So I ran the final session of “The Whispering Cairn” last night and it may well have been the final session of the Age of Worms campaign path. After several session of getting battered to death’s door, my party finally was ready to reap the reward. They’d hit all the important points – made contact with Allustan, learned the background story of the Vaati, tracked down (and prematurely killed!) Filge, found the note that was the hook for adventure two, buried the Land family for Alastor. Onwards to the Chamber of Sighs and big treasure.
Oh yes, there’s the trifling matter of the two 6HD opponents who can fly and have a ranged attack that they can use pretty much anytime they want. I decided that having the wind warriors just sit back and smack their swords together would be no fun for anyone concerned, so I had them mostly engage the party hand to hand, reasoning that they were created to be melee combatants and “programmed” to attack in that manner. The ranger (who despite having almost enough experience to be third level had never even bothered to level up to 2nd) and the rogue/sorceror were the ones who triggered the attack by mucking around with the airshaft while the fighter/barbarian, warforged tank, and goblin favored soul (NPC healer) hung back. Actually, the warforged was out of the room entirely, picking up some of those iron balls to use as a door jam because he was worried about the door closing on him (my fault – I forgot to mention that the trigger for the door was on that side).
So the wind warriors appear and engage. Let’s see, +8 to hit vs. low level characters, average 7.5 damage per hit, high AC, lots of HP. Yeah, that didn’t last long. They split up, running for the rim. The ranger managed to hide himself behind the barbarian. The rogue yelled for the cleric then was cut down (-7 or so, stabilized with an action point at -9). The healer ran to respond and was knocked down to 1 HP. By this time the warforged was in the fray. He interposed himself between the wind warrior and the fragile goblin. No prob, the wind warrior just flew out of reach and used the sonic attack. One goblin healer, down for the count.
The ranger decided to flee from relative safety and made for the airshaft. I had decided at this point that this was going to be a slaughter and that I would reward his daring by having him find something that would control, or at least call off, the wind warriors in the true tomb. But I wasn’t going to make it a cakewalk. While WW1 is dealing with the warforged and the barbarian, WW2 follows ranger into the true tomb. Ranger decides that it’s too risky to investigate the true tomb with WW2 on him like glue, so he flees back down the shaft. WW2 follows, fumbles an attack roll, so I rule it lost the weapons (mostly to give them a bit of breathing space and also see the looks on their faces when it summons a new pair next turn). At this point ranger decides to see if he can do something about the healer. WW2 follows and guts him. Ranger has no AP left and fails his stabilization checks. I play with Whimsy Cards and one of the other players used one to give him a second chance on his last roll. I even gave a bonus. No luck.
Meanwhile warforged and barbarian have been battering the heck out of WW1 and finish it off just in time for WW2 to come after them. Warforged goes toe to toe while barbarian hangs back with his bow. It’s going pretty well for them until WW2 gets in two solid hits on the warforged (already a bit battered to begin with), one of them a confirmed critical. Light fortification takes care of that, but still the damage is enough to drop him to -13!
That left the lone barbarian. Fortunately, the warforged had softened up WW2 quite a bit, and he’s able to finish the job in just two or three rounds. With one round to go, barbarian attempts to stabilize the healer. Success! Although two characters are dead (one arguably deservingly so), three will survive. Barbarian plunders all the bodies to find healing magic. There are a bunch of potions, some recovered from the beetle room and some recovered from Filge. They never got a chance to ID any of them, but had figured out that several were of the Conjuration school of magic.
Barbarian decides not to take a chance, and runs into town to but some potions. OK, I estimate it’s about 5 miles. Feeling charitable, I tell him he can run all the way, do his business, and run all the way back. I estimate about an hour and a half altogether. Meanwhile, I look up the rule about recovering consciousness when you’re in the negatives. 10% chance per hour, and you lose a HP if you fail. Ooops – they’re both at -9. Barbarian comes back to find two more dead companions.
