RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Meandering back around to the topic...
Character death is part of life. The downside of 'lowballing' death is, for organized play, what happens when you travel outside your area?
For example, people from outside Central Ohio are going to be coming to Columbus next week. Odds are, at least some of them will sit at a table I'm running. I'm working on being more prepared than I've ever been, but at the same time, I'll not be 'softballing' the scenario. I won't be changing it to make it harder, but I'll not be fudging or changing rolls (or roles) to keep the PCs alive.*
Now what if Billy Bard is at that table and has made it to 5th level with local GMs who have 'fudged' crits and the like so he's still wearing leather armor and fighting with a non-magical club? He runs into combat with the gnome, because he's always survived due to GM fiat, and suddenly it's "Oh gods, he did HOW much damage? And on a crit? I couldn't take that damage normally!" It's not the scenario that's 'ruined his fun,' it's not me, it's that he's played 15+ sessions with stupid tactics and never learned from them. Maybe he should have died at 3rd level, and would have had to pay for the raise dead and the experience would have humbled him. If he rage quits at the table, it leaves a sour taste in everyone's mouth there.
MAybe Billy's a phenominal role player. Maybe Billy's a great artist who's done awesome work for his group. If Billy gets soured on the game because crit didn't happen until he got to a new GM's table, maybe PAthfinder lost a good player.
Crit happens. Let it.
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I will say that if "fudging the dice" isn't legal to save a character, it also should not be to kill one. I have had several PFS GMs admit to me that they do this. If this is indeed not an encouraged practice, get rid of the screen all together and have a GM mat. Maybe when your GM is rolling out in the open, you'll have less crits. Integrity goes both ways.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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It's true that there are some rolls that are required by the rules to be secret (Disguise checks, Linguistics checks to make forgeries, etc.).
Fudging the dice to keep players alive seems to be generally accepted, as long as it's just for keeping brand new players from having a bad first experience. But fudging the dice against the players is absolutely unacceptable, and you need to have a talk with those GMs, and/or report the issue to your local VO.
Meandering back around to the topic...
Character death is part of life. The downside of 'lowballing' death is, for organized play, what happens when you travel outside your area?
For example, people from outside Central Ohio are going to be coming to Columbus next week. Odds are, at least some of them will sit at a table I'm running. I'm working on being more prepared than I've ever been, but at the same time, I'll not be 'softballing' the scenario. I won't be changing it to make it harder, but I'll not be fudging or changing rolls (or roles) to keep the PCs alive.*
Now what if Billy Bard is at that table and has made it to 5th level with local GMs who have 'fudged' crits and the like so he's still wearing leather armor and fighting with a non-magical club? He runs into combat with the gnome, because he's always survived due to GM fiat, and suddenly it's "Oh gods, he did HOW much damage? And on a crit? I couldn't take that damage normally!" It's not the scenario that's 'ruined his fun,' it's not me, it's that he's played 15+ sessions with stupid tactics and never learned from them. Maybe he should have died at 3rd level, and would have had to pay for the raise dead and the experience would have humbled him. If he rage quits at the table, it leaves a sour taste in everyone's mouth there.
MAybe Billy's a phenominal role player. Maybe Billy's a great artist who's done awesome work for his group. If Billy gets soured on the game because crit didn't happen until he got to a new GM's table, maybe PAthfinder lost a good player.
Crit happens. Let it.
*** spoiler omitted **
This!!
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I accept that sometimes character death happens. It's not my favorite part of the game by any means, but I accept that it happens.
My problem is when it happens without a reasonable opportunity for the player to do anything.
Let's take a look at a particularly deadly Level 1 scenario. There is an invisible thing in it that, when it crits, can do about 60 damage to a level 1 character. In order to prepare for it given skills available at level 1, you would need a perception score of around +25, and even then, it's a pretty low chance. That's just not satisfying in the least.
This is made even worse when you realize that the enemy in particular is practically built to crit.
I have zero problem with difficult scenarios. I have a huge problem with scenarios that don't make you feel satisfied about your gaming experience. That particular creature is a glass cannon - he goes down almost immediately after killing a PC - the rest of the fight is zero challenge.
Finally, I am personally an advocate for the idea that more scenarios should have a higher chance of mission failure rather than character death. The party dying is not the only way to add challenge. What if the characters failed to prevent an assassination in time, or trusted the wrong PCs? There are a wide variety of ways to add challenge to the game without increasing the rate of character death, and I feel that this is an option that is rarely used.
