Hello intimidating community,
I am currently DMing for my friends, and i have a question... when is it okay to kill my players?
Obviously I shouldn't actively try to kill, but if i don't make it challenging it gets rather dull. Should their lives become forfiet if the dice gives them the middle finger, or if they were ill prepared?
I know it's probably a simple question, but i'd like to hear anyone's thoughts on when/how a PC should die. Thank you in advance.
Well, high fatality games are best... have players build multiple characters. Have back up NPCs for players to play... makes it fun for you (the NPCs).... then kill the hell out of them...
Otherwise, the answer is NEVER. What happens if you kill a player's character and he/ she hasno backup? They quit playing.... this is also a clear indication on who a good player is... typically, the non power player dies... they begin to equate that as not being good... then, they eventually quit playing...
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It's a surprisingly tough question because the answer is different for each group. Generally speaking, I lose a PC about once every adventure or two. Sometimes I'm harder on them, sometimes I'm easier.
Usually, I try to save deaths for the bigger dramatic fights, but I don't necessarily step in to save them if they something completely boneheaded either. My usual method of intervention is to fudge a roll in their favor.
-Skeld
We are all fairly new, so do you think i should be empowering them rather than making things potentially fatal?
I wholly agree with skeld...
Bone head equals 5th level characters attack an epic dragon or lich when they need to be running.
You putting 5th levels against a death slaad that miraculously appears... then you realize what it can summon.... = you are a bone head and need to fudge rolls....
Knowing when you need to fudge... is the first thing you will learn as a gm... the next is how to kill op characters...
If there is no threat of death, they will not react wisely to situations. Likewise, if everything is assuredly lethal, they will likely take a nihilistic stance regarding the game.
Well, high fatality games are best... have players build multiple characters. Have back up NPCs for players to play... makes it fun for you (the NPCs).... then kill the hell out of them...
Otherwise, the answer is NEVER. What happens if you kill a player's character and he/ she hasno backup? They quit playing.... this is also a clear indication on who a good player is... typically, the non power player dies... they begin to equate that as not being good... then, they eventually quit playing...
I think this is a viewpoint very different from any I have experienced. The extremes of high fatality or no fatality seems unnecessary to me. Sometimes a character dies. Sometimes the player is attached to it and it is a sad thing. I haven't played with the gamer yet who gave up because they lost a character. One guy I played with died five times in a campaign. He kept showing up. In a campaign I ran one player lost three characters to bad saving throws. He kept coming back. Character loss is surmountable.
We are all fairly new, so do you think i should be empowering them rather than making things potentially fatal?
Yes. They should be the heroes, just like in a Fantasy novel or movie. Having the heroes get killed (especially in a "non-dramatic" manner) kind puts a downer on things.
(Of course, if then INSIST on being stupid ...)
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Running published adventures and staying as close to the listed tactics as possible helps ensure you aren't leaning too far either way and puts the responsibility for survival more in the pc's court.
Well we are running my own little homebrew campaign, so published adventures are not an option
I think the default answer is - it depends.
Are your players looking for a life and death struggle, or a little break from the tedium of daily life and a taste of success? Will the threat of characters getting killed make the game more fun?
I play with a group of friends in their 40's who are OK with their PCs getting killed if the dice, story or situations demand it. With that said, a PC getting killed generally causes that player to have to sit out part of the game. Sometimes the player can switch to a NPC or summoned creature, but it can be tough to keep that player engaged in the game. It also causes lots of issues with story and resurrection plans and such.
I would give the players a warning, and tell them to make some backup characters, save some gp for raise dead components and alert next of kin. If you sense that an encounter will be lethal, make sure that the players understand the situation. Give them some real chances to affect the situation, so they don't feel like victims of circumstance.
EDIT: And of course talk to the players about what kind of game they want to play. If everyone tells you what kind of game they enjoy, it will make your job as GM much easier and more enjoyable for all.
I know all you can give me is opinions and speculation but it does truely help, and most of the people on this website are nice enough to lend a nooblet like me a helping hand. Thanks all
It's okay to kill players when they do poorly vs BBEG. The rest is deciding when it's okay to let the players get themselves killed. Most players will get a sense of how easily things can get out of hand if you are keeping them clued in. Some players are good at clues. Whether you clue harder or let the cards fall as they will up just something you'll learn to do as you go.
