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As per the subject, when you are running Pathfinder Society scenarios, how often do individuals die in your games? Would you say you average 1 per 4 games? 1 per 3 games? 1 per 2 games? 1 per game? This is all death, including that which players are able to spend resources to bring them back from the grave.
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I've got 39 tables of credit, and have GM'd over three individual deaths, and one TPK.
One was from a rather stupid player decision to provoke an AoO from a zombie ogre with a great club. Another was in The Dalsine Affair. The thirds was from a Rogue Sandwich. And the TPK was a level 3 negative-channeling cleric against a party of four level 1 pregens.
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I've had 3 very close to death, but so far no one has died in PFS. One in particular was from a high damage crit on the first round of combat of the first fight of the scenario. Another was a party of al brand new characters, none of them being particularly combat effective, and just all around poor rolling (because the Paizo die roller can't seem to roll higher than "5", 75% of the time), and 1 player was outside, and 3 out of the 4 inside where down.
I tend to roll out in the open, and take what is rolled, so if it did happen, it happened. But at the same time, I usually have enemies spread out attacks, (especially if they have a special attack with it like disease or paralysis), and reasonably avoid characters that are down.
As a player, I have almost died twice, and witnessed another player literally 1 point away from death (again a crit in the first round of the first combat, just happened to be the unarmored Sorcerer vs a tiger surprise attack). DM bent the rules a tiny bit to allow me to effectively double move over difficult terrain to get into range and channel to heal. The other was a s completely uneffective party vs the thing at the end of the (NOT ELEMENTAL EVIL, someone really needs to come up with a different thing for that "ToEE" is already used) ToEE, which probably should have been a TPK.
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Benjamin even 1/4 is way too frequent, Assuming and average of 5 players per table that's a 5% death rate.
I have GMed about 80 sessions. (Ignoring breath of life, here are the times I can remember raising being needed)
I have killed 1 PC is Voice of the Void
I killed 1 PC in the Dalsine Affair
I killed 2 PCs in The Golemwork's Incident
I killed 2 PCs in Race for the Runecarved key
I TPked a party in The Trouble with Secrets
I killed 1 PC in The many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch
I killed 1 PC in Way of the Kirin
Waking Rune hard: 0 deaths
Waking Rune: 1 death
Waking Rune: TPK
Waking Rune: 0 deaths
Waking Rune: TPK
I killed 2 PCs each of the 2 times I ran Bonekeep p1.
I know we're a small sample size but if we ignore Bonekeep, Jiggy, RainyDayNinja and I are all at about seeing PC death once per 10 sessions.
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I've got 53 tables of GM credit and had 3 PC deaths:
- One in the final encounter of 'the Edge of Heaven' (subtier 1-2)
- One in the final act of 'Siege of Diamond City' (subtier 1-2)
- One in the upper level of Fort Rannick in 'the Hook Mountain Massacre' (Rise of the Runelords, campaign mode)
None of the victims were raised. There have also been several very close calls, where an above-average damage dice roll would've resulted in more PC death.
EDIT: It's worth pointing out that the vast majority of the games that I've run have been low tier (1-2, 3-4, 4-5).
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Let me throw the figures off ...
I've GM'd over 150 sessions ... I have had 3 character deaths...
It's not the GM or the scenario (sometimes), it's all about the dice rolls ... perhaps if you have a set of dice that always roll "hot" add in a set of dice that is usually pretty low numbers ... let the players have it easy for a few rounds and then unleash hellfire and brimstone on them ...
Remember it's not a you vs. them kind of game ... my best games are when we are all cheering success and moaning over failures together regardless of who is rolling the dice.
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I've killed just over 50 characters (not including pets) over ~130 games. So 1 for every 3 games roughly.
As Kyle said, Tier is pretty critical. But I may go a couple months without a death and then run something very deadly like
Jiggy brings up a good point too. Some of us have a reputation of being more lethal than others. So there's nothing wrong with knowing the Gm's available and using that as part of your criteria for selecting a scenario to sign up for.
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@Kyle You are right Kyle it does seem to matter what tier they are in. Actually even in what season they are in also. I find I have far more deaths using the tactics and npc from Season 5 than any other seasons.