At this point, playing in character, barbarian decides not to investigate any further, but simply to pull his companions out, bury them, and retire from adventuring. So now the Age of Worms campaign is over, as are my days as a DM. I don’t think the group will play under me again. I’ve broached the subject of continuing with new characters, but did not get anything even resembling enthusiasm.
Analysis:
What I did wrong – I could have fudged a lot of rolls, minimizing damage and having the wind warriors miss more often. I could have ignored the rule about losing HP when in the negatives or fudged the rolls. But I’m not really comfortable with doing that too often. I don’t think I have the “killer DM” mentality, but I do try to play the opponents intelligently and prefer to let the dice fall as they may as much as possible.
I could have had Alastor warn them that there were some guardians inside – I simply forgot to do so. Ditto with the door trigger – things may have been different if the warforged had gotten there a little sooner. I could have realized that two wind warriors would be too much and just used one – that would have been challenging but not devastating.
Another problem was that before this session most of the party had enough EXP to become 3rd level, but I find it unrealistic to say that people just gain a level without some kind of downtime. The party didn't want to take that downtime because they were worried that the rival adventure party would find the WC and get the big reward before them.
What the PCs did wrong – They could have stayed together more, backing each other up, instead of splitting up and making themselves easy individual targets. Barbarian could have taken a chance on one of the potions being a healing potion – good grief, he was a little injured himself, he could have tried it on himself first. They also could have retreated, although I’m not sure they could have escaped creatures with an 80’ flying movement, although I wouldn’t have had them pursue the party outside of the Chamber of Sighs (they had no way of knowing this, of course).
Other Problems – I think my group and I are not well adapted to the play style that is assumed by published adventures. Very heavy on highly challenging combat encounters, packed tightly together. Don’t get me wrong, I think Whispering Cairn is a fun adventure with a lot of fine role-playing encounters, but it’s also very, very deadly. My group almost gave up at the very beginning when the wolves and (later, after rest) the beetle swarm/mad slasher combo nearly wiped them all out. Is this really how most people play – a combat that incapacitates most of the party, rest, repeat?
If you made it this far, thanks for reading (and bearing with my abrupt changes in verb tense). Opinions and advice welcome. The big question nagging me is - am I an unreasonable killer DM? Should I have let the players live?
Hopefully the players had fun. Chalk up the loss to bad dice rolls, maybe bad tactics or whatever and be lenient when the players and their characters recover from the trauma. Its been my experience in AoW path that encounters that I thought would be challenging usually were (though not all), and some that I didn’t think would be, were.
I have made sure that my party is given generous amounts of XP (usually by way of side quests or other ancillary motivations) to be able to handle the challenge, and even then, sometimes the dice just don’t want to cooperate.
But don’t cheapen the villains; if they are intelligent, run them as such. If they are savage or animalistic, then try to refrain from strategizing – but you sound like a good DM so you already knew these things! :)
I don't think you are a killer DM. From what you have described, I think you havd a massive confluence of poor player choices, lucky dice for you, and perhaps a bit of overplaying the Wind Warriors' Intelligence of 8.
According to the description, the Wind Warriors are "shock troops" who "begin combat with a sonic blast before charging into melee." To me, that says fire one blast and then charge, staying in melee until killed or no more targets present themselves. Intelligence 8 backs this up for me, telling me that these things don't use a lot of adaptive tactics, nor a lot of fancy maneuvers. As Shock Troops, they are designed/trained to take orders and follow them, rather than improvise.
However, I'd say most of the blame lies on the players' heads:
I cannot fathom a player not leveling up when given the opportunity. In my group, they would have beaten him into submission while somebody else leveled his character up for him.
In such a desperate situation, I agree that the Dwarf should have experimented with the potions; such timid/cautious behavior seems out-of-character for a rough-and-tumble barbarian.
Where were the spellcasters? I saw only one sorcerer, who couldn't have been more than 2nd level, and the NPC healer. This party severely lacked firepower, and should have been aware of this and adjusted their tactics appropriately. I can now understand how your party had such trouble with the earlier encounters - the swarms alone are nearly impossible to beat without a wiz/sor with an area effect spell.
