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Hey everyone,
A while back, I was at a PFS game where we all had fun. I played with a group of great folks all around, both players and GMs.
The last encounter was brutal, and we almost TPKed. Basically most of the party wasn't ready defensively for the enemies' attacks. Two characters died.
So, after the game, the topic of Raise Dead came up. The player of the cleric believed that the team should split the cost to bring her back to fighting condition. Half the team (including me and one of the archers) agreed with this, and the other half looked at the first half like they had four eyes. They explained that they would be happy to pay their share of any necessary costs after the cleric had emptied her pockets of all gold and prestige. They didn't want her to lose the character forever, but other than that, they felt the cleric should pay for the rest. This discussion had been slightly predicted earlier in the scenario when the cleric offered the whole party to put Breath of Life scrolls in spring-loaded wrist sheathes for any party member who chose to buy one. That way she could use that person's scroll of Breath of Life and save them from death. The same players who later didn't want to split the raise balked at this and told the cleric that she should be using her own scroll of Breath of Life to save their characters and paying for it herself, which just seems like more of the whole "The Cleric has to pay for the CLW wand to heal me" point of view. They said the cleric was greedy for asking everyone to buy their own Breath of Life scroll to carry around for emergency use.
The cleric's player felt like she prevented a TPK (and she did) by putting herself at unusual risk due to the party composition to save the rest of the team from certain death. She pointed out that she could have kept withdrawing from the enemies and let them get to the archers, in which case the archers would have been the ones to die (the enemies hit the archers on a much lower roll than a 16, and the cleric had been tanking 11 attacks per round until we eventually dropped one of them and took the attacks down to 6). The player of the cleric is always the first to offer to split the raise if anyone dies during the scenario, unless the character dies from doing something stupid after being warned by the party "If you do X and die for it, we're not helping pay for your Raise."
So the upshot is that the people who didn't want to pay eventually paid a substantially reduced share, but they were pretty disgruntled, even though they had been having fun up until that point, and the rest of us who wanted to support the cleric insisted on paying more than a full share to try to compensate this, so the cleric barely avoided losing money for playing the scenario.
So what about your group? How does the social contract work for splitting raises?
I can see a lot of possible ways to do it, and they each have their pros and cons. In my opinion, however, failing to split raises is short-sightedly selfish and ultimately detrimental for the community as a whole, even for the players of classes that keep themselves out of danger by relying on others to stay in front. Why detrimental for the community? Because that kind of social contract is teaching the players of the frontliners who die only one lesson--"Gosh, I shouldn't be playing one of these classes where everything attacks me and I get killed guarding the path to the squishier characters. I should be one of those guys in the back that never has to pay for a raise and make someone else do this job."
Venture-Lieutenant, Washington—Pullman
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We have a player that has a character that's has died several times. At one point we found out that the character had multiple(at least 3) +1 Pistols, myself and another character openly expressed that we would never again help pay for a raise for them. It didn't help that our characters didn't get along with his character.
It depends completely upon the specific players, usually people chip in.
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as a player I make it a point to buy my own CLW wands and healing stuff because it's really poor form (in my opinion) to expect the cleric to provide all healing on his/her own. If I don't have UMD, I'll ask another character to cast it when needed.
And in the sitution Rogue Eidolon described, I'd side with the 'lets chip in' crowd, especially in the described case - playing squishy characters makes me appreciate front liners.
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As I like to play wizards and other squishy characters, I like the idea of splitting the costs and it is an encounter expense.
Maybe you should state the agreement before starting the session. This can go from shared loot to shared expenses. Otherwise it starts to become everyone for themselves...
As a spellcaster I would frown upon expendable resources if they all came out of my characters pocket.
I would be less likely to play with those players again no matter how fun they were at the start, they did not end that way being quite selfish.
From your post they came close to ruining your enjoyment of the game and if they pulled that in one of the campaigns I run, they would be lucky to find themselves in another game.
As a GM I encourage players to discuss (before play) what they expect reward division to be, including most of the basics, death, personal treasure (found by or given to a single character), expendables, prestige and accountability.
If you can't agree and abide by that agreement then why would you adventure together, trust each other, or even help each other. With different factions it would be quite easy to just kill other characters, steal their stuff, or cripple them in some way.
I'd see that act the same as stealing from the character, not really following the duty of cooperation that is expected because they are not respecting the other characters claim's and risk reporting to the pathfinder society for expulsion due to greed.
I'd leave it up to the player to decide, but if it was their choice to make a case, and if I was the one receiving it there is a good chance I would side with them and state the characters are probably more evil than neutral and should be expunged anyway.