The reason I am asking this, is though I personally abhor it when a player dies; it seems lately I have been running into a rash of players dying at my table (never a TPK). I meticulously pour over the tactics and the stat blocks of the NPC to try to understand it and look at the situations they are in to try to give the players a challenge. Death truly sucks when it occurs and I feel for the players tremendously. On a sidebar this is the most popular I have ever been as a GM, also. Its not that I am trying to be a jerk or anything. If a player goes unconscious and starts relenting; not offering a threat, I relent. I do dice rolls to randomly determine who somethin goes after, if the tactics will let me. It just seems lately if I try to play the npc to the best I can while following tactics and the environment, people seem to be falling over.
I am still interested to hear the numbers of deaths people have had at their tables. So please keep that up. But another question is has anyone else ever had a rash of players starting to die at your table? Did you lighten up from the tactics and start holding back?
The ratio I am at for the last two months is one to three death per every other scenario. Previous to two months ago I never had anyone die. Granted quiet a few deaths have been crits by whatever when they are at low health (generally after being brought back up by a healing spell or channel) and/or the other pathfinders leaving their comrades bleeding out on the battlefield where they eventually die.
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Are you counting the ones who are brought back by breath of life? If not, it's probably one per four games, so Jiggy should stay away! Generally crazy dice rolls, but the most recent one wasn't.
Second to most recent was a foe who has a special ability to basically send one PC into an arena against him and they have to fight one on one. The paladin summoned his pig and was generally killing the bad guy, but the bad guy hits hard. Still, thanks to using heroic defiance, the paladin powered through a few hits, and I made it to the final iterative. "OK, this is his fourth attack. You have ridiculous AC, so I can only hit on a natural 20" I said. Then I got a natural 20. In my home games, that natural 20 would have telescoped up and not necessarily even hit, but in PFS, it had to be an auto-hit, so the guy died. The pig killed the enemy immediately thereafter, and the party cleric, who could have used breath of life if the paladin wasn't in another dimension, cast raise dead shortly thereafter. I also killed the cleric's cat animal companion three times in that scenario (if you count breath of life, but that's only because he kept breath of lifeing it into low hp and it died again the next round each time), but that isn't a character. Strangely, the cleric himself has 8 Con and has never died.
Most recent character death
Still want to stay away Jiggy? Or are those OK? I'm not even sure if those weren't consecutively GMed scenarios. While the games were a few months apart, I haven't GMed much lately because Linda is heading for 5 Stars.
Other memorable deaths--
A Shadow Lodge agent is trying to Diplomacy a smuggler who just wants to escape. Even after he crits her by accident with a natural 20, she tells the party to go easy on him and not attack. As a result, he then immediately crits her again with another natural 20 and kills her. X_X
A super-rich halfling bard has almost 3000 gold going into his third game, First Steps Part 1. Halfling on halfling racial gang violence occurs at the end, and he dies instantly to a x3 axe crit. I think this is the only character who ever died irrecoverably except the TPKs.
A cleric dies to the crushing damage from the last round of black tentacles (since the spell doesn't stop when you go unconscious) due to using too much of his supernatural healing earlier on the selfish rogue and running out of channels.
Same cleric refuses to let fighter and other allies come with him to talk to the nasty yeti-looking guys because "it might spook them", walks into encounter alone despite protests (actually I think he survived).
Same cleric sees a big viney thing. The witch says "I'm going to roll Knowledge Nature on that vine". The cleric says--"Before he does, I go up to it and touch it with Knowledge Touch." I say "The good news is you succeeding at identifying the plant. It's an Elder Assassin Vine. The bad news? You just walked up to and poked an Elder Assassin Vine." (actually I think he survived this too--I know I killed him several times though and I can't remember which one other than that).
And my two TPKs--
Party squeezes into very narrow area on difficult terrain and starts loudly talking about how they are going to use piteous half-ghoul Maurit Zergo for her information and then kill her. I say, "So are you whispering this". They say "Nope, talking just like this." This pushes her over the edge and she starts attacking. She manages to drop everyone and starts to eat the sorcerer who was most vociferous about killing her. Due to the inquisitor bamboozling me about the judgment that gives fast healing (this was years ago), he wakes up. He casts true strike while she is distracted (she is at 1 hit point by the way). He shoots his bow and, of course, natural 1. Then she makes sure he is dead this time. I let them all bring in new identical characters and start the adventure again on their -2, since it is replayable anyway. They proceed to crush the whole thing (the sorcerer min-maxed enchantment magic through the roof, but undead are immune).