I recently had my group running from a group of manhunters that worked for a town guard. This guard loved chasing criminals into the swamp and killing them there with his posse. After several encounters with ranger/ninja teams the eventually had the choice to engage the BBEG with a group larger that what they'd fought before, or try and slip by.
It was kind of fun for me watching them stew over their options for a while and ultimately decide fighting would most likely go bad for them, which ultimately let to the deaths of the people chasing them.
Set up the game, and utilize your story telling to inform the players. the rest is up to them.
Put a in game kill in this homebrew, its the only way to get these lazy heros to do anything right.
Depends on your group. There's absolutely nothing wrong with high lethality games so long as everyone knows what they're getting into. I personally love this kind of high-stakes gameplay, but it is definitely not for everyone. If you go down this road, try to keep spare character sheets ready (or better yet, have everyone come prepared with a backup) and pay close attention to how people react when combat turns sour. Just be fair and even-handed, and avoid deliberately causing player death.
If you want things to feel challenging without having a steady threat of death, you have a couple options. The best approach is to give the illusion of danger. To do this, stick to mostly easier encounters and then try to make them appear more threatening than they actually are. When constructing encounters, have a target CR = APL. You should try to use many weaker creatures rather than fewer strong creature (this tends to create more interesting encounters, feels more intimidating due to action economy, and avoids having high DC effects that have a significant probability of taking players out of the game entirely)
One good way to make encounters feel more dangerous is to use double-edged effects. Most kinds of environmental hazards are just as dangerous to the enemy as they are to the party, but when a player's normal attack patterns are disrupted they feel threatened. The actual difficulty hasn't increased (since the enemy is equally hampered) but the players feel like it has.
I'm going to agree with what it seems most people are saying here. It's okay to kill characters if they are a) being ridiculously stupid when it comes to decision making, or b) they've come up against one of the major encounters. What it's not okay to do is deliberately try to kill them off just because you can (please note that I'm not saying you're going to do that, I've just seen some GMs do it). That said, your mileage may vary depending on the group. Some will love high lethality, others want a cake walk. Many fall somewhere in between. I often tend to pull punches a little bit for the first couple of levels so that players can find their feet with the characters, then let them know that things will be a bit harsher from then on.
For an example, here is a recap email I sent to my Shattered Star group. Since it's a recap, there aren't any real mechanical details in there, and you'll notice one or two instances of house ruling... I still maintain that I was completely justifying in ruling that a natural 1 on the attack roll for the cleric trying to hit an amoeba with a flying mace results in the mace hitting the cleric in the face instead is perfectly reasonable, particularly when the amoeba is attached to the cleric at the time.
Anyway, the point is, you can see a few points where the players just did some silly, silly things. Like the cleric using burning disarm on his own armour when he was already low on HP. Or the wizard using his one spontaneous cast of the day to use burning hands, managing to catch the rest of the party in the spell while they were already at negatives to their reflex saves due to being entangled. The only reasons this situation didn't become a TPK was because one of the players made timely use of a plot twist card, and because one of the other players was away, so his character wasn't present. 3 out of the 5 characters were killed though. However, my players loved it. For some of them it was the first experience of me running a game when the kid gloves are off, and it was a bit of a shock, but once they understood that it was their own decisions that had led them into this situation, they were fine. That said, the wizard player is now running a rogue, and has somehow managed to blunder his way into being poisoned by literally everything that has the ability to do so in this dungeon.
I've spoilered this as it does contain some details of encounters in the first book of Shattered Star. It's also a fairly long read.
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> After a couple of days rest and recovery, the party decided to return to the Crow to continue exploration past the burning doors. Magnus was unfortunately too ill to accompany the rest of the party, due to his suffering from Filth Fever (which has now been cured).
