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In the end its up to the DM. I would hope that the reason they run games is to have fun. Killing a character when they are down can make sense some times but in general sin't really cool. Now having said that I've cast Hold Person on someone and had them CDG'ed repeatedly, was there PLENTY of time for other PCs to come and help? Yes. Did they? No. Did the PC end up dying no, he eventually got help, but made 3 or 4 rounds of save or dies (from a 3E game). Was he super pissed? Yes. Not at me but at the Player who ignored his obvious life threatening plight.
From a game/story perspective it can make sense if a BBEG does it, I suppose. I tend to lean towards the unconscious character lending a sense of urgency and distraction into the fight. Player X has to get to Player Y before he bleeds out, these situations tend to lend a bit of drama and excitement to things. If you always kill the character its just grim and hopeless anytime you fall, that doesn't sound like fun to me.
Also remember PCs are special. Special and crazy adrenalin addicted, greedy murder machines that almost always kill everything in their paths. They tend to do things a certain way because of necessity and the inherent weirdness of the game. Monsters and NPCs aren't the same way, most of the time, so having them behave in the same fashion is weird. In certain specific cases yeah sure, but as a rule of thumb no.
The rule of thumb is to have fun, your group/community decide on what that means. Talk with your group and figure out what everyone is comfortable with. Its one of those things you don't want to find out after the fact.
In the end its up to the DM. I would hope that the reason they run games is to have fun. Killing a character when they are down can make sense some times but in general sin't really cool. Now having said that I've cast Hold Person on someone and had them CDG'ed repeatedly, was there PLENTY of time for other PCs to come and help? Yes. Did they? No. Did the PC end up dying no, he eventually got help, but made 3 or 4 rounds of save or dies (from a 3E game). Was he super pissed? Yes. Not at me but at the Player who ignored his obvious life threatening plight.
From a game/story perspective it can make sense if a BBEG does it, I suppose. I tend to lean towards the unconscious character lending a sense of urgency and distraction into the fight. Player X has to get to Player Y before he bleeds out, these situations tend to lend a bit of drama and excitement to things. If you always kill the character its just grim and hopeless anytime you fall, that doesn't sound like fun to me.
Also remember PCs are special. Special and crazy adrenalin addicted, greedy murder machines that almost always kill everything in their paths. They tend to do things a certain way because of necessity and the inherent weirdness of the game. Monsters and NPCs aren't the same way, most of the time, so having them behave in the same fashion is weird. In certain specific cases yeah sure, but as a rule of thumb no.
The rule of thumb is to have fun, your group/community decide on what that means. Talk with your group and figure out what everyone is comfortable with. Its one of those things you don't want to find out after the fact.
I disagree with some of this. My monster are not just statblocks. Yeah the PC's are special which is why they get extra gold, and extra ability points and so one, to help them survive, but other than that they should not expect any favors.
Is dying cool? Of course not. Am I saying never show mercy? I am not. I am saying your prescribed way to run a game is ok for many people, but many players will get mad if you don't kill them.The best answer is to sit down as a group and decide how much help you think a GM should give to you so that a decent compromise has been reached between the players and the GM.
The only way I can see this making sense is if maybe some evil cleric wants to kill the fallen PC to raise as a zombie...Hmmm, well...where did that just happen last Sunday? ;-)
(Poor guy -- played down for no-credit, and ends up getting killed. Sometimes the gods just hate you.)
Actually there are many reasons. It might be easier to kill you and then have someone cast speak with dead to interrogate your corpse.
Or you might just dislike your enemies coming back to haunt you, and with spells like raise dead, reincarnate, and so forth being pretty easy to acquire in your typical campaign setting, you might want to put an end to that. The easiest way is burning the body (in Dungeon Siege there is a combat spell that exists solely to set corpses aflame so they cannot be raised), or animating them as undead (making their body unsuitable for returning the soul and positive energy to it).
Likewise, bad guys have a lot of reasons to kill if only out of spite. Think about it. If things are looking grim, take as many of them with you as you can. You're going to try and hurt them as much as you can. Some enemies might even be fanatical or suicidal. If you're a crazed badguy who refuses to meet justice but is horribly wounded, and you're surrounded by good guys, innocents, and wounded folks, dropping a fireball bead (such as from a necklace of fireballs) on yourself can easily cause as much spite-damage as possible while destroying you and your body.
Seriously, in a world of fantasy where being resurrected is a possibility, I imagine people would fight to the death even more ferociously than people in reality would.
I know right? Man, where are people's honor or sense of pride? Heck, I beat Donkey Kong / Donkey Kong Jr. when I was a little kid.Ok, I'm gonna call BS on this one. You reached Donkey Kong's kill screen? Very very few people have ever done that.
I've never played the arcade Donkey Kong, but the game was ported to the NES as a combo game which included Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. on the same cartridge (like Mario & Duck Hunt did).
I did this when I was a small child. Also DK Jr. I also beat Aladdin, Barbie Super Model, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Harvest Moon, Super Mario World, on the SNES, rocked Street Fighter II Champion Ship Edition (hardest difficulty which plays a different credit role with different music when you do), and the Power Rangers fighting game on the Sega Genesis, Mortal Kombat I & II for Sega Gensis (gotta love the blood code, which I recall to this day). NIGHTS, X-Men Children of the Atom, and Virtual Cop for Sega Saturn; X-Men vs Street Fighter, Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha, Final Fantasy VII (including beating Ruby and Emerald Weapon), Legend of Mana, Bloody Roar, Azure Dreams, Metal Gear Solid, Harvest Moon Back to Nature, Parasite Eve, Marvel Super Heroes, Saga Frontier, Bushido Blade, and Chocobo Racing for the the Playstation. Harvest Moon 64, Pokemon Stadium I & II, Pokemon Snap, and Super Smash Brothers for N64.
On slightly more modern consoles, Knights of the Old Republic I & II, Metal Gear Solid Sons of Liberty, Portal, Magic: Battlegrounds, Fable I & II, Unreal: Championship II, Mortal Kombat Deception, MK: Annihilation, MK: Armegeddon, Guilty Gear X, Guilty Gear X2#Reload, Spiderman II, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Assassin's Creed I & II, Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, Red Dead Redemption, Devil May Cry, Dynasty Warriors II & III, Resident Evil 5, Phantasy Star Online (original Dreamcast + Gamecube version), Jet Set Radio (Dreamcast), Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, and Super Smash Brothers Melee.