In ToEE,
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I guess part of the big thing that I am toiling over is this: One part of me says bring the best, most realistic experience as possible for the characters at the table. If the NPC are fearful of death or see the players as a challenge, act as a person who knows they just might not make it out a live out of this encounter. Always follow tactics to the letter. Another part of me, wonders if I should hold back. Granted my concern is that if I don't bring my A-game, it won't be as enjoyable to the players.
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Are you counting the ones who are brought back by breath of life?
I would be sad not to. One of my favorite stories is about 1 player dying 4 times during 1 encounter!
But another question is has anyone else ever had a rash of players starting to die at your table? Did you lighten up from the tactics and start holding back?
It depends on the group. If the group was looking for a challenge, no way! If the group looked completely demoralized at the idea of death and/or it is a group of newer players, I will alter tactics in the players favor.
I roll in the open for everything except tier 1-2. There's no softening a crit from a x3 or x4 weapon. But it's for that reason I roll behind a screen for tier 1-2.
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60 some tables of credit, 2 PC deaths. As a GM I don't pull punches if things go bad, but I do ask my players prior to starting if they want me to run easy/standard/hard/god help us mode (which I use to determine things like focus firing PCs, coup de grace on downed PCs, spell targeting prioritization, ect.)
Have 2 characters at 19th level, 1 at 12th level, and 1 at 8th level - no deaths here yet.
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I'm at zero deaths so far, but several close calls. I've been at a lot of tables where a player bit it. The most recent was a poor teenage girl whose dad, the GM, rolled a critical with the BBEG in Rise of the Goblin Guild against her druid, thus requiring a brief game break for apologies, hugs, and promises to let her next druid get to "keep" her surviving animal companion.
Part of this is due to me being a rather softie GM, part of it is my box of hundreds of badly-rolling dice, and part of it is player murder-machines or excellent player tactics.
Closest was probably Blakros Matrimony, where the BBEG's resistances and immunities, plus adding a juvenile template that only made it tougher, would have spelled death for the whole group. Their saving grace was, funny enough, half the group suffering from a fear effect, as well as the built-in fight time limit. Second closest was the final room of Fabric of Reality; after the group got severely mauled, two of the PCs used invisibility to complete the mission objective while the rest of the group bolted out of the room, then they all booked it back home ASAP.
I'm sure my first one's coming up, particularly if I end up running more 7-11s, but I'm not aiming for it. It'll happen when it happens.
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@Ben - I feel much the same way you do about wanting to provide the best experience for my players. The question then is how do you do this when everyone has different opinions on what the best experience is.
You can generally get a good feel for a players gaming style during a character introduction. If a player has a rich story and gives details about their out of game (no mechanical affects) habits, I go with a story driven player. If the player describes their character as being a walking armory that's good at breaking stuff, or gives details that are very much mechanical to combat, I feel confidant running a stiffer game.
It's my opinion that adventuring is a dangerous business. Otherwise anyone would do it.
There are plenty of ways to feel out a player or groups of players. But finding a way to do this will help you provide a good overall experience for as many players as possible.
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Granted my concern is that if I don't bring my A-game, it won't be as enjoyable to the players.
That's only going to be true for certain players.* Conversely, my wife sometimes gets nervous if someone so much as gets low on HP, let alone actually goes to negatives. And for myself, I like the really challenging fights to a be a once-in-a-while thing; easy(ish) fights make the hard fights mean something.
Also, since a couple of people have commented on my earlier post: I meant if someone actually killed PCs at those rates, not if someone's average comes out to that because of outliers. With my one TPK and a couple of other kills, I'm looking at nearly 20% of my tables having a death... except not, because two thirds of those deaths were a single table, so I've actually only had 3 tables where a death occurred. So my statistical "rate" is almost 1 in 5 tables, but my real rate is less than 1 in 10 tables.
Seem a bit more reasonable now? :)
*Interestingly, the "PCs need to be at real risk of death in any given encounter or it's not fun" idea is one I've heard almost exclusively from the GM side of things. That is, for as often as I hear GMs claim that their players won't have fun unless someone goes down in every encounter, I sure don't hear many players confirming that belief.
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you know, i have the urge to turn this question around.
