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I have this feeling that if I ever went to a con and met PFCBG, my return home would center around telling my wife "It's not what you think! She's always like that! She probably didn't even know I was in the room, let alone the splash radius!"
"How'd you get glitter THERE?!!!"
Killing them off does nothing to help the gaming experience.It can help make the world feel that much more real, where death is a real possibility, and adventuring is actually a very dangerous profession.
Can, but doesn't always do.
I'd say it depends on the group and the DM.
As a DM, I am fine killing player characters, though I tend to hesitate if the character is awesome.
And if they do something stupid to get themselves killed, then all the less sympathy for it. In the end, the die roll decides.
As a dm, if the first attack plainly puts a low hp monster into the ground, I ask if they want to move the next attacks to the following foes. Sometimes they put everything into one! Okaaay, they are on -50 *everyone chuckles*.
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It's true...most of the players put their full attacks into one monster even if that monster is low on HPs and the first attack is all that is needed. It doesn't help that we (as GMs) don't always give feedback to players as to the monsters status. At tables, I give flavorful descriptions of how beat up the monster looks. When I do online games, I use generic color borders as well to give a visual, constant representation of how bad everyone is doing.
Despite these steps, players are constantly "Playing for keeps" with the bad guys unless there's a good RP reason to not kill them all off.
When deciding if a monster would kill, move to another target in the middle of a full round attack, etc. I look at the tactics first. If the tactics do not address it, I try to RP it from the bad guys stand point. If there's alignment, that plays a role. As a very general guidelines, NE/CE characters are more apt to kill to get their way than neutral/LE. Still, at times, that does leave some pretty big gray areas. I try to err on the side of the players staying alive in those situations.
If a player gets KO'd, a bad guy NPC will usually move onto the next. However, if that person gets healed, gets back up and fights again, that NPC may decide that make SURE that PC stays down next time. It seems logical enough. Because of that, I've noticed players stay down even after they are healed, trying to do bluff checks in the hopes that the NPC not notice they are breathing OK. This takes place even with players who have not run with me before, so I know it must also happen with other GMs.
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As a GM unless the tactics call for it, kicking a PC when it is down is just not fun (unless you are in "GM vs. player" mode which is the mark of a GM not interested in providing a fun and fair experience to the players). It is also far more of an emotional response and a poor tactical response unless any of the following occur:
- PC is healed and gets back up.
- PC full attacks and kills enemies rather than just dropping them and moving on.
- PCs coup d'grace.
- Animals, if they are hungry, will usually try to drag a PC off to a safe place to eat it once the PC goes down. If they are guard animals, then I'll usually have them go after another target if they drop someone.
As a player, when I encounter a GM who purposely kills a PC when there are other viable threats still around or a GM who always takes full attacks on a PC before knowing if the first attack dropped the PC; I usually try to avoid playing under that GM again. It's just not fun.
Of course, if an encounter calls for these kinds of tactics, I will comply. In the 100+ scenarios/modules I've read, I would guess I've seen these types of tactics specified maybe twice - at most a handful of times.
Some players don't like it when GM's go easy on them. I would not say it is not fun. It is more accurate to say it is not fun for everyone. Most of the players I have GM'd for do want to live, but they want to know they earned it. If I don't kill them, without a good reason not to*, I would hear about it later.
*As an example lets say I had used the first attack of a full round action to drop them, and moving away or not using the remainder of the attacks was the least tactical option since the enemy may have known the party had a cleric.
Letting someone get up so they can stab you in the back later is not tactical at all.
PS:I understand such a playstyle is not for everyone.
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goodness - didn't we kill this thread in the first 200 posts?
People are just repeating things that have been posted already, several times.
Here, I can to.
"Don't kill them, they're worth more alive!" applies to PCs, NPCs, & Monsters. MAYBE not undead... sometimes.
begins work on a new sign ... this time a horse with a flaming mane and tail .. and a purple polka-dot saddle, laying on it's side; tongue hanging out and leetle drops of blood from the wound in it's head
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+ Some players don't like it when GM's go easy on them. I would not say it is not fun. It is more accurate to say it is not fun for everyone.
That's exactly it. I've had both types of players over the years running PF. In running PFS, and having different players each time, I don't get the time or luxury of knowing exactly what kind of players they are. Plus, I want to (in the spirit of organzied play) create a fair and balanced experience regardless. That's why I have general guidelines using alignment and 'monster ai' that helps to guide such decisions. As I said, in gray area deals where it doesn't seem clear to me, I err on side of keeping people alive.
