GMs going out of the way to kill players.

[David Bowles]

The PC came back that very scenario. And wisely ended up fleeing the next encounter which wiped the rest of the group. It was a very, very dangerous scenario for that particular group in general.

And as long as PCs are using die rolls to calibrate their use of power attack, I'll allow expert assassin NPCs to calibrate their targets based off of their attack rolls. If pounding a down PC is a smart thing for a smart NPC to do, they'll do it. However, this is very rarely the case. Most PC deaths I've GMed have come multiple hits of 20+ melee damage or a result of a monster status effects crippling PCs.

PFS has a very bad habit of making encounters with humanoid NPCs very easy in comparison to the monster-based encounters. This was a rare opportunity to break that trend just a little.

[Netopalis]

Sorry, from the poster's reaction, I was assuming this was lower-level play. Regardless, if your GMming instigates the sort of reaction that sparked this thread, I think it's worth considering the broader implications.

[David Bowles]

No, I'm not the GM. At least, I don't think I am. My game happened months ago. They were much more horrified by the second encounter, anyway.

[nosig]

It looks like this thread has drifted from what the OP was talking about. Which is not really a new thing... In fact I can recall....

(Old story time) - feel free to skip the story below if you have already heard it... this is not a new story for me....

Some time back (season 2 or early season 3 maybe), I was playing in a game with a group of strangers I had not played with before (this happened to me often back then, I was traveling around some due to work and finding games where I could). In the scenario, some of the PCs get dumped into water and have to fight a monster with several attacks. As luck would have it, my PC ends up in the water with another players PC, and the strangest thing happened...
.
The other PC is a bard, and mine is sort of a meat shield. The monster moves to attack the bard and swings once (due to moving, only one attack). I move (swim) next to the monster, and swing. The bard withdraws to behind my PC. I figured the monster would swing 3 times on me but instead it swims around my PC (giving me an AOO) to attack the bard again. I swing, and again the bard withdraws behind me and again the monster swims around me (my guy gets another AOO) to go after the bard with one attack. The Bard player rolls her eyes and we repeat this several times (4 or 5 rounds I think). It looked crazy to me, the monster was effectively giving me an extra attack each round (as it moved past me), and limiting itself to only 1/3 of it's attacks, but I didn't know what the monsters tactics were so (shrug). What do I know, maybe the judge is playing the monster crazy to give us a better chance, right? (having run the game sense, I know the monsters tactics should have had it trying to kill me, and as it had a INT of 10+ and a good WIS it shouldn't have kept giving me the OOCs that untimitly killed it). It was only due to the cleric still in the other boat channeling that kept the Bard in positive HP.

After the game, as we are heading out the door of the shop, I told the bard that I was sorry my guy didn't hit harder and drop the monster sooner, as she had to suffer the extra attacks that almost killed her. And then she said something that put it into an entirely different light... "yeah, he's upset with me, I killed him in a game I ran for him a while back, so he's been going after my PCs sense then. And if he'd dropped me in the water, I'd have drowned before someone could fish me out. So thanks for blocking for me." With this she smiled, shrugged and headed out.

We were playing at Sub-tier 3-4 I think, so a dead PC would likely have been perm dead...

[David Bowles]

Yeah. I don't do that. Ever.

[Ascalaphus]

Re: death effects. I can't actually find any spell stating that it's a "death effect"; I think because all the spells intended to be death effects have the [death] descriptor. The term "death effect" only seems to pop up in abilities that aren't formatted with descriptors. But they add them using the same type of language used to indicate other descriptors normally found as descriptors on spells;

Bard wrote:

Deadly performance is a mind-affecting death effect that relies on audible and visual components.

So [mind-affecting] and [death] are both descriptors of this effect.

---

The alternative would be that Finger of Death, Symbol of Death, Power Word: Kill and so on aren't death effects.

[Qstor]

I agree that unless its in the tactics that a GM shouldn't be using CDG on a character. I think I did it on pre-gen at a 3 person table once but that's about it.

Mike

[Avatar-1]

It might be helpful that, when we're talking about harsh tactics, what is considered an acceptable use and what isn't.

Some dot points on both should answer this question pretty well, in the same vein as the wording in the don't be a jerk rule. Yes it's not perfect, but the vast majority of us know what it means.

[Malag]

I had few cases when attacking downed PC (not CDG) resulted profitably in several case in increasing the challenge of such fights, but when I do attack these downed PCs, it includes certain dose of metagame such as using the most weakest attack which I know that won't finish PC.

Example: I had single NPC with class levels of warrior. He was essentially worthless challenge completely, until charging barbarian missed him and he got lucky critical in the following round for maximum 16 damage which downed barbarian asap. He continued to threaten PCs to leave or he would finish him (single ready action attack), which he indeed tried and even after he failed, he tried again after barbarian received enough healing to open his eyes and try to stand up (provokes AoO). So this completely easy fight, became a unexpected threat where attacking downed PC can indeed be a adrenalin-based challenge but like I said, includes a certain dose of metagame to tailor the challenge enough not to kill PCs.

Adam

[Ascalaphus]

Holding a downed PC hostage (even just a readied standard attack can be deadly, after all) seems like a reasonable GM choice, provided it squares with the NPC's general tactics and personality.

However, it might pull an adventure off the rails quite thoroughly. Tread carefully.

[Malag]

Honestly, NPC was solo guard and from what I remember, he couldn't go anywhere but fight to the death in blind corner. Didn't make much sense to me, so when he saw a downed PC, he took the chance. But like you say, tread carefully.