| gran rey de los mono |
So in the last 4 weeks, I have managed to kill 3 PCs (1 10th level and 2 9th level) and seriously injure several others (stat damage and/or negative levels). Two of the deaths were caused by random encounters travelling to the real adventure, and the third occured about 1/4 of the way through the dungeon. I don't think I am throwing encounters at them that are too difficult, but maybe I am wrong.
To use last night as an example, the party (10th level Fighter, 9th level Oracle, 9th level Summoner, 9th level Monk, 9th level Fighter/Rogue, and 9th level Inquisitor/Ranger) only had one encounter, two Vampires (I used the example ones in the Bestiary, only removed all of their magical equipment and adjusted stats/DCs accordingly). I Dominated the Fighter, had her 'kill' the Summoner's Eidolon, and then kill (as in -40HP) the Monk. I also dealt out 8 or 10 total negative levels and hit the party with 4 or 5 fireballs. The party had about 95% of their spells and such before the encounter, and used a large percentage of them during and after the fight, particularly healing spells. Now they are faced with the option of continuing on without the Eidolon-their 2nd best melee combatant-or waiting until the next day so the Summoner can call his Eidolon again (it is well before noon for the PCs, around 8am). This was the first real encounter of the dungeon, more encounters of roughly the same CR await them in the next few rooms.
I guess my question is this: Do I need to rework my encounters to lower the CRs (most are in the CR 8 to 10 range), or do I just let them struggle through as best they can?