Blue Star, a lot of time people think they are role playing because they play the character dumber than themselves. In reality, not many gamers know much about living outside, going to war, or fighting animals. I find the game unbelievable unless everyone is doing their best, but a lot of people don't see it that way.
.... So it's basically because the players themselves have no sense of self-preservation?
I've been running the same character for 8 levels now and he's died twice, three times technically. Our group uses the hero point system, and I went with the anti-hero. Since hero points stave off death I guess no one dies, but they're used about once every five sessions by at least one member of the party.
Most of the party deaths that have occurred have been because of rending. That alone counts for more deaths than anything I can think of. Death happens often enough in our group to be a scary thing. I've detailed some that have occurred. Fortunately, most deaths that do occur are pretty epic.
The first death I don't count towards this continuity, because we reset our level 1 characters after this event.
In the Hangman's Noose we had a total party wipe.
In Masks of the Living God a party member of ours was critically hit by magic (We use the critical hit and critical fumble deck). He took enough damage so that he started dying, and the critical from the spell sent him to the ethereal plane for a few rounds. In those few rounds he died. When my gm read the critical card he said, "I don't see how this could be a bad thing".
The City of Golden Death took two lives
My first counted death happened in this module, too.
My character doesn't like to talk about it. My GM was nice allowed me to roll a new character, and since I provided a story tie in, he resurrected my old character at the adventure's conclusion.
I died again in The Seven Swords of Sin.
I lived because of an item I invested in after my first death. In our group we call it the "ring of paranoid self-preservation". It has one breath of life charge in it. I survived the coup de grace because of that item. I've since recharged my item. I was happy about my death (and subsequent resurrection), because I now qualify for the Graverisen feat.
Now, we have a player who plays inconsistently and his death is something to be expected within the first few rounds of any combat. When he plays, he dies, but it is due to poor tactics, not reading his class abilities, and it is not through the fault of the GM.
His most recent death also happened in The Seven Swords of Sin Module
Critical hits that turn the tide of battle kills us and not running away. It's never a result of our GM being hard on us though. He just lets us make our decisions. Even with hero points, magical rings, and the like death is still a real and scary thing.
I almost never kill players outright, especially before resurrection is easy. Killing players can be a real momentum killer, and as a DM having the party have to mess around with bringing someone back to life really hoses MY fun a lot of the time, since I like to keep the adventure moving. I do bring characters to 0 HP constantly; that's an important part of making the players feel like they're in danger. I just don't like killing characters that players are invested in. (Rarely, I'll work with a player to allow a character they want to retire to have a heroic death.) In my experience, murdering characters left and right is roleplaying poison as it disrupts the flow of the story, makes characters cheap, discourages getting invested, and so on.
I tend to kill a pc or two early on, before level 3. After that, it gets more rare.And people call me names for refusing to start a game lower than level 3.Like chicken?
** spoiler omitted **
I wish they were that nice.
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I tend to kill one player every 24 hours of gameplay (once every 3-4 sessions) I don't plan it like that - I'd do it more if only the monsters would live long enough.
The only permanent kill thus far has been a loyal follower who got chewed on by a dragon. That's the way to go!
I used to be too kind to the players - but that takes away the danger of adventuring. Don't hold back - remember the monsters are defending their homes against invaders. What'd you do?
also, Kick 'em when they're down. That costs the monster another attack and it leaves the rest of the party free to take revenge.
notable obituaries:
I got myself killed in the very first session with a brand-new group of players. (Dwarven barbarian 1 vs drunken hill giant 7 : 0-1) The players all thought that me and the co-dm had scripted it, but I genuinely messed up.
The monk (who had already been in the negative hp twice that session) insisted on looting a corpse, even though he clearly heard the growling, doglike noises from less than 15 feet away. After a second very fair warning, he got criticalled, mauled, and chewed to shreds by a pair of shadowhounds.
An unfortunate, unintended tactical move by the party tanks left the poor clothed sorcerer standing in the doorway. Ogre vs gnome sorcerer : 1-0.
Rise of the Runelords part 3, 4 and 5 all saw one PC killed.
Still GMing my first party, haven't had one yet (group are now level 5). I do, however, think my players are over-cautious, so I'm doing something right.
I have to agree with the fact that PC death always has to be possible otherwise it becomes boring for certain players. My group always plays pretty low lvl games and resurrection is rarely available.
Death means much less after that and we aren't too sure how to fix that.
The last AP I ran for 6 players between lvl 1-6 or so:
3 were killed while fleeing from a centipede in a vertical shaft (one fell to his death).
1 actually went below 0 and stabilized while on his horse but failed his ride check (no saddle)and killed himself falling(never stabilized alone in the forest).
1 eaten by a crocodile
1 eaten by an assassin vine
2 eaten by zombies
1 dismembered by a troll
1 was coup-de-graced by a kobold (almost felt bad!)