That's just my rant on players being greedy and not cooperating in the enjoyment of the group.
As a game I expect fair play, if there is not, I'd note down the others and choose not to play with them again.
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I don't think there is a fixed rule.
I prefer if everyone chips in equally - but there might be situations where this won't be the best solution. In the case of the OP I would say - yes - this would likely have been the best solution.
But yes - the problem is - you often don't discuss this ahead of time.
As GM I once took the drastic decision to take off the GP from the total directly from the character sheet.
Situation:
The player bailed on very short notice for the last part of a module (a barbarian). This dropped the player count from 5 to 4 (still enough) but the group - weakened by the absence - had the front person dying.
Everyone at the table that night decided to chip in - so in absence of the character not around - I made the decision for him.
The player was okay with it - but it is a thorny issue if not discussed ahead of time. I just felt it would be wrong to 'reward' the missing player for not showing up and contributing to the death of a comrade. But you only do this if you know the player and can assume he is okay.
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Everyone should provide their own breath of life scroll, that's not in question. The cleric shouldn't have to pay for consumables to heal others. (Side note: I'm not saying clerics shouldn't use their daily "free" healing powers before resorting to consumables. In fact, I wish more would. :P) That said we usually just have one active wand at a table and don't get stingy with charges, but I've been in situations where I wouldn't want to share, just based on the personality of other PCs.
By that very same token, however, getting dead is the player's problem first and the party's second. If I have to buy my own wand of CLW with every character, you have to spend all of your gold before I'll chip in to raise. Partly because as a player I think death should have consequences, partly because on behalf of my characters I think there's a perfectly legitimate afterlife just waiting for you, and partly because I'm playing a tank who I decided from day one would refuse a resurrection if offered due to his religious beliefs and the weird backstory I designed for him. Losing a character is not the end of the world. If he or she died well, awesome. If not, well, try not to die so poorly next time. Harsh? Sure. Fair? I think so.
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Depends to much on the circumstances.
Flip the above example a bit, and have one of the players who didn't want to pay for a breath of life scroll die... does the party split the cost of the raise dead then?
I wouldn't chip in. Far as my character is concerned, he made his choice when he declined to pay for a scroll.
That being said, I would have no problem splitting the cost of a raise dead as long as the player in question wasn't a jerk.|
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Just to play devil's advocate here, one could argue that asking someone else to help pay for my raise is the same as asking someone else to use their healing wand on me. ;)
Honestly if there's a lot of healing going around, some groups I'm in will try to split the wand charges close to evenly, unless we're healing someone who received the damage from being stupid (like the guy who nearly killed himself by strapping delicate incendiary barrels to his back and then falling into a spiked pit trap--of course, that guy didn't have a wand at the time, but he's a good sport, so he bought one and used a bunch for other people the next game).
Depends to much on the circumstances.
Flip the above example a bit, and have one of the players who didn't want to pay for a breath of life scroll die... does the party split the cost of the raise dead then?
So, the thing is that the pure selfishness of the people who don't buy their own Breath of Life scroll actually puts the cleric in a terrible situation, mainly thanks to PFS's rule that you can't split the cost of a consumable resource or charge for it. I dearly wish that we could just split the cost among the whole party every time a Breath of Life scroll is used to save a character, and it's related to Jiggy's point above, which is why I quoted you both in one post. Here's why this is a problem--
The Breath of Life scroll costs one character 1125 gold. At a table of any size, from 3 to 7, splitting the full costs of raise and restoration among all the characters costs more than that per person. So the selfish players probably realized this, but the cleric was going to use her scroll of Breath of Life on them if they didn't buy one themselves--otherwise, it's just punishing everyone for the selfish player's selfishness. She just didn't tell them this fact because it encourages them to be selfish. It just wouldn't be fair of the cleric to saddle the whole party with a large cost just to make the selfish player have to pay too. Of course, one could then suggest furthermore refusing to split the cost of raising anyone who didn't pay for a scroll, but no one on the side of splitting was willing to take it that far in an ultimatum before the game--it just seems like it would have made things go sour with people that were mostly just meeting each other for the first time. I do wish that PFS had a rule that allowed a player to say "I have a scroll of Breath of Life. Do you want me to use it on your character right now? If so, please agree to pay the gold for a scroll of Breath of Life on the final chronicle sheet, and I'll keep my character with one, and we'll call it even. If you choose to say no, you are literally costing yourself extra gold and you won't get to play until the end of the scenario." The selfish players would agree to this deal, I am positive. They just won't prebuy the scrolls because they see it as an insurance policy they don't need if they just stay alive.
