For one thing : if it all comes down to random bad luck (and a good plan) I might change things. That being said, I'd actually have the guard "roll" a low-initiative and give the rogue a chance to stab him again (flatfooted), which should do the job. Keeps the story intact, provides a moment of tension, makes the rogue's player wishing for a more experienced character (and the next level)....
On the other hand : level 2 chars usually should realize that they are "newbs" in the greater game, with only a little experience and failure should still be an option to be planned for.
Besides : if single guards were utterly useless, who would even accept the job ? I mean, you don't post guards for them to be mobile targets, right ?
Besides : if single guards were utterly useless, who would even accept the job ? I mean, you don't post guards for them to be mobile targets, right ?
This is exactly the problem I was getting at.
In real life, if you sneak up on a guard, you can kill him in one hit with a weapon--weapons are deadly, killing people is what they are for and they are good at it. Guards are just people and not capable of taking a sword blow they don't see coming any better or worse than any other person. The actual benefits of a guard in real life are intimidation and noticing stuff. In real life, killing the guy is the easy part and sneaking up on him is the hard one.
But in Pathfinder, the sneaking is easy--it's just a single roll on which the PC has a big advantage, but the killing is hard because Hit Points are a weird abstraction.
A "realistic" low level Rogue should have a hard time sneaking up on the guard and an easy one killing him, but an actual low level Rogue has a hard time killing the guard when he gets there. This is the problem people are having and why they want to "bend the rules to suit the story." The story they have in mind is more realistic than the game they're playing. They're just treating a symptom instead of the disease. Just play a game better suited for what you want, instead.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ive been gaming a long time but am new to the system. (Well not really, I played 2nd Ed way back but it was centuries ago)
Occasionally the confines of the rules compromise the storyline. When this occurs do you guys adhere to the "game" or deviate to let the plot flow?
For example - a 2nd level thief manages to sneak up on the sentry guarding the gate into the citadel. He backstabs but the players and GM realize that even with maximum damage rolls he cant kill the guy right off, he is going to live to fight at least another round. Sort of anti climatic after a great stealthy approach and all.
Do you implement some hand-wavy rule option to give him a chance to slit the guard's throat silently (3x damage or something, or maybe make the guard make a save to avoid buying it instantly)
Thoughts?
Nope. A level 2 character isn't a skilled and experienced veteran, it's someone who (mechanically speaking) runs largely on luck and guts. They are a newbie. Maybe they stumble wildly at the final hurdle after doing everything else perfectly, and this is the comic newbie error or the mistake under pressure from which they will learn to be a truly skilled and deadly (=higher-level) assassin. Maybe the scar they got from a guard when they messed up at 2nd level will be what they think about at 6th level to remind themselves to keep focus and discipline till the job is done.
If I wanted my PC rogue to be able to one-hit assassinate an alert but unsuspecting guard pretty reliably, I'd probably be running a game at higher level. There exists a level of play at which this is within a PC's capabilities with no need for rules fudging - it's just not 2nd level.
Ive been gaming a long time but am new to the system. (Well not really, I played 2nd Ed way back but it was centuries ago)
Occasionally the confines of the rules compromise the storyline. When this occurs do you guys adhere to the "game" or deviate to let the plot flow?
For example - a 2nd level thief manages to sneak up on the sentry guarding the gate into the citadel. He backstabs but the players and GM realize that even with maximum damage rolls he cant kill the guy right off, he is going to live to fight at least another round. Sort of anti climatic after a great stealthy approach and all.
Do you implement some hand-wavy rule option to give him a chance to slit the guard's throat silently (3x damage or something, or maybe make the guard make a save to avoid buying it instantly)
Thoughts?
Nope. A level 2 character isn't a skilled and experienced veteran, it's someone who (mechanically speaking) runs largely on luck and guts. They are a newbie. Maybe they stumble wildly at the final hurdle after doing everything else perfectly, and this is the comic newbie error or the mistake under pressure from which they will learn to be a truly skilled and deadly (=higher-level) assassin. Maybe the scar they got from a guard when they messed up at 2nd level will be what they think about at 6th level to remind themselves to keep focus and discipline till the job is done.
If I wanted my PC rogue to be able to one-hit assassinate an alert but unsuspecting guard pretty reliably, I'd probably be running a game at higher level. There exists a level of play at which this is within a PC's capabilities with no need for rules fudging - it's just not 2nd level.
This was precisely my point in my previous point. I don't buy the whole "any person could reasonably kill an unsuspecting other person" argument. Yes, maybe a 10 year old can stab a sleeping adult but do they have the knowledge to make that stab deadly? Do they have the strength to make the wound lethal?
