Well, if they all die, why does it have to be the end of the story? Surely other adventurers will hear of the party who went in to save the priest's body and never returned, thinking of all the riches this party must have had. And in the meantime, other monsters will move into the recently vacated spaces left by the current party, repopulating the dungeon for the new adventurers.
This is also assuming they don't pull something out of their collective ass and actually manage to succeed. Players will often surprise you with the levels of ingenuity they will go to in order to survive.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Me, I would let things happen as written. No changes to the monsters.
As you say, it was a "brash" decision by an "emotional" character to disregard personal safety, followed by the rest of the group putting themselves into jeopardy to chase after him.
My personal rule is I don't TPK my players because of things I do (making an encounter too hard, or rolling lots of crits, or whatever) but I am more than willing to let them TPK themselves by doing stupid or risky things. Their actions fall into that category.
The alternative is to protect them from their own foolishness by toning down the encounters, weakening the monsters, fudging the die rolls to turn hits into misses, etc. All this does, in the long run, is reward their recklessness and encourage more of it. Won't fly with me.
So, to answer the title, I would not avoid this particular TPK, and I would hope the players learn from this mistake and next time, they create more level-headed characters who don't behave so irresponsibly.
Well, nerf your dungeon if it's CR is too high.
Lower your drake's hp, ac and BAB.
Lower the dcs of traps and obstacles.
Give them the corpses of other adventurers with some consumable loot that would buff them for just that fight.
Throw some weaklings at them to grind them up a level or two.
Have a puzzle that grants a gratutious amount of story xp that levels them up.
Do these help?
I agree with both points made by Vulture.
I'd also point out that perhaps only one or two players will perish, while the rest of the party retreats. It's not TPK or win, after all.
If the impulsive fire-lover dies, then the party members have an important lesson driven home. This is just part of the story, and helps the (surviving) characters grow. If the fire-lover survives, then maybe he develops a guilty conscience for leading his friends to their deaths through his brash actions.
If you and your players are having fun, the game and the story will continue, regardless.
|
Here is a message I friend sent me a few weeks back and I found Inspiration vs. TPK's.
Speaking of character death, I read this post recently and am really into it. It's partly because it got me excited about the pretty standard system of xp that I haven't used where rather than getting xp for money looted, it's for looted money spent. The point that the blog post makes is that it incentivizes you buying and investing in things, like building forts and hideouts, creating new spells and so on. So it gets you plugged into the campaign world and having a hand in creating it in kind of a cool way.
As in:
"The rules subtly encourage Player world building via the XP system. Characters all seek to grow in survivability, and may only do so by plundering and then spending cash. They move wealth from ruins/lost places into a game economy. Since the characters can only advance by spending large amounts of gold they do large things with it.
In the ODD game I play on G+ PCs have: tried to invent spells, built hidden shrines to dubious gods, bought property, erected memorial statutes and now at 6th level are attempting to rebuild a road with a fortified toll post to skim off new trade. None of this was planned by the GM, the world was just open for it, and even if our party gets wiped out by the forces of barbarism that object to new trade routes - we'll leave something behind (in addition to a treasure trove of equipment). If the plan succeeds it'll be a trade route and tower and if it fails a 1/2 built road, an army of dead mercenaries and at least one impoverished town. It is also why a Total Party Kill is a good thing. The destruction of the characters becomes part of the world.
Example of a world building TPK: When the random encounter dice show that the emboldened 2nd level party is ambushed by thirty longbow wielding bandits, and the party is surprised, loses initiative and falls to a swarm of arrows without a chance to respond, the game world gains something. Any GM that fails to then mark a bandit hideout with an especially effective and cruel gang of marauders in that hex is making a big mistake. Future parties will avoid that road, unless they are seeking out the bandit band. If the bandits are ever killed they should obviously have some of the dead party's stuff."
http://dungeonofsigns.blogspot.com/2013/04/thoughts-regarding-character-mor tality.html
As a further note, you could force them to go back to town. Throw a shadow or two or three at them. Drain a ton of Strength, make them all weak. They probably will have to retreat back to town to cast (purchase?) some Lesser Restorations.
Of course, then they won't learn a valuable lesson. But it could be one way to put them on the rails without them knowing you put them on the rails.
So they are right at the fight, are level appropriate, just without the buffs?
Let the fight happen, perhaps granting them an escape route that allows the sole survivors to drag the corpses out and back to town for some ressurection action.
Or nerf the monster.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I would let the situation play itself out and use it as a learning opportunity for the players. From your description it doesn't sound like an automatic TPK. The group might be able to handle it, or they could still run back to the previous level.