In the above situation where the cleric went above and beyond the call of duty, I'd probably chip in if I had enough cash. But generally speaking, I'm in favour of self-serve. I'd definitely be reluctant to sell one of my PC's precious magic items to raise another PC who might never get played again, for instance.
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In the above situation where the cleric went above and beyond the call of duty, I'd probably chip in if I had enough cash. But generally speaking, I'm in favour of self-serve. I'd definitely be reluctant to sell one of my PC's precious magic items to raise another PC who might never get played again, for instance.
In the above situation, everyone had received enough gold from the mission to pay for a full share of the raise and still make a small amount back.
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Had a player yesterday with a vicious weapon. Insisted that I heal him (for 1d8+1 at 7th level) instead of doing better bard type stuff. He actually almost killed himself because of that weapon. He was monk/rogue. I told him to stop using the sword and use his face because it would hurt less. Had he died, I would not have chipped in.
In the above situation where the cleric went above and beyond the call of duty, I'd probably chip in if I had enough cash. But generally speaking, I'm in favour of self-serve. I'd definitely be reluctant to sell one of my PC's precious magic items to raise another PC who might never get played again, for instance.In the above situation, everyone had received enough gold from the mission to pay for a full share of the raise and still make a small amount back.
Did he have enough prestige points for a raise? That's the resource that should be tapped first, IMO.
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Had a player yesterday with a vicious weapon. Insisted that I heal him (for 1d8+1 at 7th level) instead of doing better bard type stuff. He actually almost killed himself because of that weapon. He was monk/rogue. I told him to stop using the sword and use his face because it would hurt less. Had he died, I would not have chipped in.
Honestly, while I don't hold the position in your other post about almost never chipping in for a raise, I definitely agree with you on this one, though I would tell him at around the time I suggested using the face instead of the sword "If you keep using that sword and you wind up dying, I'm not chipping in for the raise".
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Gunvaldr uses a vicious weapon, among other tools. The last contributed share of a raise dead cost him enough that it's slowed his ability to get another weapon for times when vicious isn't the answer... He's cautious about it and provides a wand of CLW, burns consumables and uses tactics that encourage enemies to not be able to hit him, and generally tries to be a smart monkey. He's been Breath of Life'd once (not a scroll) and has contributed to, to my recollection, two or three raise dead combo packs. He'll ask for healing when he needs it, and generally won't need it until the enemy is dealt with... (At least so far...)
Yeah, I've seen him in action. I can tell that the character Kyle was adventuring with did not have everything together as well as you did, though it seems to have been combined with a party without a cleric where making the bard use a CLW wand was the only form of in-combat healing (and I know Gunvaldr likes to travel with that friendly Pharasmin cleric if possible).
As to your earlier point about Slow XP track. I honestly think that in-scenario expenditures that do not provide a permanent item that can be used in the next scenario should cost half price for slow XP characters, which seems to me to be the only fair way of dealing with the fact that they get half the gold but spend full price for one-time expenditures.
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As a player, I will go out of my way to try and be generous and fair with my fellow players. I'll chip in for wands, buy my own scroll of Breath of Life, and all that.
I don't expect everyone to play by the same rules I play by.
But if they don't play by the rules I choose to play by, then they don't get the benefit of the rules I play by either.
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Here's another one that happened once which I was running, although in this case only one player didn't want to pay for a Raise.
The BBEG used crowd control magic to take most of the PCs out of the fight. The Paladin and Rogue were left. The BBEG decided to focus on the Rogue first. Because the Rogue had a lousy Will save, a Suggestion removed him from the fight. This left the Paladin, who soloed the BBEG for a while, but couldn't roll a Glitterdust save to save her life and so eventually dropped due to being blinded, dying by exact count. This finally gave the rest of the party time to get unstuck (if the Paladin hadn't been there they would have just all died to the BBEG's spells while still stuck). Anyway, the Rogue, who would have died if he had better Will saves, was the one who didn't want to pay for the Paladin, who singlehandedly save the party. The day was saved when we realized the Paladin had been doing 2d6 for LoH instead of the correct 3d6, so she actually lived instead.
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Hmm, I'll confess to being torn on this. To be honest it comes down to player and character.
In the specific example above, the cleric would get all of my characters support for buying time. Even if the RL player was a jerk, I'd still be willing to 'chip in'. In a metagame sense, Rey doesn't know that 'Cleric's player' is a jerk, he knows that the cleric went down saving everyone. (Well that and Rey's shadow lodge, so he's not the best example.)