In addition, I don't care what the barbarian's "in-character" reasons are for retiring, his decision damned the entire campaign. Instead of an entertaining interlude in which he appeals to the various divine powers to restore his freinds to life, quite possibly making deals to account for the funds he doesn't have for their raising, he simply closed up shop and made the decision for the other players. Did he even ask the others if they wanted to be raised?
I agree that you should follow the character's goals, but to just retire and end the campaign before it even begins is just silly and a little spiteful.
Anyway, I'd say you did an excellent job. I might have coached the characters a bit, perhaps forcing the ranger to level up, or allowing the dwarf a heal check to see that his companions would not survive while he took a trip to town, but ingeneral, I think you can hold your head up pretty high.
Shidara
I haven't had nearly that much trouble with the adventure so far. My group is about to confront/be confronted by Kullen and his men. The cairn so far hasn't been deadly at all for the PCs. Granted, I did switch out extra medium beetles for the acid beetle swarms...I hate using swarms, I just can't do it well. Anyway, the only difficulty I've had so far is earlier on when the Changeling Artificer decided to explore the wind tunnel by himself and almost died...twice. I think it sounds like you ran it to the best of your ability...admirably so, in fact. However, stabilization (I thought) could be attempted once per round with a Fort save DC 15. I could be wrong on this though. That may have been what could have saved them. Also, don't be afraid to use olfactory cues for potions. If it smells like the last healing potion, a PC can probably be safe to assume that this one is. Thoughts from any other DMs?
Sounds like you gave them a run for their money... which is good.
However players’ not wanting to play in the game again is bad. When it all comes down to the brass tax, if they don't want to play again, then there is something wrong. It doesn't need to be one thing that's wrong either.
Assess your players. Not all players play the same. Some like the no-nonsense "iron man" game, while others prefer the occasional "throw me a frickin' bone here" approach. Neither is better than the other as long as the players like the game and are having fun. Therefore tweaking of the game is necessary for some DM’s and should not be frowned upon, especially if you run with a regular group that you know.
IMHO (many would disagree, but that’s okay) it is the DM’s job to assess the players capabilities and preferences and provide a game that is both enjoyable and challenging for all involved. There is a delicate balance involved with this, remember enjoyable AND challenging.
Anyhow, there are a few things that I try to limit in my games; one of them is character death from lucky/unlucky roles. I hate that. So I use Action Dice from Eberron (even tho we are not playing in an Eberron game) where the players can use Action Dice in critical areas… it comes up with Saving Throws from time to time. The other area is only “Boss” type creatures can crit a PC, minions cannot. They still hit with a natural 20 but they can never crit. I figure out who are the boss types before the game.
Again guys, this is how I run my players, and they seem to like it.
I'm probably going to hit this very encounter tonight. I plan on doing three things:
Make the WW's melee mostly, as you did.
Have Alastor warn them of 'flying demons' or something similar as he gratefully fades away.
Make sure the party wizard is aware that the WW's armor is ceramic (wand of Shatter).
The adventure path modules all pretty much assume you level when you level, hence they can pack in 20 levels in 12 adventures. So in that regard whomever didn't level made a mistake. Now if you as the DM don't let them level that was your mistake.
Second, kicking a person when they are down is not necessarily a good thing even if the rules say so. By the sounds of it the adventure was pretty much over. There had been a climactic battle and the party gave as good as they got. Killing the two unconsious PCs really didn't do much storywise except convince the last main character that he should get out of the adventuring biz. I mean really, if you worked a dangerous job and all your work friends died you might consider early retirement yourself. Also it's no fun for a Player to die when he doesn't get any last words, a heroic death scene, or even the chance to spit in the eye of his enemy. I think you should have let them stay at -9 hp until the dwarf got back. If you wanted to add some tension have a big nasty CR 1/2 beetle menacing them when the barbarian returns. This makes the point that he perhaps should not have left his fallen comrades without actually killing anyone.
