every once in a while I put the paper on the table and occasionally gesture to it.

Now, I'm not vindictive and try not to be a killer GM. At the same time however I maintain that, if I've gone out of my way to warn you of a SPECIFIC danger then I feel no guilt or remorse over my players' predicaments.

Now, are my players going to be ready for EVERYTHING they should be, all the time? No, that's silly. But if they show that they're paying attention to clues and direct warnings, trying to stay equipped and such, I'll cut them some slack.

Incidentally I think one of the easy ways that PCs forget in dealing with flyers is ranged attacks. I know above the guy has Fickle Winds going, but by that level, have your UMD pumped and get a wand of magic missile. It's not much, but at least it's SOME damage that you can contribute.

And that's my other advice to new players in my games: PCs are like sharks - every round/scene they should be doing something, lest they die. Find a way to contribute damage or an escape route; add something to the dialogue or the narrative; seek clues, ask questions, be present. I have so little patience for players that just show up to the table and say "entertain me." This is not TV, it's a coop game.

Sorry, got swept up in the rant there. TL/DR; players should do stuff and be prepared, especially when their GM warns them.

"Hey let's go explore this island and forget to bring any food, fresh water, rope, extra clothes, medicine, nails, tools, or torches with us." "What do you mean we can't throw him a rope?" "What do you mean we can't fix our boat?"

Peet wrote:

Ah, "Extreme Pathfinder!"

If your character dies, so do you. New reality show in the making?

I believe there's a Chick Tract to that effect...

Warning: written by a religious nutjob cashing in on the old 'D&D is evil' scare of the 80's. Don't bother clicking on that link if you don't think you can get a laugh out of his misrepresentation.

Really? I think it's been like, a decade since I read that damnable cartoon. What I really love is the evangelist looking as scary as the Ms Frost person.

Anyway, happy gaming to all, and don't forget'cher goat leggings...

If you have forgotten to take something that'll help in a situation, don't just stand around! Get into a flanking position with the guy who did prepare for it and spam aid another, or use intimidate to debuff the enemy, or grab the packs off everyone who's pushing their encumbered limit so if you have to flee everyone can run as fast as possible, or throw sand at the enemy or SOMETHING!

My old standby is just throwing waves of low-level enemies at them. Big mobs of small critters can actually be dangerous to inexperienced players, but they still get to feel like Rambo mowing down lots of goblins and such.

I know, right?

Sissyl wrote:

They try and fail?

Failure is but a step on the path to success.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas A. Edison

I now want to make a pseudo-Groundhog Day/Dark Souls game where the characters get resurrected in a demiplane until they don't suck.

. . .

After that I had my suggestions printed on a sheet of paper. I carry said paper with me to my games. Every once in a while I put the paper on the table and occasionally gesture to it.

Now, I'm not vindictive and try not to be a killer GM. At the same time however I maintain that, if I've gone out of my way to warn you of a SPECIFIC danger then I feel no guilt or remorse over my players' predicaments. . . .

Wait... you mean there was that thing you said would be on the test... and it's actually ON THE TEST?!... I'm having flashbacks to Western Civilization in college. WHY CAN'T THEY JUST GIVE ME A RIBBON FOR PARTICIPATING LIKE PUBLIC SCHOOL?!?!

Yeah. I have no pity either.

Peet wrote:

Ah, "Extreme Pathfinder!"

If your character dies, so do you. New reality show in the making?

I believe there's a Chick Tract to that effect...

Warning: written by a religious nutjob cashing in on the old 'D&D is evil' scare of the 80's. Don't bother clicking on that link if you don't think you can get a laugh out of his misrepresentation.

What I always found amusing is that he evidently believes D&D gives you real magical power. Evidently my copies of the AD&D books didn't come with the Arcane formulas for those mind control spells, because I couldn't find them anywhere. And let's be honest... Asmodeus makes Satan look like a chump.

Why didn't the girl just resurrect the rogue player? She is a level 8 cleric after all.

No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy.

I've noticed over the years that many players have an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation when it comes to their characters. When the battle seems to be going very poorly for them, they refuse to turn and run, or at least try to fall back and regroup.

I've noticed over the years that many players have an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation when it comes to their characters. When the battle seems to be going very poorly for them, they refuse to turn and run, or at least try to fall back and regroup.

Part of this is because of the difficulty of running away. More often than not- barring certain magical getaway tricks- the party's ability to escape is entirely dependent on their enemy's willingness to let them get away.

teach the controversy

proper levels, WBL values for when as a character you should have solutions in place obstacles should be overcome

darkness
invisibility
swarms
damage reductions
flying enemies
domination/possession
incorporeals

Why didn't the girl just resurrect the rogue player? She is a level 8 cleric after all.