A character/player who doesn't bring their own back up (healing, scrolls, etc) and relies on others to fill the role of healing is going to be more likely to face the 'consequences of their actions' (again to use Rey, he carries a few potions and a healing talisman, because he doesn't have UMD as a class skill. I don't expect anyone to use wands on him.) OTOH, a cleric or other spell caster who won't use renewable resources to aid the party gets my scorn. (Casting cure light wounds or channelling positive energy is no different than Rey blasting monsters with snapdragon fireworks or using his force bolts, or Mayim not using her bardic music).
I don't think there should be hard and fast rules on how much to contribute. <nameless character concept #1*> won't chip in to raise dead a character of an evil deity, though he'd chip in to heal them. In his mindset as long as they live, there's a chance of redemption. Once death claims them, they have to (after)live with their actions. <nameless concept #2**> would not chip in for anyone he wasn't attached to. He sees people as renewable resources. He wouldn't go out of his way to let anyone get harmed (they are all working together after all) but once the goal is completed and he's safe, it's clear that the dead guy isn't going to be useful again.
Now <nameless concept #2> isn't going to win many friends, and I fully expect that if I use him, no one will be willing to 'go in' on his healing. For me that's part of the character concept, but I'm sure 'not chipping in to fix me' is going to be argued as PVP for anyone.
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Edit: Wanted to add that all three of the character examples above are still me. To paraphrase Wil Wheaton "I play a richard on the internet, I'm not one in real life." I just base characters actions on characters. If someone is taking a death hard, I might break those rules. See, being a Richard. That said, I still don't want to make any rules forcing others to chip in. Let social interaction take that.
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Had a player yesterday with a vicious weapon. Insisted that I heal him (for 1d8+1 at 7th level) instead of doing better bard type stuff. He actually almost killed himself because of that weapon. He was monk/rogue. I told him to stop using the sword and use his face because it would hurt less. Had he died, I would not have chipped in.
Barring extreme idiocy, I have an issue with anytime a player dictates to another player how they should play. In character, I would simply say no if my character didn't want to do something. If the player was mad out of character at me, I would simply ask why they decided to play that character if there was no healer type there.
I've had people say that to my combat druid. I think my in character reaction was something unable to redacted on these forums. Of course, I also have seen parties where no one even had a clw wand and expected my druid, who also was the only front liner, to heal them in combat.
Here's another one that happened once which I was running, although in this case only one player didn't want to pay for a Raise.
Just to clarify -- in both of these cases, did the PC not have enough prestige to afford a Raise Dead? Because as far as I'm concerned, that's what prestige points are there for (Raise Dead, Restoration, etc.).
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If the character died keeping mine alive, I'd chip in for a raise. I would rationalize it however I needed to to mesh with the character I was playing, but I would still do it.
If the character died doing something foolish that they had no business doing, I might still split the cost of a raise, depending on which character I was playing.
If I died protecting the party from a big bad, I would be flattered if they offered to split the cost of a raise. If I didn't have the resources to return to life, I wouldn't expect the others to carry my weight. This goes double if I died doing something stupid.
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A character/player who doesn't bring their own back up (healing, scrolls, etc) and relies on others to fill the role of healing is going to be more likely to face the 'consequences of their actions' (again to use Rey, he carries a few potions and a healing talisman, because he doesn't have UMD as a class skill. I don't expect anyone to use wands on him.) OTOH, a cleric or other spell caster who won't use renewable resources to aid the party gets my scorn. (Casting cure light wounds or channelling positive energy is no different than Rey blasting monsters with snapdragon fireworks or using his force bolts, or Mayim not using her bardic music).
What is a healing talisman? And where is it from? I have some PCs who might be interested....
Now, depending on your definition, I am going to argue about using spells to heal.
Not all the time, or always, mind, but if I am playing a CLeric, I am not playing a healbot, and I have non-Cure spells in my spell slots because they are the spells I want to cast.
Would you have your Sorcerer use all his first level spell=s to cast only Infernal Healing? No? What a surprise. I am equally not going to want to waste all my Cleric's useful/beneficial 1st level spells burning through Cure Light Wounds, too.
I would rather Bless the party, or keep that Liberating Command available to help a party member out of a grapple...
And do we even need to go into the situation of the cleric who channels negative energy, and therefore also spontaneously casts Inflct spells instead of Cure spells? If my Undead Lord is nice enough to prepare a Cure Light Wounds, he is going to be very careful about when he uses it, as well, since it is going to, probably, be a one-time thing during an entire adventure.
Sometimes my Undead Lord will burn two "renewable" resources to heal a party member, that being both the domain ability (giving one of the party members Negative Energy Affinity for 1 whole round) and a negative channel, but that is seldom going to be terribly viable in combat, since it uses two rounds of standard actions...