How often does your PC die? Figuring average table size of 5 players, the ratios above would seem to translate to the following ratios...
1 in 4 ----> 1 death in 20 games...
1 in 3 ----> 1 death in 15 games...
1 in 2 ----> 1 death in 10 games...
1 in 1 ----> 1 death in 5 games...If your PC is dying that much, how do you have enough resources to keep playing?
dying every 15 games means you earned at most 30 PP, and you have to burn 16 just to come back (not to count the restorations)... wow!
Because at least over here, it used to be for sure that your buddies help split the costs of death when you die heroically and it could have been anybody (rather than dying due to foolishness). This has been dialed back a bit after Out of Subtier. It used to be standard to get both the raise and restorations split, but nowadays, it's usually just the raise.
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As GM with 30 tables of credit, 5 deaths that I can recall offhand:
Slave Pits of Absalom (Tier 4-5):
Among the Living (Tier 3-4):
Murder on the Silken Caravan (Tier 1-2):
Frozen Fingers of Midnight (Tier 4-5):
Quest for Perfection III (Tier 4-5):
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*Interestingly, the "PCs need to be at real risk of death in any given encounter or it's not fun" idea is one I've heard almost exclusively from the GM side of things. That is, for as often as I hear GMs claim that their players won't have fun unless someone goes down in every encounter, I sure don't hear many players confirming that belief.
I will say there are extremes in both directions. I have played under two GMs at cons who majorly cheated (or made huge blunders by mistake but probably not) to kill PCs, including my only character death, from a Con poison that was supposed to be a Cha poison.
I have also played plenty of hard games that were extremely fun.
I have also played under one GM who softballs enough that it is noticeable and makes the game less fun for me as a player (pulls Power Attacks unless the tactics demand them, has NPCs keep attacking the guy with obviously impossible to hit AC when the other PCs are more effective and clearly have lower AC, archers with a tactical advantage in positioning abandon it to go into melee with their backup weapon, sometimes calls fights before they happen, etc).
I have also played plenty of games where we barely took damage that were extremely fun.
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I've yet to have one of my PFS PCs bite it, which surprises me sine my first PFS PC was poorly built for combat. He almost ate dirt against some phase spiders, but the GM pulled his punches at the end, having them flee after getting beaten down to low hp. My second was a min-max-y halfling fighter murder machine, and my third was a surprisingly effective hurler barbarian throwing greatswords. The latest batch of PCs has been pretty much just GM credit, so they're still waiting in the wings to get mauled (my playtest bloodrager went to negatives in the above-mentioned fight against the Goblin Guild BBEG, but got dragged away and healed in time to win the fight and exact revenge).
Aside from the encounters I ran as mentioned above that were skin-of-your-teeth almost-TPKs, most of the player deaths I've seen at tables I played at were basically death by stupidity. Even then, most of the veteran players burn their first 2 PP on a CLW wand, then save up for their raise dead. Between that and player nest eggs, perma-deaths are quite rare.
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About 105 tables, only three deaths so far.
One in Severing Ties to a 1st level Ninja with 10 Con. Minimum damage would have KOed him, and I didn't roll minimum.
One in The Disappeared, a 2nd level Barbarian on the receiving end of Tier 4-5 attacks. A nice boon for a free raise dead got him back in the action.
One in The Confirmation. If he hadn't been second level, the first attack would have put him unconscious. As it was, the second attack left him with a round or two to stabilize and no party members in range to help.
As a player, I have lost my -2 twice to Waking Rune and Elven Entanglement. I've also had near-death experiences with my bard and paladin, the paladin just yesterday when he beat the CdG DC by two. My wife has had her rogue at -12 of 13 Con twice and only been saved by fellow party members.
Locally, I know there have been other player deaths, but the rate seems to be 1 per month at the highest.
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OH! Sorry! Technically my first PC died in his first session, First Steps Pt. I, since we ended with a TPK (or a TPUnconscious), because our group was a hideously-unbalanced group of two wizards, a sorcerer, a badly-built monk, and no front-liners. The final fight only took a long time because the monk brought a high AC and nothing else, so the villains had to take several rounds to beat him into unconsciousness. I don't think we dropped a single foe in that one.
Since it was First Steps, and most of us were first-timers to PFS, the GM just decided we failed the mission and let us continue. It's the only PFS chronicle on record where I didn't get the full 2 PP credit.