A low level rogue killing a helpless victim, a coup de grace, that's one thing. A low level rogue killing an armed, trained guard? Well, if you're taking into account ALL the systems, maybe the PC successfully snuck up on the guard, but didn't have enough strength to drive the knife deep enough into his back (almost definitely the case since we're talking a low level rogue), and THAT'S why it wasn't an instant kill.
The HP system, combined with AC, gives a reasonable facsimile of what could happen between two people of different skill levels.
A low level rogue killing an armed, trained guard? Well, if you're taking into account ALL the systems, maybe the PC successfully snuck up on the guard, but didn't have enough strength to drive the knife deep enough into his back (almost definitely the case since we're talking a low level rogue), and THAT'S why it wasn't an instant kill.
And my point was that it takes no strength to kill someone with a knife when they don't see it coming. Human skin isn't knifeproof by any stretch of the imagination. It takes very little force to penetrate. A long enough knife is hitting organs.
If someone sneaks up on you and stabs you in the back, you're dead. There's just no hope there. Because here's the trick--in real life, you don't just stab once and see if they're dead. Knives are fast. If I'm behind you, I'm stabbing you repeatedly all over your back until you can turn around. Even if your adrenaline pumps you up and you turn around to hit me, you're doomed. There's too many holes. You're going to die without magical (or modern medical) intervention.
So, look, justify the rules however you like, it doesn't really matter. I have no problem playing the rules the way they are, I only have a problem claiming those rules are realistic.
If someone sneaks up on you and stabs you in the back, you're dead. There's just no hope there.
Citation needed. Just leafing through the Google results for penetrating stab wound mortality stabs frankly appear to be very survivable.
Wikipedia also has this to say about penetrating chest trauma:
Most penetrating injuries are chest wounds and have a mortality rate (death rate) of under 10%.
Now, obviously there are some differences between modern and fantasy medicine... but few of them are likely to be at play in the question of whether the guard survives long enough to take an action.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Citation needed. Just leafing through the Google results for penetrating stab wound mortality stabs frankly appear to be very survivable.
Wikipedia also has this to say about penetrating chest trauma:
Most penetrating injuries are chest wounds and have a mortality rate (death rate) of under 10%.Now, obviously there are some differences between modern and fantasy medicine... but few of them are likely to be at play in the question of whether the guard survives long enough to take an action.
Several things:
1) The mortality rate given is assuming one stab (not all the stabs you can deliver before they turn around) and takes into consideration modern medical techniques.
2) Modern knives and D&D daggers (never mind shortswords) are nowhere near each other in size. What D&D calls a dagger is both longer and thicker than a typical knife used in the kinds of stabbings these studies investigated.
3) You pointed out yet another excellent point about how unrealistic things are--in real life, that guard might have the adrenaline required to turn and wreck your day, but the fact is, he's dead on his feet without intervention. But in D&D, if he turns and wrecks you, he's totally fine afterwards.
Look, seriously, the point I'm making here is only this:
The system is unrealistic and that's ok.
People are talking about how they put fun first, but they aren't really, because if they consider realistic outcomes to be fun, they shouldn't be playing such an unrealistic game and then throwing band-aids on the egregious stuff on the fly. If you want the game to be more realistic, don't change one rule on the fly, change the system. Most games handle this specific situation better. If murdering guards with fidelity is something you value, you will have more fun by changing games.
On 3, a really good dm I know (who runs a range of stuff and not much fantasy anymore) actually has thrown in the condition "dying and you don't know it yet" and, dying and you know it, what do you do with your last breath?
It has been really cool. Can allow the situation of enemies are incapped and dying, time to go to rp time, no more combat needed; and the truly awful possibility of last ditch heroism, but you will certainly die of your wounds.
Today I was lecturing some of my students on samurai death poems. Cool, but they at first couldn't wrap their heads around it. How do they compose and deliver poetry while dying or dead? Well, I explained, some was prepared before hand, but with medieval weapons and armour for elites, not all deaths were quick, and some may take a while to die from their wounds. Thus there is a possible opening to throw out their last few lines and tell their retainers.
These young lads are used to computer games, to quick kills, to bonus points and moving on. Reality was not so clean.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I tend to believe the best stories surprise the GM.
As a GM I try to follow the logical conclusions of the players actions based on what I know to be going on in the setting. In my experience this leads to the most interesting outcomes for everyone, and I prefer as a player to game with this style of "storytelling"
I would agree! A dm must move and adapt, if everything is planned out and expected, a dm is missing out on so much fun. I think it is why one dm i know stopped running pre-gens (one of the reasons anyway), he knew how it would go, therefore it wasn't that interesting.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I completely agree, as well. I never know what's going to happen--if I ever did, I'd be bored GMing.