Heck, consider how much in the way of non-renewable resources this same character has spent (Selective Channel, anyone?) in order to allow him to use some of his class abilities (Channel Negative Energy to affect living) with minimal effect on the rest of the party....
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Just to clarify -- in both of these cases, did the PC not have enough prestige to afford a Raise Dead? Because as far as I'm concerned, that's what prestige points are there for (Raise Dead, Restoration, etc.).
I agree with this.
First option should be to go to your own prestige, if that is not an option then ask for help with the funds.
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I'm of the opinion that any death resulting in a team decision should share the expenses of the team.
If a death occurs because you are doing your job, aka cleric healing in th e back, that's up to you to take care of...but if the group needs you to fill another role and go outside of what you purchased and built for, then ya...they are asking you to put all sorts of risk down on yourself.
I also would say that while I think clerics, who are meant to heal, should spend their money on some consumables...it's not for me to use on the rest of the party at my expense every game.
I play a healing cleric...he's waiting to go through the retirement arc right now. My big purchases were all metamagic rods so I could extend breath of life and have extra hit points.
Should I spring for a breath of life scroll as a healing cleric? Sure, to have one for YOU to UMD on me. Should I buy one for everyone in the party? Hell no.
Same goes for fly potions, or better yet, restoration potions. Lets also toss in potions of see invisibility.
Consumables cover your weaknesses. That's what they are best used for in my humble gaming opinion.
As a cleric, my primary weakness is group expectations. There is no consumable that will change that.
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Thread is definitely into TL;DR territory, so I'll just post my response to the OP's question.
As a player of a tanking/healing cleric, I would never play with players who refused (or agreed only grudgingly) again. If I were playing one of my other characters, I would still refuse to play with those players again.
Pathfinder is a team sport. If someone sacrifices for the team, you man up and pay your fair share of what's necessary to help the team succeed.
Not to derail, but I take this to a fair extreme:
Selfish players should not be surprised when they find themselves trying to play scenarios by themselves.
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Had a player yesterday with a vicious weapon. Insisted that I heal him (for 1d8+1 at 7th level) instead of doing better bard type stuff. He actually almost killed himself because of that weapon. He was monk/rogue. I told him to stop using the sword and use his face because it would hurt less. Had he died, I would not have chipped in.Barring extreme idiocy, I have an issue with anytime a player dictates to another player how they should play. In character, I would simply say no if my character didn't want to do something. If the player was mad out of character at me, I would simply ask why they decided to play that character if there was no healer type there.
I've had people say that to my combat druid. I think my in character reaction was something unable to redacted on these forums. Of course, I also have seen parties where no one even had a clw wand and expected my druid, who also was the only front liner, to heal them in combat.
I had an awesome discussion with this player. He was mad because "he was the only one doing any damage to the BBEG."
I countered with, actually, my character (the bard) has done the most damage to the BBEG and to all the creatures in the entire scenario.
His counter was that my +2/+2 was only doing 2 damage here and there, to which I said, yes, you're right, on every single attack AND every time you only hit by one or two (or through my gallant inspiration) ALL of that damage can be attributed to the bard. I believe I counted 5 attacks in that final encounter that wouldn't have hit had I not been so inpsiring.
He couldn't understand why I chose not to waste my turn healing 5.5 hit points.
"Stop using the sword and hit it with your face!"
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RE: Healing Talisman.
It's from the rival guide. Aegis of Recovery. 1500 GP, basically it gives bonuses to 'ongoing effects'. Most importantly for Rey, it heals 2d8+3 points of damage, once, then disintigrates. (Rey has the Fey Foundling feat, so that's 2d8+7 for him)
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Had a player yesterday with a vicious weapon. Insisted that I heal him (for 1d8+1 at 7th level) instead of doing better bard type stuff. He actually almost killed himself because of that weapon. He was monk/rogue. I told him to stop using the sword and use his face because it would hurt less. Had he died, I would not have chipped in.Barring extreme idiocy, I have an issue with anytime a player dictates to another player how they should play. In character, I would simply say no if my character didn't want to do something. If the player was mad out of character at me, I would simply ask why they decided to play that character if there was no healer type there.
I've had people say that to my combat druid. I think my in character reaction was something unable to redacted on these forums. Of course, I also have seen parties where no one even had a clw wand and expected my druid, who also was the only front liner, to heal them in combat.
I had an awesome discussion with this player. He was mad because "he was the only one doing any damage to the BBEG."