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> Shortly after entering the unexplored part of the complex, the group found an ancient bathhouse. While investigating the scumming water that remained in the pool, a couple of giant amoebas attacked. One of them managed to heavily wound Zamnil the Ranger with repeated slam attacks, while the other latched onto Aeros' face and did it's best to crush his head. While the rest of the party dealt with the one attacking Zamnil, Aeros attempted to fight off his opponent by heating up his own armour in an attempt to burn it away. When that failed, he magically flung his battle aspergillum at it, unfortunately managing to smash his own face while completely missing the amoeba. After Aeros knocked himself out, the rest of the party managed to destroy the amoeba and Zamnil poured a potion down Aeros' throat to revive him.
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> At this point the party took a brief rest for some healing. Perhaps not enough healing, as the following events show.
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> The party proceeded down another passage, when Zamnil found a secret door. It led to a room that contained a pool of sea water, and a stone column holding a bucket. When Dash investigated the bucket, he found that it was full of dead bats. Dash proceeded to tip the bats into the water, then leapt back to the ledge, at which point three spiders the size of dogs emerged from holes in the wall of the pool. They quickly covered the party in web and started biting. With two of the party already weakened from the fight with the amoebas, they were quickly going under. Tybalt quickly decided to make a risky play to try and kill the spiders at the risk of further harming his friends. He channelled his emergency reserves of arcane power through his ring in order to transmute one of his prepared spells into a wave of fire that engulfed everyone else in the room. Zamnil and Dash succumbed to the flames and passed out, while Aeros was let barely standing. Unfortunately the spiders managed to escape the worst of it, and came out relatively unscathed. They killed Aeros, subdued Tybalt, and began to finish off the rest of the party
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> At this stage Aeros was already dead, while the rest of the party weren't far off. Mike handed Evan the Best Friend plot twist card, and I advised that if used to call a reliable ally, at least one of the party may survive. Evan thought about this and played the card. The next few events were partially based on luck of the dice and a little bit of additional bias in the party's favour due to the use of the card.
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> Just in time to see Dash take his final breath, Koriah swam into the room through a secret passage she had discovered, and climbed out of the water. She quickly killed the spider that was biting at Zamnil and healed him with a wand, then dragged him through the passage to the outside. After Zamnil was outside, Koriah attempted to return for Tybalt, but although she successfully killed the remaining spiders, he bled out before she could rescue him. Fearful that more spiders would be on the way, she swiftly returned to Zamnil and helped him return to the Pathfinder's Lodge to recover. Along the way, she broke the news that he was the sole survivor. Ominously, she also mentioned that the spiders she had killed were wearing tiny saddles, suggesting that they were steeds for some kind of inhabitant of the complex within the Crow.
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> So, almost a TPK, narrowly averted by use of a plot twist card.
I also agree with much of what is being said. Character death should be a potential threat entering into any/every encounter. Without the threat of death, foolish and thoughtless actions prevail, and that does neither the party nor the GM any good whatsoever.
While not exactly the same, certain concepts of game mechanics translate from different formats. Take a look at the level design of the original Super Mario Bros. game. The player starts off with a "?" block and a single goomba walking towards them. The goomba is unobstructed; the player has the option to encounter it or evade it. Next, the player has to jump over three pipes of increasing height. During these jumps, the player is introduced to an enclosed goomba (harder to evade,) and then two enclosed goombas in series. After that, the player is expected to traverse a chasm. Next, the player encounters their first turtle; then the game starts combining the previous obstacles.
This is all elementary to us now decades later, but the point is that the game introduces these basic core concepts early on, and if players can master these early levels, they will be ready for later challenges. Players can (and do) die in the first level of Super Mario Bros. If they didn't die, if they didn't have the threat of failure, they wouldn't be ready for the later levels. Robbing players of the chance to grasp their core concepts early on robs them of the enjoyment of the more nuanced, complicated later end-game content. Also, succeeding is rewarding! Being able to exclaim, "Hooray, I didn't die!" is very rewarding! But it stops being rewarding if you remove that threat. Don't rob your players of that reward.
*At early levels, I usually give some leeway until players figure out their characters, but not always. See next point.
*I tend to give larger hints and reminders to players with lesser degrees of system mastery. That being said, a player better learn the first time around, because come the second time you see something, you'd better know how to handle it.
