I'm just curious to know how many times your characters died and got resurrected.
This comes from a reflection I'm having about our game. We are in book 6 of Rise of the Runelords, and some of our players died almost a dozen of times. My character died only 4 times (if i recall correctly), I can't complain. But I can see how this mechanism of death/resurrection is becoming a routine, with deaths that occur in many sessions and that are followed by the usual teleport -> buy scrolls -> resurrect -> back on trail.
How do you handle deaths? Is it just me or many deaths just make lose the importance of a character's life and the epicness of resurrection? Or maybe this is the destiny of every high level campaign?
Death, hp loss, poison,energy drain etc. All not to be feared anymore. Plus PC's are pretty robust
I think over the 24 parts of APs played we have had maybe 4 permanent deaths, perhaps the same reversed deaths
In the last two sesssions I ran, one player has lost two characters to death
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In my games i still enforce the lose a level which can't be got back with magic of less than a wish .
It forces players to be more careful in combat as death has a real cost to players , and they can't get round it by bringing in a new character as all new characters start one leven below average party level
Resurrection requires a 10,000 gp diamond to cast, True Resurrection requires a 25,000 gp diamond. If you want to make death more deadly and resurrection lest routine, just start charging the actual costs. You could also take steps to show just how rare gigantic diamonds are.
|
In my experience playing and running APs...well, I only played one chapter of one AP, but died during it, but I was the only death, and oly one of my players has had a character die in an AP. Of course I've only run about three chapters of APs (keeping a group together for long enough to finish an AP is tricky).
In the non-AP campaign I ran, I enjoyd creating really challenging encounters, and thus instituted a rule that every player got one "Get Out of Death Free" card, representing surviving (stable, at -1 HP) through sheer luck. They all used them. A couple of people also died after they'd done that, getting brought back in a couple of different ways. So..like, 8 deaths out of six players in a single 4th to 11th level campaign? Something like that anyway. And that was fighting almost entirely APL +3 or +4 encounters, and several of them a day.
In the non-AP campaign I played in, I had more system mastery than the GM and was in charge of the party. We managed to avoid dying at all, though there were a few near things there.
I've played a few sessions of other games here and there, but that's most of my experience in Pathfinder, really.
So...I dunno, death's never been all that common IME.
|
|
And that was fighting almost entirely APL +3 or +4 encounters, and several of them a day.You're trying to kill your party imho.
Well, a bit, yeah, hence the Get Out Of Death Free card. The party actually did fine for the most part, though. I mean, most of them never died more than once and they wrecked a fair number of encounters.
People don't have enough faith in what good players with well-designed characters can accomplish, IMO. Combat was legitimately risky, which made winning more of a thrill, and the players had a great time, generally speaking. I still have a bunch of great stories from that game...
Thanks for the answers. I can see there are many fluctuations in number of deaths out there. Breath of Life has really saved us from many deaths/TKP, nonetheless I feel that more than 20 kills in an AP is too much (with more to probably come). Since the next Ap will be mastered by me, I'd like to lower that rate of deaths a lot. For the sake of the story, I mean, 1 or 2 deaths per module is ok, but I don't like people going back and forth from astral plane.
all new characters start one leven below average party level
We do the same in my group. Actually, I would like to remove this house rule too, I'd like to play with people adult enough to play the game and not the metagame.
People don't have enough faith in what good players with well-designed characters can accomplish, IMO. Combat was legitimately risky, which made winning more of a thrill, and the players had a great time, generally speaking. I still have a bunch of great stories from that game...
This is true, challenge rate depends on party optimization, and that depends on how much the party wants to focus on combat or non-combat situations. Our current master adapts many encounters, throwing us mostly APL +1/2/3 encounters. It is OK for the most part, but sometimes I feel like TKP is avoided for mercy.
Shattered Star, book 3 currently (I'm the GM):
2 of the original 5 PC's are still around, in addition one of the replacement PC's has died recently.
The party is now up to 6 players, but a bit behind on XP, due to me running the AP mostly as is, and them sometimes taking a direct path towards the end, or not noticing side-quests.
Had a SINGLE session where ability scores were rolled with 3d6's, in order.
Paladin got 18,17,14,4,16,17.
