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Criticizing a DM for having a CE creature Coupe de graz is needlessly antagonistic towards that DM.
Chaotic Evil: A chaotic evil character does what his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable. If he is simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal. If he is committed to the spread of evil and chaos, he is even worse. Thankfully, his plans are haphazard, and any groups he joins or forms are likely to be poorly organized. Typically, chaotic evil people can be made to work together only by force, and their leader lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him.
As creatures that thrive on unpredictable violence finishing someone off now while you are mad at them for trying to hurt you seems pretty normal. Especially a beacon of good. Although they may have been stunned by the paladins aura of good may have stunned them detecting him.
Although my complaint to the DM is that the player did not seem to understand the mistakes they made. In my opinion a DM is a teacher. You teach people about the world you build and how you run the rules and characters. As low level characters in your game they are new to you. They do not know how you run things, and you are kind of at fault for that. I am a DM that never takes it easy on people that insist they want to do something, but I will warn and educate them of the risks they take. The player did not expect the type of game you were running, and they left because of it. You did not prepare them in a way they would understand.
My home game I am currently running each players knows when bad things happen to their characters' it is their choices that lead to it. My goal is that no one should lose at my tables, they either learn or win, or both.
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10 point buy and no full casters and purposely killing off characters in the first sesion no less how did you manage to get any players in the 1st place? the 10 point buy alone is a turn off then you ban the only type of characters that make it work
It is a pre-written adventure.
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What do you guys think?I think it kind of sounds like you had what was essentially invisible creatures with paladin radar hunt down and assassinate a first level character that you didn't particularly like, but that's just my opinion.
Ummmm....its published adventure by the company who's forums you post on.
That encounter is in the module for that level with those creatures and the environmental conditions provided.
The only thing he actually changed was allowing the paladin to sense the evil fey despite them not having enough hit dice to,actually give off an aura detectable,by a Paladin. He did that so Paladin could in fact counter the really high stealth of the Fey and actually pinpoint them for his party.
Sadly that's not the path the Paladin took.
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10 point buy and no full casters and purposely killing off characters in the first sesion no less how did you manage to get any players in the 1st place? the 10 point buy alone is a turn off then you ban the only type of characters that make it work
Check your numbers Lady J. He runs 15 point buy with 4 players. The exact design expectation for Pathfinder modules.
This is a pre written adventure path.
He banned full casters due the apparent power imbalance they give ( weak at low levels, OP at high levels)
In other words he ran the game with the expected design parameters, helped players make choices that would prevent power disparity and even let the players run unusual races, some of which add a level of power higher than normal first levels get.
And three of those players loved his game! How dare they (sarcasm)!
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My only comment is about the detect good/evil spell. The op commented in a spoiler that the since the sprites are using the spell they would always know which way to look. It takes three rounds of concentration before they would know the power and location of each aura. The first round all they should know is that auras are present. The second, the number of auras. Since the paladin was flying about it seems unlikely that he would have stayed in the cone area of effect for three rounds. Of course they could have made really good perception rolls.
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@Lady-J Nonsense. This is a module written by Paizo (not a GM customization) and 15 point is the standard Paizo writes their modules for. Your comment about monstrous races makes no sense either. In pathfinder, playable races are categorized as Core, Featured or Uncommon. In this party, there are 3 characters with featured races and 1 with an uncommon race (the Kitsune). Both Aasimar and Tengu are stronger than core races, according to the race-building rules (15 and 13 RP vs 8-11).
@Speaker for the Dead: Paladins are not known for being stealthy. So once the pixies know he's nearby (from the aura), they shouldn't have trouble locating him with mundane senses.
Which is why I added the the bit about making perception rolls. :-)
The CDG was absolutely appropriate. These are unseelie we're talking about.
Not only that, healing magic and stabilization are things.
My houserules give my players a lot of advantages (Con score to hit points being a big one), but I also don't hesitate to have intelligent foes focus fire on the dangerous/obvious targets and spend an extra action to make sure they stay dead. My players do the same thing (I will absolutely have enemies heal up unconscious allies.)
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You know, I believe people are absolutely entitled to varying opinions on a topic. However, before sharing ones opinions, especially in a forum labelled "Advice", those opinions should be carefully considered.
The last bunch of negative GM posts here have shown very little regard for the actual situation nor have they actually read the OPs full posts. That makes an opinion almost useless in what is an otherwise considered discussion really. It's the equivalent of saying "because I said so, nerrrrr" in a discussion with academic experts in a topic you are vaguely familiar with.