If you want my PC game list, it includes Warcraft III, Battle Realms, Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition, KotoR I & II (there's an extra area in KotoR that isn't on the X-Box version), Diablo II, Age of Mythologies, Baldur's Gate, and Dawn of War: The Dark Crusade.
Gameboy games include Pokemon Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Leaf Green, and Diamond, Harvest Moon GB (my cousin thought I had cheated because I had hit the cap for money, wood, and pretty much every resource), Survival Kids (I haven't gotten every ending though), Mighty Morphing Power Rangers the Movie, and The Jetsons.
Those are merely the games I beat / played all the way through. It might not seem like much to some, or it might seem like a lot to some, but let me just say I had an absolute blast doing it in every case, and it wasn't because I was whiny, threw tantrums, or blamed others when I failed or didn't succeed. Some of them on that list (such as Devil May Cry) are kind of a b@~+~ too...
EDIT: As for the game I mentioned, Dino Riki, I own it in hardcopy and have since before Kindergarden. Here is the game so you can see it, since it's a bit obscure. It's insanely hard, but also very fun.
Note the description on the video page.
Notorious for its difficulty, the adventures of dino riki can be offputting. I dont think its necessarily bad because of this and after some practice it can be quite enjoyable, despite me getting owned by it. Several times.
EDIT 2: Here is a better video. The Adventures of Dino Riki, and this player manages to get the 3rd power-up, the boomerang. Still can't seem to get past the first stage, sadly. :(
The group tried several things to try and get the swarm off me, but the Gm just wanted to kill someone (as far as I can tell). So, after the group spent/wasted ALL their remaining healing trying to keep me from dying, eventually the swarm killed my character. I think we totaled that it did something like 40 damage to me between the healing and the damage over many rounds before I finally died. (Mind you, we were all only lvl 2.)
This is why I think the DM was wrong. Now I don't know what things they tried, but they were willing to invest all their remaining healing in an effort to save this 1 character, so they must have thought it was a reasonable effort with a reasonable chance of success. Maybe everybody in the group was having an off day, but in my experience that is rare. Usually someone in a group will have a good idea. So without knowing more, IMHO it sounds like the GM just ignored their efforts.
The group tried several things to try and get the swarm off me, but the Gm just wanted to kill someone (as far as I can tell). So, after the group spent/wasted ALL their remaining healing trying to keep me from dying, eventually the swarm killed my character. I think we totaled that it did something like 40 damage to me between the healing and the damage over many rounds before I finally died. (Mind you, we were all only lvl 2.)This is why I think the DM was wrong. Now I don't know what things they tried, but they were willing to invest all their remaining healing in an effort to save this 1 character, so they must have thought it was a reasonable effort with a reasonable chance of success. Maybe everybody in the group was having an off day, but in my experience that is rare. Usually someone in a group will have a good idea. So without knowing more, IMHO it sounds like the GM just ignored their efforts.
I see two things here. They supposedly keep healing the guy in the swarm, but are too dumb to, I dunno, just remove the guy from the swarm. I mean, pick his butt up and carry him off. The guy mentions he falls into a pit with a swarm in it. Sounds like standard adventuring fare. So did he get out of the pit, or did someone jump in to start healing him?
Also, most swarms are mindless (at least, I think there are more vermin swarms than not), so I somehow doubt going "Come get me sparky, and stop chewing on the downed piece of flesh you're already socks-deep into", or even striking it with weapons is really going to stop it. The only way I've seen in game (as a DM or PC) is to remove the victim from the swarm, possibly introducing a new target to "tank" the swarm by making him the next best target (ok, so I grab you and drag you away from the swarm, meanwhile Barbarian McLots o' Hp interjects, and is now the closest foe to the swarm, so the swarm probably carpets him instead - now that's a friend!).
So they were apparently able to touch him to heal him, but never thought to just drag the dude away from the swarm. Assuming of course he was unconscious and now would just be a heavy load. If he was actually alive and kicking sometime after being healed, he should have run since swarms get no attacks of opportunities.
It would also depend on what sort of swarm it is. If it was something like a bee swarm, the GM might have considered that bees target enemies by pheromones, and being stung attracts more bees to sting that enemy, resulting in bees chasing you.
There's a lot of variables we don't know, and some of his information appears to contradict: when did he get out of the pit for them to heal him; how did they try to distract or entice the swarm away; how did they try to save him from the swarm; etc.
Honestly, it sounds like he dun goofed is what it sounds like.
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I have to agree to the majority here. I consider it bad form to have the opponents act non-natural.
-Ooze (or swarm) having downed a PC, being un-threatened by whatever goes on some dozen feet away? Nom nom time!
-Same swarm crawling over a PC when the square is being doused by Alchemist Fire? You can bet they will leave that square (and possibly swarm the thrower)
-Will a mook that downed you take the time for a CDG when your comrade charges him? Not likely. Not even if he can estimate that he can take your comrade's charge (Yah for self preservation)
-However, if you aggravated that same mook enough that he just wants you dead Well, it seems you're out of luck.
Not so mention that intelligent opponents my call for a 'Freeze, or your friend's dead' after dropping you.
So, it all depends on the participants and the situation.
When I am GM, I normally would not do this with most foes. First, because I do feel it can be a little unfair. But also and moreover because for even vaguely intelligent foes, if someone is unconscious and bleeding, they are no longer a threat, and they will focus on the still-standing targets, especially so they can't go to the aid of the fallen PC.
If there WAS a foe that would reasonably do such a thing---the foe is very hungry and will start to eat the first available "food" or the foe is cruel and destructive or particularly hates that PC---I will warn the players beforehand so they know that dropping unconscious will be immediately dangerous.
I however largely run a nonlethal game (ignores the cries of "lies!" and "don't believe her!" from my players) and am not out to TPK on a regular basis. Some GMs prefer a very deadly, very dangerous, gritty game and many players enjoy that style too--as long as everyone OOCly on the same page that that's the kind of game it's going to be and have agreed upon that, there shouldn't be a problem.