Everyone died at least 3 times while the paladin just kept trucking.
That was a good time.
I play in a six-person RotRL campaign where we just finished Ch. 3. I GM a Skull & Shackles campaign for the same folks where are are about to start Ch. 2.
RotRL party deaths: 0
S&S party deaths: 0
Running Kingmaker, I have had three party member die so far and we are up to book four. One was fairly early in the game, one was a result of receiving a crit in a single combat situation, and the last was being a little separated from the group, failing a will save against a hold person and getting his throat cut.
I played in Skull and Shackles and we blazed through that entire AP without a single character death. Even having a PC go unconscious was a rarity.
Played Rot Runelords up to close to the end of book 5, only 2 people out of the 5 original characters that died only the 2 ranged folks survived to the fifth book. Deaths before raise dead and what not was available ended up totaling 6. After it ended up totaling 3. Hero points were also being used so without the 2 point hero point spending to save a character from death. I'd say quadruple that number of deaths if hero points weren't being used. Party make up was initially 3 melee, 1 summoning cleric of void and light, and an alchemist. So not really any dedicated healer in the party, and pretty sure if it weren't for the original crane wing feat, a lot more deaths would have occurred. So expect to die if you're melee and don't have a dedicated healer, especially past 6th level.
Had a SINGLE session where ability scores were rolled with 3d6's, in order.
Paladin got 18,17,14,4,16,17.
Everyone died at least 3 times while the paladin just kept trucking.
That was a good time.
Please tell me that 4 was in Int.
"AM PALADIN!"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Is it just me or many deaths just make lose the importance of a character's life and the epicness of resurrection?
No, you're absolutely right.
I houserule this section of the game significantly, and generally simply ban revivification effects. I agree that character death should be rare, and it should be an EVENT. There should be emotion, gravitas, not 'Oh well, Bob lost another one'.
'Death, where is thy sting?' indeed.
This is one reason why I never resurrect my characters.
|
The only game I currently play in is a Serpent Skull AP. My fighter died 2 or 3 times in book 1, and once more in book 2 (that's as far as we are). Our GM worked to help me keep playing him, but after the last time I let him be dead and rolled and inquisitor. Two of the other players have had a death each. I'm not used to this level of lethality, as I generally assume maybe one PC death in the group before level 10. After 10 death is just another status effect, and a pretty mild and reversible one at that, IMO.
Only counting AP play and not PFS. Square brackets for completion, parens for partially through a part of the AP:
Rise of the Runelords [1-6]: Over 20 deaths, not counting ones reversed by breath of life.
Curse of the Crimson Throne [1-5]: No deaths, but close to TPKing more than once and only won an otherwise unwinnable fight due to arbitrarily lucky discovery selection by the alchemist when leveling up between days of a dungeon.
Council of Thieves [1-6]: 1 death. Blitzkrieg surprise attack energy drain with like 6 guys with low to-hit but very high d20 rolls.
Kingmaker [1-4): 1 death from a melee druid against a vicious eidolon, GM gave us each one time to be maimed instead of killed to start because she expected more, so he was maimed.
Jade Regent [1-4): 5 PC deaths, 2 NPC allies, and one animal companion type.
Shattered Star [1-6]: No deaths
These are mostly the same group, though 3 different GMs.
Oh if we are including PFS then yeah my death count puts Captain Jack Harkness to shame
Rappan Athuk, party is currently 7th level (started at 4th, but got a boost to 6th via NPC intervention)
Currently at 3 deaths.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
How do you handle deaths? Is it just me or many deaths just make lose the importance of a character's life and the epicness of resurrection? Or maybe this is the destiny of every high level campaign?
You have had a lot deaths! Death happens much more at higher "rocket tag" levels but your numbers blow me away.
When I'm running a standard type pf game (like an ap) I just charge the costs associated. Remember, even lowly raise dead and removing the negative levels is around 7k. If you've had 20 deaths thats 140k, or probably about 10% of you'lls wbl. Thats a pretty giant hit.
I do think death is very trivial in high fantasy games. I usually prefer grittier systems myself where death is permanent or very difficult to deal with. Fourish years ago I ran a dark sun campaign, that setting has no res magic, so if you died you died. Its also a very brutal setting, and we went through roughly 16 pcs over the course of the game.