At least guys like TOZ and CaptainYesterday had reasons why they thought fey, or indeed enemies,in general,,would not have Coup De Gras'd. And they knew the source of the module and the reasons why the enemies were different than normal. Those are opinions,I,can respect even if I don't agree.
Edit - sorry for excess commas. Typing on iPad and my fat fingers hit the wrong spot occasionally. Stupid fingers.
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You know, I believe people are absolutely entitled to varying opinions on a topic. However, before sharing ones opinions, especially in a forum labelled "Advice", those opinions should be carefully considered.
The last bunch of negative GM posts here have shown very little regard for the actual situation nor have they actually read the OPs full posts. That makes an opinion almost useless in what is an otherwise considered discussion really. It's the equivalent of saying "because I said so, nerrrrr" in a discussion with academic experts in a topic you are vaguely familiar with.
At least guys like TOZ and CaptainYesterday had reasons why they thought fey, or indeed enemies,in general,,would not have Coup De Gras'd. And they knew the source of the module and the reasons why the enemies were different than normal. Those are opinions,I,can respect even if I don't agree.
Edit - sorry for excess commas. Typing on iPad and my fat fingers hit the wrong spot occasionally. Stupid fingers.
My only issue here is you combined my name into one word, captainyesterday is an imposter, I have no direct affiliation with that guy. :-)
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My only issue here is you combined my name into one word, captainyesterday is an imposter, I have no direct affiliation with that guy. :-)You know, I believe people are absolutely entitled to varying opinions on a topic. However, before sharing ones opinions, especially in a forum labelled "Advice", those opinions should be carefully considered.
The last bunch of negative GM posts here have shown very little regard for the actual situation nor have they actually read the OPs full posts. That makes an opinion almost useless in what is an otherwise considered discussion really. It's the equivalent of saying "because I said so, nerrrrr" in a discussion with academic experts in a topic you are vaguely familiar with.
At least guys like TOZ and CaptainYesterday had reasons why they thought fey, or indeed enemies,in general,,would not have Coup De Gras'd. And they knew the source of the module and the reasons why the enemies were different than normal. Those are opinions,I,can respect even if I don't agree.
Edit - sorry for excess commas. Typing on iPad and my fat fingers hit the wrong spot occasionally. Stupid fingers.
Fat fingers on iPad keyboard strikes again! No wonder that other guy gets mentioned so often! Curse you iPad keyboard and your oversensitivity to fat fingered typing!
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Coup de Gracing a PC is pretty horrible from a psychological perspective: The player is already out of control because his PC is unconscious - and now he is supposed to watch an inevitable loss? Yes, some creatures would do this to PCs. But at the end it's the GM's decision:
The GM decides to bring in these creatures.
Even if the AP says 'bring them in', it's still their decision whether to do it.
Further it's their decision whether the creatures act in a 'realistic' way.
Even if the GM lets the dice decide (one of my GMs once did), it was them who decided to roll dice on it at all.
If everyone is explicitly onboard with a hardcore campaign, expendable PCs and merciless environment, CdG is ok, might even add to the feeling. If the party level is high enough to raise PCs from death casually, it's somewhat acceptable. But otherwise I would refrain from such fatal actions, and expect my GMs to do the same.
Drag the unconscious PC away, steal their items, mark them with some ritual - there are several alternatives to simply finishing off a helpless PC, and they might lead to more interesting situations than 'ok, where's the next temple?'.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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We can argue about the CdG (I think it was harsh but not inappropriate), but as indicated the player was already leaving the moment his PC fell unconscious. So the CdG barely mattered, he was quitting anyway.
I'm playing in book 2 of RoW right now and it's a tough AP. My bloodrager dropped in the first round of the very first fight, and I've been nailed with a full 7 rounds of chill metal on my breastplate as a level 1-2 character twice. You know things have gotten interesting when you're burning rage rounds just to keep surviving the ongoing damage while your group tries to reach you across deep snow and a chasm in order to heal you.
Isolation is death.
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If CdG was an effective tactic, PCs would use it all the time
I think I saw it only once and used as a mercy killing
In any given situation, if our favorite murderhoboing PCs would not have used a CdG, then NPCs using it is very unlikely
Is this more from the fact that most times enemies just die at zero hit points?
How much more prevalent would it be if enemies started recovering and getting healed in fights, or escaping to come back later and attack again?