All that said, DMing is a skill that takes time to develope and even old-timers still make mistakes. Hextor knows I do. It happens and the best thing to do is to learn from the experience and get over it. If the players in question aren't interested in AoW, but you still are, find some new players at your local hobby shop and run Whispering Cairn again taking with you all you learned this time, not only can this broaden your circle of friends, but it also broadens your DMing skills (new players do new things). Play something else with your other friends for a while. Eventually they might want back into the AoW, and if they do let them, but don't force it.
My not-so-humble opinion,
GGG
Some good points brought up so far. While I agree that killing off the two unconscious characters while the barbarian ran into town was harsh, I still have to lay this one at the feet of the characters.
#1. they had just (presumably) found a Wand of Shatter - the Wind Warriors are largely ceramic
#2. what's the worst the really could have happened if the barbarian used the potions on the unconscious characters?
#3. not leveling up is just insane. If I understand correctly, though, you require the "official" downtime to do so. Personally, I've never bothered with it and in this AP there just isn't the time: like somebody else said, they're trying to get you through 20 levels in 12 installments which means lots of action and lots of leveling up.
It is interesting (I mention this only since it's already been mentioned in this thread) that I have been unable to determine the challenging encounters for my group either. The wolves (which I never gave a second thought to) had two characters down, while the water elemental hardly got a hit in.
Another problem was that before this session most of the party had enough EXP to become 3rd level, but I find it unrealistic to say that people just gain a level without some kind of downtime. The party didn't want to take that downtime because they were worried that the rival adventure party would find the WC and get the big reward before them.
This is the real reason you had a TPK. I think the entire concept of people gaining a "level" is unrealistic, so it doesn't particularly bother me that they can do it without taking any downtime. In any case, by combining your house rule with an adventure where time is of the essence, you stuck them in the jaws of a dilemma: level up and possibly miss out on the treasure or hurry along and possibly die. They were damned if they did and damned if they didn't!
Sorry, friend, but this one is all on you. At the very least, you should have scaled the encounters down for a party that was (much) weaker than anticipated.
#2. what's the worst the really could have happened if the barbarian used the potions on the unconscious characters?
There is this stuff called poison.
It is interesting (I mention this only since it's already been mentioned in this thread) that I have been unable to determine the challenging encounters for my group either. The wolves (which I never gave a second thought to) had two characters down, while the water elemental hardly got a hit in.
At first and second level the dice play a much bigger role in what makes a challenging encounter than the numbers on the character sheet. The characters' (and monsters') low skill modifiers, AC and BAB don't make as much of a difference on a d20 roll. Likewise low hits mean any given critical could be fatal and one or two solid hits will take almost any average charcater out of a fight.
GGG
Been there many a time, on both sides of the screen. Give it a little timee, character death is always a tough blow, but its been my experience that people bounce back eventually.
It sounds like the biggest issue was characters not leveling when they had the XP. I too feel that leveling up in the middle of a dungeon is kind of cheesey, but I've had great success with what I like to call the "training bank." Whenever my group has downtime, I have them keep track of how many days they spent training, and when they get the XP they level. I do require a night of rest before reaping the benefits (no video game style mid-fight leveling here). If they trained up enough during that week of haning out at the inn, great; if not, I let them take the level on "credit" and they train when they get back to town. Unless I decide otherwise, you can only have a balance of 1 level.
It keeps thing somewhat realistic, without sacrificing the spirit of the game.
At first and second level the dice play a much bigger role in what makes a challenging encounter than the numbers on the character sheet. The characters' (and monsters') low skill modifiers, AC and BAB don't make as much of a difference on a d20 roll. Likewise low hits mean any given critical could be fatal and one or two solid hits will take almost any average charcater out of a fight.
GGG
That's one of the appealing things about low level characters. I'm trying to find ways to capture that dangerous element for higher level characters without changing the game rules too much. High level fights that take forever to finish tend to be more of a mathematical and statistical exercise than a true fight where anything can happen.
FASA's Star Trek game was like that--your CON score (1-100) was your HP....disruptors did 75 points of damage with a direct hit. I don't want to go to that extreme but high level characters and monsters in 3.5 are ridiculously overpowered.