If there WAS a foe that would reasonably do such a thing---the foe is very hungry and will start to eat the first available "food" or the foe is cruel and destructive or particularly hates that PC---I will warn the players beforehand so they know that dropping unconscious will be immediately dangerous.
This should not require a warning, ever. That's like warning someone that allowing their opponent to reach the "Finish Him" point in Mortal Kombat is "immediately dangerous".
The group tried several things to try and get the swarm off me, but the Gm just wanted to kill someone (as far as I can tell). So, after the group spent/wasted ALL their remaining healing trying to keep me from dying, eventually the swarm killed my character. I think we totaled that it did something like 40 damage to me between the healing and the damage over many rounds before I finally died. (Mind you, we were all only lvl 2.)This is why I think the DM was wrong. Now I don't know what things they tried, but they were willing to invest all their remaining healing in an effort to save this 1 character, so they must have thought it was a reasonable effort with a reasonable chance of success. Maybe everybody in the group was having an off day, but in my experience that is rare. Usually someone in a group will have a good idea. So without knowing more, IMHO it sounds like the GM just ignored their efforts.
The GM can't be inherently wrong because what is right or wrong is subjective since many people play for different reasons. I would have been more annoyed if I had been saved. I don't like handouts, which is how I would view it. I want my title of hero to be earned without an asterisk next to it.
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My group knows that when they eat a full attack from a non-intelligent beast, the run the risk of getting killed.
My group knows that intelligent, evil creatures will kill for the fun of it.
My group knows that intelligent humanoids may use a coup de grace to prevent an opponent from being healed back into the fight. They may also do it to demoralize the PCs and take their fighting spirit.
It all comes down to what level of danger your players are ok with. Just communicate clearly.
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The GM can't be inherently wrong because what is right or wrong is subjective since many people play for different reasons. I would have been more annoyed if I had been saved. I don't like handouts, which is how I would view it. I want my title of hero to be earned without an asterisk next to it.
Like you say, "right or wrong is subjective" and in my subjective opinion, with the information we do have and my experience with gaming groups, the DM was wrong. Further information about the encounter, more specifically what the group tried to do to save him (other than healing him), could change my mind. I am not convinced that a swarm would act like that.
Futhermore, he wouldn't have been saved by a handout from the DM, he would have been saved by the actions of his comrades. Does "The group tried several things to try and get the swarm off me" and "the group spent/wasted ALL their remaining healing trying to keep me from dying" mean nothing. IMO, his death should have an asterisk beside it, *intentionally killed by DM.
It boils down to what a group considers are "natural" actions for the monster in question.
My group knows that when they eat a full attack from a non-intelligent beast, the run the risk of getting killed.
My group knows that intelligent, evil creatures will kill for the fun of it.
My group knows that intelligent humanoids may use a coup de grace to prevent an opponent from being healed back into the fight. They may also do it to demoralize the PCs and take their fighting spirit.
It all comes down to what level of danger your players are ok with. Just communicate clearly.
Sure thing. So, what does the clever group do if one of them is down, and they have reasons to suspect the opponent won't stop at that?
Give him something to worry about. Like, threatening the guy, or targeting the monster's instincts on a priority level above 'feed'.Like you say, "right or wrong is subjective" and in my subjective opinion, with the information we do have and my experience with gaming groups, the DM was wrong. Further information about the encounter, more specifically what the group tried to save him (other than healing him), could change my mind. I am not convinced that a swarm would act like that.
Futhermore, he wouldn't have been saved by a handout from the DM, he would have been saved by the actions of his comrades. Does "The group tried several things to try and get the swarm off me" and "the group spent/wasted ALL their remaining healing trying to keep me from dying" mean nothing. IMO, his death should have an asterisk beside it, *intentionally killed by DM.
I'm with you on the subject that we need more information about the encounter. However, just healing him while he is being swarmed is doing nothing to dissuade the swarm from just continuing to do what it is doing.
Dragging him out might help (of course, the swarm is bound to follow unless locking on a new target). Dragging him out and blocking the direct path will probably help. Heck, even letting him where he is and tossing some alchemist fire on the square would probably cause the swarm to leave the square, at least temporarily (just hope he can eat that fire damage, though).It boils down to what a group considers are "natural" actions for the monster in question.
100% agreement to that.
Futhermore, he wouldn't have been saved by a handout from the DM, he would have been saved by the actions of his comrades. Does "The group tried several things to try and get the swarm off me" and "the group spent/wasted ALL their remaining healing trying to keep me from dying" mean nothing. IMO, his death should have an asterisk beside it, *intentionally killed by DM.
Again, he didn't say what those actions were. In fact, much of his lamentations made little to no sense, or were incomplete. He said he fell into the swarm via a pit. Next he says the party uses all their healing trying to save him. Did the party climb into the pit? Did he climb out? What happened?
He said they tried to draw the swarm off. How did they try to do this? He then said they tried several things to get the swarm off him, but didn't note what those several things were. It's highly probably that their actions were just really poor.
I mean, you cannot smack talk a swarm. You cannot taunt a swarm. You can't wave a flare around and distract them like Malcolm in Jurassic Park. You can't beat them off. All he said was the GM was apparently just out to kill him, but apparently no one else at the table; though he did note several others fell unconscious during the game, implying he wasn't singling him out for beatings either.
Seriously, what exactly did they do? It doesn't sound like they were trying very hard, since nobody thought to just pull him out of the swarm, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume maybe they were panicked and weren't thinking clearly.
But seriously, again, this sounds like a stuff up on the party's side. At least until some more light is shed on the subject.
It boils down to what a group considers are "natural" actions for the monster in question.
My point was that my style of play does not determine what is right or wrong. Even if I had been saved by a GM at best I can say I did not like his choice, but that does not make him wrong.
With regard to natural:
A swarm is too stupid with an int of - to recognize another threat, even if the PC's were a threat which they weren't.
If it were intelligent it would realize by killing the guy who was down it would have one less foe to deal with. If it does not kill him then the cleric heals him, and he is outnumbered even more.
The GM did not make the fun decision, but he did make the natural or logical decision whether the monster was mindless or intelligent.
The natural decision was to keep eating, and ignore the healing that was going on.
