No, nothing perverse here folks, just a moral dilemma that’s chewing me up on the inside.
A week ago during our weekly Saturday afternoon session I managed to, completely wipe the entire party. A full TPK, my first one in two years of DM'ing. I lost some PC's here and there, but nothing like this before.
I can give a quick situation sketch;
The PC's are currently in the border town of Greyendal, facing off a full regiment of Alvarian regulars. The town, population 400, numbered around 50 defenders, the players themselves were the last ones inside the gates alongside a group of highly experienced grunts(26 in number). Facing off against a superior force, outnumbered 20 to 1, with reinforcements from Greyendall a good 3 days away they decided to retreat into an old dwarven tunnel under the keep they had discovered during the siege.(and dealt with the drow sappers that were using it to tunnel under the town) Having evacuated the population to the tunnels with enough food and water they located an old dwarven water basin that stretched for several miles in every direction.
Unknown to them, a drider was busy picking off the townsfolk, dragging them back to its lair and using the underside of the walkways along the basin for cover. The PC's found out, rallied the town watch to be on the lookout and went after it.
Now the point is, I used all the abilities the drider has, including its levitate, silent image, darkness and web to corner the players. And while they are all lvl 4, they still got their rear-ends handed to them by the drider. Once the darkness wore off and the fighter and the scout were stuck in the web the drider finished the wizard, chewed on the scout after that, dealt with the fighter(who dropped it to 1 hp) and then slammed the fighter down with a critical hit. I had already fudged an encounter with the drow sappers in the same tunnel and not wanting to repeat that(I did not want to give my players the feeling of 'we won't die whatever happens') and putting myself in the driders shoes, I decided that the players were a threat best not left alive and coup-de-graced them.
Now my question to you, since this is eating me up, did I do right in this? The players made(especially the wizard) some stupid mistakes and I could not stand to fudge the dice any longer. A single drider CR7 against a lvl4 party should be a challenge, but not overpowering at all provided the players act on it.
Party consisted of:
-lvl 4 elven wizard.
-lvl 4 elven scout.
-lvl 4 dwarf fighter.
-lvl 4 human rogue.
I have never had a full TPK, but I feel your dilemma.
Players are sometimes stupid, they don't do what you expect them to do, and sometimes that means they die.
Are your players ok with their deaths? Talk about, point out what they did wrong. Learn from it (you and them).
My party got fracked by me last time, had 3 deaths, but they still want to continue, even though we could have started the age of worms.....
I remember, once, my entire party got decimated in a random encounter by two common bears. The party kept rolling 1s and the bears kept getting criticals. After their horrible defeat, I described to the players how their PCs woke up in a temple and were being tended to by clerics. I made up a story about some druids gone bad in the area and sent the PCs to find out why they've been sending their "evil bears" to attack the local community.
Having a TPK when fighting a dragon is ok, but starting a new campaign because of some unlucky rolls and a couple of evil bears; I won't stand for it!
Ultradan
Nice cover-up, that bear story...
Well, justification of TPK depends a lot on how the players take it. I usually try to avoid getting characters killed so I have never had run a TPK (characters have died, sometimes out of errors they have made and couple of times because of sheer bad rolling). I have played in one though, which amusingly was second-to-last encounter we were supposed to meet in this (short) campaign, sort of warm-up-act to the read resolution. However, we rolled fumble after fumble and inevitably were overrun. In that one we just commented that gods of gaming were against us as the players and the encounter itself was fair (even with bad luck we survived quite long and the opponent didn't escape unscathed either...).
I agree that it mostly depends on your particular group makeup/dynamics. I have had TPKs before and the party understood that if it's through their bad decisions, then they cannot blame me. If on the other hand it was sheer bad luck then it's tough to swallow, but just as there have been encounters where they were not supposed to succeed and they did through sheer good luck, then sometimes that door swings both ways. I DO fudge rolls for the sake of the story occasionally but I won't do it ALL the time. My groups knows and accepts that. As for other groups I cannot say.
Happy gaming, and be safe all.
P.S. Happy thanksgiving to those in the states.
I had already fudged an encounter with the drow sappers in the same tunnel and not wanting to repeat that(I did not want to give my players the feeling of 'we won't die whatever happens') and putting myself in the driders shoes, I...
This statement is the key. You DON'T want the party to have the "we won't die whatever happens" attitude. They act, and you as the DM REact in a logical fashion for the NPC(s) you're running. Sometimes luck's with the players, sometimes it isn't, and sometimes the players make stupid choices that NEED to have the logical consequences happen.
Case in point: I was DMing for two players running 4 PCs. They were fighting a group of undead that do energy drain as part of their touch attacks (can't remember right now what type it was, think they were shadows). Point being, one of the baddies had landed a successful hit earlier in the fight so the players KNEW about the energy drain and knew it would happen by touch. They're also seasoned players so they KNEW what happens if an undead drains one of your abilities to 0. Instead of leaving her Mage in the back casting spells where he belonged, one of the players decides to haste, then run up and use his claw attack... his CLAW attack... on the shadow. Scored 3 beautiful critical hits, each of which backfired in 1d4 CON drain or something like that. Mage's ability score drains to 0 and keels over. I rolled for how many rounds it would take the PC to rise and they had about 3. At that point, I decided I would pretty much allow whatever they could logically come up with to save the Mage, and I expected one of the other PCs to break off fighting to tend to him, but no one did. So 3 rounds later the PC rises as undead and is off running around somewhere.