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There are valid uses for hidden rolls. Mostly outside of combat. Things whose results the characters wouldn't know immediately.
GM screens aren't just about fudging rolls.
I roll open all the time, in every RPG I play. You do not have to announce why you are rolling if it is something that you have described, but in combat it is nice to know with out a doubt your GM is on the up and up. Players appreciate that as much as GMs do.
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Let's take a look at a particularly deadly Level 1 scenario. There is an invisible thing in it that, when it crits, can do about 60 damage to a level 1 character. In order to prepare for it given skills available at level 1, you would need a perception score of around +25, and even then, it's a pretty low chance. That's just not satisfying in the least.
That would be zero fun to play, even if your character wasn't the one randomly doomed just by attempting to play that scenario.
It makes me wish that the rule actually read:
"When your character's current hit points drop to a negative amount equal to his Constitution score or lower, they will die at the end of their next turn unless healed.
There should always be the chance for the players to actually do something.
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... the solution is one of scenario design, not of fudging.
Highly swingy scenarios like this example, or even the generic great-ax wielder are a problem not because it's so horrible when characters die, but because they're not good challenges
True, but we can only play using the scenarios released. Redesigning them before play is forbidden whereas fudging is merely 'not advocted'.
Given the situation where a player is about to lose a character through no fault of their own and with no hope of recovery, what does one do?
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I guess that, in the end, my position is that players aren't generally upset at PC death, they are upset at PC death that they feel they couldn't reasonably have avoided. In my third PFS scenario, I nearly died and nearly quit. Why? Because the BBEG was spamming color spray and my gnomish sorcerer wasn't able to fend her off by himself. Now, after my VC looked at it and pointed out that it was only supposed to be one color spray, we redid it and barely won. Close victories are satisfying. Close defeats are acceptable. Impossible challenges are less entertaining.
Let me compare my above two examples to another pair of scenarios that I ran. Both of them featured something simiilar - a really, really big and beefy final boss. High HP, decent to hit, practically no crit chance. Each time I've ran these scenarios, these fights take at least 6-10 rounds. Dying there would feel justified, and it would feel that you had a *chance*. Dying to a critting magus, four invisible rogues or an assassin's death attack? Significantly less justified.
When something bad happens to a PC, the player should learn something. In my bad examples, what is the lesson? There is zero way to prepare for those situations.
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I guess that, in the end, my position is that players aren't generally upset at PC death, they are upset at PC death that they feel they couldn't reasonably have avoided. In my third PFS scenario, I nearly died and nearly quit. Why? Because the BBEG was spamming color spray and my gnomish sorcerer wasn't able to fend her off by himself. Now, after my VC looked at it and pointed out that it was only supposed to be one color spray, we redid it and barely won. Close victories are satisfying. Close defeats are acceptable. Impossible challenges are less entertaining.
Let me compare my above two examples to another pair of scenarios that I ran. Both of them featured something simiilar - a really, really big and beefy final boss. High HP, decent to hit, practically no crit chance. Each time I've ran these scenarios, these fights take at least 6-10 rounds. Dying there would feel justified, and it would feel that you had a *chance*. Dying to a critting magus, four invisible rogues or an assassin's death attack? Significantly less justified.
When something bad happens to a PC, the player should learn something. In my bad examples, what is the lesson? There is zero way to prepare for those situations.
The problem is how to change things. It wouldn't be right to simply stop putting magi in as potential enemies. Some people enjoy that constant threat of their character being absolutely destroyed by a run of bad luck. I will agree that suddenly having LOL UR DED to an assassin's death attack is going too far. Especially since if they did that, you already know that thing probably has such a high stealth score that the party has zero chance of spotting it. Or if not that, it would be planted in the group as a seeming ally until the fatal moment when your healer fails their fortitude save and instantly dies. Extra points if it's a moderately leveled assassin. Then their body is blown into dust and they can't come back. You know I'm the kind of player that likes to hulk smash. And if I get smashed back? So be it. I had fun while it lasted. It's just better when you at least have a chance to do something against the enemy. That said, there are going to be times when it's simply not applicable. Still, a well done scenario with a lot of stuff that you might not even have a chance to react to is a lot of fun.
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Why shouldn't they be able to? We allow PCs to one-shot NPCs all the time if they roll high enough, so why can't a monster/NPC do the same?