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Yes, it is bad form. Sadly it happens a lot.
It actually happened to me during a PFS event at Paizocon, run by someone from Paizo.
I had a character stuck down a pit with a swarm eating me. I went negative and the swarm kept eating me. Another player came over to try and draw the swarm off me, but the Gm decided that it would rather continue eating me. The group tried several things to try and get the swarm off me, but the Gm just wanted to kill someone (as far as I can tell). So, after the group spent/wasted ALL their remaining healing trying to keep me from dying, eventually the swarm killed my character. I think we totaled that it did something like 40 damage to me between the healing and the damage over many rounds before I finally died. (Mind you, we were all only lvl 2.)This left me with about an hour left in the scenario with NOTHING to do at all. My brother (the one desperately trying to get the swarm off me) and I were so mad at the GM we could barely look at him. After the scenario, since everyone else lived or merely went unconscious, we were all told that we could use these characters again. Except for me, of course, because I died. Honestly, I expected a lot more from an official Paizo GM. It would have been very simple to have the swarm go after another target, leaving me unconscious. The scenario was quite enjoyable (and very challenging) up until this choice by the GM.
GMs should NOT try to kill someone. GMs should make the game fun.
Wolf lord my sympathies are with you.
Let me present two situations.
These were both PFS games where I was GMing
In one situation, there was a bar room brawl. The party was taking on an evil fighter, and a couple of mooks. A few rounds into the battle, (its been a while) and the paladin went down. The fighter turned and attacked another character. The paladin got healed a little bit. The paladin then attacked the fighter from his prone position behind the fighter. I then turned and had the fighter hit the paladin again. He did enough damage to kill the paladin.
The fighter did go down, but there was a casualty.
Here is another situation
There was a new player joining for the evening, she was the roommate of a friend of mine. The first thing she said was “ I’m willing to give this game another try, the last time two times I played the Dungeon Master killed my characters. I really hope that doesn’t happen again.
She was playing a roguish type character. Her character was scouting ahead, with a protection form evil spell cast on her, out on a stone bridge, when she was attacked by a winged devil wielding a trident.
I rolled my 20-sided dice and got a 20. I rolled again and I got an 18. I think the dice rolled out from behind the GM screen for all to see. I looked at the creature’s stats, and well the devil was going to do enough damage to kill her 1st level character twice over.
Grasping at a straw, I decided, that since the devil was a summoned outsider, the protection from evil spell would have prevented the devil from making contact with her, and thus she was never hit by the weapon, so she was fine and The rest of the party arrived and engaged the devil and killed it. (I had no idea if the devil was summoned, or wandered in through a gate)
Now, obviously I have as a GM behaved inconsistently. Was I wrong in how I handled either instance?
In the first example, luckily my friend, an experience player, took his paladin’s death in his stride. I wasn’t trying to kill the paladin; I just thought I was going to put him into negative hit points again. The party was in Absolom, and I decided they had enough time regardless of what the module said, to take this character to a temple of Abadar so the player could have his character raised, and we could then continue to the next encounter.
I thought it important for my friend to be able to get back into the game quickly.
In the second instance, I had a new player and she was having fun, She playing her character well, she just had the bad luck to have her character skewered by a devil. She specifically said, “I hope my character doesn’t die again”. I guess I felt it was more important at that moment to have kept a new player’s interest in the game, then adhering blindly to the RAW text and sticking with the dice.
So Wolf lord my sympathies are with you. While on the one hand it does make sense that a swarm of bugs wound want to continue to devour the morsel they have covered, I think as a GM you also have to take your players into consideration. Is there a reasonable chance for the player’s ideas to work? Is the player going to be stuck with nothing to do for an hour? There is nothing more frustrating then having all of your efforts seem futile because the GM seems bent on one course of action. So Wolf lord my sympathies are with you…. that sounded like a very frustrating situation.
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My group knows that when they eat a full attack from a non-intelligent beast, the run the risk of getting killed.
My group knows that intelligent, evil creatures will kill for the fun of it.
My group knows that intelligent humanoids may use a coup de grace to prevent an opponent from being healed back into the fight. They may also do it to demoralize the PCs and take their fighting spirit.
It all comes down to what level of danger your players are ok with. Just communicate clearly.Sure thing. So, what does the clever group do if one of them is down, and they have reasons to suspect the opponent won't stop at that?
Give him something to worry about. Like, threatening the guy, or targeting the monster's instincts on a priority level above 'feed'.
Oh they do many things: Bull rush the CDGing entity away, kill it before it can kill their friend, eat multiple AoOs to get within healing range, etc.
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Not that it matters, but I will try to provide some facts on my case of the put swarm death. The scenario started out with everyone having NO equipment AT ALL (no armor, no weapons, no potions, no scrolls, no swords or bows, etc.), save for one dagger-sized item that could be concealed. We asked if we could bring our alchemist's fire and the DM said, "NO." (We were captives). So we had thieves tools, a flute, two daggers, and a mirror. We did a jailbreak. The point of the scenario was to see how far we could get. It was supposed to grind us down until everyone went unconscious or died. (We only found this out after the session).
We also encountered Duergar dwarves (with us at 2nd lvl and no equipment, mind you). The only equipment we had was what we found by exploring (some picks). We NEVER did get our normal equipment back, not because we didn't look, but because it was never there for us to find.
Anyhoo, the pit was something like 20 feet deep with very slick sides and required a very high climb check (very hard for even a fighter at 2nd lvl). We HAD to pass the pit and some of us fell in, like me. So I took falling damage, and then the swarm (spiders or scarabs, I think it was) started eating us. They took up pretty much the entirety of the pit's area so the only way to escape them was to climb back up the nearly impossible walls. If we failed, we fell and took falling damage and the swarm munched us some more. (Again, we were lvl 2 so I had something like 13 HP total.) Between falling and the swarm damage (the DM rolled max damage almost every roll) I went unconscious. I was also the primary healer in the party, which never helps. So a few members of the party climbed/fell down to try and get the swarm off me and heal me with a few potions we found and a few other cure spells. In doing so, they also took damage since the swarm took up the entire floor space. (2x2 squares, if I recall correctly). The party tried summoning monsters to draw off the swarm as well to no avail. The last ditch effort by the party was to summon a dog right at the edge of the pit and bark loudly at the swarm. THIS is the defining moment where the GM could have decided to divert the swarm to the dog, but instead chose to continue killing me. It was his call, but in general I would have expected someone from Paizo to make the call in favor of "everyone plays" instead of "someone definitely dies and sits there for an hour with nothing to do." I never went above 0, and my HP tally was looking like this with the healing and damage: -3, -1, -7, -3, -9, -7,-6, -3, -12(dead).