Too many variables to assume a TPK. From the situation they are in if they do TPK, they probably need to learn a lesson.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
They're 3rd-level and stupid.
Kill them.
(Then, smarter, they make new characters who aren't as dumb.)
-- Do not nerf the opposition, ever; it is up to the PCs to employ Auguries, divination magic, talk to NPCs (etc) to get a gauge on what sort of opposition they may be facing.
Make your world powerful and mysterious, and your players will love you for it.
So drop a few skeletons that the drake has killed with gear in their path to give them level appropriate gear, if you want to be nice to them.
Otherwise let them figure out how to trap this thing and let the dice fall where they may.
Me, I would let things happen as written. No changes to the monsters.
As you say, it was a "brash" decision by an "emotional" character to disregard personal safety, followed by the rest of the group putting themselves into jeopardy to chase after him.
My personal rule is I don't TPK my players because of things I do (making an encounter too hard, or rolling lots of crits, or whatever) but I am more than willing to let them TPK themselves by doing stupid or risky things. Their actions fall into that category.
The alternative is to protect them from their own foolishness by toning down the encounters, weakening the monsters, fudging the die rolls to turn hits into misses, etc. All this does, in the long run, is reward their recklessness and encourage more of it. Won't fly with me.
So, to answer the title, I would not avoid this particular TPK, and I would hope the players learn from this mistake and next time, they create more level-headed characters who don't behave so irresponsibly.
To expand on what Blake said here - you could even over do it big time in the first few rounds of combat. Have the first hit this drake rolls be a critical hit which instantly drops a character. Go big at the beginning and try to force your party to run away quickly, with a viable escape route built into the encounter (climbing a ladder, etc.) At least this way, they will realize that they are in over their head BEFORE the whole party dies. Worst case scenario, the party leaves behind one or two unfortunate characters behind as food (one of them hopefully being the character who brashly rushed the party into this situation) to keep the beast from chasing them down.
This way you teach them the lesson about being brash and avoid the TPK. But I agree that protecting them from their own foolishness will simply set the expectation that it's the DMs job to make sure they don't die, not theirs, which is NOT the way that characters should think about the world (what is a DM, even?) - very metagamey. Choices have consequences in this world, and in the fantasy world. In this world, you forget to fill up your car with gas and you end up being late for something. In the DnD world, you forget to buy arrows and you find yourself fighting a dragon with a "stringed club"... Just my 2 cp.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well, if they survive the situation they'll learn two things:
1. There's no point in planning - charge in and things will work out fine.
2. If things are too dangerous, increasingly unlikely coincidences will prevent us from being wiped out.On the other hand, if you let the cards fall where they may - even if that means a few dead characters, or a TPK - then they learn two different things:
A. Don't bring somebody who's "emotional" and "reckless" into a potential deathtrap.
B. It's not up to the GM to save us - it's up to us to save each other... including knowing when it's time to run.I won't pretend I'm not fonder of the second two lessons, but you should make whichever decision produces the campaign you want to see. In a pulp-fantasy or swashbuckling kind of campaign, the first two lessons are valid and encourage entertaining play. In a more hard-boiled or 'historical fantasy' play stile, the second set of lessons are going to provide more gaming enjoyment in the long run.
They might also learn that when someone charges off into the darkness on their own, it's sometimes best to leave them on their own.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
This whole thing brings up one of my few "buttons" in playing this game.
That button is the player who deliberately plays a character who is not merely stupid but dangerously stupid.
As a player myself I have had my own characters refuse to adventure with such characters since they have no desire to be the victims of stupidity, especially when it is not their own. In the last example we went out adventuring one player's character was reckless because "that's his personality" so when we got back to town, my character booted his character from the party.
Why are the rest of the players allowing this character to adventure with their characters in the first place?
To expand on what Blake said here - you could even over do it big time in the first few rounds of combat. Have the first hit this drake rolls be a critical hit which instantly drops a character. Go big at the beginning
This could convey the wrong message. It would be easy for the players to conclude that the GM gave them a monster way too powerful for 3rd level characters (which in their eyes might in no way be a reflection of their rash behavior). Even worse, it could be seen as the GM tried to scare them away but they were too bold to fall for it so the GM unfairly punished them by being unnecessarily vindictive.
I would suggest not being punitive. Not changing the encounter or faking any dice rolled. Let the situation play out as scripted.
