In games that I run a PC dies when a PC dies. The dice are usually the deciding factor.
Did the flesh golem wielding a scythe kill that one character in my game when he rolled a quadruple crit? Yup. Is it particularly unfair? Nope. Just as it's also not particularly unfair when the BBEG rolls a 1 to avoid a hold person and gets a bucket full of coup de grace in the very next round.
I suspect for my games it's simply because, to me, pathfinder is as much board game as role-playing game. The rules are the rules and there is no purpose in changing them when, for the most part, they are fairly well balanced.
That said, characters very rarely die if I'm running V:TM, Shadowrun, Aberrant, or any number of more role-play focused systems. A lot of that happens to be due to the fact that they tend to have a lot less combat and it's also a *lot* harder to bring characters back in those kind of games so death has a lot more impact as a story tool.
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The dice fall where they may. No fudging. Heroes are made, not born.
I probably have as much fun designing characters as actually playing them. This means that PC death is merely an opportunity to unleash my next creation. Yes, if the PC was a particular favourite then I'll look pleadingly at the other players... <<cough> Raise Dead <cough> ..., but often as not I'll turn down the chance of survival and/or resurrection in favour of a new character.
My dwarven archaeologist/trophy hunter's recent death was a case in point.
I was offered Raise Dead but instead decided a nice tomb would be more appropriate. Apart from anything else, dying whilst fighting giants is the way she would have wanted to go.
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I never kill a PC in my games. Player tactics and dice do that. I just run the game the chips fall where they fall. I've had the odd character die from time to time. Mostly when raise dead or better are available options. Kind of sucks when it happens at 1st level and I've seen that happen a few times. Nothing worth that Orc with great axe getting a critical on you at 1st level.
When it's NOT right to kill a PC EVER....
When they're played by a 10 year old (or younger kid) who's this bright eyed little scamp and it's their first time playing Pathfinder ever!
I could see someone filming a session with a 10 year old player having their first ever character killed and posting it on Youtube.
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I love it when characters die, I love it when my characters die, it keeps the edge in the game, keeps me and my players on their toes..lets them know that risks for their imaginary people are real in the imaginary world, and stupid actions or bad choices can have nasty results.
That being said, I NEVER try to kill a PC, I do not go out of my way to inflict death..but let the dice decide combat results, I always roll in the open in combat, just like my players do..so we can all cheer rolls, and lament the bad ones.
I keep Valhalla stocked with heros...
Just try to die well.
and 1st level is the best time to get killed..nothing is invested in the PC, just some design time, I played in a campaign where the GM advised we bring 2-3 characters for the first few sessions, just in case.
I could see someone filming a session with a 10 year old player having their first ever character killed and posting it on Youtube.When it's NOT right to kill a PC EVER....
When they're played by a 10 year old (or younger kid) who's this bright eyed little scamp and it's their first time playing Pathfinder ever!
We mostly play AD&D, and my son started gaming with us when he was 8. He learned quickly that losing a character is simply a chance to come up with a new and interesting story for a new character. If you don't make a big deal out of it, neither will the kid.
I could see someone filming a session with a 10 year old player having their first ever character killed and posting it on Youtube.When it's NOT right to kill a PC EVER....
When they're played by a 10 year old (or younger kid) who's this bright eyed little scamp and it's their first time playing Pathfinder ever!
I could see someone filming a session with a 10 year old player having their first ever character killed and posting it on Youtube.When it's NOT right to kill a PC EVER....
When they're played by a 10 year old (or younger kid) who's this bright eyed little scamp and it's their first time playing Pathfinder ever!
I did not get any occult training in D&D...and where was my hot brunet DM at, I feel cheated now..I had to mow lawns to buy my minis and books! :)
I could see someone filming a session with a 10 year old player having their first ever character killed and posting it on Youtube.When it's NOT right to kill a PC EVER....
When they're played by a 10 year old (or younger kid) who's this bright eyed little scamp and it's their first time playing Pathfinder ever!
That was crazy. I also noticed that at the bottom it said that Catholics being Christian is a myth.
If you're interested, I debate it in some depth on my website: Debates on Saduria.co.uk. Of course, I'm neither the first nor the best to have tackled it.
yeah check out Mazes and monsters...the 80s were full on RPG warfare.
and Tom Hanks helped them!
[bad taste]Ironically, we are now in 'When is it appropriate to kill a player' territory....[/bad taste]
Mazes and Monsters made me laugh... Anyway, let's get this thread back on track.
I let PCs get themselves killed if they're being dumb. I had a player one time decide that they were going to just wade through the pit filled with a strange, green slime instead of going around it like everyone else.
I tried to disuade him from doing so, but he was adamant and soon turned into a pile of bones. I'm sure he didn't want to kill his character, he just had that 'frat-boy' mentale... I don't know how to explain it.
I think it's important to know your players. I have one who is playing her first PC ever. And she adores her gnome summoner to bits. I think she'd probably resent having her die. I'm fine fudging dice rolls for her. My other players though. Their characters can and will die as soon as the dice so dictate.
Im confused, and maybe just wrong.
Why did the bard moving into a threatened square provoke an AOO? We play you only generate an AOO when moving out sans 5' step or casting, or drinking or whatever.