Example: I had a relatively new player keep getting dropped to negatives because they kept standing up in front of an enemy, getting hit & KO'd, healed, standing up, etc. A few fights later when they were fighting a BBEG and wanted to try that. I warned them about the impending AOO, and they continued with their actions. The BBEG put them down for good that time.
*Remember, as the GM, you have all the power to make those last-second decisions. If the dice are about to kill the player and you don't think it's fair, change up the outcome to something else; something more engaging and personal.
Example: maybe a magical critical hit causes an arcane curse of some kind and the players have to seek out a special person or antidote. Bam, there's an adventure hook, not an adventure killer. Maybe a physical critical hit causes someone to lose a hand or foot; same as above, you could give them the option to seek out a legendary construct craftsman to make them a golem/clockwork appendage.
So, to sum up; EMPOWER your players, not by giving them 'DM shields', but by giving them the opportunity to hone their skills and crave new challenges. Don't be scared to let them fall off their bicycles; that's how they learn to get back up. And they'll let you know when their bored with the current level of encounters and are ready to step it up a notch.
I developed a trick for this. Put the PCs in challenging situations that will not necessarily kill them if they fail. Make them think they're at risk of death when you intend to keep them alive. Make them think everything has gone horribly wrong when you are actually in complete control of the situation. Just because you know the PCs are safe doesn't mean they will.
A pack of orcs might nurse the dying party back to health and turn them into slaves. Maybe the bad guys simply rob them and leave them for dead, allowing a passerby to save them. Maybe the ogre decides to take them back to his cave and cook them, giving the party a chance to escape. Present villains that have little motivation to kill the party. Yes, there should be consequences if the party loses a challenge, but the consequence doesn't necessarily have to be death.
If the player's actions will lead to potentially deadly results, telegraph that very clearly and give them a chance to back out. It's more exciting because then the player gets a chance to let their character take a deadly risk, knowing that if they die, it was for a good cause.
For example, I once had a player get a chance to escape a Gelatinous Cube. Instead of escaping, he choose to swim through it to rescue an NPC on its other side. I told him that his character knows this would likely kill him. The player was fine with it, because if he died, it would be a glorious, heroic way.
Running published adventures and staying as close to the listed tactics as possible helps ensure you aren't leaning too far either way and puts the responsibility for survival more in the pc's court.
I can't totally vouch for this. Even Paizo modules have balance issues. In legacy of fire, my 2nd level character got one-hit killed (though saved by GM fiat) by a dire boar that came out of no where. And I was considered over-leveled for that encounter.
It's good to kill a PC when the player is bored of the character (or the rest of the group doesn't like the character, or the character has proven very ineffective).
It's bad to kill PCs when they're the driving force of your plot.
It's good to have a certain amount of tension, such as PCs brought below 0HP and close to death.
It's bad to make it look like the GM is deciding on a whim which PCs will live and which will die. Luck and tactics should be (or at least seem to be) the decisive factor.
It's bad to have a situation where the players take it for granted that they will survive the campaign.
It's bad to have a situation where the players take it for granted that the campaign will end in a TPK.
It's good to have other sources of tension apart from the fear of PC death - eg they're trying to prevent an NPC from being assassinated - where failure doesn't end the campaign.
Yeah, to support what everyone else says -- it's okay to kill characters when it's dramatically appropriate, or when it would strain credibility to keep them alive.
Some level of risk is necessary to keep tension and interest levels up, but too much risk (i.e. if death is a dead cert) it starts to get boring.
A bigger and more important question, in my mind, is what do you do when someone dies?
Obviously, the player needs to get a replacement character, but a lot of people tend to play carbon copies of the previous character. "Hello, my name is Zandalf, the Charcoal. I'm Gandalf the Grey's younger brother." In my opinion, this is cheap and cheesy and devalues the risk and narrative. On the other hand, if instead the guy comes back with "Hello, my name is Boroden, the Slightly Flatulent (BSF for short)," then the party may not have any arcane caster left.
I think the best way to handle it is for you, the game master, to have some sort of resurrection quest in your back pocket that you can run to bring the original Gandalf back to life in a suitably dramatic way. Hopefully you only need to use it once in a long while....