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Often enough. If we're counting breath of lifes, then I've seen one PC in our area with over 10? 20? deaths by the time he had reached level 12. .
I honestly don't remember how many PCs have died at my tables, but at about 200 tables over the last 3 years, so I think I can thank my forgetful nature for that.
The last time a thread like this came up I had about 100 tables GMd and had 30 or so PC deaths, so lets say I've had about 60 now.
Keep in mind that's a handful of bonekeep, and a handful of high tier specials. Looking at the numbers, a lot of those deaths are either a) the same PC multiple times in one scenario, or b) a majority of the party dying.
The factors that caused them are a combination of difficult scenarios with players that request a challenge, PCs built like glass cannons, and bad positioning during a fight.
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How often does your PC die?
This is a fun question! All of my characters will likely die from something. It's almost a right of passage in our area.
We play would-be hero's in a fantasy setting. You have to do something heroic to BE a hero.
Do I want to grapple the giant 4 armed, winged ape statue thing with my Tetori monk? Heck yeah I do!! That's WHAT I do.
Do I want to stand alone vs a large 2 headed dog thing that just spit fire all over me? I'm a raging Tiefling in a layer of Hell, ABSOLUTELY!
But then when my Oracle goes sneaking through some house, I failed a save and jumped over a balcony head first. Save or suck, I sucked!
Not all of my characters have a death wish, but they happen to be employed in a non-Osha approved business! Stuff happens. :)
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54 tables of credit:
5 deaths total
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3 (+Kyra) from a TPK in the Enigma Vaults
1 in the final encounter of Frostfur Captives
1 in the final encounter of Among the Living (to a grandfathered 3.5 ability)
The reason I am asking this, is though I personally abhor it when a player dies; it seems lately I have been running into a rash of players dying at my table (never a TPK). I meticulously pour over the tactics and the stat blocks of the NPC to try to understand it and look at the situations they are in to try to give the players a challenge.
Are you finding this across all tiers? Or have you been mostly running a certain level?
I try to scale the lethality to the experience of the players through NPC tactics and player coaching. For example:
Slave Pits of Absalom (Tier 4-5): Gnoll captain critical hits a magus on an AOO.
Among the Living (Tier 3-4): Zombie Ogre critical hit on a cleric/monk on an AOO.
I try to remind players not to take AOOs when they can avoid it. If they do (and they all too often do) decide to proceed, I let the dice fall as they may.
*Interestingly, the "PCs need to be at real risk of death in any given encounter or it's not fun" idea is one I've heard almost exclusively from the GM side of things. That is, for as often as I hear GMs claim that their players won't have fun unless someone goes down in every encounter, I sure don't hear many players confirming that belief.
As a player, I want to feel challenged. That doesn't necessarily mean someone has to drop, but I want to know that my choices have some meaning and that failure is an option.
As a GM, I assume that my players feel the same way, but I don't make any alterations to "enhance" the challenge if they're plowing through.
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We play would-be hero's
"Hero"? Hehe, that'd be a first for me! I joined up so I could travel the world and meet interesting people. Mom always said I was really talented and that I'd go far if I left home, and the Society seemed like a good way to make that happen. Turns out there's lots of messy situations in the world though, so I try to help out the best I can when someone's in trouble. But I don't think I'd say "hero".
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I really do want to be the best GM that I can be. Maybe I am doing something right and wrong, I don't know. My players who come to my table, I think like me because on average I get 6 to 12 different request from different people a week to run scenarios. I am just concerned the effort I am putting in is being to deadly. My kill ratio at that the moment with no-tpk is 21 deaths over the span of 36 table credits. So when do we have the permission to breakaway from tactics to softball it? If I am playing a creature with high intelligence should I intentionally do lapse of judgements on the NPC part too throw a bone in their ball park? I try to play low intelligence as stupid. When I get high intelligence I try to play it to the highest intelligence as possible. Also how do you handle rules lawyers at your table who enforce you to play harder? I have ran into this a few times when I have tried to softball stuff and they are like no throw it at us.
Thanks you all for help!
My table makeup is normally 6 players for a Season 4 or 5 scenario.
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With 67 table credits, I have only killed 7 PC's.
Table 39 - TPK of 5 pre-gens
Table 49 - One PC death by alchemist bomb. Poor guy was unconscious and suffered enough splash damage to put him under.