So, I could literally do NOTHING as I was slowly eaten to death by the swarm in an unconscious state. Nor could anyone throw alchemist's fire because the DM specifically said we couldn't have it (tho it was on our character sheets). Nor did anyone have any aoe attack spells. Nobody could pull me out of the pit, nor could I climb out of the pit. The party members who went into the pit to try and get me barely escaped the swarm and were severely damaged.
/shrug. It's all in the past, but like I said, I expected more. I didn't want or expect a handout, but when the party's actions and improvisational gameplay / creative solutions (something they seem to support) have no effect AT ALL on the outcome, I feel kind of cheated.
Also, at one point before I as killed another Paizo GM came by and asked our GM, "Have you killed anyone yet?" The way he said it suggested that our GM did this a lot or thought it was cool to kill players. Our Gm answered along the lines of, "Not yet, but the game is still early." :(
It was a PFS based event (rules for char creation, and other PFS rules), but not official PFS. One-off convention exclusive thing. We created 2nd lvl chars. However, the GM said we could use our chars in PFS moving forward.
Not that it matters, but I will try to provide some facts on my case of the put swarm death. The scenario started out with everyone having NO equipment AT ALL (no armor, no weapons, no potions, no scrolls, no swords or bows, etc.), save for one dagger-sized item that could be concealed. We asked if we could bring our alchemist's fire and the DM said, "NO." (We were captives). So we had thieves tools, a flute, two daggers, and a mirror. We did a jailbreak. The point of the scenario was to see how far we could get. It was supposed to grind us down until everyone went unconscious or died. (We only found this out after the session).
We also encountered Duergar dwarves (with us at 2nd lvl and no equipment, mind you). The only equipment we had was what we found by exploring (some picks). We NEVER did get our normal equipment back, not because we didn't look, but because it was never there for us to find.
Anyhoo, the pit was something like 20 feet deep with very slick sides and required a very high climb check (very hard for even a fighter at 2nd lvl). We HAD to pass the pit and some of us fell in, like me. So I took falling damage, and then the swarm (spiders or scarabs, I think it was) started eating us. They took up pretty much the entirety of the pit's area so the only way to escape them was to climb back up the nearly impossible walls. If we failed, we fell and took falling damage and the swarm munched us some more. (Again, we were lvl 2 so I had something like 13 HP total.) Between falling and the swarm damage (the DM rolled max damage almost every roll) I went unconscious. I was also the primary healer in the party, which never helps. So a few members of the party climbed/fell down to try and get the swarm off me and heal me with a few potions we found and a few other cure spells. In doing so, they also took damage since the swarm took up the entire floor space. (2x2 squares, if I recall correctly). The party tried summoning monsters to draw off the swarm as well to no avail. The last...
What scenario was this? Pathfinder Society is not supposed to ensure death or make it over 50% from what I know of their scenarios.
If the situation calls for it, do it.
Facing a hated enemy who they've run into a lot? The bad guy is sure as hell going to skewer the guy on the ground.
Facing zombies? They have no intelligence. They're as likely to hit you as they are to ... do nothing. So yes, they would eat.
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(Just a general note that a scouting rogue is typically very difficult to surprise or beat on initiative unless they're badly built. They shouldn't be "box-texted" into an ambush.)There was a new player joining for the evening, she was the roommate of a friend of mine. The first thing she said was “ I’m willing to give this game another try, the last time two times I played the Dungeon Master killed my characters. I really hope that doesn’t happen again.
She was playing a roguish type character. Her character was scouting ahead, with a protection form evil spell cast on her, out on a stone bridge, when she was attacked by a winged devil wielding a trident.
IMO you made a good "save" to keep a player in the game. (A summoned creature has to make a will save to attack a Protection'ed target.)I rolled my 20-sided dice and got a 20. I rolled again and I got an 18. I think the dice rolled out from behind the GM screen for all to see. I looked at the creature's stats, and well the devil was going to do enough damage to kill her 1st level character twice over.
Grasping at a straw, I decided, that since the devil was a summoned outsider, the protection from evil spell would have prevented the devil from making contact with her, and thus she was never hit by the weapon, so she was fine and The rest of the party arrived and engaged the devil and killed it. (I had no idea if the devil was summoned, or wandered in through a gate)
Now, obviously I have as a GM behaved inconsistently. Was I wrong in how I handled either instance?
I don't think so. The first guy made a very unwise gamble attacking from prone while weak; and it was only natural that the opponent would take out the easy target first on his next turn.
The graveyards are full of stupid paladins.
I went unconscious. I was also the primary healer in the party, which never helps. So a few members of the party climbed/fell down to try and get the swarm off me and heal me with a few potions we found and a few other cure spells. In doing so, they also took damage since the swarm took up the entire floor space. (2x2 squares, if I recall correctly). The party tried summoning monsters to draw off the swarm as well to no avail. The last ditch effort by the party was to summon a dog right at the edge of the pit and bark loudly at the swarm. THIS is the defining moment where the GM could have decided to divert the swarm to the dog, but instead chose to continue killing me. It was his call, but in general I would have expected someone from Paizo to make the call in favor of "everyone plays" instead of "someone definitely dies and sits there for an hour with nothing to do." I never went above 0, and my HP tally was looking like this with the healing and damage: -3, -1, -7, -3, -9, -7,-6, -3, -12(dead).
Why would a mindless swarm chase anyone when it had food right there? Nothing you listed, nothing would have helped. They would not climb out ( leaving food they had) to chase something, nor would a barking dog make them come out and attack.
You simply have listed nothing that would have saved you. sorry man it sucks but I can't call that a bad call.
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Sure thing. So, what does the clever group do if one of them is down, and they have reasons to suspect the opponent won't stop at that?