After that I ran steampunk game. I made death more or less permanent, but there were 4 factions that could transfer your consciousness into a new host if you made it there in time. There was no magical flight and no teleport magic (but there was a lightning rail and airships) so getting there in time was far from a gurantee, and if the faction didn't like you they wouldn't help you or would charge an obscene amount of money. Anyway, when you had your consciousness transfered you effectively became the new race. Each faction had a different body they could transfer you to, and at the start of the game you wouldn't know what they are. One player played a bard who transferred into a race that had a -2 to charisma.
I kust got done running a fallout campaign (totally different ruleset obviously) where there was no resurrection. The early levels in that game are super brutal, I think they had about 20 deaths through level 8, but we only had two deaths the rest of the game.through level 20.
I'm currently running an elder scrolls game in hard mode, so I've decided to allow regular resurrection rules. It kind of goes against the world setting so I highly considered disallowing it, but in the end decided for it for story purposes.
So, I deal with death in many different ways depending on the setting I'm running in, and what strikes my fancy.
Well, we got TPK'd in the first book of Carrion Crown. So, one death each.
Well, we got TPK'd in the first book of Carrion Crown. So, one death each.
When I ran it my party made it to book 3 before they got TPK'd.
|
We have had deaths galore in the Skull and Shackles game. Two players are on their 3rd character. While my PC was a cleric, she is also the Captain and not high enough level to cast Raise Dead nor willing to pay for someone else to raise them. As its a Pirate Campaign, pirates are inherently selfish and thus would not be willing to shell out a crapload of money to raise someone from the dead. Still it is a miracle that my PC has not died yet considering she's not a very good Captain and relies a lot on her first mate to give her ideals of what to do. This fit well with my character who is not overly skilled (Clerics get crap skill points) nor was she an experienced in leadership based roles. I built her to be a caster type Cleric not a combat buff.
You see, early in the campaign my Undine Cleric of Gozreh tried to get the crew to support the Bard of the party as the new captain (Which would have worked perfectly as he had high charisma, lots of social skills and the crew liked him). However before he could lead a mutiny, he got swallowed by a shark during one of the encounters. The PC then made a Hobgoblin Fighter with zero charisma skills as a replacement player character, leaving my Undine Cleric as the most charismatic of the party. Indeed she really did not want to lead the rebellion but had no choice in the matter as that was what was expected in the module. Eventually we got a new PC with some charisma skills (A Human Sorcerer with some social traits and a Jack of all trades feat). The problem is that the character was not one of the original mutineers so in character I did not see my Undine Cleric giving up her captain spot for a hired sword. Honestly its not been easy for me playing Skull and Shackles and if my character dies I definitely don't want to be back in the leadership seat.
Owner - Sugar & Dice
|
I'm just curious to know how many times your characters died and got resurrected.
Death was so rampant in my Way of the Wicked campaign (currently on book three with only one original toon, and some players have switched characters 3-4 times) that I ended up creating a house rule that a PC only actually dies 50% of the time when dropped to their con in negative hit points and instead get a permanent injury that effects mechanics and can later be cured with a regenerate spell. I didn't want to get rid of the posibility of death, just the inconvenience of having to introduce new and deal with negative levels as often.
This helped, but in the end poor party composition and lack of teamwork will continue to get em every time.
My favorite death in book one was when the party killed the Dhamphir attempting to heal it because nobody made their knowledge checks and she hadn't told anyone about her particular affinity.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Campaign I'm playing, my paladin has no deaths. Just one story sorta-death that lasted a round. I'm not alone in that, though certain party members are not as fortunate, with several deaths. The campaign has ridiculously available wealth, so the party can afford to fix death pretty easily, though one opted to go for a new PC at one point.
Campaign I'm running, only the tengu alchemist/ninja has died, but she got better. A Zuvembie got her with a Ghoul Touch spell and ripped out her throat. The party might've been able to save her, but didn't. Been plenty of close calls, but no other deaths as of yet.
I have a system set up where 'dead' characters wake up in a sort of Fugue plane specific to their character where they meet an outsider based on the character who died. The alchemist met a metal tengu with blades for feathers and a kabuto mask modeled after her face.