Table 52 - One PC death by fire breath. Similar circumstances as above. Actually felt bad about that one.
There are also two minor deaths to my name; an eidolon and an animal companion (on tables 51 and 60, respectively), but I don't really count those. I record them, but don't count them, haha.
Now I'm at 67, so that means 15 tables without the tears of players. Baird would be ashamed of me...
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We play would-be hero's
Despite this somewhat annoying moniker I seem to carry, I've never really been focused on trying to be a "hero". I have a calling, a divine mission (or series of missions) to perform. I'm not here to try and impress an audience with how much injury I can sustain by using a slow or ineffective means of combating an enemy. I'm here to save lives.
Maybe the judicious use of dismissal or plane shift against massive foes isn't as dramatic or "heroic" as dying in a stupidly-lopsided fistfight and therefore failing to protect anyone at all, but you know what? I'd rather have my companions forget me than their widows remember me.
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Are you finding this across all tiers? Or have you been mostly running a certain level?
Across all tiers. Mostly in 3-7 range though.
As a GM, I assume that my players feel the same way, but I don't make any alterations to "enhance" the challenge if they're plowing through.
Sometimes the tactics run out, then I have to start thinking on my feet. Thats when the trouble often comes in.
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Are you finding this across all tiers? Or have you been mostly running a certain level?
Across all tiers. Mostly in 3-7 range though.
Sometimes the tactics run out, then I have to start thinking on my feet. Thats when the trouble often comes in.
As a GM, I assume that my players feel the same way, but I don't make any alterations to "enhance" the challenge if they're plowing through.
How much would you say is attributable to player error (provoking unnecessary AoOs, charging into a creature with lots of attacks, grouping in fireball formation, blocking their own archers, etc.)?
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I really do want to be the best GM that I can be. Maybe I am doing something right and wrong, I don't know. My players who come to my table, I think like me because on average I get 6 to 12 different request from different people a week to run scenarios. I am just concerned the effort I am putting in is being to deadly. My kill ratio at that the moment with no-tpk is 21 deaths over the span of 36 table credits. So when do we have the permission to breakaway from tactics to softball it? If I am playing a creature with high intelligence should I intentionally do lapse of judgements on the NPC part too throw a bone in their ball park? I try to play low intelligence as stupid. When I get high intelligence I try to play it to the highest intelligence as possible. Also how do you handle rules lawyers at your table who enforce you to play harder? I have ran into this a few times when I have tried to softball stuff and they are like no throw it at us.
Thanks you all for help!
My table makeup is normally 6 players for a Season 4 or 5 scenario.
Here is my advice, since you asked about softballing ..
tier 1-5 softball as you see fit, I've found that a lot of players are still in their figuring out stages in this tier and can sometimes benefit from a little bit of help and information vs. a gm that tries to nail them to the wall to prove he can (or because the dice are doing that)
tier 5-9 -- kid gloves are about half off ... there may be times where a smidge of softballing at the lower end of the tier range is still warranted, however, there are very few punches pulled.
tier 7-11 -- nail 'em to the wall if you can. they should be able to survive at this point. Despite GMs that might have softballed before you they have seen enough to know that they need to be prepared for just about anything.
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Maybe the judicious use of dismissal or plane shift against massive foes isn't as dramatic or "heroic" as dying in a stupidly-lopsided fistfight and therefore failing to protect anyone at all, but you know what? I'd rather have my companions forget me than their widows remember me.
Those tactics are excellent, but they run the risk of doing nothing at all depending on Desna's whims. I may be a melee fighter, but there's no such thing as a "cheap" victory. If you're convinced your spell will stick, go for it, but against big melee bruiser foes, one tactic that can be even better, which is available if you are powerful enough for the two spells you mention, is to simply take to the air. That has a 100% chance of negating the threat, and you can destroy it at your leisure in a stupidly-lopsided fight in the other direction. When pursuing invincibility, sure things are always better than sometimes, and we're agreed that a sometimes that ends the battle is better than an equally-likely sometimes that only does part of the job.
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@Redward
A large portion of it can be attributed to player error or choice.
#1 Jumping into the water to go after a crocodile when they have a low CMD and a negative swim score.
