Does the rogue have it coming?

[another_mage]

Setup

The party:
Elf Cleric 10
Elf Rogue 10
Elf Wizard 10 + Pseudodragon
Dwarf Barbarian 10
Catfolk Ranger/Sorcerer/Arcane Archer (total 10) + Cheetah

The party has been fending off a nasty infestation of vampires in Rolgrimmdur. After a lengthy investigation, the mid-tier bad guy (Wizard 10) turns on his former employers and hires the party to wipe out his old boss.

First Encounter
Following the lead, the party goes up against the BBEG's trusted lieutenant (a re-skinned Nuetetia Irsinoe from Rival Guide (p.50)), and a few pet demons. It made for a pretty tough CR 13+ encounter.

The party injures her enough to drive her away, but decides they will return to safety, rest and heal, and then finish off the BBEG later. In the meantime, the BBEG and allies rescue the lieutenant and heal her up. No help for the demons; they're destroyed.

Second Encounter
The party again attempts to find the BBEG. They run into a lackey vampire and start chasing him. The party nearly sets off a magical trap, and winds up splitting themselves into two sub-groups, one staying behind to disarm the trap, and another trying to chase down the vampire.

The Catfolk (alone) follows the vampire down a ladder and puts himself right next to Nuetetia. He gets taken down to negative HP. The Wizard (alone) now attempts to intervene. The vampire lackey uses Dominate (and succeeds(!!)) and asks the Wizard to "follow me to the boss to parley for a little bit". The Wizard complies.

Now the remainder of the party (Barbarian, Cleric, Rogue) are left to face off against Nuetetia. The party has a very tough fight on their hands. Nuetetia keeps them away with an Anti-Life Shell and channels negative energy to really put the hurt down. The party responds with ranged attacks and spells of their own. [The rogue begins to get frustrated because he feels ineffective.]

Nuetetia (seeing the tide go against her) offers to parley information about the BBEG with the party in exchange for being allowed to leave with her life. The rogue decides not to accept the offer and presses the attack. Nuetetia uses spells to escape. [Now the rogue is quite frustrated, as he would like to kill Nuetetia and this is the second time she got away.]

Third Encounter (so far)
The Barbarian, Cleric, and Catfolk regroup and heal up. The rogue, still wounded and leaving behind his primary melee weapons (!?!), charges on ahead of the party (alone). He encounters a magical portal to the BBEG's lair and charges through.

He sees the BBEG (a re-skinned Vesnic Demicci from Rival Guide (p.51)), the lackey vampire who lured the Wizard away, and a Thanadaemon.

Neutetia's Information (not obtained by party):

The Thanadaemon is there to protect and transport a different BBEG. He doesn't really care about the party or what they do, so long as they don't attack him or his charge. If the party sticks to Vesnic and the lackey vampire, the Thanadaemon is happy to sit back and enjoy the show.

The rogue is about two or three rounds ahead of the rest of the party, has about 25 hp, and has only a +2 dagger for a melee weapon. He decided to charge the lackey vampire. [And this is where we stopped the session for the night.]

Request for Comments
The rogue's player was complaining that Neutetia is over-powered. It is my contention that a pair of epic difficulty encounters are exactly appropriate for the end of a story arc. After the session, the cleric's player sent me a text message: "Good session last night. Thanks. Challenging = fun." and I think the rest of the party is along this latter line.

Things are looking mighty grim for the rogue. Charging off into the second epic encounter on his own? I'd place money his character is going to die next session. I'm pretty sure the rogue's player is going to complain that the encounter(s) were overpowered / unfair when this happens.

So tell me, does the rogue in the party have it coming?

[rainzax]

lol yes

[Greg Wasson]

Let it play out.

If he can get away... he gets away. If he stands and fights and the dice are miraculously are in his favor and he saves the day.. and his bacon. Wow! good to be him. If dice are average and he dies an ignominious death...oh, well. Guess, that shows why most groups fight critters as a group.

Greg

[gnomersy]

He'll probably die and yes he probably deserves it but there is a 50/50 chance that he actually is just sick of feeling useless because he's stuck playing a rogue and wants to die so he can reroll as something which doesn't suck mechanically.

As another thing recurring villains done poorly suck because they get freakishly tedious as a player, so be careful when using them. If you're like me and have ever played a PC game where you fight the same bad guy over and over and over again you'll hit the point where you'll just stop playing rather than fight the same guy for the bajillionth time.

[papabearshane]

Gotta say the Rouge has a Blood Bath in his near future, His own Blood!

Some people cant handle not whiping up on every BBEG all by them selfs. Its a hard lesson in humility and teamwork but he deserves it. Let it play out and dont be affraid to Kill off the Rouge.

[Mysterious Stranger]

The rogue seems to be making very poor tactical decisions and should face the consequences of his choices. From what you said the rogue did not wait to be healed up and purposely left his best weapon behind. So what you have is a weak combatant who is sorely wounded and ill equipped by his own choosing charging in after someone he knows can kick his ass. If you want to be merciful you could have the rogue also become dominated so you don't have to kill him. If the rest of the party wins they can rescue him. If not pick up a copy of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and hand it to the rogue's player.

[Rynjin]

Yep.

Don't get me wrong, don't go out of your way to f+@~ him, but nobody twisted his arm to make him run in there alone against someone who's beat their party (or fought them to a standstill and then escaped anyway) twice.

[PridefulOne]

I think he shouldn't die, his character should become an NPC Vampire or Vampiric Spawn (whichever is appropriate). Then in the fight you can show just how crazy a good rogue can be as a miniboss vampire with other rogue vampires.