She was probably hoping Black Leaf's player would reroll as something better.

The guys who made the Gamers movies are making a movie out of Dark Dungons. The mind boggles...

No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy.

That is definatly what the ten foot pole is for.

No plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy.

You're RIGHT! We should just grab a single, big melee weapon a piece, the wizard can just randomly dice for what spells he's gonna prep for this session, and then let's just dive down this dungeon entrance!

Seriously, I know no plan is ever fool-proof; I'm the fool who proves it for goodness sake! But at the same time let's expect our players to do SOME legwork!

I literally turned to my players at the beginning of last session and said aloud "are you SURE you don't want to do any research about the zone of the megadungeon you're headed to? Ask around, roll a Knowledge check or anything?" My players just shrugged and said no. So off they went...

To meet a wyvern with the Simple: Young template on him. The party at the time was 3 guys, all level 2. The paladin died defending the other 2 and though the wyvern didn't die it was reduced enough HP that I ruled it flew away.

After the session one of the players goes "A WYVERN? Really?" I promptly showed him the note that a DC 20 Diplomacy check for Gather Info would reveal the predations of a wyvern in the area they were headed for.

They could've gotten a 20 standing on their heads and taking a 10. WHY would you build PCs with such charisma and Diplomacy skills and then go "Meh; I don't need to talk to anyone..." when the GM FREAKING asks you to?

... Ok, sorry for the rant. Things could've gone differently and I could've run them differently for sure. Even though I rolled the wyvern on the random encounter table, I could've just thrown out some more goblins. Maybe I could've pulled my punches. But they didn't even try...

Randarak wrote:

I've noticed over the years that many players have an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation when it comes to their characters. When the battle seems to be going very poorly for them, they refuse to turn and run, or at least try to fall back and regroup.

Part of this is because of the difficulty of running away. More often than not- barring certain magical getaway tricks- the party's ability to escape is entirely dependent on their enemy's willingness to let them get away.

You're right; smokesticks have no effect. Nor do tanglefoot bags.

Now I agree - escaping melee is painful as you've got to deal with AoOs and such. But let's be honest; is it really THAT hard? Actually, maybe it is; I haven't played a lot of games past level 8 lately. But from low to mid levels you've got alchemical items, fogs, Bluff checks for feint, distraction spells, and DOZENS of other ways to run away.

I know because my players are finally starting to get it. I warned them it would be a megadungeon campaign; PCs will die if not careful. Even when being careful things might go badly. So far they've outright run once, and fallen back twice over the course of 6 sessions. In each of those instances they've managed to keep on keeping on...

In the latter stages of our Rise of the Runlords campaign, our group often got handed its collective ass. When we did win, it was by the skin of our teeth. It just got worse the higher in level we were. The monk usually won initiative and charged headlong into the biggest concentration of baddies. Even with magically increased movement it was usually a round or two before I could back him up, so he'd soak damage and drop before I could get there and then I'd have to hold off the masses solo while the cleric got him back up again. Wizard's player never paid attention to anything that happened between his turns, and he was the party leader. I was the grunt this time around (Dwarf skirmisher, two-handed fighting style) so I just did my job knocking things around with my earthbreaker until I realized that if I--as a player--didn't take a grip on the reins then we were headed to a TPK.

So in the final fight I took charge. We concentrated all our firepower on each enemy in succession until it dropped, and then moved on to the next one. I made sure everyone was paying attention to the map and what was going on even when it wasn't their turn. This went on until only the big bad was left and we stomped him too. No one even dropped during the combat.

So yes, though a plan may not last past the first engagement, having a group of prepared and attentive players running their characters like seasoned and professional adventurers goes a long way towards making things better.

They die.

/end DM rant

They get lucky or they die.

Because you can go in near blind and still prevail if the dice are on your side.

I literally turned to my players at the beginning of last session and said aloud "are you SURE you don't want to do any research about the zone of the megadungeon you're headed to? Ask around, roll a Knowledge check or anything?" My players just shrugged and said no. So off they went...

To meet a wyvern with the Simple: Young template on him. The party at the time was 3 guys, all level 2. The paladin died defending the other 2 and though the wyvern didn't die it was reduced enough HP that I ruled it flew away.

After the session one of the players goes "A WYVERN? Really?" I promptly showed him the note that a DC 20 Diplomacy check for Gather Info would reveal the predations of a wyvern in the area they were headed for.

Some players like to be surprised. It's much more exciting to meet a monster you're not expecting.