The three questions I always ask:
1) Did they earn it? Was it just crappy luck, or were there legitimately poor decisions or overlooked information that led to their demise? Did I design the encounter properly for their level/skill or did I overlook something? If it was crappy luck or poor design, I'll often fudge the dice to let them scrape through.
2) Were they aware of the consequences? If the players don't get that a situation is deadly dangerous, then death can catch them by surprise and that can be quite frustrating. If I didn't properly convey the danger, that is my failing as a DM and they shouldn't be responsible for it.
3) Does it further the story? If not, what's the point? Lessons can be taught in better ways- instead of killing the character to teach them caution, for example, have a PC/quest object/NPC captured thanks to their foolishness and make them go through hell to get it back.
It has been my experience that this is a conversation you need to have with your gaming group. It is part of the social contract you are setting up with your players, whether it is explicit or implied. And how well you conform to the expectations of that social contract will have a lot to do with how well the players think you are doing as a GM. This goes for more than just killing PCs, but killing PCs is one of the most obvious examples. You should also discuss with your group what sorts of campaigns they like to play, how stringently they want the rules to be enforced and how the group handles things like eating pizza and drinking beer. Oh, and how you deal with "mature" subject matter like in-game sexual activity or potential player-vs-player actions.
I've played with groups where the death of a PC would be like dumping a load of dead fish on the table, and I've played with groups where if PCs don't die fairly regularly, the players get bored. It's all up to the group.
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Players become attached to their characters, but just as much, they're at the table because there's a risk they might lose that character. This makes the game exciting. I've seen extremes from players - to sheer dejection and a feeling they might "take a break" from the game after losing a beloved character to "meh, it was time for a change anyways."
I don't fudge the dice rolls, so if a natural 20 pops up and a character bites the dust, the game goes on. This transitions you to the all-important decision, which will be unique to your group: how are character deaths handled?
This of course has been debated at length in other threads, from thoughts to let dead characters stay dead to side quests to bring a PC back to "partly dead" solutions. Sensing a player was extremely attached to her PC, I worked in a natural solution that opened up an entirely new story plot.
My point: risk = excitement. Let the dice fall where they may and use the followup (what to do about death) based on your players. Never ever arbitrarily kill a character or put them in a situation where through no fault of their own they're getting killed.
I think I'm getting to the point that I'm going to ban criticals against players. I try to set the lethality of my games to be "low but non-zero". In general I don't like PCs to die but if it NEVER happens then players know they can do stupid things and not have consequences. However, an unexpected critical with a halberd can suddenly leave PC who has done nothing wrong without a head.
I think I'm getting to the point that I'm going to ban criticals against players. I try to set the lethality of my games to be "low but non-zero". In general I don't like PCs to die but if it NEVER happens then players know they can do stupid things and not have consequences. However, an unexpected critical with a halberd can suddenly leave PC who has done nothing wrong without a head.
I'm not so much banning criticals against players as I am just ignoring 1 out of every 3 that come up. I've found that's helping signifcantly. Since I started running Pathfinder a couple of years ago, I've been using the same set of dice, and over time they've earnt their title as the Purple Sparkly Dice of Doom. More specifically, the d20 has, to the point that it has now been given its own title: "Hello Critty". I'm starting to suspect that the weighting may be off on it, since it's rolling far nat20s than I'd expect under normal circumstances. From memory, last session it was rolling a 20 maybe 1 out of 8 rolls, and many of the other rolls were only one face away from a twenty.
That said, reducing crits still isn't going to help players who keep making consistently stupid decisions in game, at least not enough for them to keep their characters alive. But that's as it should be.
When they forget the snacks.
Thats always been my ruling and I've only gone hungry that one time.
NEVER AGAIN
Excellent point good sir! My players have quickly learned that bringing me tasty treats is a good way to get themselves some leeway. In fact the events of horrible spider-caused death that I mentioned above occurred, if I recall correctly, on an evening when one of them forgot that it was his turn to supply me with chocolate milk.