I once tried running an AP and hated it. I once tried to run a game where I knew the ending I wanted, and hated it too. I love being surprised as a GM, which is kind of odd because I'm not especially concerned with being surprised as a PC.
When the players pleasantly surprise you, the dm is having about as much fun as is possible.
Barring killing them all with a simple trap.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I tend to believe the best stories surprise the GM.
As a GM I try to follow the logical conclusions of the players actions based on what I know to be going on in the setting. In my experience this leads to the most interesting outcomes for everyone, and I prefer as a player to game with this style of "storytelling"
This is how I DM. The group can always come up with something together much more interesting than what I would have thought up alone.
Honestly, I suck at running published, planned out adventures. I'm at my best with a loose sheet of notes, and just playing off of the players actions. I can improvise on the fly extremely well(so I've been told), but I'm terrible at keeping facts straight from modules. I've tried to run 1-book adventures like Red Hand of Doom, and failed miserably. The prospect of running a Paizo 6-book AP is terrifying to me.
Some of our best adventures we've ever played, were literally made up on the spot. I've had old players of some of those games come up to me years later at parties, and cheerfully reminisce about them. That's a pretty darn good feeling.
|
|
I completely agree, as well. I never know what's going to happen--if I ever did, I'd be bored GMing.
I once tried running an AP and hated it. I once tried to run a game where I knew the ending I wanted, and hated it too. I love being surprised as a GM, which is kind of odd because I'm not especially concerned with being surprised as a PC.
When I run an AP, I run it as "These are the things happening in the background that will effect things" rather than as a railroad.
The good ones are written like this.
Do you implement some hand-wavy rule option to give him a chance to slit the guard's throat silently (3x damage or something, or maybe make the guard make a save to avoid buying it instantly)
Thoughts?
If I had intended the guard to be one-shottable, and only realized during the game that he's not, yeah I might fudge the rules.
But I agree with mplindustries; if you're playing D&D, you're playing within a universe where the physical laws don't always match real-world laws. If you want, for example, a game where ganking guards of your own power level is doable, there are much better games than D&D.
|
While I don't believe in railroading, if the DM is hinting to you that the adventure that he has prepared lies to the north in the city of Adventuria, then the group that obstinately heads south for no good reason is being a bunch of a%#~+!~s. One part of the social contract of the game is that the players will play the adventure that the GM has prepared for them.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
While I don't believe in railroading, if the DM is hinting to you that the adventure that he has prepared lies to the north in the city of Adventuria, then the group that obstinately heads south for no good reason is being a bunch of a%+$*~*s. One part of the social contract of the game is that the players will play the adventure that the GM has prepared for them.
Unless your players are unknowingly under the impression that the campaign is some sort of open-world sandbox for them to prance around in and cause havoc...
I've had this happen, a LOT, and it sucks. I don't know where the disconnect happens. I don't know how "Hey guys, I'd like to run ____ adventure" somehow gets interpreted as "Hey guys, let's game. Do whatever you want. It's cool. This module I'm holding is actually just a really thick DM screen."
|
|
While I don't believe in railroading, if the DM is hinting to you that the adventure that he has prepared lies to the north in the city of Adventuria, then the group that obstinately heads south for no good reason is being a bunch of a%+$*~*s. One part of the social contract of the game is that the players will play the adventure that the GM has prepared for them.Unless your players are unknowingly under the impression that the campaign is some sort of open-world sandbox for them to prance around in and cause havoc...
I've had this happen, a LOT, and it sucks. I don't know where the disconnect happens. I don't know how "Hey guys, I'd like to run ____ adventure" somehow gets interpreted as "Hey guys, let's game. Do whatever you want. It's cool. This module I'm holding is actually just a really thick DM screen."
I've found that strangely, what was in the north suddenly seems to be in the south when that happens.
It's weird.
While I don't believe in railroading, if the DM is hinting to you that the adventure that he has prepared lies to the north in the city of Adventuria, then the group that obstinately heads south for no good reason is being a bunch of a%+$*~*s. One part of the social contract of the game is that the players will play the adventure that the GM has prepared for them.Unless your players are unknowingly under the impression that the campaign is some sort of open-world sandbox for them to prance around in and cause havoc...
I've had this happen, a LOT, and it sucks. I don't know where the disconnect happens. I don't know how "Hey guys, I'd like to run ____ adventure" somehow gets interpreted as "Hey guys, let's game. Do whatever you want. It's cool. This module I'm holding is actually just a really thick DM screen."
I've found that strangely, what was in the north suddenly seems to be in the south when that happens.