In this DMs world, his baddies will flee and drag wounded/ unconscious allies with them. I suspect that given some experience with that type of enemies tactics, players will CdG quite a bit.
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If CdG was an effective tactic, PCs would use it all the time
I think I saw it only once and used as a mercy killing
In any given situation, if our favorite murderhoboing PCs would not have used a CdG, then NPCs using it is very unlikely
Is this more from the fact that most times enemies just die at zero hit points?
How much more prevalent would it be if enemies started recovering and getting healed in fights, or escaping to come back later and attack again?
In this DMs world, his baddies will flee and drag wounded/ unconscious allies with them. I suspect that given some experience with that type of enemies tactics, players will CdG quite a bit.
*nods*
That and sleep and paralytic effects make CDGing much more viable.
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Hmm, I don't have any issues with how the DM played this, though I now have a question regarding Detect Evil for Paladins.
I always played it as the Paladin needing to actually target it on someone/something. i.e. it didn't work as the Cleric version which detects evil in a radius around him over 3 rounds.
A paladin can, as a move action, concentrate on a single item or individual within 60 feet and determine if it is evil, learning the strength of its aura as if having studied it for 3 rounds. While focusing on one individual or object, the paladin does not detect evil in any other object or individual within range.
Have I been doing this wrong?
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In this DMs world, his baddies will flee and drag wounded/ unconscious allies with them. I suspect that given some experience with that type of enemies tactics, players will CdG quite a bit.
Maybe, but the coup de grace in a situation in which the PC is already out of the fight with no real prospect of getting back into it feels a lot like kicking the player when he's already down... and then peeing on him.
Seriously, the paladin's already out of the fight. Even if he stabilizes, he's still going to be unconscious unless someone goes and helps him. Imagine being in that player's shoes. Yes, he's made some bad choices, not ridiculously terrible, just bad. It's only in the aggregate that they become overwhelmingly bad because they all compound. The best he can hope for is that the enemy will shift focus and afford a slim chance of survival. Then the GM slams that door in his face (metaphorically). First level character, party of players who probably don't know each other terribly well, first game session. Yeah, I'm outta there too.
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I always played it as the Paladin needing to actually target it on someone/something. i.e. it didn't work as the Cleric version which detects evil in a radius around him over 3 rounds.
A paladin can, as a move action, concentrate on a single item or individual within 60 feet and determine if it is evil, learning the strength of its aura as if having studied it for 3 rounds. While focusing on one individual or object, the paladin does not detect evil in any other object or individual within range.
Have I been doing this wrong?
From the FAQs:
"Paladin’s Detect Evil: Does a paladin need to spend a standard action to activate detect evil before spending a move action to concentrate on a single creature or item?
No, the first sentence is discrete from the rest of the ability, and offers an alternative option for using detect evil. A paladin can use the move action on a single creature or item in lieu of the standard action to activate a normal detect evil."
Yes, you were doing it 'wrong'. (I think most GMs were.) Paladins are supposed to be able to either use their ability as if they'd cast the spell, or use it as a move action on a single target.
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If CdG was an effective tactic, PCs would use it all the time
I think I saw it only once and used as a mercy killing
In any given situation, if our favorite murderhoboing PCs would not have used a CdG, then NPCs using it is very unlikely
Is this more from the fact that most times enemies just die at zero hit points?
How much more prevalent would it be if enemies started recovering and getting healed in fights, or escaping to come back later and attack again?
In this DMs world, his baddies will flee and drag wounded/ unconscious allies with them. I suspect that given some experience with that type of enemies tactics, players will CdG quite a bit.
That is quite possible and if PCs would do it then NPCs could too
But PCs are likely to do this only when all threats in the vicinity have been dealt with
If such was the case here : just perfect
Just a note though that the NPCs here should not assume that their opponents are 1st level with corresponding abilities. Doing otherwise is the GM using metagame knowledge against the PCs
If this guy can fly, maybe his buddies can too. If they can fly, maybe they can go invisible and cast fireballs
Not sure I would be keen on staying around to make a full-round action that provokes in such a case
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Bill Dunn, I understand that fully.
I'm guessing that the grittiness of the campaign as being run by the DM wasn't fully disclosed before play commenced.
I also think that the player walked for the very reasons you suggest. His expectations were different to to the DMs. He chose to walk. That's actually more mature than I at first gave him credit for. He at least realised that this game wasn't for him.
