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I knew I should have trademarked that...
Yeah, that's a skillful and much less overt way to do it. I prefer to do the same.If you're going to softball, though, at least do it secretly through pulling punches in the tactics or the like. The problem I think Sin was having is that Akerlof is openly breaking the rules to try to prevent the death (by clearly allowing multiple rerolls per person, which might make the players think that this is an acceptable GM ruling and then try to pressure GMs into using that ruling). There are more graceful ways to do it if you must.I very rarely break the rules when I pull punches. When I make a rules mistake and kill a PC, I retcon it to unconsciousness. For the most part I choose to spread attacks around when the tactics allow for it, have the enemy grandstand in overconfidence, etc. Just last night I chose to split attacks between the scenario MacGuffin and the paralyzed PC rather than CdG, because the tactics did not call for CdG.
This isn't to say I haven't been...less skillful about it.
I do recall having a 2nd level character fall prey to a subtier 4-5 trap when the higher level character triggered it and going from full to neg Con once. I allowed the player to spend her folio reroll to be one above neg Con so the party could heal her back into the session. I did make it clear that I should not have done that, but if anyone objected they did not mention it to me.
I try to let dice fall where they may for the most part however. The 6th level archer Ranger with 17AC in the final battle of You Have What You Hold getting beaten down to neg Con? Only my wife's Rogue slapping her with First Aid Gloves prevented the PP expenditure.
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Up to 85 tables 1 more death. Monk eaten by Dinosaur in Where Mammoths Dare not Tread. Monk low on HP mistakenly believed the Dinosaur was on his side but instead the Dino turned and chomped on him, 1 bite on the already wounded monk and instant death.I’ve only had 4 deaths in 72 tables which is a 1:18 ratio. Maybe I’m too lenient.
2 PC’s disintegrated in Cult of the Ebon Destroyer
1 Critical hit in Godsmouth Heresy
1 Breathed on a couple times in Fortress of the Nail
I've been there for 2 of those, and been subject to one. I suppose I'm just lucky. Being disintegrated hurts.
I've only gm'd a few scenarios above the 4-5 subtier. I did GM the 5-6 subtier of Fortress of the Nail, deaded two PCs, dropped everyone else to unconscious twice before the beast finally fell. Both paid for rezzes if I remember correctly. So no permadeads yet in some 24-25 sessions.
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Armor Class is the better part of valor!!!Weapon in the Rift claimed a 9th level barbarian this past weekend after no one healed her enough to survive the 70-odd damage a round she was taking.Unless you have access to Heal (unlikely in a 5-9) there are very few healers who will be able to keep up with that sort of punishment. Maybe a Paladin/Life Oracle mixing Lay on Hands, Swift Channel and a Cure while using Life link. Otherwise discretion is the better part of valour.
Not always. In THAT scenario there is ALL manners of nastiness. AC 40+? BBEG has a VERY good chance of hitting you MULTIPLE times.
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Not to be a jerk but. You guys are doing a disservice to your players every time you pull a punch or pull multiple punches.
This causes GMs like me who sit down and don't pull punches and let the dice fall as they will to be perceived in a bad light because we run a fair and even game and characters die.
Stupidity leads to character creation.
So does softball leveled pathfinders that have never once been in fear of death.
YMMV.
Depends on the situation. I got one player. Through no fault of his own, who has died FIVE TIMES in six sessions with the same GM. Crits every time. Frontline PC, back line.. doesn't matter. Pick to the face, 40 points. Paralyzed by undead and eaten. Critted by a short bow hit (with a neg str mod to boot). The list goes on.
The GM doesn't (his words) 'softball'. Me? I kill a guy in the first encounter of TWO scenarios back to back? I'm going to be nice on my rolls.
Of course part of my role in things is to grow a community.
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As I come up on my third star...
Five deaths in nearly 60 runs.
A brawler stuck in a doorway taking full attacks in Fortune's Blight
A gunslinger in Master of the Fallen Fortress (you know how)
Three characters (Paladin, Monk, Cleric) in final battle of God's Market Gamble
Also, my own PCs have died twice in 24 runs...
1st level paladin in Temple Of Empyreal Enlightenment
3rd level rogue/fighter in The Merchant's Wake
So it looks like my ratio (playing and GMing) is 1:12
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That mistake happens roughly every other time this subject comes up.
Anyhow, I've gm'd 16 tables as of last week, and, after checking a memo, have killed 4 characters. Decent enough percentage, I'd say.
UPDATE
32 sessions and 8 dead characters(one permanently).
Oh and I ran black tentacles wrong(had the tentacles stop grinding KO'd bodies), so virtually 12 deaths.
Anecdotally, 6 out of 8 deaths are by mummies. I think it's only fair to note that the CR might be wrong. Might.
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In two years of playing PFS on a mostly weekly basis I have only lost three characters.
Many Fortunes of Grand Master Torch - Bad decision making on my part.
Dalseine Affair - That infamous encounter. This almost made me quit playing PFS.
Thornkeep level 3 - Killed by the big bad but brought back afterwards.
As a GM I've probably only killed 5 or 6 individual characters but the blame was mostly on the result of dice rolls being against the party.
I've had two TPKs under my watch though:
Trial by Machine - Party of Tieflings who in the final encounter talked themselves out of using darkness when it would have been perfect and it lead to a total party wipe.