As is mentioned in one of PFS guides I got, if it's a low level/New PFS group, it's a good idea to pull punches more often. Few things can discourage a new PFS player more than having his 3rd-4th level character die and being forced to re-roll because he cannot afford res.
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It is also far more of an emotional response and a poor tactical response unless any of the following occur:
- PC is healed and gets back up.
Unfortunately, "PC is healed and gets back up" happens all too often. I had one game in 5-9 tier where the PCs had three clerics who, between Phylacteries of Positive Channeling and Fast Channel, could burst healing enough to, in one round, bring every party member from one point above dead to full health in an area of effect. Needless to say, the head NPC, on seeing this happen, gave orders to kill downed PCs immediately. Now these enemies were CN soldiers, and one of the players said "Wait a minute, that's an evil act." I said, "Living a neutral alignment is full of compromises between good and evil. If they didn't give the order to kill downed PCs, they might as well surrender the encounter right now, as they can see you guys will fully heal the whole team each round, and they can see that they have the offensive capacity to drop about one or two if they're lucky of your party members per round with sustained damage. Between Blessing of Fervor for a safe stand up from prone and the full healing, they don't even get any advantage from a knock-out at all unless they go for a kill. Meanwhile, you're whittling them down and they have no healing."
Honestly, I'm not a fan of the fact that healing brings you back to conscious immediately, specifically because it forces enemies to kill the downed PCs in situations like that. I don't like going for the kill at all (and houserule healing a bit in non-PFS games because of it), but heavy-healing parties pretty much require it for the enemies to have a chance, and roleplaying intelligent enemies, they would know this.
That being said, in this particular case most of the enemies were ranged, and they managed to embarrassingly miss the downed PCs due to the prone penalty, knock the PCs out on their last attack, only to have a cleric go next and wake them up, and a variety of other circumstances, so somehow there were no fatalities.
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I have had characters NOT get up from unconcious, as it would lead to just dying again. Just the penalties for standing up from prone are pretty severe, unless you have monkey style or Blessing of fervor is up.Wand of Vanish - in a wrist shieth.
Still provokes so I hope you have enough HP/AC to handle that AoO coming at you.
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Wands don't provoke, but taking the wand out of a wrist sheathe does. I believe a Spring loaded on does not provoke, thought I am not sure.Still provokes so I hope you have enough HP/AC to handle that AoO coming at you.
You're correct... a spring loaded deal would be a swift action that does not provoke. If you don't have the spell on the spell list, you'll want to have a high spellcraft though to make using that wand a reliable alternative since you're planning to use it in a pinch (DC 20). For some classes/characters, by the time they get +15 or so in spell craft, a good amount of the baddies of that level have reliable means to seeing invisibility. Still, it might be better than just lying on the grond using a total defense action.
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Wow. Great story, RE! I would probably do the same given the situation. Neutral (even GOOD characters) will end up going for the kill if that appears the *only* way to get to their goal.
I would love to hear how you house rule healing in your non-pfs deals.
Even though PCs are the ones who bring healing to the party most of the time, so you would think it's a nerf to the PCs, my home game players are grateful for this houserule, as I thus have intelligent enemies avoid the kill as often as possible. After all, even if I have one more attack that I can't use anywhere else, a captive could be useful for information or a hostage exchange, and in general there's very little risk of them waking up and turning the tables.
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Nosig, I wasn't looking at the item description for the AoO ruling...but rather the spring loaded deal.
Combat Rules: Drawing a weapon so that you can use it in combat, or putting it away so that you have a free hand, requires a move action. This action also applies to weapon-like objects carried in easy reach, such as wands. If your weapon or weapon-like object is stored in a pack or otherwise out of easy reach, treat this action as retrieving a stored item.
On the Actions in combat table...
Draw a weapon No - AoO
Retrieve a stored item - Yes
Seems pretty clear above that drawing weapon like objects that are carried within easy reach does not provoke. The spring loaded wrist sheath is about as easy reach as they come, and is what I was really looking at here in terms of meeting the condition for "easy reach" that makes the drawing of that item not provoke an AoO. Given the above, I wouldn't say that this really leaves room for GM interpretation.
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I dont think there is a swift action anywhere that provokes - even casting a quickened Spell does not provoke which would be the obvious one
You can cast a quickened spell (see the Quicken Spell metamagic feat), or any spell whose casting time is designated as a free or swift action, as a swift action. Only one such spell can be cast in any round, and such spells don't count toward your normal limit of one spell per round. Casting a spell as a swift action doesn't incur an attack of opportunity
if someone can find me a swift action that provokes ... I'll eat my words ...
Rogue-E, that's similar to a house-rule my current GM uses.