Flag the extras as double posts.
And, have you talked to the GM about this?
That kind of makes sense for geckos and mercenaries. Geckoes are ambush predators, and mercenaries would be keen on scaring the rest of the party off to keep their winnings. Can you tell us more about the campaign in general? Is this an AP or a homemade campaign? Is there a lot of combat? Have any fights not gone that way? Are the other party members providing protection to the fallen party members, or are they just leaving them lying in the middle of the ground?
Well if the rest of the party is still a threat to the gecko/mercenaries, then he should attack the fully alive party members, not the dying ones. Unless this is more of some sorta assassination thing (sounds a little weird for a gecko...). Talk to your GM about this.
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I would say it sounds like the GM is being too rough on the party, especially considering the fact that the OP says they're all "Super-new to RPGs." Killer GM-ing new players is a good way to turn people off of tabletop gaming in general.
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Agreed Chengar this guy could send some new folks packing hopefully the OP hangs on.
Nanerpus5 can you give me some background on your GM? Does s/he have a lot of experience? I have an older grognard in my group that beat the living crap out of us for a long time. Ill expand on that if its relevant.
Nanerpus5, this is definitely not how any game I've been in or run has gone, and I have run and been in some pretty lethal games. I mean ones where the GM tells you to come with five characters already made and the session has to take frequent breaks so people can make new characters simply because the five they made are already dead.
In general, losing more than one character a session is pretty unusual, and it's not unusual to go an entire campaign with only one death ever happening.
This seriously sounds like you have a GM who is actively trying to kill characters.
Please feel free to drop by the online games section and check out the games there. I think you'll have a different experience.
Some GMs run a super lethal game. Some run a game where player characters literally can't die. Most fall somewhere inbetween.
Part of this is expectations. If you have a GM with a high mortality rate, build characters expecting them to die. Playing a lot of characters for a little while is a GREAT way to get a general idea of how all the classes work. You can turn it into a boon if you have the right expectations.
Mostly, just remember that this is a social game. The only way to play it wrong is when you aren't having fun. Talk to the GM about it. Get an idea of where he's coming from and go from there. Sometimes a GM's play style just doesn't match up with a player's, and the player has to leave. Try to work things out so that everyone is having fun before you consider that, though.
But to answer the other part of your question, most GMs will have the enemies switch to other opponents once someone goes down. Generally the GM's objective is to make the players feel challenged without killing them. It's the "how close to the edge do I dance?" question that tends to vary. Also, it varies by monster tactics, as has already been mentioned.
Have fun!
Given that the GM is inexperienced, I wonder if the mercenaries were supposed to drive the PCs into some course of action, rather than slaughtering them. If they are being paid a bounty, they would be very aggressive, but if that's supposed to spur the PCs into action, the players should be aware the mercenaries are after them.
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Ah, inexperienced GM. Sounds to me as though he's got a little bit of the "me against the players" mindset. Point him here at the boards for advice - there's lots we can give him, not least that he should be working with the players to make a cool story, not against them when he runs enemies.
Hi,
So the party I am currently in, is composed of all people who are super new to role playing games. We are level 4 but have already had 3 people die in are party. In each case it was when we we could get knocked unconscious by some sort of enemy, first it was a gecko, and then mercenaries. In each case after being knocked unconscious the gm would then have the person on the ground become the target of all the enemy attacks. Would't it make more sense for the NPC's to target other party members who are still fighting back and still pose a threat over a guy on the ground. I mean it makes sense if no one is around, the NPC has insatiable blood lust, or a wild animal, but would't say a mercenary normally focus people who still pose a threat?
Thanks for the help
This sounds dumb. Why are NPCs attacking the helpless party members while getting stabbed in the back by the ones still up? Even most animals have more sense than this.
Thumbs down. GM role playing NPCs in such a way as to break immersion.
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I would like to point out that there is a difference between a new GM and a bad GM. Many folks are quick to judge the GM harshly, but I don't think that's exactly fair. It seems clear that everyone at the table is a new player, if the GM is making mistakes, odds are that the players are too.
If we really want to flesh this out and give you something you can take back to the table, there's a few questions that need to be answered.
My first question is, how many mercs were there and why does it take ALL of them to kill a single downed player? The way I'm interpreting the OP is that there is a medium sized skirmish and when a PC goes down, all of the mercs disengage from their current target to go kill the helpless PC. Would this be accurate? What are the PC's stats like that require so many attacks to kill him once he is already down?
Are the PCs doing the same thing? Our home game follows a strict policy of letting the players dictate how combat flows. For example, we used to ignore downed characters, players and GM both. However, when the players got frustrated that enemy clerics would heal up downed foes, the PCs began killing downed foes and using coup de grace more often. As soon as they started employing harsher kill tactics, so did the enemies. This is not harsh, or bad gm'ing. Higher stakes often equate to a greater emotional payoff. The trick is in the balancing of it and that responsibility falls on both the GM (in encounter/adventure design) and on the players (in character design and cooperative problem solving).
What are the PCs doing during these combats? "An open area where the rest of the party was standing around." sounds more like a buncha guys hanging outside of a gas station rather than engaging in fantasy combat. As new players and GM, did you guys run any practice or did you dive right in?
As it stands, I would recommend talking to your GM. If you aren't having fun, let him know but don't be brutal about it. You are all learning together. Just like you may be feel discouraged at so many fatalities, you don't want to discourage him from creating rich worlds for you to play in.
Run practice encounters. Seriously. Learn the system before diving right in. Before switching from 2nd edition to 3rd, my group got together and ran a variety of practice sessions with disposable pregen characters and we did the same when we switched from 3.5 to Pathfinder. They don't have to be full-blown adventures - they can be single combat encounters, diplomatic encounters, a small dungeon crawl with traps and mixed bad guys that don't belong together. You can learn an awful lot about game play when no one has an emotional attachment to their characters.
Get your GM a copy of an adventure module, preferably a low level one published by paizo. Not only is the adventure already completed for him, but paizo is really great at including notes and instructions for GMs in the adventure that tell them how and why the enemies act the way they do. It can be great inspiration for a new GM.
Lastly, send him here to the forums. Send him to THIS post so he can see the different reactions from different types of players. He should know that the forums are a great resource and that there are people willing to help him. Sooner or later you will develop your own style of gaming as a group and trust me, it will be totally awesome.
I don't mind letting PC's die, BUT I go easy on new players. Any time they could die I tell them you should/could do X because ___.
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Another big thing to keep in mind, and a great reason to follow Tragic Missile's advice of sending your GM to a good forum, is new DMs tend to see the game as DM vs Player. It sometimes takes a bit to learn that for the DM to "win", the players don't have to "lose". Honestly, the only way to "win" is to make sure everybody goes home at the end of a session having had a good time.
Talk to the DM, send 'em here, have them read blogs like The Alexandrian's and they'll get athe hang of it faster than they would by forcing their way through unaided.