I countered with, actually, my character (the bard) has done the most damage to the BBEG and to all the creatures in the entire scenario.
His counter was that my +2/+2 was only doing 2 damage here and there, to which I said, yes, you're right, on every single attack AND every time you only hit by one or two (or through my gallant inspiration) ALL of that damage can be attributed to the bard. I believe I counted 5 attacks in that final encounter that wouldn't have hit had I not been so inpsiring.
He couldn't understand why I chose not to waste my turn healing 5.5 hit points.
"Stop using the sword and hit it with your face!"
There is only one character that should be forced to use a wand of CLW every turn. Her name is Kyra, and we keep her chained up in the back whenever there's a party of 3 that needs a healer.
On the topic of "splitting costs for death," it's a social game with varying situations. Ultimately, the people that never contribute to party deaths, treat their buffer/healers with respect, or are just plain d**ks will find that there are less people willing to put up with their crap.
I have one PFS PC death, and when it happened (level 2), almost everyone chipped in to rezzing me. The one player that didn't help out I made a mental note of and weeks later when we were playing together and he died, guess who didn't help get him rezzed? It may sound petty, but Pathfinder is a team based game. People that see others as lessers and not as equals on that team have little love from me.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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I have one PFS PC death, and when it happened (level 2), almost everyone chipped in to rezzing me. The one player that didn't help out I made a mental note of and weeks later when we were playing together and he died, guess who didn't help get him rezzed? It may sound petty, but Pathfinder is a team based game. People that see others as lessers and not as equals on that team have little love from me.
While I see the appeal (and may well have done the same thing myself), it's not really the right response. It doesn't target the right person; the character still gets to play again. The only difference is that the additional cost was borne by innocent bystanders - the other players at the table.
In general, I'll choose not to play at a table alongside a player whose table presence doesn't mesh with my idea of what makes a good and fair game. Fortunately that's a pretty short list at present - there's only one player on it (and I'll happily play at a table he is judging; it's just his behaviour as a player that I have a problem with).
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I have one PFS PC death, and when it happened (level 2), almost everyone chipped in to rezzing me. The one player that didn't help out I made a mental note of and weeks later when we were playing together and he died, guess who didn't help get him rezzed? It may sound petty, but Pathfinder is a team based game. People that see others as lessers and not as equals on that team have little love from me.While I see the appeal (and may well have done the same thing myself), it's not really the right response. It doesn't target the right person; the character still gets to play again. The only difference is that the additional cost was borne by innocent bystanders - the other players at the table.
In general, I'll choose not to play at a table alongside a player whose table presence doesn't mesh with my idea of what makes a good and fair game. Fortunately that's a pretty short list at present - there's only one player on it (and I'll happily play at a table he is judging; it's just his behaviour as a player that I have a problem with).
Also the idea of tit-for-tat or just not playing in later games doesn't really work if you happen to be playing with players you'll never see again, like at a con. The first example was at a con, and the second with only one player who didn't want to pay was with a recurring group.
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Also the idea of tit-for-tat or just not playing in later games doesn't really work if you happen to be playing with players you'll never see again, like at a con.
In my experience, most con attendees are pretty serious about playing, so they'll show up again at some point. I have a number of people that I only ever see at conventions. I wouldn't be surprised to see them show up again.
Either way, they'll develop a reputation among their regular playerbase, wherever it is. Either the whole group will play by selfish rules, or they'll be ostracized from that group, too.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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There's no clear delineation here. One player's "bone-headed decisions, which lead to her death" is another player's "playing in character when meta-gaming would have saved a PC's life" and another player's "best choices, given the circumstances."
So, saying "we'll all contribute to bringing you back from Pharasma's bridge party, unless you die by being stupid" doesn't resolve anything at all, because what does "being stupid" mean? If an inquisitor is hit by a scythe, critted, and killed by the quadruple damage, is that a stupid decision, or just bad luck?
I haven't encouraged players at my table to have a "group will" discussion before play, and I'd feel funny starting one as a playr. It feels like jinxing the session.
So, here's my default: if the party can lug the body of the dead comrade back to a local Society lodge, that's a duty. "Leave no-one behind." If the body has enough gold and property on it to pay for a raise dead, that's a duty. Paying gold to see a comrade brought back to life? That's a gift, which I might choose to give, but which nobody should expect.
--+--
Say I have a PC concerned about living through this mod. I hand my breath of life scroll to the cleric - and hand him my spring wrist sheath too. In the middle of the final encounter, the BBE fries everyone, and several of us go down. Does the cleric use my scroll on me? Or does she channel to maybe save several other PCs? HA! Or does he use the breath of life on the paladin - so the party can (maybe) kill the BBE and win the day (with me being the only KIA... oh, and I'm out the scroll too).