It demanded her arms if she didn't want to face oblivion. She hesitantly accepted, interpreting it as being a demand for service, but awoke to find that her arms no longer did anything but hang limp uselessly. The others never perceived her as dying at all, and found her new problem and belief that she had died somewhat troubling. She had to get a regeneration to fix her arms, bit cheaper than actual death.
She hasn't found out what it's using her arms for, as of yet.
When I'm running a standard type pf game (like an ap) I just charge the costs associated. Remember, even lowly raise dead and removing the negative levels is around 7k. If you've had 20 deaths thats 140k, or probably about 10% of you'lls wbl. Thats a pretty giant hit.
Maybe even more… I kept myself low with numbers. Reasoning with a friend, we probably collected more than 30 deaths. In fact, it happened we did not have money to upgrade our equipment (even if our GM is generous in treasures, so we are not so poor). Luckily my wizard has Craft Wondrous Items, which halves many equipment costs. But… recently we had to sell a major artifact for 50.000 gp to resuscitate two characters. My wizard cried; cried a lot in his magnificent mansion.
In general I've found a lot of deaths is a function of either the dm or players moreso than the adventure.
In the 2 ap I've finishes and the one 80% complete it works to about 5 deaths approx per ap.
Conversely we did a non ap game to lvl 8 with 1 death switched gms then 1 player died 3 sessions in a row. I thi k from lvl 8 to 10 there were 6 or 7 with the new dm.
I think too many creates a story disconnect
|
|
In general I've found a lot of deaths is a function of either the dm or players moreso than the adventure.
In the 2 ap I've finishes and the one 80% complete it works to about 5 deaths approx per ap.
Conversely we did a non ap game to lvl 8 with 1 death switched gms then 1 player died 3 sessions in a row. I thi k from lvl 8 to 10 there were 6 or 7 with the new dm.
I think too many creates a story disconnect
Unless it's one of those old school stories where the plot is "stupid adventurers die in droves to the horrible death-dungeon with loot."
Judging by these deaths, it sounds like everyone (most everyone) is using the standard 15 point buy and I wonder if that has anything to do with so many deaths.
We played through Second Darkness using rolled dice. Two characters died early in the game including mine. (my monk was sliced in half by a Bebilith). No one died at the end at the game though the cleric came close.
Unless it's one of those old school stories where the plot is "stupid adventurers die in droves to the horrible death-dungeon with loot."In general I've found a lot of deaths is a function of either the dm or players moreso than the adventure.
In the 2 ap I've finishes and the one 80% complete it works to about 5 deaths approx per ap.
Conversely we did a non ap game to lvl 8 with 1 death switched gms then 1 player died 3 sessions in a row. I thi k from lvl 8 to 10 there were 6 or 7 with the new dm.
I think too many creates a story disconnect
You say that like it's a bad thing. : D
|
|
You say that like it's a bad thing. : DUnless it's one of those old school stories where the plot is "stupid adventurers die in droves to the horrible death-dungeon with loot."In general I've found a lot of deaths is a function of either the dm or players moreso than the adventure.
In the 2 ap I've finishes and the one 80% complete it works to about 5 deaths approx per ap.
Conversely we did a non ap game to lvl 8 with 1 death switched gms then 1 player died 3 sessions in a row. I thi k from lvl 8 to 10 there were 6 or 7 with the new dm.
I think too many creates a story disconnect
I'm not a fan, though I can see what others like about it. I don't mind high mortality games, as long as I'm aware going in so I don't waste hours on character creation with elaborate backstory just to have them permadead to random enemies in the first session. I'm more likely to try odd concepts, knowing when they die I can just try the next one.
On the topic, in the homebrew I run, there have been 3 deaths that weren't immediately fixed by breath of life, tenacious survivor, or something similar. Only one was permanent (player choice), and they are level 13 now. There have probably been 10 deaths counting breath of life style recoveries, and an additional 5 from a plot device TPK (they were "dead", but adventuring in the realm of the dead for a while).
Judging by these deaths, it sounds like everyone (most everyone) is using the standard 15 point buy and I wonder if that has anything to do with so many deaths.
We used 20 point buy and we had a lot of deaths. We also have well built characters.