I told this story to actually illustrate two points of how this works in our game world. Yes, TPKs can happen and I've had them happen before, usually by players doing stupid things that have logical consequences. However, death is not permanent in our world because the Players invest an EXTREME amount of time, energy, and emotion into building their PCs, backgrounds, family connections, etc., so it's a given that the DM isn't going to do something that permanently and irrevocably takes that PC away. Even in this instance, there is hope, but the player has to work for it. If she wants her character back, SHE (not me) needs to come up with a logical plan of how she's going to find him, identify him, and change him back. Then we run a rescue game.
I agree here. If their actions dictate death, then so be it. Bad rolls... That I may fudge here or there. As Ultradan said, bad decisions should kill, but bad luck, not so much.
But I do have to ask... Did the players die becuase they did something silly (ie. Tiger Lily's example) or becuase what they did was not what you wanted them to do? I've run into DMs who would not allow any idea they did not come up with to get out of a solution work, so I have to make that clarification.
And yes, those adventures were just plain awful with that guy.
Many thanks for the response all, I’ll try to give a bit more details on the situation.
- My players are so-so about their death, they’re…feeling bad that I killed their PC’s and it came as a bit of a shock I guess. I never managed to get a full TPK before in my three years of DM’ing.
- The players died because they acted stupid. Or two of them did. One being the wizard who spent three full rounds trying to destroy a section of web that was not entangling his friends, it was just part of the drider’s lair, the drider being in his back, levitating in the air, throwing magic missiles. For some reason he wasted three rounds on that and when asked he told me that ‘it was important’. He cannot have gotten this situation wrong, I use miniatures and maps and give clear instructions on what is what.
Second being the rogue who, having taken a slight nap just before the battle, took his time checking his bow and arrived eight rounds later into the combat when the entire party was effectively down and out.
- I provide many ways for my party to handle an encounter, they could’ve set a trap(the drider would’ve been back) or they could have used the drow cloaks they found to scare and intimidate the thing(the party saw this effect before on another drider two sessions before) hell they could’ve asked the sergeant standing 5 feet from them, to send some of his men along.(26 lvl 2 fig, with two lvl 3 clr)
A week ago during our weekly Saturday afternoon session I managed to, completely wipe the entire party. A full TPK, my first one in two years of DM'ing. I lost some PC's here and there, but nothing like this before.
Congratulations...oh wait your having second thoughts, never mind then.
Personally I think you should reconceptualize the whole situation and try and view TPKs in a more positive light.
I like to think of them as orgasms for DMs.
(OK actually I have never had a TPK - But I want one really badly!)
Okay, after checking the books again I have to say that the PCs stood no chance on even ground. A drider is supposed to be a challenege for a group of four lvl7s, a little harder for sixes. I will admit to giving my parties crs above their lvl, but they always have something on thier side be it equipment or the char itself (like a half-dragon char).
Okay, after checking the books again I have to say that the PCs stood no chance on even ground. A drider is supposed to be a challenege for a group of four lvl7s, a little harder for sixes. I will admit to giving my parties crs above their lvl, but they always have something on thier side be it equipment or the char itself (like a half-dragon char).
You can generally go about 3-4 ELs above the party for really nasty baddies. The Drider might have been real tough but should not have necessarily been beyond the PCs. Now if, as seems to have been explained in the description, one of the characters arrived 8 rounds after combat started and the party wizard essentially choose to pass his turn for the first 3 combat rounds, then one can see how the players got themselves killed.
Oh the PC's had a boatload of advantages. Scout was carrying bracers of dex +2 which he had carefully snatched from a ogre. The mage and the scout were also wearing cloaks of resistance and the mage had access to two scrolls of web and one scroll of fireball, both of which he refused to use.
Besides, the drider was down to ONE(!) hitpoint, one more attack from the rogue, or that fireball scroll and the thing would've gone down.
As it stands now, I'm feeling content with it, the stories posted here helped and I'm already setting them off on a new mission(same homebrew) this saturday.
PS: No evilgasms. Its a messy affair at the table.
Yes, you can go 3-4 ELs higher than the party's average level for most BBEGs. However, there's always the chance that an appropriate EL will go wrong and result in party death. Pushing 3-4 above that increases the odds dramatically. Even if the party was on fire that night with their dice, they would have come away from that thing with heavy scars, and even one lapse could have sent them into TPK land.
The problem is even worse at low levels. A 10th level party can handle a CR 14 easier than a 2nd level party can handle a CR 6.
Normally, I'd say you just threw a challenge at the players that was too tough. You upped the odds of a TPK significantly, and this was the result. You mentioned that they were well equipped- were they decked out more than typical for their level? Bracers of Dex +2 for a 4th level party isn't that unsual.
