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Apologies if this topic has come up before; I couldn't find anything about it with a glance through the last several threads and this has been on my mind for a while.
Excepting the Andoran faction's special benefit (the 2 Prestige one, I believe), am I right in believing that if a character or party is completely defeated (there is no way, no how, they are winning the fight or escaping)... that they are better off killing themselves on the spot than accepting any calls to stand down? As I understand it, there are mechanics for retrieving their bodies (5 Prestige cost) and then raising them from the dead plus undoing the resulting negative levels, but apparently no way to come back from standing down in that fight.
Am I missing something? If not, is this intentional or something worth looking at? While nobody sets out to fail, this strikes me as odd; it appears appears that a PC is vastly better off just doing a Coup de Grace on themselves or otherwise making sure they die in the event of inevitable defeat. Perhaps picking up one of the Asian weapons with bonuses on this just to be sure the job is done right, if one wishes to go that far.
Edit: And yes, this actually has come up for at least one character of mine. While most enemies try to kill them outright, I've run into a few that wanted to bring them in alive and I thought to myself "Better not let that happen." Fortunately had just enough resources in each instance to eke out a win, but... it was food for thought.
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Not sure what you mean?
If you stand down, you fail the mission and miss out on some loot - that's it. You still get 1 XP (if you get past 3 encounters, or 0 if you don't), 0 or 1 prestige, and maybe partial gold if you're lucky.
If you stab yourself, you're dead. 5 prestige to retrieve, 16 to raise (does that work if you kill yourself?) and negative levels to deal with. That's huge in comparison!
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Not sure what you mean?
If I remember right, characters that are taken captive during a PFS adventure are considered Marked as Dead (e.g. the Dead flag used in PFS session reporting to indicate the character and/or the party they're immediately with cannot afford to revive the character) and thus permanently removed from play.
I think that's the case? I've heard a few others mention it while discussing what the proper use of the "mark character as dead" checkbox in session reporting is. Edit: This much I do clearly recall, at least. I don't have any links to the relevant threads handy, but the understanding that came of this was you don't mark the character as Dead if they resolved their Dead status by no later than the paperwork after the session; it's meant for "character is not coming back, period" rather than just merely 'dead.'
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If a scenario allows for you to surrender, that's almost certainly going to leave you in a better position than death. If the scenario doesn't specifically spell out what happens if you surrender, then it's up to the GM, but I would think some kind of hostage retrieval would happen outside the session, and you'd just suffer the penalties of failing the scenario.
I do know of at least one scenario where you can explicitly be captured, and you receive a negative "boon" as a result, but even that is better than paying the high cost to be raised.
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It's possible I've just been getting a really weird scenario spread or GMs are interpreting things differently than written, then. (I won't be going into details on that even if the latter is true, as none of them were acting maliciously in any event and this thread wasn't meant to start a witch hunt).
That most of the responses have been of the "Huh? Wha?" variety tells me it's likely the former situation and I've just had bizarre luck. Hopefully that's so... otherwise, going shopping for a wakizashi as a 'cyanide pill' equivalent is very, very odd for an adventurer to do.
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This reminds me of the First Steps part 1 discussion where people freaked because a GM suggested the enemies at the end rob the PCs but leave them alive. Apparently there are actually people out there that believe losing 150gp of treasure is worse than losing the character itself.
There are two scenario I've seen that have real penalties for being captured. In the first case, if you don't pay your ransom you are removed from play (but the ransom is cheaper than a raise dead by half). In the second, you are beaten and tortured so badly that you permanently lose a point of Constitution, but IIRC you don't even lose your gear.
The Con one is pretty bad, but even then not worth offing the character.
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Okay, that is interesting. Either I really misunderstood what people were saying in some other discussions, or they're theorycrafting rather than discussing something that would actually come up in PFS.
I agree, the loss of 150 GP is not a greater loss than the actual character (unless you treat them as disposable; I don't as I have specific stories and motifs I want to convey through mine). Either way, excepting a few corner cases where death may well be better, it seems the general responses follow any of several lines.
1: "Your character wins, fights to the death, or retreats. There are no other outcomes in this adventure."
2: "This adventure specifically addresses what happens, and none of them indicate perma-death equivalent outcomes."
3: "In corner cases where Item 2 does not apply, GM is expected to adjudicate what happens, and unless the scenario outright says otherwise it is implied there will be chances to get the character out of their situation rather than it being automatically treated as perma-death equivalent."
Do I have that about right, without delving into specific spoilers for various adventures? If so, then I seriously misunderstood where some other discussions were going and I appreciate being corrected on it!
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To me it all depends on who you are fighting. If you are fighting town guard in a lawful setting, then its likely you would be arrested/trial etc. As its more likely that at least one guard would of been killed, then we are talking Murder. of course if the same guard are in Riddleport or a River kingdoms town, then is likely death time for characters.
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Celestial Pegasus
RAW - surrender can be the worse option.
I was in a game level 11 - the whole group got captured and stripped of items.
Option 1: the wizard dimension doors out of the cell and the group survives - albeit naked
Option 2: ensure you just die - this have been carnivores and they kept the group as feedstock
Unfortunately RAW it was better to be eaten and get a resurrection (no Raise dead as death would mean being eaten) as to try to flee and leave close to 100K of items behind.
I think there needs to be something like retrieve bodies while still alive or retrieve processions in the rules for a given amount of prestige. Otherwise a GM following the rules will make option 2 the better one.
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I've only seen a few scenarios which deal with the possibility of PC capture, and each of these specifies exactly what capture means. I've never seen one which results in losing gear as a result of being captured. In the one I've seen where capture is reported a death, if you pay the ransom you get the character and gear back.
In fact, the only scenario I can think of in which all your gear is taken if you lose the fight is First Steps I, and that can only happen to a 1st level character so death is not going to be the better option.
I'd say if you are going to be captured, and the only way out is death, then just get captured. The worst that will happen will be cheaper to remedy than death.