Now, me, I might fake a little bit. Like, if the monster hit by 6, I might tell them that the monster barely hit, and then hint that it probably would have missed if the PC had been wearing better armor. I might even go so far as to outright say that he could have bought better armor with his share of all that gold they are carrying around. This way, I'm not really changing the encounter (either way the monster got a hit) but I am making a point.
This whole thing brings up one of my few "buttons" in playing this game.
That button is the player who deliberately plays a character who is not merely stupid but dangerously stupid.
Why are the rest of the players allowing this character to adventure with their characters in the first place?
Answer: They are metagaming. The players see that other player at the table and they know they are supposed to form a group with whatever joke that guy brings to the table.
As a player myself I have had my own characters refuse to adventure with such characters since they have no desire to be the victims of stupidity, especially when it is not their own. In the last example we went out adventuring one player's character was reckless because "that's his personality" so when we got back to town, my character booted his character from the party.
I fully agree. Adventuring is dangerous enough without scraping the bottom of the barrel for companions.
My most recent clash, sadly, was with a player who constantly ignored class features (like he never raged with his barbarian, even in obvious high-risk boss fights). It was the player, not the character, but I focused on in-character roleplaying to make the point by gathering the whole party back in town and we discussed the character's performance as being vastly below our expectations and ended up demoting the character to a hireling by party agreement - we agreed to pay him 3gp per day adventuring but give him no share of the loot as only full group members, not hirelings, are deserving of loot shares. The player was furious and ultimately rage-quit the group (but oddly, not that day or even the next few sessions - it took a while for him to get fed up of the consequences of his own actions).
Sometimes you have to let the PCs die. I wouldn't change how you've been running at this point - you gave them chances to back off and they didn't take them. You could potentially offer more - for example, if the drake drops a PC, it could take an action to clamp on with its jaws and worry the body, which would probably kill of the fallen PC but would also be an opportunity for the other PCs to start running like hell. And then don't pursue but instead eat the dead body since that would require no more effort from the otherwise lazy predator.
Whatever you do, don't bump up the threat of this encounter to provide a "teachable moment." Just let it happen as it happens. Fudge only if you'd fudge normally (such as deciding the time isn't right for a crit just because the die says so, or shaving a few points off the strength mod when rolling crit damage if the end number is simply too high to be seemly). Roll in the open only if you'd normally roll in the open. In other words, just run the encounter as you'd normally run it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
However, one of the players decided that since his character was brash and emotional he would respond by running into the third floor of the dungeon. The other players, having no time to shop now,went after him.
okay fellas let's do this
LEEEEEEEEROOOOOOYYYYYYYYYY!
JENNNNNNNNNNNNNNKKKKKKKINNNNNNNNNNNNNSSSSS
The game is a lot more fun when there is a risk of actually having your character killed. I wouldn't nerf it.
|
|
If you really want to push the fact that being stupid isn't a good idea, let them find an npc in the dungeon. The NPC should be quirky and lovable. (Noteworthy ones that I've met are: The Punching Dwarves that get you drunk and brutalize you but afterwards act quite kind again. George, a deformed homeless man that thanks to being thrown into a river tainted by the mana wastes recovered one of his lost eyes.)
|
Kill 'em. Stupid should be rewarded. And their reward will be not to be stupid.
I've once had a player who went ahead and I said, "Good luck, I'm going home to heal up." After that the party gets to decide how stupid they intend to be. And once the 'idiot' PC realizes he's alone, he can either calm down or he can run in a suicide run and get killed. If on the other hand the rest of the party decides to go along with him, then the guy who lives through it all gets to be the lone hero who leads the next party who goes to avenge his previous comrades.
A fourth player didn't retreat? What happened?
No, the fourth player retreated, he just didn't want to. The other players basically just left him and he was like "Well fine, I guess."
Lol! Well good on them. Leave Leeroy Jenkins to suffer his fate alone, if he isn't willing to listen to a very broad GM hint.
|
|
Alright, so the dungeon run was not without drama. I told them I was going to run the fight as I felt it should be run, with the caveat that if they wanted to mount an early retreat (Which three of the four did) I would select targets such that they would be more likely to get out than suffer party deaths. After a bit they decided to retreat and regroup and prepare.
Everything turned out alright, with a challenging and difficult encounter that ended with the players feeling triumphant.
at least i have chicken.
Close, "Least I ain't chicken"
|
|
But I agree that protecting them from their own foolishness will simply set the expectation that it's the DMs job to make sure they don't die, not theirs, which is NOT the way that characters should think about the world (what is a DM, even?) - very metagamey.
I don't know, having faith in your God is a bit of a fantasy staple.