Because NPCs don't quit the game because their characters keep getting killed. We are trying to grow the hobby, not create some arbitrary sense of fairness that creates a competence bar most newbs can't reach.
We recently had to ban one of our DMs from DMing at our local organized play group because his kill ratio was so high that we kept losing newbs and even the veterans would avoid his table if they could. And one of the things he tended to do that got people killed was use his own highly experienced skill level to change the tactics of the monster from what was written to far more efficient ones. I hated to do it as he has done a lot of volunteering to help out the local group but he just can't seem to help himself and the complaints were far to much to ignore.
This really has nothing to do with the original post.
This has more to do with a GM doing things they shouldn't be doing. Changing written tactics to ones they prefer, is cheating and should be avoided by the GM, with the exception that if the PC actions completely change the circumstances to where the written tactics don't make sense or are completely impossible, you wing it.
But to specifically rewrite tactics to be more deadly, is something a GM should not do in PFS. But again, has nothing to do with this topic.
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Let's take a look at a particularly deadly Level 1 scenario. There is an invisible thing in it that, when it crits, can do about 60 damage to a level 1 character. In order to prepare for it given skills available at level 1, you would need a perception score of around +25, and even then, it's a pretty low chance. That's just not satisfying in the least.That would be zero fun to play, even if your character wasn't the one randomly doomed just by attempting to play that scenario.
It makes me wish that the rule actually read:
"When your character's current hit points drop to a negative amount equal to his Constitution score or lower, they will die at the end of their next turn unless healed.There should always be the chance for the players to actually do something.
why? Why can't a badguy just chop off the heroes head sometimes?
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Have people here seen a lot of PCs one-shotting a BBEG (ie, not a mook) ?
I've knocked around a bit with a) a Hellkniwght who weilded a keen scythe and b) numerous magii (maguses?)
So yeah, crits happen to the bad guys too.
My magus has one-shot quite a few BBEGs. Burst damage is something that class is very good at.
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Critical hits are part of the game Lastshade. I also encountered that amazon pet and she is indeed tough. At times it is hard but remember, no matter how much life and story you have breathed into a character, it is just a sheet of paper with numbers on it at the end of the day. Nobody I know enjoys their characters dying, but there are no rules governing one shot kills, and it would take away from the game if there were such rules. At the end of the day just remember
I gotta agree with this post because its the same stance I take when generating a character and playing it. Then again, I usually drift towards tank characters mostly because of wanting survivability over damage per turn like others I have played with would want.
Smile, laugh, roll with it is what I suggest. I will admit the dice can either be very generous with the high rolls or low rolls and that is not exactly fair in that a random roll could result in getting one-shotted. Yet part of PFS is have fun with like-minded indivduals.
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I forgot to address this earlier, but you really can't compare enemies and PCs. The enemies are *supposed* to lose in the vast majority of cases. They don't get equal opportunity.
No, but that doesn't give heroes a free pass either.
They don't automatically get to win and live just because they are player characters.
Sometimes they lose, and sometimes they die.
Sometimes they might even die in a very anti-climactic way that doesn't befit the heroic and epic story of their life.
Such is the risk of adventuring.
I don't want to be mean about it, but sometimes you just gotta "Deal With It!"
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I forgot to address this earlier, but you really can't compare enemies and PCs. The enemies are *supposed* to lose in the vast majority of cases. They don't get equal opportunity.No, but that doesn't give heroes a free pass either.
They don't automatically get to win and live just because they are player characters.
Sometimes they lose, and sometimes they die.
Sometimes they might even die in a very anti-climactic way that doesn't befit the heroic and epic story of their life.
Such is the risk of adventuring.
I don't want to be mean about it, but sometimes you just gotta "Deal With It!"
I think that we may just have very different gaming philosophies, and for that reason, we are unlikely to agree.
I am a utilitarianist when it comes to gaming. I believe that games are played for the enjoyment of the players, and I take actions that increase that enjoyment. I advocate for rules changes that I believe will increase that enjoyment. I also do not hold rules in great reverence because they are the vehicle to gaming enjoyment, not the destination.
The crit rule as it currently stands isn't a lot of fun, in my opinion. Neither is dying unceremoniously in an unwinnable situation. As a result, I see no reason to keep things as they are. I certainly don't see any reason for scenarios to be built with that sort of spikiness in mind, especially at Tier 1-2.