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I'll admit I didn't read most of the thread because I have been drinking. One thing I would like to point out is using hero points. Players get them when they level or as often as you like. If they bank two of them they can turn them in to cheat death. This has allowed me to take the gloves off as a GM and allow the dice to fall where they may. Players get a chance to keep their characters kicking instead of losing them if they like. If the players are not careful they run out of points and perma death rears its ugly head. So its up to the PCs. I give them some rope they decide what to do with it. Most use it as a life line. Occasionally, they hang themselves with it. Players amirite?
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Excellent point good sir! My players have quickly learned that bringing me tasty treats is a good way to get themselves some leeway. In fact the events of horrible spider-caused death that I mentioned above occurred, if I recall correctly, on an evening when one of them forgot that it was his turn to supply me with chocolate milk.When they forget the snacks.
Thats always been my ruling and I've only gone hungry that one time.
NEVER AGAIN
No, no, you got this all wrong you just help yourself to the milk.
No, no, you got this all wrong you just help yourself to the milk.Excellent point good sir! My players have quickly learned that bringing me tasty treats is a good way to get themselves some leeway. In fact the events of horrible spider-caused death that I mentioned above occurred, if I recall correctly, on an evening when one of them forgot that it was his turn to supply me with chocolate milk.When they forget the snacks.
Thats always been my ruling and I've only gone hungry that one time.
NEVER AGAIN
A slight misunderstanding here. What I mean is that he outright forgot to bring the milk to the game. An unforgiveable offence! Admittedly I could have gotten on the bike and gone to get some, but a) it was near 0 degrees celsius outside (too much for even my leathers to help with) and b) it was an evening session, so I'd already had a beer, and I'm on my Ps, meaning no riding with even the slightest amount of alcohol in my system. Instant fine and potential loss of licence.
I think I'm getting to the point that I'm going to ban criticals against players. I try to set the lethality of my games to be "low but non-zero". In general I don't like PCs to die but if it NEVER happens then players know they can do stupid things and not have consequences. However, an unexpected critical with a halberd can suddenly leave PC who has done nothing wrong without a head.
What we do is that no weapon used against PC's has a X3 crit, they all have X2. Great axes are 19-20 X2, for example.
As a VERY general rule of thumb, if you are killing more than one PC per level, either they or you are doing something wrong. If it is less than one PC per 2-3 levels, then it's not dangerous enough.
You can also ratchet up the deadliness a bit if there is a supply of Raise Dead, etc.
Also, once in a while a player will want a new PC and also want a heroic death for his old PC. This is OK, once in a while.
Sometimes I forget how low the lethality of other players campaigns is. :P Thank you for reminding me. Record for the most lethal campaign I've been in was about 3 per session, not level. LOL
I think I'm getting to the point that I'm going to ban criticals against players. I try to set the lethality of my games to be "low but non-zero". In general I don't like PCs to die but if it NEVER happens then players know they can do stupid things and not have consequences. However, an unexpected critical with a halberd can suddenly leave PC who has done nothing wrong without a head.What we do is that no weapon used against PC's has a X3 crit, they all have X2. Great axes are 19-20 X2, for example.
As a VERY general rule of thumb, if you are killing more than one PC per level, either they or you are doing something wrong. If it is less than one PC per 2-3 levels, then it's not dangerous enough.
You can also ratchet up the deadliness a bit if there is a supply of Raise Dead, etc.
Also, once in a while a player will want a new PC and also want a heroic death for his old PC. This is OK, once in a while.
Three per session? You weren't playing Paranoia by any chance were you?
No, 3.5. The GM was new and was trying to play it so every encounter was about APL + 4. Boss encounters had 2 fights in a row ranging in the 4-6 area.Three per session? You weren't playing Paranoia by any chance were you?Sometimes I forget how low the lethality of other players campaigns is. :P Thank you for reminding me. Record for the most lethal campaign I've been in was about 3 per session, not level. LOL
I think I'm getting to the point that I'm going to ban criticals against players. I try to set the lethality of my games to be "low but non-zero". In general I don't like PCs to die but if it NEVER happens then players know they can do stupid things and not have consequences. However, an unexpected critical with a halberd can suddenly leave PC who has done nothing wrong without a head.What we do is that no weapon used against PC's has a X3 crit, they all have X2. Great axes are 19-20 X2, for example.