It's been awhile since I played a dwarf spam-can fighter, but here's one trick that will save a fallen ally's life:
1) Fight with a tower shield.
2) Move into fallen ally's square and declare you're granting cover to your ally as your standard action. (You hunker down over his prone body, and the square "edge" you are granting cover against is "up", treating the square as a cube with vertical dimension.)
3) Tell the GM you're forfeiting your shield bonus to AC.
- - - -
If you're more worried about coup de grace against a Sleeping ally (who still has a lot of hit-points), simply being in your ally's square will prevent most attempts (because the bad guy will take an opp from you or anyone else adjacent).
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I went unconscious. I was also the primary healer in the party, which never helps. So a few members of the party climbed/fell down to try and get the swarm off me and heal me with a few potions we found and a few other cure spells. In doing so, they also took damage since the swarm took up the entire floor space. (2x2 squares, if I recall correctly). The party tried summoning monsters to draw off the swarm as well to no avail. The last ditch effort by the party was to summon a dog right at the edge of the pit and bark loudly at the swarm. THIS is the defining moment where the GM could have decided to divert the swarm to the dog, but instead chose to continue killing me. It was his call, but in general I would have expected someone from Paizo to make the call in favor of "everyone plays" instead of "someone definitely dies and sits there for an hour with nothing to do." I never went above 0, and my HP tally was looking like this with the healing and damage: -3, -1, -7, -3, -9, -7,-6, -3, -12(dead).Why would a mindless swarm chase anyone when it had food right there? Nothing you listed, nothing would have helped. They would not climb out ( leaving food they had) to chase something, nor would a barking dog make them come out and attack.
You simply have listed nothing that would have saved you. sorry man it sucks but I can't call that a bad call.
Leaving aside the issue of whether or not this mod sucked -- ("You start without equipment, then fight a swarm in a pit!"; "My Alchemist's Fire?"; "Sorry; box-text eats it!") -- I'd say that summoning the dog into the pit would have been a better idea.
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If the bad guy isn't afraid of your AoO, nothing can stop him from delivering the CdG.
Unless your opp is a maneuver of some sort which drives him away from the body or makes it impossible for him to continue with his attack. (Pole-arm equipped fighters with Pushing Assault, and Flowing Monks, effin *rule* here.)
I am tempted to buy this scenario to see how much of it was altered, and to use it the next time someone ask me for a hardcore game, once I find out what it is anyway.
Again, if he isn't afraid of it (too much AC/CMD/HP to be affected) then nothing can stop him.
Sure thing. Question is, does he know he has nothing to fear (the character, not the player), and does he have the guts to call it?
Wolflord, that doesn't sound like bad DMing... other than the DM picked a bad scenario, UNLESS he set the expectation up front that it was a gauntlet to see how long you guys could last. That is the defining moment... picking the scenario.
After that point though, once you get into the discussion of the pit and the swarm, there is no reason I can see that would have kept him from killing you.
The dice can turn on you... and falling into a pit with a swarm that can kill you CAN be the unfortunate consequence. Add to that good die rolls (max dmg) from the GM and more bad rolls trying to get out...
I mean, how many rolls should one guy get to get out alive?
Sean
Wolflord, that doesn't sound like bad DMing... other than the DM picked a bad scenario, UNLESS he set the expectation up front that it was a gauntlet to see how long you guys could last. That is the defining moment... picking the scenario.
After that point though, once you get into the discussion of the pit and the swarm, there is no reason I can see that would have kept him from killing you.
The dice can turn on you... and falling into a pit with a swarm that can kill you CAN be the unfortunate consequence. Add to that good die rolls (max dmg) from the GM and more bad rolls trying to get out...
I mean, how many rolls should one guy get to get out alive?
Sean
One of my players was running a barbarian once. She saw some kobolds taking cover behind some barrels further down a long hallway that was 10 ft wide. The kobolds were about 60 ft from the party when they came into view due to lighting conditions and such. The kobolds were armed with little light crossbows, taking advantage of the barrels for cover. Seeing as they were 60 ft away, the barbarian assumed it would be an excellent time to CHAAAAARGE!
Unfortunately, Kobolds don't play like that. The barbarian charges and then ends up falling into a 20 ft pit trap. Then the kobolds, on their turn, roll one of the barrels, which was filled with oil, down into the pit, splattering it when it hit the ground. Then one of the kobolds tossed an alchemist fire into the pit. The barbarian now had to climb a 20 ft pit at 1/3 movement speed while on fire, while kobolds faught with the party above.
Had it not been for the house rule that I often use allowing people to start with bonus HP (HD * 2 + Con), the barbarian would have been nothing but so much BBQ. When she finally did manage to get out, she collapsed and the party had to douse her. In the meantime, the kobolds used the smoke cover to escape with no losses at all.
It actually happened to me during a PFS event at Paizocon, run by someone from Paizo.
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After the scenario, since everyone else lived or merely went unconscious, we were all told that we could use these characters again. Except for me, of course, because I died. Honestly, I expected a lot more from an official Paizo GM.
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The point of the scenario was to see how far we could get. It was supposed to grind us down until everyone went unconscious or died. (We only found this out after the session).
I think you have a reason to be upset, a scenario with a swarm and no equipment at 2nd level, REALLY! This makes no sense. This kind of killer scenerio should be run with one-shot characters, not PFS characters that a player has some investment in. This just sounds like a really bad idea.
As to blaming the DM, the real blame should be on the scenario. It sounds like a scenario that probably told the DM to have the swarm not move and just finish off anybody in the pit. Perhaps the swarm couldn't climb out of the pit? And at 2nd level with little equipment, there was not much your comrades could do. Though, since apparently all the other characters survived, bad luck could also be to blame.
I would be interested to know which scenario this is.
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...I have seen no GMs willing to finish the full attack and kill the character.
It's not about whether I'm willing to do it. It's about whether the bad guy is willing to, and that is going to vary a great deal based on situation, the specific bad guy, et cetera. As a GM, I've certainly had bad guys engage in some serious playing-for-keeps behavior, to include dropping an ice storm centered on a KOd PC and retreating with a grappled PC so that the PC could be disemboweled with greater ease.