I have no problem with the PC's levelling up during the game. Like many other things, such unbelievability can be explained away with the nature of a fantastic universe.
However, people become combat veterans pretty quickly. Most guys who have faced combat tend to get "spidey senses" and a sense of "confidence" after a few successful firefights that help them deal with future battles. Any Iraq war veterans want to jump on this?
My own analogy is that I was trained to kick box during the start of my LE career. After 8 weeks of training and punching bags and the air we had to go into the ring against actual opponents. After the first 2 minutes I thought I was going to pass out from exhaustion and pain, but then my training "kicked in" and I managed to get some hits in even though I got my nose broken. I never got knocked down and I did much better in my second fight--so "levelling up" in the middle of an adventure may not seem so unrealistic.
Training is important, but it only sets the stage and prepares the person for benefitting from the best trainer of all--real life experience.
So I would argue that spending 24 hours surviving a tough dungeon makes a character level up much faster than spending a week training in a friendly town. My position is that training in between adventures during down time is what prepares the characters to "suddenly" level up in the middle of an adventure. Their training got ingrained through real life experience in a matter of hours or even minutes.
I can particularly see this for low-level PC's. They've been practicing their professions for a year or two as adolescents and are on the "verge" of greatness....all their training has not yet been tempered on the field of battle or whatever. I see no problem with a 1st level PC entering a dungeon and emerging 36 hours later as a 3rd level PC, considering they've been practicing for that moment for years.
Thanks for all the feedback, in the form of Kindly and Stern words - both kinds are greatly appreciated and useful.
A few additional clarifications/details:
The group never found the wand of shatter - they didn't even venture into the Lair of the Architect at all. The ranger used his Tharashk dragonmark to locate the red lantern, so they focused entirely on that level and getting into the Chamber of Sighs. Even if they had, I don't see anything in the wind warriors' or the spell description that indicates that they would be particularly vulnerable to it. I suppose I could have ruled that it affected them as if they were crystalline creatures (3d6 damage, assuming CL3)
I agree the leveling issue was the biggest thing. The house rule I was operating under was that you needed to train a week for every other level and that you were assumed to have trained at 1st. The exception would be adding a new class - you always have to train then. So level 2 of the same class was essentially free. I can't explain why the ranger refused to take it. Still, if everyone had been able to level up to 3rd it would have made a tremendous difference. TPK Jay, I like your training bank idea - a good way to pay lip service to realism without inconveniencing the players too much. I also rule that you have to sleep 8 hours before gaining a level, even if you don't train. Good points everyone else who chimed in on this subject.
The potions - true, they could have been poisoned, but they already knew that they were certainly magic. I do have same potions look/smell/taste alike, but they had yet to use any of them, so they wouldn't have known which was which.
As far as the players dropping out, I hope that it was just the emotion of the moment. I was pretty distraught, too - still was when I posted this morning. But we're all old hands (some of us have been playing over 20 years), so I think they'll be back in the saddle eventually. We probably will take a couple weeks off to playtest an SF RPG system the barbarian's player is working on.
GGG - you're absolutely right about not kicking players when they're down. I should have just had them recover, whatever the rules say. Actually, it was almost worse. I considered having the barbarian (human, not dwarf, by the way) run into Kullen and his gang (with whom the party has already had a colorful - and painful - history) on his trip to town, but dismissed the idea as rubbing salt in the wounds.
Anyway, thanks again for all the advice and support.
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Lol...the Wind Warriors are a tough bunch no doubt....less than worrying about their 8 intel (still plenty smart to stand off and sonic a group to death) I played them as too lawful and maybe too noble to stand off and sonic rape the group, going so far as having one wind warrior let the druids wolverine climb back onto the plank where he was hanging by his teeth, before fighting again...I did fire a few sonic blasts, and the two dwarf bodyguard (from dragon mag)fighters (who took phalanx fighting, a great feat for these two)went to negatives multiple times....I did have 7 PC's and even so it was tough, (being only Levels 1 or 2)....they didnt rest after the fight and went outside to discover Filge and Kullen's men had burned down the mine office and were waiting in ambush (Kullen being a zombie after Filge got done with him)...most of the party were thinking 'We're dead' until the druid got off his entangle.....