As a VERY general rule of thumb, if you are killing more than one PC per level, either they or you are doing something wrong. If it is less than one PC per 2-3 levels, then it's not dangerous enough.
You can also ratchet up the deadliness a bit if there is a supply of Raise Dead, etc.
Also, once in a while a player will want a new PC and also want a heroic death for his old PC. This is OK, once in a while.
Well, that would certainly do it. I've been known to thrown a way too hard challenge at a party now and then, but nothing that over the top. Normally for me it's when there is also another way for them to get out of a situation, like the time I threw a ridiculously high level druid at a group. They were despairing of finding a way to deal with it they realised that there was a rather easy way to take him out - I won't go into the specifics, since it was GM fiat that allowed for the solution, but basically they were able to use logic and problem solving skills to avoid having to actually fight him.
...Well, that would certainly do it. I've been known to thrown a way too hard challenge at a party now and then, but nothing that over the top. Normally for me it's when there is also another way for them to get out of a situation, like the time I threw a ridiculously high level druid at a group. They were despairing of finding a way to deal with it they realised that there was a rather easy way to take him out - I won't go into the specifics, since it was GM fiat that allowed forNo, 3.5. The GM was new and was trying to play it so every encounter was about APL + 4. Boss encounters had 2 fights in a row ranging in the 4-6 area.Three per session? You weren't playing Paranoia by any chance were you?Sometimes I forget how low the lethality of other players campaigns is. :P Thank you for reminding me. Record for the most lethal campaign I've been in was about 3 per session, not level. LOL
I think I'm getting to the point that I'm going to ban criticals against players. I try to set the lethality of my games to be "low but non-zero". In general I don't like PCs to die but if it NEVER happens then players know they can do stupid things and not have consequences. However, an unexpected critical with a halberd can suddenly leave PC who has done nothing wrong without a head.What we do is that no weapon used against PC's has a X3 crit, they all have X2. Great axes are 19-20 X2, for example.
As a VERY general rule of thumb, if you are killing more than one PC per level, either they or you are doing something wrong. If it is less than one PC per 2-3 levels, then it's not dangerous enough.
You can also ratchet up the deadliness a bit if there is a supply of Raise Dead, etc.
Also, once in a while a player will want a new PC and also want a heroic death for his old PC. This is OK, once in a while.
See now this is sounding less like a challenge and more like the GM deciding to crush the party so thoroughly that they'll never dare show their faces again.
...Well, that would certainly do it. I've been known to thrown a way too hard challenge at a party now and then, but nothing that over the top. Normally for me it's when there is also another way for them to get out of a situation, like the time I threw a ridiculously high level druid at a group. They were despairing of finding a way to deal with it they realised that there was a rather easy way to take him out - I won'tNo, 3.5. The GM was new and was trying to play it so every encounter was about APL + 4. Boss encounters had 2 fights in a row ranging in the 4-6 area.Three per session? You weren't playing Paranoia by any chance were you?Sometimes I forget how low the lethality of other players campaigns is. :P Thank you for reminding me. Record for the most lethal campaign I've been in was about 3 per session, not level. LOL
I think I'm getting to the point that I'm going to ban criticals against players. I try to set the lethality of my games to be "low but non-zero". In general I don't like PCs to die but if it NEVER happens then players know they can do stupid things and not have consequences. However, an unexpected critical with a halberd can suddenly leave PC who has done nothing wrong without a head.What we do is that no weapon used against PC's has a X3 crit, they all have X2. Great axes are 19-20 X2, for example.
As a VERY general rule of thumb, if you are killing more than one PC per level, either they or you are doing something wrong. If it is less than one PC per 2-3 levels, then it's not dangerous enough.
You can also ratchet up the deadliness a bit if there is a supply of Raise Dead, etc.
Also, once in a while a player will want a new PC and also want a heroic death for his old PC. This is OK, once in a while.
Your party is made of sterner stuff than those I play with then. I salute you and your comrades, both fallen and otherwise!