I'm pretty sure I forgot at least one.
The players liked it. It was fairly easy to add other characters however and the deaths often had "good" timing.. say at the end of a game. A bit of luck I suppose but some games did end with a really low morale but talking about it the players were more ashamed by their poor performance than by their death..It did lead to some issues with accumulated gear however but the challenge was still there.
Just had a thought, each/general combat doesn't have to be boring without significant dangerous challenge; if there is resource management under control.
Generally it seems to be the prevalent idea that a party should have a wand of CLW and between combats maximise their HP's. If this is not available and instead PC's have to manage their resources/spells/etc. Then this could be an alternative to making the PC's die, instead it will eat into their resources and thus make them more likely to fail. Of course, this would mean there would have to be chance of PC death if the party over-stretches itself with low resources.
Anyway just a thought.
I've only Gm'd one campaign so far, but I've been told I'm pretty good at it. Currently running Curse of the Crimson Throne and I've had several deaths, mostly all from the same guys because they insist on being stupid. My first Death happened when the party tank got hit by Enervation and Hold Person then coup de'grat. Nothing he could do on his part, bad luck, but it's just how it worked out. The next death was when the Sorceror tried to engaged a Spelled Up (Dive Power/Favor, Righteous Might = MEANY) Cleric with a Scythe and a natural 20 on the first roll. Not good day for the Sorceror. Bad thing is they rezzed him during that session, only to be chopped up by Assassins in a burning building because he decided to search alone (BIG No No!).
I had a really long dry spell of deaths after this, but I came close on MANY occasions, and had to pull a punch once when out of a 7 person party, only 3 showed up to play and they had some nasty encounters. Then a new guy joined after 2 of those 7 quit, and he is just damned unlucky and doesn't learn. In the 5 sessions he's played in my campaign, he's died 4 times, and not even by narrow margines, it's always been something like -46 hitpoints kind of dead.
The only time I've purposely hunted down and killed a PC was when he started getting over confident, talking about how he never took damage but killed everything around him and was invincible. So in the next fight, the Assassin commander used Invisibility and positioned herself for 6 sneak attacks on him. Stopped bragging after that.
In my last session, I started the Seven Swords of Sin, and it's been hair-raising. The party is 9th to 11th, and the module is set for a 7th level party of 4, and their party size is 6 with one cohort. Unfortunately, the rogue keeps leading the party looking for traps, and he almost died in all 4 of the combats, sometimes multiple times in one combat. I think in total, he was brought to negative hit points 3 times, and was borderline negative 5 times. Wasn't anything he did on his part other than he just happened to be the nearest living thing when the enemies finally got to act after the Bard cast Confusion on them all (her signature spell!).
From some of the campaigns I'm currently playing in ...
Age of Worms (level 7): One death, with at least two other deaths averted by use of hero points.
Savage Tide (level 8): No deaths.
Rise of the Runelords (level 3): No deaths.
Legacy of Fire (level 5): One death, with at least one averted by use of hero points.
Council of Thieves (level 4): No deaths (I think).
Kingmaker (level 2): No deaths.
Serpent's Skull (level 2): No deaths.
So it's rare, but there have been plenty of close calls. Personally, I like the idea of using hero points to avoid death; it's more palatable to me than repeated Raise Dead spells or having a revolving door party.
Update!
Our Age of Worms campaign has had another death and we're at level 10 now. And there have been no additional deaths in the other campaigns.
However, in the interim I started a Carrion Crown campaign and at level 6 there have been two deaths and one very near death. So that's the deadliest adventure path that I've seen so far.
My characters in Rise has died probably 4 or 5 times mostly due to environmental conditions.
I'm also running Shattered Star and have killed a character already and we're not out of book one.
Exactly what the title says. It was brought up in the "bloat" thread how common a pc death was and I wondered what a gm should generally aim for? I've got very little experience of my own to add despite 3 years playing because of unusual campaigns. So tell me what are you guy's experience with this?
In my game, my players got to level 5 before they decided to die, and now I have had a player die in the last 4 sessions (They made it to level 6 two sessions ago) Now I hope that there are not any others for the next little bit
Over 35 sessions, spread over 2 years, we have just started book 4 of Legacy of Fire.
The party (there are 7 PCs) is now 8th level and we play with hero points, thought rarely does anyone have enough to 'avoid' death.
We have had 7 deaths and one fluke TPK that was ignored. The half-orc fighter has been saved by his orc ferocity too many times to remember.
The party have just lost the cleric for the second time, so tough times ahead.
My campaigns generally don't last longer than a semester/summer because them ost fun part for me is crafting new adventures based on the characters the player make, so a given character doesn't have that long comparatively to possibly die.