GGG - you're absolutely right about not kicking players when they're down. I should have just had them recover, whatever the rules say. Actually, it was almost worse. I considered having the barbarian (human, not dwarf, by the way) run into Kullen and his gang (with whom the party has already had a colorful - and painful - history) on his trip to town, but dismissed the idea as rubbing salt in the wounds.
I had to learn the hard way myself. :)
GGG
I don't know why people stick to this old rule of 'training' which is and used to be optional even in former editions. IRL, when you are experiencing new fields of learning you go through what is called a 'learning curve'. Your success upon failure ratio expands through time as you're getting experienced and then, one day you discover your skills on the subject have expanded. You are mastering this particular subject/move/skill/double rear salto. And it leads to new fields of learning in which you're not at ease at first, but you start practising, and you go through th whole cycle again again. Mastering a subject, IMHO, is like stairs. You go up one 'level' after the other.
Level system is pretty realistic to me, and I use the rule as such. You learn more through experience than through theory.
Bran.
I don't know why people stick to this old rule of 'training' which is and used to be optional even in former editions. IRL, when you are experiencing new fields of learning you go through what is called a 'learning curve'. Your success upon failure ratio expands through time as you're getting experienced and then, one day you discover your skills on the subject have expanded. You are mastering this particular subject/move/skill/double rear salto. And it leads to new fields of learning in which you're not at ease at first, but you start practising, and you go through th whole cycle again again. Mastering a subject, IMHO, is like stairs. You go up one 'level' after the other.
Level system is pretty realistic to me, and I use the rule as such. You learn more through experience than through theory.
Bran.
This is not really the right thread for it, but the fact that you have to have a lot of what amount to be tack on "band-aid" style rules for a system kind of point out the system's limitations. The idea that someone is nearly twice as tough (HD, BAB) at second level as they are at first or that you can when you are are a high enough level rogue just drop a ton of skill points into a skill that you didn't know squat about the level before. I won't even get into fighting at full strength until you drop. Is there blood or are just badly bruised? I kind of have the feeling that's why D&D/d20 has such a large hunk of the RPG market it's like a prolific but buggy software, the customer has to buy upgrades for years. The fact that the system is written more like software now just adds to the effect for me.
I don't really have any problem with level-based systems for fantasy games. And while d20 is okay in this regard, I've seen better,
GGG
I totally by-passed the Wind Warrior encounter. There was a PC that I was using as a major plot device, an aasimar with blood lines to the vaati. His experiences in the whispering cairn slowly awakened the bloodline. He heard words in the wind, he recognized some of the Wind Duke glyphs, and when he encountered the wind warriors, he commanded them to stand down, much like Harry Potter commanded the snake in Chamber of Secrets.
The player didn't know what was going on, and I was going to spring one thing on top of another over the course of the adveture path, but he died at the hands of The Faceless One. I was bummed to lose that hook I wanted to use, but now I will be able to bring in some serious hurt in A Gathering of Winds, without the aasimar/vaati to help out.
Yeah, the saddest thing about losing all these characters is that they all did great work on their backgrounds, which I was going to use as plot hooks or threads in future adventures. Barbarian’s grandfather was a minor Brelish noble – I was going to make him be the commander at Blackwall Keep. Ranger came to Diamond Lake searching for a rogue Tharashk agent, whom he would have encountered as a member of the Ebon Triad cult (possibly as a replacement for Theldrick). Rogue/sorcerer had an evil merchant in his past who would have made a great substitute for Loris Raknian in Hall of Harsh Reflections/Champion’s Belt. And clues about the amnesiac warforged’s past could have been worked in anywhere – especially if I made Red Hand Stormreach.
Oh well. Hopefully the new group (already getting a few feelers from some of the players) will have just as rich backgrounds to plunder.