Spring loaded wrist sheaths hold "one forearm-length item such as a dagger, dart, or wand, or up to five arrows or crossbow bolts. Alternatively, you may store up to 1 pound of ammunition". It seems reasonable to me to put a scroll there, but it's a GM call.
As for whether the caster would follow your request, YMMV. For myself, if I were playing the divine spellcaster, I'd get that decision resolved well before combat begins.
nosig's PC: "Here's a breath of life scroll."
Gennadi, one of my PCs, LG: "I'll use it for the party's best interests. All other things being equal, I'll use it to ensure your survival, but if it comes down to saving you versus saving everyone else, I'll do what's necessary to save the party."
nosig's PC: "Here's a breath of life scroll.
Cadavrul, another of my PCs, N: "Excellent! You want me to use it on you when things are tight? but of course. Only, know that, if it comes to that, the Sczarni might ask for a favor in return, at some future date."
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This discussion had been slightly predicted earlier in the scenario when the cleric offered the whole party to put Breath of Life scrolls in spring-loaded wrist sheathes for any party member who chose to buy one. That way she could use that person's scroll of Breath of Life and save them from death.
Dead people can't spring wrist sheaths. An unreleased wrist sheath would probably make it harder for the cleric to access than if they had it in a scroll case on their belt (or Haversack). I think people are abusing the concept of this piece of gear.
Unless the cleric is 5-10' away from the corpse (or does some crazy dimension door combo via another player), the dead PC is done, because it takes a move action to retrieve the scroll and a standard action to use it.
The cleric's player felt like she prevented a TPK (and she did) by putting herself at unusual risk due to the party composition to save the rest of the team from certain death.
If she knew the group's attitude going in, she shouldn't have done that and is clearly partially to blame for being so selfless and heroic (especially when it's not appreciated).
I know it's not being a good teammate, but the group was already dysfunctional anyway and if your teammates aren't looking out for you, you have to look out for yourself.
If I was the cleric, I'd take whatever they give me and move on and avoid gaming with those players in the future. If you meet them in the future and can't avoid it, never place yourself in harm's way, never sacrifice, don't use consumables to help them, and let the chips fall. It's kind of a bad idea to pi** off your cleric.
So what about your group? How does the social contract work for splitting raises?
Usually yes, share the cost of Raise Dead. Or at least share the cost for the Restorations (or the cost of the materials). Also, share the cost of consumables that are used for that scenario only.
The only time I wouldn't want to pitch in is if the PC died in a stupid (and preventable) way. Or if they were level 1-2 (it's too much to ask at that level and it's easy to make a new PC).
Having said that, splitting the cost of Raise Dead or Restoration is completely optional, and PCs shouldn't expect anything from fellow PCs. So I always try to have gold (or PA) in reserve, in case no one wants to pay.
I almost never chip in, nor do I accept others chipping in for me. Death happens.
The problem with this is that certain types of PCs (melee PCs) die a lot more than ranged PCs, who just sit back and are relatively protected.
I'm not picking on you, but I personally don't think that's fair and if I adventured with that particular PC again... he can go first. And yeah, I don't care if you're a sorc, wizard, or archer either. Eat some damage and like it.
"Gosh, I shouldn't be playing one of these classes where everything attacks me and I get killed guarding the path to the squishier characters. I should be one of those guys in the back that never has to pay for a raise and make someone else do this job."
That's pretty much it.
As a GM I encourage players to discuss (before play) what they expect reward division to be, including most of the basics, death, personal treasure (found by or given to a single character), expendables, prestige and accountability.
That's an awkward conversation to have and I've never had that in 30+ tables. The problem with that conversation is that if you don't agree, it sours the mood for the rest of the session and could make the table dysfunctional before it begins. And deaths are/were still relatively rare... I'd rather sweep that issue under the rug and assume everyone is nice... (and I'm probably dreaming but oh well).
Playing on slow prorgression, I cannot afford a full share of a raise dead / double negative level restoration unless my halving of the award is after in-adventure costs come out of my share. It literally makes at-adventures cost money to have OTHERS die and help them, especially if there were any consumables burned in the process.
Slow progression should have had some advantage (like making it easier to gain max PA), instead it's harder to gain PA and there's more risk (not to mention eating twice as many scenarios). You're right, slow progression is brutal.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Spring loaded wrist sheaths hold "one forearm-length item such as a dagger, dart, or wand, or up to five arrows or crossbow bolts. Alternatively, you may store up to 1 pound of ammunition". It seems reasonable to me to put a scroll there, but it's a GM call.