So far only one PC has ever died in my single year of running Pathfinder, but it was u against the final boss. The group was fighting a Denizen of Leng and his Beast of Leng (a monster I'd created specifically to tie in the Titan Mauler's backstory) and after they presumably dropped the Denizen, his spirit shot right into the downed beast and brought it back for round two, and it fireblasted the whole group once. Everyone saved except the druid, and he took just enough damage to get killed. He didn't really mind because he'd made it up until the last fight, and he had a nice epilogue where his character went to Nirvana.
Character death is slightly more random now that I'm using the Critical Hit Deck. A single card in the deck has decapitation (which if a save or die effect), others have greater than normal crit damage or less than normal accompanied by an injury of some kind. So far I've had a player loose a hand when me might have been knocked below 0 in a fight from a normal crit.
It really depends upon the group.
My current group (with either GM) deaths are fairly common at low levels. Maybe as high as 2/3 of the party have new characters by 4th or 5th level.
But once they have played a PC for awhile they get attached and kinda get upset with the GM if there are very many after that. (Even if due to player stupidity.) So probably not more than 1 every 3 levels beyond 5th level and almost always in a manner that can be raised.
Personnally, I would prefer a more dangerous campaign. And I have played in some where if you are not careful, a TPK can happen at 15th level. But this group doesn't like that.
I really don't 'aim' for any certain amount of PC death. I've had two character deaths in my current game, one at 8, the other at 13. Previous game I didn't have any. Might have been 1 in the game before that, but it gets a little fuzzy on memory.
Most times the PCs get themselves killed, it's not me doing them in with damage or spells.
Depends on the campaign. My last "gritty" Aviona home game, over two years, had 2 fatalities and one PC permanently feebleminded. The concurrent "goofball" game (with less-optimized PCs and less-lethal challenges) had none.
Savage Tide had one death, but we quit long before the end.
Age of Worms was lethal.
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Been playing Pathfinder Society games since last PaizoCon and never seen a death yet.
My sorc is only upto 5th level. He has been killed and raised once and has been with another 6 PC that died.
That was the only 2 times I've 'played-up' and we didn't have the most optimal groups (or players come to that).
If you're talking about a home game, it really depends on the GM and his/her play style.
In general, Pathfinder PCs are more robust than their 3.5 equivalents, and are much harder to kill outright.
In my home game campaign, which has been running for almost two years, we've had only two PC deaths. One was planned (the player wanted to change characters), and one was not (result from four failed Perception checks and a failed saving throw against a coup de grace), but that PC was raised the next session.
We don't play with raise dead or any way to return dead characters, we all agreed it was too likely to eliminate the fear of death. So, while I may intercede on their behalf on those very rare occasions, death is always possible--and very permanent.
I don’t get this. If a PC dies, doesn’t the player get to bring in a new PC? I mean, the “fear of death” would be “Ok, that means Hagar the Barbarian is now dead. Dave, sorry, that means you have to leave the game. Thanks for the pizza, see ya next campaign!”.
We used to lose one PC about every level or two. Now that we can do Raise Dead, and have a NPC that sometimes does Reincarnate for free, we have had zero permanent deaths, and oddly fewer temporary deaths. We are mostly doing Rise but with lots of side trips.
Our DM has done one thing: monsters no longer have X3 or X4 criticals, if they have 20 X3, it’s now 19-20 X2, etc.
I have lost three PC’s, two in a heroic manner (yay!), one which was I think unfair (wolves jumped our low level party, tripped my Sorc, my Sorc never even got a spell off before he died.)
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I'm GMing a campaign written by myself with 6 players. The PCs are at Lvl 7 right now and we had five deaths up to this point with one of the PCs killed being revived.
They mostly die to enemy CC-Spellcasters and hardhitters. Had a single vampire in the last session f+#*ing the party up via dominate person. She gained control of the Ranger and the Sorceress. The Ranger went crazy and chopped the paladin to pieces with his greataxe, while the sorceress pewpewed the ranger to death with some tasty scorching rays.
I don't try to kill players on purpose from the beginning of an encounter, let's rather say I try and soften them up. But if anyone gets outmaneuvered somehow by the enemy, I try and set his death in stone. But honestly that rarely occurs and even if so, a lot of bad luck is intended there (fumble-, critrolls on attacks and saves and all that stuff)...
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Frequency of deaths depends a lot upon the type of group you play in. I've ran role playing focused games where no players died. The game was about the story, not how many hit points you had so I used a GM screen and fudged any roles that would kill people. I've also ran combat oriented games where I rolled the dice on the table, fudged nothing, and players died left and right. Both were fun games, it just depends on what your players are interested in.
I... Have a few certain players who are notorious at dying, and run through characters all the time.
Back in Saga Edition Star Wars(a game that ran 3 years) I had this player die his very first session... After that he killed himself rather than get prosthesis for a cut off arm. Then, he blew himself up and choked to death in space. Then, he after getting captured he negotiated himself into a corner to save the life of an innocent NPC after he messed up.