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...I have seen no GMs willing to finish the full attack and kill the character.It's not about whether I'm willing to do it. It's about whether the bad guy is willing to, and that is going to vary a great deal based on situation, the specific bad guy, et cetera. As a GM, I've certainly had bad guys engage in some serious playing-for-keeps behavior, to include dropping an ice storm centered on a KOd PC and retreating with a grappled PC so that the PC could be disemboweled with greater ease.
+1
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...It was supposed to grind us down until everyone went unconscious or died. (We only found this out after the session)...
...We NEVER did get our normal equipment back, not because we didn't look, but because it was never there for us to find...
...the pit was something like 20 feet deep with very slick sides and required a very high climb check (very hard for even a fighter at 2nd lvl). We HAD to pass the pit....
...at one point before I was killed another Paizo GM came by and asked our GM, "Have you killed anyone yet?" The way he said it suggested that our GM did this a lot or thought it was cool to kill players. Our Gm answered along the lines of, "Not yet, but the game is still early"...
...It was a PFS based event (rules for char creation, and other PFS rules), but not official PFS. One-off convention exclusive thing. We created 2nd lvl chars. However, the GM said we could use our chars in PFS moving forward.
So it wasn't a PFS mod but you made 2nd level characters and were told you could keep these characters in regular PFS play?
This whole thing sounds really sketchy. As in "I wouldn't waste my time playing this, it doesn't sound fun, it doesn't sound PFS legal, and I would probably walk away from the table after about a minute and avoid that DM in the future" kind of sketchy.
Do you remember the name of adventure, or who the DM was?
It's not about whether I'm willing to do it. It's about whether the bad guy is willing to, and that is going to vary a great deal based on situation, the specific bad guy, et cetera. As a GM, I've certainly had bad guys engage in some serious playing-for-keeps behavior, to include dropping an ice storm centered on a KOd PC and retreating with a grappled PC so that the PC could be disemboweled with greater ease.
Maybe's it just over the years, I've seen that my players don't really get attached to a character, because they always have a half dozen other ideas in the works.
I find it far more interesting to create npc's that rob a pc blind while they're down, as opposed to killing them.
On the medieval battlefield, it was generally preferable to leave an opponent incapacitated but alive, as opposed to killing them outright; taking down an opponent without killing him often meant getting rid of some of his buddies in the same stroke, as they devoted themselves to getting their buddy to safety--effort which would not be spent if he was dead.
Healing magic does change this dynamic a bit, but that kind of punishment still eats up PC actions
Unintelligent opponents like Animals will generally follow their instincts, but with a few caveats. Their lack of intelligence cuts both ways--while their grasp of tactics is often simplistic, and their minds too limited for mercy or other emotions that might stay their hand, they also lack conception of healing magic, and the possibility that the bleeding creature at their feet might get back up again if the guy in the robes finishes chanting. Thus, to a Wolf standing next to a downed wizard, and a standing half-orc fighter, the fighter is a threat, the wizard isn't. But yeah, if a predatory animal takes down a PC, and there are no other immediate threats...it's not really possible for me to justify the thing not starting to eat.
I find it far more interesting to create npc's that rob a pc blind while they're down, as opposed to killing them.
If that fits the NPC's MO, then certainly. In our most recent Man Day Adventure, the party was fought to a stand-still by a tree-hopping, bow-wielding satyr ranger. Before the satyr retreated, leaving the two conscious PCs behind in a ravine, he snatched up the two magical weapons dropped by the party's cleric and fighter when they succumbed to the satyr's fear spell-like ability.
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As a GM of almost 30 years, there are three ways I use to determine if the downed character (-negative hp) is going to be attacked further:
> Randomly roll
For many neutral monsters and those without agendas, taking another claw whack at the downed PC can be adjudicated with dice. If the number of threats within range = 4, then a d4 handles the situation randomly. If the downed PC is among them, the creature might continue to attack in the heat of combat.
> DM Fiat
I use this very rarely anymore, but in many games its perfectly acceptable for a creature/monster/enemy to attack based on what the GM perceives to be, "the thing that creature/monster/enemy would do" in a case like this. If in context, an npc has a vendetta against a PC and came here to kill that PC, then attacks would continue if reasonable to do so. By contrast, if doing so would get the NPC slayn in turn, perhaps another reasonable target or full withdraw action would suffice.
> Classic Style
In classic situations where the PC is down, the GM gives benefit of doubt, then only compelling reasons to continue attacking would continue the attacks. In game, if the PC is down, the creature/monster/enemy is classicly said to be satisfied with the "kill" and moves on to other "up" targets. This has worked well for years. A combination of the Randomly Roll + Classic Style = good form.
Combinations...
In sum, its generally not "good form" to kick a PC when she's down, without some inherent reason to do so. This is, of course, a generalization, and games should be played "to-taste" as when placing ingredients into a soup. These, among many other approaches, I'm sure play differently among different GMs and player groups.
Caveats
In some groups, especially those comprised of younger players more accustomed to other wargames and video games especially, there is a growing sense of no-holds-barred expecations of the GM to test the characters mettle. In cases where players "think" the GM is a pussy for not continuing the attacks, the GM should continue the attacks deliberately, but rarely enough to keep up the verisimilitude that death is real, and challenges could end in character death. If a campaign goes on too long, without real threats, then the rewards for those games may over time, begin to feel more hollow or undeserved to the players.
Guidance for GMs
If you're killing characters too often, you'll find few groups who enjoy the game over any long stretch of time. If you're too obvious when you "look the other way", or if you "look the other way" too often, your players will also lose the sense of challenge, and start to feel that everything is a cake-walk. Balancing this "art" doesn't require a hard-and-fast rule on when/when not to do it--but does take good audience awareness, and discipline on the part of the GM to use the techniques as often or as infrequent as makes the game feel compelling, challenging, but not necessarily overly antagonistic. Like the story of Goldilocks, GMs need to get this recipe "just right", and that takes some years of practice and in some cases discipline either "to kill, or not to kill". THAT is the question. =)
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Wolflord,
The guys who work for Paizo have a dark sense of humor. There are examples of convention play where they'll rig, as you say, a dungeon to kill PCs, and the question is "how long will you last?" rather than "Will you survive?" One year's worth of killer dungeon rooms was collected in the "Seven Swords of Sin" adventure.