You know, if you really liked the PC's histories that much, you could always fall back on the old deus ex machina. Maybe the barbaian is plagued by dreams of his fallen comrades, so he returns to the tomb, where he discoveres that Zosiel's tomb has the very means to bring the characters back. Or have the priest of Heironeous recognize the barbarian's resemblance to his grandfather, and offer to revive his party members because of it. Or if you want to let the dead lie, don't let them do so in peace, when the black dragon is laying in wait for Allustan, she could return them as Spawn of Kyuss that attack the charcters in a Gathering of Winds...
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For what is worth, I use a different style of training. I feel that the treasure is supposed to be balanced and that the costs are all part of that balancing act. Here is what I do.
When a character is ready to level, they must sacrifice the suggested cost of training to their choosen god. Call it a leveling up tithe. They then get to level. I alolow them to use gold, items or both, as long as equals the required amount as laid out in DMG. I guess you could say the gods hand out the levels for a price.
If they choose to add a new class I make them find a trainer and pay him the required amount of gold to train (based on the same things as leveling, 50 gp per skill point and 100 gp for feat). They have to spend the required time training in this case.
Been there many a time, on both sides of the screen. Give it a little timee, character death is always a tough blow, but its been my experience that people bounce back eventually.
It sounds like the biggest issue was characters not leveling when they had the XP. I too feel that leveling up in the middle of a dungeon is kind of cheesey, but I've had great success with what I like to call the "training bank." Whenever my group has downtime, I have them keep track of how many days they spent training, and when they get the XP they level. I do require a night of rest before reaping the benefits (no video game style mid-fight leveling here). If they trained up enough during that week of haning out at the inn, great; if not, I let them take the level on "credit" and they train when they get back to town. Unless I decide otherwise, you can only have a balance of 1 level.
It keeps thing somewhat realistic, without sacrificing the spirit of the game.
I like this! After all, it's not like the fighter just sits around for a while, fights something, then gets the sudden urge to train; he's presumed to be doing it all the time. I try to make sure my PCs tell me what their chracter will be doing at level up well in advance, representing that they have been training towards that for some time. This isn't a problem in my group, as most of the time my players have their characters mapped out all the way to level 20 when the campaign begins, nevermind the fact that we've never gotten anywhere close.
I totally by-passed the Wind Warrior encounter. There was a PC that I was using as a major plot device, an aasimar with blood lines to the vaati. His experiences in the whispering cairn slowly awakened the bloodline. He heard words in the wind, he recognized some of the Wind Duke glyphs, and when he encountered the wind warriors, he commanded them to stand down, much like Harry Potter commanded the snake in Chamber of Secrets.
The player didn't know what was going on, and I was going to spring one thing on top of another over the course of the adveture path, but he died at the hands of The Faceless One. I was bummed to lose that hook I wanted to use, but now I will be able to bring in some serious hurt in A Gathering of Winds, without the aasimar/vaati to help out.
You know that Valkus Dun has a scroll of Raise Dead, right (as bdetailed in the AoW Overload)? If he knew the PC died fighting the Ebon Triad (he has more than enough Knowledge (religion) to know about the cult- I know because my players went to him for info), he'd probably be more than willing to cut the price substantially. It has also been my experience that, with the town's low gp limit, the party has tons of cash without much to use it on. So, unless it's too late to go that route, the aasimar/vaati needs not be dead forever!
Any good tpk is as much your fault as it is the players. There's a reason for the screen you know.
I'm not saying I'll save a character from his own stupidity or arrogance, but after you've rolled three crits in a row, there's nothing wrong with chosing not to confirm the 4th.
The OP's players seem to me like a group of first class idiots, but much of this seems like the OP's problem. Someone with 3rd level xp still playing as 1st? This didn't ring any bells for you? The cr of the final encounter compared to your average party level didn't trip any wires?
I'm all for realism, of the sort that applies in a fantasy game, but realism of the sort that results in this is just arrogance on your part.
People can fly. Fireballs come shooting out of little sticks, the dead walk the land, or are returned to life. And you're quibling about training to level up?