In Pathfinder this player was given a cleric NPC to start(since I frankly expected his imminent death) he was two hit by an undead after losing his domains. Then, once he played his real PC (another cleric to replace the NPC whom was initially going to retire before he got it killed) he died to a sole contruct through a series of bad rolls against an Animated Construct Bed.
However just yesterday I killed two players.
So... Franly it's a rarity. But it does happen.
Consistently, a few every long campaign.
I tend to Dm/Gm the same campaign, being Greyhawk from the ToEE and ownards. 1st complete playthrough in 1e there were approximately 40 PC/player controlled NPC deaths. I've run it twice in v3.5 and PF and found the deaths to be lower but entering negative HP to be higher. Characters were downed more frequently from v3.5 but didn't die as often. Some of this was due to older age and experience and some was due to the rule changes. I tend to play with more tactical knowledge, so my encounters can be more dangerous but also advise players of what's expected from the outset so they play more intelligently. But also I value the lives of the monsters as if they were my PCs now and have them break off combat before they are killed, which allows the PCs to recover their fallen before they're dead.
Long story short I have relatively few PC deaths, several sessions without any, but then can have 2-3 in one session - but then I play 1e modules with Pathfinder rules
Pretty frequently. I don't fudge rolls and I use critical hit cards with all enemies, so it can get pretty gruesome sometimes, although I've backed off on the crit cards a bit. I now only use them if the confirmation roll exceeds the PC's AC by at least 5.
Oddly enough, I've never had any TPKs. It's usually just 1 PC that dies due to a critical or doing something incredibly stupid.
I've had one TPK. The party attacked a higher level wizard and a sidekick Ranger/Rogue (converted 1e Assassin) with a ring of greater spell storing after sneaking down a straight 2.5 foot tunnel into their base.
1st time round the party won but the wizard and assassin escaped through dimension door spells. Before the second time I had the wizard prepare around the clock alarm spells on the tunnel and also keep Lightning Bolt prepared, as well as including it on the assassin's ring.
Two lightning bolts in the same round from a relatively high level caster when every character was squeezed and in range wasn't pretty.
Only time I've ever done a do over. The party 'had a moment of insight' and decided not to go down the tunnel after all
Occasionally, but when it does it's either due to the dice or because of the players doing something suicidal.
When it's the latter, I do warn them of it. That is, unless their character has so low a Wisdom they lack common sense.
Occasionally, but when it does it's either due to the dice or because of the players doing something suicidal.
When it's the latter, I do warn them of it. That is, unless their character has so low a Wisdom they lack common sense.
Yeah, I usually give him a DC 15 Wisdom check and if he passes, I tell him, "Your character's inner-instincts are telling him that this will likely get him killed."
Of course, some players even ignore that, do what they were going to do anyways, and die. *shrug*
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I dont aim to kill pcs, i woukd never do that. That being said i am known as the lethal dm of our group. Maybe because i encourage risk taking behavior from my pcs or maybe because i roll hot. I can only remember killing one pc because of misjudgment (2 displacerbeast against a group of pc lvl 4-5 in 3.0). To be fair misjudgments were common in 3.0. That whole edition was misbalanced. Most of my pc deaths occured during split the party event.
I do play with certain guidelines
1- Never perform a coup de grace on a character unless the other pcs have abandoned him in their flight
2- Dont pursue a pc on the run without a legitimate reason
3- Avoid save or die. (there are more efficent non lethal way to put a pc out of the fight)
4- If they are doing something stupid, aske the question " Are you sure?". You'd be surprised how many pc deaths can be avoided this way
I'd really resist the idea of a metric to the tune of, "The game is appropriately challenging if x number of PCs die every n sessions." That just seems capricious to me and sets up a scenario that risks the game turning into the GM versus the players, rather than everyone telling a story together.
That said, unless the players just do something stupid or fail to pick up on a lot of hints, I may pull a punch or two (particularly if it seems I miscalculated the difficulty of the fight or they're just having really crappy luck), or give them some additional leeway with unconventional tactics. In the Jade Regent campaign I'm running, we almost had a TPK at...
All of this, of course, is JMO/YMMV. Every group is different. I basically tell my players all of this up front, so they know what to expect. All joking aside (and I do joke with my players), I never set out to kill them -- I just want to challenge them. Killing PCs takes no skill whatsoever. Challenging them does. Just as much as a PC death could be the result of bad luck or dumb decision making, a death could also mean I made a mistake and the challenge was too hard.
(And having said all of that, I'd say, on average, every player in my group has lost at least one PC through the course of a lvl 1-16 campaign.)
"Black Leaf!!!"
When in doubt, Google.
How common is a PC death in your campaigns?
The only possible answer I can give (as GM) is WAY more common than I intend.