It was a PFS based event (rules for char creation, and other PFS rules), but not official PFS. One-off convention exclusive thing. We created 2nd lvl chars. However, the GM said we could use our chars in PFS moving forward.
Your GM was kidding. Without putting in time as a GM, you never get to start a PFS PC at 2nd level.
On the medieval battlefield, it was generally preferable to leave an opponent incapacitated but alive, as opposed to killing them outright; taking down an opponent without killing him often meant getting rid of some of his buddies in the same stroke, as they devoted themselves to getting their buddy to safety--effort which would not be spent if he was dead.
Healing magic does change this dynamic a bit, but that kind of punishment still eats up PC actions
Unintelligent opponents like Animals will generally follow their instincts, but with a few caveats. Their lack of intelligence cuts both ways--while their grasp of tactics is often simplistic, and their minds too limited for mercy or other emotions that might stay their hand, they also lack conception of healing magic, and the possibility that the bleeding creature at their feet might get back up again if the guy in the robes finishes chanting. Thus, to a Wolf standing next to a downed wizard, and a standing half-orc fighter, the fighter is a threat, the wizard isn't. But yeah, if a predatory animal takes down a PC, and there are no other immediate threats...it's not really possible for me to justify the thing not starting to eat.
In real life you have to stay with someone for an extended amount of time. In the game you channel and then move to engage the bad guy in melee. If you go ahead and kill the PC that is one less person with action economy to use against you. From a total in game perspective not killing them is only stalling your defeat as an NPC.
Wolflord,
The guys who work for Paizo have a dark sense of humor. There are examples of convention play where they'll rig, as you say, a dungeon to kill PCs, and the question is "how long will you last?" rather than "Will you survive?" One year's worth of killer dungeon rooms was collected in the "Seven Swords of Sin" adventure.
Your GM was kidding. Without putting in time as a GM, you never get to start a PFS PC at 2nd level.It was a PFS based event (rules for char creation, and other PFS rules), but not official PFS. One-off convention exclusive thing. We created 2nd lvl chars. However, the GM said we could use our chars in PFS moving forward.
As long as I have been watching this thread I can't believe I missed that sentence. I think the OP got "got". There are no rules in PFS play for such exceptions to be made.
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Wolflord, that sounds like an extremely irritating experience. Now if the event was billed as “prison brake! lets see if you can shank you way to freedom before the guard dogs eat you” , then well you know it’s a meat grinder ahead of time.
If this was sprung on you…and you were led to believe it was an adventure with a reasonable chance of success, the GM was a donkey’s rear end.
“Have you killed anyone yet?” “ not yet but the game is still early” Yeah while it may be in jest, if it isn’t , in my opinion that is a sign of a remarkably skill less GM.
Over the years I have played in more then enough games, where the GM felt he accomplished something by wiping all of his players out. A GM holds all the cards. He has an endless amount of situations, traps and monsters he can throw at the party. Eventually a Player will have a string of bad luck, and something will take a bite out of, or fall on and sqash, or a spell will desintagrate his character.
Now in my opinion, a real challenge for a GM is to balance the challenges and monsters to the party. You want it to be enough of a challenge so they are thinking strategizing, struggling, and afraid they are going to loose their characters, but in the end they get through.
Well I hope you have better games in the future.
Mike Schneider,
Thank you
Concerning the devil and the thief, I think this was one of those unfortunate stiuatiosn where I had a string of good luck, Rolling 19s and 20s, and the player unfortunately was rolling 1s and 2s. I think the devil successfully hid, and then pounced.
Mike, while we do our best to make a good judgment call in flow of the game, it is good to know the descisions were all right.
Chris Mortika, thank you, It’s good to know that the folks at Paizo like to create “meat grinders” for dungeons. If they are up front about it and say, yeah I’ve made a PC death trap, and I’m trying to stuff it as full of PC roaches as I can. I have no problem with that. You can enter your PC at your own risk.
If they aren’t up front about it, and pass it off as a normal dungeon well they will only get me to play once. In my opinion such rigged dungeons would be an example of poor dungeon design and by extension poor GMing.
Oh I did like the seven swords of sin module. The hints of Kaer Maga were fascinating. And yes “half a chicken walk” will live on with my group for a very long time.
Again thank you for all of your thoughts I will continue to read this thread.
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In conventions, you often sign up for a bunch of games, usually with a very short description, and you get randomly assigned to one. It wasn't something I would have walked away from.
It had special rules and was a prototype mission of sorts. It wasn't an official PFS scenario, tho you may see it in the future as a special game scenario. (prolly not for PFS tho). He was using us to help him playtest it. We knew this at the start. We did not know that the goal was to try and kill us all. Or perhaps he wanted to see how strong/balanced it was and didn't know if it would kill us all. I don't begrudge him for that. He said we could use the characters again (except mine, who died). Perhaps I misunderstood and assumed it meant for PFS play. Perhaps he meant in the followup special scenario game next year at the con, I don't know.
To recap my thoughts on the pit situation...
Was the scenario balanced? Definitely not. It was WAAAAY too hard even for a group with a few min/max, optimization freaks, meta-gamers.
Would the swarm have continued to eat me? Possibly. (Depends on how Gm plays swarms). Not sure what the RAW say to do in a situation like this. It's his call, in the end.
Should the GM have allowed the group to call off/distract the swarm using creative solutions? The PFS rules say to encourage creative solutions and they also say that everyone plays. Again, it's his call, but when I GM I tend to favor players having fun vs. the letter of the law. Especially so when it means a player will be sitting there with nothing to do for over an hour and a dead character. The group tried many things to save me from the swarm, and the GM could have allowed any of the things to work (thus preventing my slow death). In the end, I had a lot of fun (it was quite a challenge) UNTIL this event happened.
Do I think that this Gm kicked my character when I was down? Definitely.
Was it within his rights as a Gm and within the RAW to do so? Absolutely.
Am I whining because my character died due to luck? No. My character died because the GM (for whatever reason he likes) decided not to allow my comrades to use creative solutions to save me. His call, but I know that it was NOT fun for anyone in the group.