It's weird.
Right, I'll move stuff around and still try and make it work, but when you've got a couple of players who are just hellbent on "making their own game" it's gets exceedingly difficult.
For example; Me: "Hey guys, I'm running a game that takes place in Absolom where the players are part of a religious order of monster hunters, trying to track down a creature that has been murdering citizens in the poorer parts of town."
Turns into: Them: "We're going to Freeport and starting a pirate organization..."
It's a player-problem, not really a game one. I've identified the problem players and they have been dealt with, for the most part. Just sayin', it happens.
|
|
While I don't believe in railroading, if the DM is hinting to you that the adventure that he has prepared lies to the north in the city of Adventuria, then the group that obstinately heads south for no good reason is being a bunch of a%+$*~*s. One part of the social contract of the game is that the players will play the adventure that the GM has prepared for them.I've found that strangely, what was in the north suddenly seems to be in the south when that happens.
It's weird.
That would generally be my solution as well, although I'm sure that will be decried as railroading, and the sign of a horribad tyrant GM.
|
|
While I don't believe in railroading, if the DM is hinting to you that the adventure that he has prepared lies to the north in the city of Adventuria, then the group that obstinately heads south for no good reason is being a bunch of a%+$*~*s. One part of the social contract of the game is that the players will play the adventure that the GM has prepared for them.Unless your players are unknowingly under the impression that the campaign is some sort of open-world sandbox for them to prance around in and cause havoc...
I've had this happen, a LOT, and it sucks. I don't know where the disconnect happens. I don't know how "Hey guys, I'd like to run ____ adventure" somehow gets interpreted as "Hey guys, let's game. Do whatever you want. It's cool. This module I'm holding is actually just a really thick DM screen."
I've found that strangely, what was in the north suddenly seems to be in the south when that happens.
It's weird.
Right, I'll move stuff around and still try and make it work, but when you've got a couple of players who are just hellbent on "making their own game" it's gets exceedingly difficult.
For example; Me: "Hey guys, I'm running a game that takes place in Absolom where the players are part of a religious order of monster hunters, trying to track down a creature that has been murdering citizens in the poorer parts of town."
Turns into: Them: "We're going to Freeport and starting a pirate organization..."
It's a player-problem, not really a game one. I've identified the problem players and they have been dealt with, for the most part. Just sayin', it happens.
I find those are the times you play out the logical conclusions of those actions.
If there is something the players should do, there is generally a reason they should do it and a penalty if they don't.
If the players don't deal with the problem in the north, the problem in the north grows worse to the point where it causes problems the PCs can't ignore, logically.
ROTRL first book for example
In any decent campaign, ignoring the Macguffin should eventually cause enough problems that the Macguffin goes on the offensive.
Besides : if single guards were utterly useless, who would even accept the job ? I mean, you don't post guards for them to be mobile targets, right ?This is exactly the problem I was getting at.
In real life, if you sneak up on a guard, you can kill him in one hit with a weapon--weapons are deadly, killing people is what they are for and they are good at it. Guards are just people and not capable of taking a sword blow they don't see coming any better or worse than any other person. The actual benefits of a guard in real life are intimidation and noticing stuff. In real life, killing the guy is the easy part and sneaking up on him is the hard one.
Seeing a single guard in a roleplaying game tells me one of three things
A) cheapskate boss
or/and
B) incompetent boss (either of these may have been heard of before)
alternatively
C) "It's a trap !!" (bait, illusion, very competent guy who actually has a fair chance to see the player approaching )
Nevermind that actually NOISELESSLY killing someone in a single stab/blow is not quite as easy (and requires some intense training - an old friend from school days who went parachutist with the local army's scouting unit, demonstrated some of this on a trip home) as movies and literary tropes make it look. Especially not a guy in armour. And I have yet to read/watch a rogue (not ninja) training school practising one-hit take downs in fiction or movies (outside of Scott Lynch's trick-thief school) for their young recruits.
Medieval weapons are not good at killing people : using them effectively is what kills people, which requires time and practise. Try taking some fencing lessons^^
just my take
Besides if HitPoints work for the benefit of players (usually), NPCs might have the benefits of them as well ?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've thought a lot about this, and ultimately, there's a reason the GM has a screen.
My players have no idea how high level the enemies I create for them are (though it's easy enough to clue them into the fact that some enemies are easier to defeat than others), and if they come up with a REALLY nice plan, I have no problem dropping the enemy down a few hitpoints extra for the effect.
My players are pretty creative when it comes to bypassing scenarios, so I like to throw open ended things at them to see how they solve them. Sometimes, the rules don't adequately cover it.