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I felt the same guilt with a TPK whilst running the Shackled City Adventure Path. It was a side jaunt on a slave ship. The PCs were passengers (not slaves) after striking a deal with a merchant who caught them robbing his pawn shop. Slavery was legal there (Calimshan, in FR). They decided to take command of the ship and free the slaves, despite the fact that, while they discussed how to pull it off, they heard the footsteps of a wizard with a ring of invibility who had been assigned to watch them. And despite having two guards approach them minutes later warning them not to try anything funny. And despite none of them ever having set foot on a ship before. So a battle commences, and yes, I missed a few things that hurt the PCs' chances, such as monstrous humanoids not being equivalent to humanoids for spell purposes (one PC was a thri-kreen) or elves being immune to sleep effects (duh! Although the PC didn't catch this either).
The players were all disappointed, but they quickly agreed that it was good to know that I wouldn't bail them out of every situation, and, yes, their character could die (most had played with me for a couple of years but had never had a PC die on them). And within an hour, they were excitedly talking about new characters (one of the best parts of D&D, to me, anyhow)
Long story short, most TPKs involve some DM slip-ups or judgment calls, but wouldn't happen if the PCs didn't make multiple foolish decisions. So don't feel too bad about it. The saddest part for me was that I wasn't going to get to DM the remainder of the campaign. In your case, it's a shame about the lack of interest in playing again.
I'm not going to point any fingers or take any sides in this one (though there have been many valid points on both sides). I just want to share a favorite quote of mine that my players have heard way to often (and might even grudgingly agree with)
"DMs don't kill players, players kill players."
In my experience the choices players make more often result in a character's death than any roll or action on my behalf. Don't get me wrong I've seen fights where whole parties have died because they can't get a good roll to save their lives (literally). But, I have seen more deaths because the party has pushed on to do one more room even though the wizard and cleric are out of spells or the fighter was under half hps and neglected to mention it before the next fight started or some other similarily inane action.
Hey, Monkey King - don't pull any punches, just tell me what you really think! ; )
It's all good - any feedback is useful and welcome. Actually, the upside of all this is that it has provoked a lot of discussion in our group about what we really expect out of games (what we like/dislike, what works/doesn't). Quite a useful discussion.
TPK Jay - the idea bringing back the first party as Spawn of Kyuss is absolutely evil and highly uncalled for. I love it! I will definitely be appropriating it, assuming we do end up continuing this campaign!
TPK Jay - the idea bringing back the first party as Spawn of Kyuss is absolutely evil and highly uncalled for. I love it! I will definitely be appropriating it, assuming we do end up continuing this campaign!
My pleasure... we DMs are like a Lawful Evil Fraternity, we gotta look out for each other. Few moments in a DM's life are as satisfying as when you look across the screen after one of those kind of shockers at four or five stunned faces, one perhaps on the verge of tears. Then someone says "You black-hearted son of a $@&%$! Quit doing that #$&%!@ evil-dance!" It's like buttah!
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My pleasure... we DMs are like a Lawful Evil Fraternity, we gotta look out for each other. Few moments in a DM's life are as satisfying as when you look across the screen after one of those kind of shockers at four or five stunned faces, one perhaps on the verge of tears. Then someone says "You black-hearted son of a $@&%$! Quit doing that #$&%!@ evil-dance!" It's like buttah!
The player quote from my last TPK I visited on the party two years ago was "You mother puss bucket, mother &#*@$!. Bastage!!!!", he was quite red faced and sputtering.
It is not like didn't warned them, fly everywhere and it will comeback to haunt you.....Muwhahahahaha!!!!!!!!
In regards to leveling up I approach it like we approach training in my career field in the Air Force. We have whats called OJT (on the job traing). You learn as you do, and when your supervisor/trainer feels you are competent enough on that task you are qualified and you can do that task with no further training or supervision. Most of my players have been in the military so this works really well for them.
Just 2 cents from a guy in Iraq.
Im hoping that the next time I see Qatar Ill be on my home.