Ah yes, I remember that debate...
"That's cheese! It lets you alter the action economy!"
"That's... what the item is designed for."
"Scrolls are too flimsy to work with a spring-loaded sheath!"
"Uh, the CRB says they're reinforced with leather strips and that having them rolled up protects them from wrinkling or tearing."
"Well... then they'd need to be... rolled extra tight! Yeah! So you'd need to spend an extra action to unroll them! In fact, I think I'll start making players spend actions to unroll ALL their scrolls!"
"But... the CRB says they can be unrolled quickly and never in the whole book does it list an action for unrolling a scroll. You're just making stuff up because you don't like the idea."
"Dirty rules lawyer!"
...ah, good times!
In any case, my cleric's going to skip that issue and use his prehensile tail to grab a scroll so he can still move up to the target if need be.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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Also the idea of tit-for-tat or just not playing in later games doesn't really work if you happen to be playing with players you'll never see again, like at a con. The first example was at a con, and the second with only one player who didn't want to pay was with a recurring group.I have one PFS PC death, and when it happened (level 2), almost everyone chipped in to rezzing me. The one player that didn't help out I made a mental note of and weeks later when we were playing together and he died, guess who didn't help get him rezzed? It may sound petty, but Pathfinder is a team based game. People that see others as lessers and not as equals on that team have little love from me.While I see the appeal (and may well have done the same thing myself), it's not really the right response. It doesn't target the right person; the character still gets to play again. The only difference is that the additional cost was borne by innocent bystanders - the other players at the table.
In general, I'll choose not to play at a table alongside a player whose table presence doesn't mesh with my idea of what makes a good and fair game. Fortunately that's a pretty short list at present - there's only one player on it (and I'll happily play at a table he is judging; it's just his behaviour as a player that I have a problem with).
What other option is there? Explain to someone why they should contribute to the group? You're already doing that. Twist their arm and argue with them? It's not worth splitting hairs with someone to get 500 or 1000 gp. It's just not.
Sometimes you bite the bullet and move on. If you happen to encounter them again, you'll know, and if not, you've learned a valuable lesson about differing playstyles. It's a small part of a huge game, and it all boils back to the root cause for 95% of all PFS player on player disagreements: some people are jerks.
Such is life.
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I agree with everyone who says it would be a bad idea to debate the raising situation before a game due to the fact that it might piss everyone off and usually it doesn't come up. I have rarely seen a character die in PFS as a player at the table (though I've killed a number of them as a GM). This is partially because most of my higher level PCs try to take great care to protect my fellow characters, partially because low level scenarios are usually pretty easy, and partially because I haven't been on the receiving side of an unlucky x3 or x4 crit at level 1 (nor am I likely to be now that I've taken to running through First Steps for GM credit for my first three scenarios of new characters in an attempt to not run out of scenarios). It's unfortunately worth the risk of issues at the end in order to avoid any sticky issues in the 90% of cases where no one dies.
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It's not the right response? What is? What other option is there? Explain to someone why they should contribute to the group? You're already doing that. Twist their arm and argue with them? It's not worth splitting hairs with someone to get 500 or 1000 gp.Also the idea of tit-for-tat or just not playing in later games doesn't really work if you happen to be playing with players you'll never see again, like at a con. The first example was at a con, and the second with only one player who didn't want to pay was with a recurring group.I have one PFS PC death, and when it happened (level 2), almost everyone chipped in to rezzing me. The one player that didn't help out I made a mental note of and weeks later when we were playing together and he died, guess who didn't help get him rezzed? It may sound petty, but Pathfinder is a team based game. People that see others as lessers and not as equals on that team have little love from me.While I see the appeal (and may well have done the same thing myself), it's not really the right response. It doesn't target the right person; the character still gets to play again. The only difference is that the additional cost was borne by innocent bystanders - the other players at the table.
In general, I'll choose not to play at a table alongside a player whose table presence doesn't mesh with my idea of what makes a good and fair game. Fortunately that's a pretty short list at present - there's only one player on it (and I'll happily play at a table he is judging; it's just his behaviour as a player that I have a problem with).
No, you're right that there isn't another option. It just doesn't have much effect on players at large cons. If they are otherwise fine players and if most of the time nobody dies, for every bad experience with those players, there will be 10 people at the con who had a good one, so it's probably unlikely to lead to social pressure or any real effect.
The choice of just letting it rest is the right one because there isn't really another choice unless you happen to sit at their table again (and in that case if you walk out, it means you don't get to play that day).