#2 The biggest amount of deaths by far come from being healed back up to maybe 2 or 4 hit points; they then engage the enemy again. The enemy turns back to them. 7 of those deaths have been players provoking attack of opportunities in such a situation as this. I encouraged them to use a withdraw but they endup moving in some pretty bad spots that provoke other AoOs.
#3 A string of criticals.
#4 Scenarios and modules, requested by the party which can be particularly deadly. Accursed Halls, Enigma Vaults, Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment, etc.
#5 Intentionally running up and getting cornered in by an ooze/aberration when they could of fought from range.
#6 The party runs because one person falls unconscious and starts bleeding out. They leave the party member and flee. The party member dies.
#7 Provoking multiple attacks of opportunity by choosing not to cast defensively when they have 3 to 4 creatures around them.
#8 Two people have died separate times from the a haunt in a certain temple in another plane.
#9 Fall damage.
#10 Splitting the party. This what happened in two of my Confirmations. Some stayed out and engaged a certain creature while others went inside and engaged other things.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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I really do want to be the best GM that I can be. Maybe I am doing something right and wrong, I don't know. My players who come to my table, I think like me because on average I get 6 to 12 different request from different people a week to run scenarios. I am just concerned the effort I am putting in is being to deadly. My kill ratio at that the moment with no-tpk is 21 deaths over the span of 36 table credits. So when do we have the permission to breakaway from tactics to softball it? If I am playing a creature with high intelligence should I intentionally do lapse of judgements on the NPC part too throw a bone in their ball park? I try to play low intelligence as stupid. When I get high intelligence I try to play it to the highest intelligence as possible. Also how do you handle rules lawyers at your table who enforce you to play harder? I have ran into this a few times when I have tried to softball stuff and they are like no throw it at us.
Thanks you all for help!
My table makeup is normally 6 players for a Season 4 or 5 scenario.
You're obviously concerned about whether or not your players have a good time, which is the best thing to have as a GM. And since your players want you to GM for them, I think you're doing a great job at it.
As long as you follow the tactics and don't adjust the numbers, feel free to use your mastery of the system to ramp up or decrease the difficulty of your fights. I won't go into detail on how to do this, but at 36 tables, you should know the basics of what I am talking about (combat positioning, action choice, etc). As far as intelligent creatures making unintelligent decisions, roleplay those decisions as ones the NPC is passionate about. People loose all semblance of intelligence when they get frustrated (trust me).
I've never heard of a player complaining that a GM's tactics were too easy. I suppose if a player was trying to force me to play the monster a certain way, I'd remind them that they're not aware of all the factors that go into an NPCs decision, and (if pressed) if they'd like to make those decisions, they are more than welcome to GM a scenario in the future.
Season 4 and 5 are the harder ones, so remember the new rules for determining subtiers.
Starting with Season 4, scenarios are designed for six characters and contain instructions on how to adjust the scenario for four-character parties. When the APL of a table is between two subtiers (like APL 3 for a Tier 1–5 scenario), a party of four characters must play the lower tier without any adjustments for party size. A party of five to seven characters whose APL is between two subtiers must play the higher tier with the four-character adjustment.
For scenarios written in Seasons 0 to 3, when the APL is in between subtiers, a party of six or seven characters must play the higher subtier. Parties with four or five characters must play the lower subtier. In the fringe case where there are no players that are high enough to have reached the subtier level (such as a party of six 3rd level characters), the group may decide to play down to the lower subtier.
If you keep all this mind, I'm confident you'll do a fine job of providing your players with a great experience at the table.
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Maybe the judicious use of dismissal or plane shift against massive foes isn't as dramatic or "heroic" as dying in a stupidly-lopsided fistfight and therefore failing to protect anyone at all, but you know what? I'd rather have my companions forget me than their widows remember me.
Those tactics are excellent, but they run the risk of doing nothing at all depending on Desna's whims. I may be a melee fighter, but there's no such thing as a "cheap" victory. If you're convinced your spell will stick, go for it, but against big melee bruiser foes, one tactic that can be even better, which is available if you are powerful enough for the two spells you mention, is to simply take to the air. That has a 100% chance of negating the threat, and you can destroy it at your leisure in a stupidly-lopsided fight in the other direction. When pursuing invincibility, sure things are always better than sometimes, and we're agreed that a sometimes that ends the battle is better than an equally-likely sometimes that only does part of the job.