Thanks
DK
Nevermind - I get it - because the monster had reach, in order to close to melee distance, he also moved out of a threatened square.
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The dice fall where they may. No fudging. Heroes are made, not born.
This. I don't get the "I don't let a PC die except in dramatic combats" rule. If you do that, any tension outside of "suitably srsbsns" combats is lost.
Most of the time, death isn't even necessarily permanent. Why work hard to create an artificially dramatic demise?
Yeah, I would definitely make an exception if the deaths were my own fault.
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Nothing and I mean nothing is better than a good player death, especially if you give the player a chance to roleplay it to the hilt. Our greatest poetry, stories, and history come from just that.
But the Consul’s brow was sad,
And the Consul’s speech was low, 210
And darkly looked he at the wall,
And darkly at the foe;
“Their van will be upon us
Before the bridge goes down;
And if they once may win the bridge, 215
What hope to save the town?”
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late. 220
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods,
“And for the tender mother 225
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,—
To save them from false Sextus
That wrought the deed of shame?
What roleplayer doesn't want a death like Horatius? Who doesn't want to stand in the breach and face down the impossible danger? What roleplayer doesn't want the chance to face those odds.
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all.
It is up to the GM to make each dungeon worth risking his life. It is up to the players and GM to make a _team_ of companions who want to throw themselves into the fire for each other.
In short the candle that burns twice as brightly burns half as long and adventurers burn very, very bright. I've been playing rpgs since 1976 and I can say that the best games are the ones with real danger, real threats to something the players care about and yes real consequences death should be part of a well run game.
I feel like players should die if they make a grievous mistake, or if it makes sense and improves the story by adding some high drama and tension.
I've only killed PCs a couple of times as a DM, have fudged rolls a few times to avoid killing someone, and have on a few occasions Deus Ex'ed to keep a PC alive when I underestimated the lethality of something.
One of the only PCs I've killed was back with 3.5 when a swordsage teleported away from the party to attack the 12-headed hydra that had just been conjured by the BBEG's assistant, before the party could buff, and with them 2 or 3 rounds of movement away from being able to help. I threw some guards at the creature, and divided its attacks between the NPCs and the swordsage, but even then it had done enough damage to kill him twice over. If he had stayed 1 round for buffs, he would have still been alive, as some of those hits would have missed with the small AC buff someone in the party threw out as their first action.
Two of the deaths I've Dues Ex'ed: 1 where a rogue failed to disarm a pendulum scythe trap and triggered it, and I rolled a crit. I hadn't realized just how NASTY a x4 crit is, and didn't want the player to lose his all-time favorite character over something like that. He was happy about this, and has taken steps to not fail such checks again.
Another time, the party of 7 level 6 adventurers went off to hunt down an aurumvorax that had been terrorizing some farms outside of town. One of the players rolled a Knowledge check and got something like a 40, so I gave them most of the pertinent information, including using words like "vicious" and "half-eaten breastplate" to convey just how dangerous this thing is. They didn't quite get that, anyway, or at least not how close they were to its lair, and didn't buff (as I'd thought that they would). As such, when it pounced on one PC (who had the most HP and second highest AC), it got him halfway to dead in the surprise round, then went before him in the initiative order and shredded him. Again, a single buff that he commonly uses for dangerous fights would have saved him, but in this case, it was more a matter of not fully realizing their danger and proximity thereto, rather than foolishness, so I had his deity intervene and send his spirit back into his body, saying that he had unfinished work to do. He wasn't too happy about the way this played out, feeling that A) I overdid the encounter (true), and B) that the Deus Ex was awkward and inconsistent with the world and campaign I had established (also true). Still, he preferred staying alive, and I pointed out that I had intended to give everyone a Hero Point at the end of the session when they hit their first E6 epic level, so I allowed him to spend the point in advance (and gave everyone else their point at that moment).
On the player side of things, nearly every PC death I've had, or seen, has been pretty s%$+ty.
Such as when a dragon we didn't know about leaped into the air from behind a building and then tossed a Maximized breath weapon down centered on my paladin, who had the best saves and highest HP in the group, but failed thanks to a poor roll of the dice, and died.
Or the time when when one player left early and we said that we'd continue playing his character to the end of the session...and then got him killed. We stepped into a dilapidated temple expecting to do some investigating, and instead found an evil necromancer standing ready with a scroll of Circle of Death in his hand and readied to cast upon us as soon as the door opened (it should be noted that we were level 7 or 8, and therefore shouldn't have expected to run into such a spell for several more levels). It was dumb luck that 3/4 of the group didn't die (I think everyone except the absent player rolled an 18+). That character rolled moderately, but had a poor Fort save and died.
My newest campaign setting may be my most high body count ever one...
a lot of monstrous races mingled together, incredibly harsh and dangerous wilderness encroaching on everything, low magic, roving NPC styled warbands and no raise dead magics...its gonna be fun. :)
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*Patterson castes Threadsurrection*
i was in a campaign that had about 20-25 players over the years and about 80 deaths here it is...
AEG's World's Largest Dungeon
edit: p.s. ...and its still going...