Halls of the Flesh Eaters - Barbarian NPC died in first encounter and the rest of the party died in the final fight when they got bottle necked and the dice went against them.
Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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I haven't been keeping track but in 90+ games I am looking at less than a dozen deaths. Narrowly avoided the closest thing I have had to a TPK. The fact that there was a Venture Captain just down the hall at a party who was communicating with the PCs via message gave me an out so that there was only 1 death instead of 6.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Tampere
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84 tables and one character death. My die hate me or then I'm just doing everything wrong. (Got plenty of corpses in home games though.)
On the other hand the local player base tends to have plenty of versatility with character options. That tends to help.
Your local player base also doesn't make characters that aren't munchkined to Abaddon and back. :P
Update on my situation: 75 tables, one non-permanent death.
I'd prefer to play games with a threat of death or failure. As a player, PLEASE stop pulling punches. It cheapens success.
Maybe i'm a minority, but I don't expect to always succeed at missions. I don't expect that things will always be simple. I don't expect that my character's primary thing will always work.
When the game is challenging, there's a real sense of reward when you succeed. If scenarios are auto-win, then it's not as good.
And i can make a new character for free.
*i'm aware that my experience might be colored by the lack of high-level games in my area. But still*
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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I'd prefer to play games with a threat of death or failure. As a player, PLEASE stop pulling punches. It cheapens success.
Maybe i'm a minority, but I don't expect to always succeed at missions. I don't expect that things will always be simple. I don't expect that my character's primary thing will always work.
When the game is challenging, there's a real sense of reward when you succeed. If scenarios are auto-win, then it's not as good.
And i can make a new character for free.
*i'm aware that my experience might be colored by the lack of high-level games in my area. But still*
It's always a difficult situation. Everyone at the table has their own idea of what the ideal challenge level is and how disastrous death is. Newbs and casual players are much more likely to respond poorly to a character death as they frequently aren't high enough level to have the recourses to raise their character and don't have a backup. In a home game, you have time to adjusts your challenge level to meet the players' desires as you always have the same group to deal with. In PFS, you don't have a lot of time to judge the overall difficulty preference of the table and have limited tools for adjusting it. Combine that with the fact you are more likely to lose a player if the game is too difficult than if it is too easy and it is no surprise that most GMs err on the side of caution.
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Wow. I've killed at least nine players in the last ten or so games. Two in Rise of Goblin Guild, two in Assault on the Wound, and five in King of Storval Stairs. I wonder if this means something.
Please, save the killing for the characters, and not the players. I don't want to run out of others to game with.
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Not always. In THAT scenario there is ALL manners of nastiness. AC 40+? BBEG has a VERY good chance of hitting you MULTIPLE times.Armor Class is the better part of valor!!!Weapon in the Rift claimed a 9th level barbarian this past weekend after no one healed her enough to survive the 70-odd damage a round she was taking.Unless you have access to Heal (unlikely in a 5-9) there are very few healers who will be able to keep up with that sort of punishment. Maybe a Paladin/Life Oracle mixing Lay on Hands, Swift Channel and a Cure while using Life link. Otherwise discretion is the better part of valour.
Precious little is "always" in Pathfinder. That said, aside from the extremely rare "let's just go and fight with an enemy 7 to 11 challenge ratings higher than our level!" situations, I personally still swear by AC.
I also disagree with your statistical analysis. If I recall correctly, that creature has a +25 and +23 to hit. Versus an AC 40, which is very high for level 9 but by no means near the maximum potential of some builds even within the assumed WBL, we are looking at needing 15s and 17s on the die rolls. A 30% and 20% chance of success per attack is not what I would call very good myself.
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I haven't really kept track, but I'd say I have a PC death about once every scenario? That's an average, though, and the pattern is more realistically a large number of scenarios with no deaths, and then one with many (or a TPK).
I've presided over the TPK of 10 scenarios (Murder on the Silken Caravan, Our Lady of Silver, Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible, Citadel of Flame, The Heresy of Man I, The Flesh Collector, Dalsine Affair, Among the Gods, The Immortal Conundrum, Elven Entanglement) and 2 modules (Feast of Ravenmore, Cult of the Ebon Destroyers), so just those TPKs account for probably 60-70 character deaths (most were full tables). Since I've run 70ish games, those alone figure an average of 1 death/table.
However, if you remove the TPKs from the data pool, total PC deaths, on average, greatly drop. I can't remember them all, but I'd ballpark it around 10-20, so let's call that about 15, or one per four tables.
So average PC deaths/table? About 1.2/1
Median PC deaths/table? about 1/4
Beware of averages!
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I have run around 70 tables or so, have 2 TPKs, one from the first time I ran Accursed Halls and another from part 3 of The Devil We Know series (Crypt of Fools, I think), and several less-then-TPK PC deaths, one in Black Waters, almost two (Con-dump Elf Witch on a crit, Wizard almost drowned while unconscious); three in Shipyard Rats (I really need to stop running Josh Frost 1-7s at sub-tier 1-2), and some other deaths here and there, some with raises.
Several of my PCs have one or more deaths, and I have been a player in at least two TPKs, one in We Be Goblins!, the other in a messed up game of Mantis's Prey.
Are those cages actually not blocking the sides, so that the PCs could have used the full 15'; width, other than at the doorway itself, or do they obstruct the sides of the passage, leaving it as only a 5' wide hallway?