Judging by these deaths, it sounds like everyone (most everyone) is using the standard 15 point buy and I wonder if that has anything to do with so many deaths.We used 20 point buy and we had a lot of deaths. We also have well built characters.
Not to be rude, but that last part is likely not the case if all of you have died almost a dozen times. Unless you're BEYOND reckless you shouldn't be dying that much to something like RotRL. Which can be challenging at times, but an optimized party can chew up and spit out fairly easily (source: playing Book 5 of RotRL right now, only character death has been an Animal Companion. Think there was one other before I joined, maybe).
I've run a few games now and have only had a handful of deaths across them.
The first was a near TPK, and doesn't technically count as deaths in my homebrew campaign. A combination of a powerful enemy I misjudged the strength of (I can build a good Monk, yesh) and terrible rolls (for the party...my dice were HOT) resulted in the two frontliners being knocked unconscious (while the Sorceress was already asleep from some Drow Poison used by the ninjas from earlier). The man ended up sparing them since he WAS an honorable guy (well, still is. They have not gone back to finish him off.).
The second time (fourth character) was a Bard who acted like an idiot and paid the price. Rushed in, alone, at an obviously magical thing, and of course triggered a trap, at 1st level. Took some damage, then two ice elementals beat the shit out of him and stuck him underwater. Reign of Winter was this one.
The most recent one (Skull and Shackles) I hesitate to even mention, since it was mostly a result of the character's player leaving. I GMPC'd him for a while, and the rest of the party forgot to heal him up after a grueling battle. So, after a night's rest he had about 5 HP and took a decent hit, underwater. Dead. They Reincarnated him when his player showed up a month or so later, was all good.
In the games I've played in, there are a couple more. The death of a Wizard in The Whispering Cairn (dumped Con and Dex, decided to cast a spell without casting defensively, was immediately knocked unconscious and eaten by a swarm), and one guy in a Mythic campaign who was annihilated by Ithaqua (we killed the bastard though, and my Oracle Raised him).
Other than that...nah.
I just don't buy the "we were optimized" bit when across several games (many with unoptimized characters) I've seen less deaths total than EACH of your party has.
Death is an issue in APs, as it can kill them off
An Ap takes say 50 sessions. If you have all the original pc's die really hampers the flow, and maybe one reason a lot do not get finished. Makes the npcs even more important which is a bad thing IME
we died so much it was impossible to count. then we stopped using the nat20->nat20->confirm instakill rule. it was at least one death from that rule alone per session. now we're at around 1 death per 5-7 sessions or something
i had 1 TPK as a GM so far, felt pretty shtty, wasnt even supposed to be a hard encounter. improvised and the groups believes until this day it was a planned plotdevice =D ever since im not afraid to see my own dice roles a a GM more a suggestion then anything else :)
I believe if the GM is doing this job right and knowing his players + characters well enough, while the players are playing good enough. The chance of death sure be fairly low. There will still be a chance of rolling 10 1s in a roll for the team and someone has to die, but it shouldn't happen often. If it does, your players need new dices. My ruling of setting up an encounter is every character must have something they can do to beat it, it's only the matter of who has it easier. Unless boss fight or some epic encounter, I will just make one person can't do anything. But it doesn't mean they can't help, they should be able to help if they are smart enough.
Yeah the crit system doesn't work well in actual play IME.
Too many monsters that can do damage 3-5 times their own hp on a crit. Works both ways....very dull when monsters are one shotted on a crit.
Not to be rude, but that last part is likely not the case if all of you have died almost a dozen times.Judging by these deaths, it sounds like everyone (most everyone) is using the standard 15 point buy and I wonder if that has anything to do with so many deaths.We used 20 point buy and we had a lot of deaths. We also have well built characters.
Most experienced players died less than 10 times. My wizard died 4 times, +3 familiars deaths. Some characters died between 10 and 15 times and, without going deep into details, probably they are not the best builds around. I said "well built" and not "optimized" because I'm sure in our party there are not the best possible characters for their own class, nonetheless, with few exceptions, I'm confident they can be strong options and they can work well together.
As I said, our master keeps the game in hard mode, with coup de grace, majority of encounters' levels > apl, and his lucky dice likes 20s. The more I read this thread, the more I think it's probably his game which is particularly deadly.