Sure, but in the time it takes me to do that, my companions could be killed. An instant solution saves everyone, and if it fails, I still have the slow-but-sure option available.
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#1 Jumping into the water to go after a crocodile when they have a low CMD and a negative swim score.
#2 The biggest amount of deaths by far come from being healed back up to maybe 2 or 4 hit points; they then engage the enemy again. The enemy turns back to them. 7 of those deaths have been players provoking attack of opportunities in such a situation as this. I encouraged them to use a withdraw but they endup moving in some pretty bad spots that provoke other AoOs.
#5 Intentionally running up and getting cornered in by an ooze/aberration when they could of fought from range.
#6 The party runs because one person falls unconscious and starts bleeding out. They leave the party member and flee. The party member dies.
#7 Provoking multiple attacks of opportunity by choosing not to cast defensively when they have 3 to 4 creatures around them.
#9 Fall damage.
#10 Splitting the party. This what happened in two of my Confirmations. Some stayed out and engaged a certain creature while others went inside and engaged other things.
For those types of things (I removed the ones I wouldn't generally fault a player for) I do try to warn players and give them a chance to reconsider. If they do it anyway and die, I can't say I'd feel too bad about it.
In the case of a spellcaster provoking multiple AoOs, you can start rolling the damage dice while they cast your spell. When they ask what you're doing, tell them, and see if they want to try casting defensively. At high levels, they should know better and they need to declare it. At low levels, I usually give them a chance to "remember".
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Benjamin even 1/4 is way too frequent, Assuming and average of 5 players per table that's a 5% death rate.
I have GMed about 80 sessions. (Ignoring breath of life, here are the times I can remember raising being needed)
I have killed 1 PC is Voice of the Void
I killed 1 PC in the Dalsine Affair
I killed 2 PCs in The Golemwork's Incident
I killed 2 PCs in Race for the Runecarved key
I TPked a party in The Trouble with Secrets
I killed 1 PC in The many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch
I killed 1 PC in Way of the KirinWaking Rune hard: 0 deaths
Waking Rune: 1 death
Waking Rune: TPK
Waking Rune: 0 deaths
Waking Rune: TPKI killed 2 PCs each of the 2 times I ran Bonekeep p1.
I know we're a small sample size but if we ignore Bonekeep, Jiggy, RainyDayNinja and I are all at about seeing PC death once per 10 sessions.
That's high for me. I'd say I'm at 1/15 maybe slightly more. I have killed several animal companion/familiars though.
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Sure, but in the time it takes me to do that, my companions could be killed. An instant solution saves everyone, and if it fails, I still have the slow-but-sure option available.Maybe the judicious use of dismissal or plane shift against massive foes isn't as dramatic or "heroic" as dying in a stupidly-lopsided fistfight and therefore failing to protect anyone at all, but you know what? I'd rather have my companions forget me than their widows remember me.
Those tactics are excellent, but they run the risk of doing nothing at all depending on Desna's whims. I may be a melee fighter, but there's no such thing as a "cheap" victory. If you're convinced your spell will stick, go for it, but against big melee bruiser foes, one tactic that can be even better, which is available if you are powerful enough for the two spells you mention, is to simply take to the air. That has a 100% chance of negating the threat, and you can destroy it at your leisure in a stupidly-lopsided fight in the other direction. When pursuing invincibility, sure things are always better than sometimes, and we're agreed that a sometimes that ends the battle is better than an equally-likely sometimes that only does part of the job.
Communal air walk is the same level spell as the two you mentioned. If you are referring to the chronicle I think you are (I do love reading chronicles of other Pathfinders' adventures!) then you could have pre-buffed it, and even if not, you would have all been touching to get where you were going.
If it comes down to preparing one or the other spell, you may not have both available. Also, if the situation is dire enough, depending on team formation, it is possible that the unlucky case where a spell does nothing will be deadly. That's why spells that control the terms of engagement without relying on luck are the most powerful at the right moments.
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About 110 tables, and... very few deaths. First two were maybe 50 games in on Hydra's Fang Incident (4 player, not sure what tier, but one 3rd or 4th and one 5th level character). Another on Secrets that Stones Keep recently. Two on a con table of Crypt of the Everflame. One at low-tier Sanos Abduction (thank you Young Template!)
Probably 1-2 more total.