I'm guessing that you did give them the necessary gear, however, along with the other advantages you mentioned. Also, some of the party's actions you've related are really stupid. So, in this instance, I'd say they got what they deserved. How in the world was destroying non-factor sections of webbing important? And what type of weapons check on a bow could take 8 rounds?
Was your party actually being serious at the table? Or were they just on a spastic sugar-buzz where everything was a joke to them?
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Congratulations...oh wait your having second thoughts, never mind then.
Personally I think you should reconceptualize the whole situation and try and view TPKs in a more positive light.
I like to think of them as orgasms for DMs.
(OK actually I have never had a TPK - But I want one really badly!)
Every witty response I can think of is inappropriate for these boards.
I can see how they should have survived. I have TPKed my players many times, ussually because suddenly their rolls go sour or my encouter rolls skyrocket. Yours players...idiocy. Pure idiocy.
Been DMing for 27 years and have NEVER fudged a die roll. Read 'em and weep is my motto. Now, agreeing with Sebastian, sometimes if bad luck kills a player I might come up with some slightly cheesy help to get PCs back on their feet. But in all my years of play I've had exactly one TPK. Character deaths are beyond number but the *whole* party? Exactly once and even then it only happened through *extremely* suicidal play on the players' parts.
I was thinking from the get-go that your "the drider should've been challenging but not overpowerful" theory wasn't entirely accurate but regardless of the challenge rating I think the TPK would've likely happened anyway in view of the players' foolishness. Still, your "I finally did it" after only 3 years of play makes me a little nervous. Do you think a couple years is a long interval between TPKs? What kind of game are you running? I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable at your table. (no offense intended). Though individual character deaths are the spice of life (they keep everyone on their toes and lets them know that every encounter could be their last), I think TPKs are best when extremely rare. Learning experience? yes. But campaign disruptor? definitely. Fosterer of respect & fun? not always - the pendulum can really swing on that one.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though the scenario you described was probably unavoidable, don't regard TPKs as too much of a positive thing or else your players will never develop rich,complicated characters or fully invest themselves in a campaign/plotline. Then it ends up being no fun for anyone.
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I fudge dice rolls in the interest of story, but not to make things 'easy' for the players. If I'm rolling consecutive natural 20s for a pack of kobolds, I'll usually adjust them down so that they are just hits instead of crits. This said, however, I have 2 TPKs under my belt with 12 years of DMing experience. One was in a Ravenloft game (the setting with perhaps the highest mortality rate ever) and it was because of a certain overzealous rogue spying a statue holding six masterwork weapons and not bothering to check if they were trapped. The other was in a White Wolf game (Vampire, to be exact) early in my days of running that particular game. I was unaware of how nasty werewolves were in that system until after that tragedy. (Hmm... 4 vampires should be able to take on 3 werewolves, right?)
I agree with Lady Aurora for the most part here, though. TPKs should never be seen as anything 'good.' A TPK means putting an end to the characters that your players have spent a great deal of time and attention to and have likely grown somewhat attached to up until the point where an encounter goes wrong and kills the lot of them.
I never wipe players under 5th level, your in kiddie land and I give lots of breaks and am mostly only interested that players really get into defining their players personality and code of conduct; at 5th level the kid gloves come off and your in teenage land; more expectations but there are consequences, fudge a few rolls, give a few breaks and maybe a do-over; at 10th level your an adult in my twisted sense of gaming and I dont fudge or pull and punches and let the chips land where they may. hehe, I would never tell my players this as they might be offended, but is my credo; luckily, they dont read these boards :)
This is just my obscure personal scale of my thoughts on killing players as a gm. In your place, I would give them each a quarter for another life, buy them each a soda or an ice cream, and reset the game and try again. These are more or less our house rules to show it is a friendly game; any game we play where a guy gets wiped, skunked or smeared, the winner buys a soda or ice cream for the looser.
Thank you corrupted bookmarks!(and here was me thinking the Paizo site was down...)
Anyways. I'm going to have to thank everyone for their advice and insight provided so far on the subject. The drider could have been an overpowering encounter, I agree, but considering the situation and knowing my PC's they should have been able to cope with it, they didn't due to some stupid mistakes. S~#$ happens and they know now I'm not going to hold a hand over their head every time.
That said, I've started them on a new adventure with new char's and so far they've been enjoying themselves. I took the liberty of discussing the TPK with them and pointed out a few mistakes that they had made. General opinion is that they botched and that things like this happen, all in all it was a TPK but my PC's did commend me on letting them go out fighting for something their character cared for. Since their new party is in the same general area they'll hear about what happened to their previous group. Considering they coordinated the defence of (and subsequent retreat from) Greyendal when the captain was struck by a sniper they'll be hailed as heroes. Dead heroes. But heroes none the less.
And I'll say it again, thanks for the advice(positive and negative) and next time, no more driders. Oh wait, they're level 7 now, yes, driders, lots of them. :)
Hey man, at least it's not as bad as the one that happenend to my party in the age of worms. They were in the dragon citadel thingy and they triggered the trap that drops a giant gelatenous cube on them. They all failed fort saves, got paralyzed and digested. They're level? 19. The CR of the creature? 10