He didn't flip tables,,or,abuse the DM or anything else. He just said, "thanks, I'm out".
I don't think the DM did anything wrong here. I really just feel this is a differenc of expectations in how the game runs.
I, as an example, am completely unsurprised if a level one character gets killed. They're only just more effective than common folk. I am lot more surprised if level 8 characters die. But again, I am happy enough to,just run with things no create a new character and keep,telling the story.
I'm thinking the guy in this scenario isn't the same though. He's more invested in the character, I'm more invested in the plot.
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Wrath, thanks for the acknowledgement. I don't mean to say Taka did it wrong, just that I disagree with it.
Hmm, I don't have any issues with how the DM played this, though I now have a question regarding Detect Evil for Paladins.
I always played it as the Paladin needing to actually target it on someone/something. i.e. it didn't work as the Cleric version which detects evil in a radius around him over 3 rounds.
A paladin can, as a move action, concentrate on a single item or individual within 60 feet and determine if it is evil, learning the strength of its aura as if having studied it for 3 rounds. While focusing on one individual or object, the paladin does not detect evil in any other object or individual within range.
Have I been doing this wrong?
It has been a point of discussion for awhile now. I have always run it as the paladin being able to cast the spell as normal with a cone, or to use it as a move action as you describe. So the paladin has an extra option on top of the standard use. Admittedly, this is because I played in 3.5 where the paladin just had the standard action use, and Pathfinder added the move action use.
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he also tuned the sprites to be abnormal giving them a feat they wouldn't normally posses a
No... the MODULE makes them abnormal. They are WINTER PIXIES, not your normal variety fun-loving fey. They are designed to be a tough encounter.
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I probably would have walked as well, but then, I would never have been that player because those actions were stupid.
They are designed to be a tough encounter.
They really aren't. It's CR2. A 1st level party should be able to handle it. The paladin player just made bad decisions.
Taka already mentioned he made the environment worse, increasing the CR above what is written.
I'm kinda confused. What are the stats on these Pixies?
Damage should be 1d2-2, 1d2 with Deadly Aim + 20% miss chance because heavy snow.
Did you roll extremely well? Was the Paladin AC extremely poor?
They must have hit for the first 4 rounds at least 2 attacks to make the paladin low on HP (that would be 8 points of damage out of 12). I'm guessing she has something like 12 HP (14 CON) or 13 with FCB.
Plus, what is the point of hiding? Clearly the Paladin couldn't reach them moving at 20 ft each move action, unless she flew.
And how were the Pixies able to attack the paladin while he was running?
Are they using Shortbows? That means -2 to attack because outside of normal range of bow -1 for using Deadly Aim. -3 to attack at level 1 is a lot.
Range is 60 ft. Paladin moves 80 unless Heavy Armor, so either the Pixies take a double move or they're always outside of Paladins range, making it harder to hit.
I'm not saying the paladin didn't make bad choices, but unless he ran the first 2 turns, she moved around 20 ft/turn (40 if double move), and her party was moving around 15ft (30 speed, double move for 60, 5 ft per 20ft). This is not taking into account that while flying up in 45 degrees you move half speed.
I'm kinda confused on how such tiny creatures were able to hit so often and so much damage.
If the Paladin went for cover under the trees, how were they able to completely deny it? You can always circle around and keep getting cover, plus unless there are no other tress in a 60 ft radius, Paladin should've had cover from other tress in the forest.
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Wrath, thanks for the acknowledgement. I don't mean to say Taka did it wrong, just that I disagree with it.
It has been a point of discussion for awhile now. I have always run it as the paladin being able to cast the spell as normal with a cone, or to use it as a move action as you describe. So the paladin has an extra option on top of the standard use. Admittedly, this is because I played in 3.5 where the paladin just had the standard action use, and Pathfinder added the move action use.Hmm, I don't have any issues with how the DM played this, though I now have a question regarding Detect Evil for Paladins.
I always played it as the Paladin needing to actually target it on someone/something. i.e. it didn't work as the Cleric version which detects evil in a radius around him over 3 rounds.
A paladin can, as a move action, concentrate on a single item or individual within 60 feet and determine if it is evil, learning the strength of its aura as if having studied it for 3 rounds. While focusing on one individual or object, the paladin does not detect evil in any other object or individual within range.
Have I been doing this wrong?
The paladin's detect evil text really reads as if the paladin has the standard spell AND the move action option.
As a current player of RoW, I can say that the first book is really a killer (although we've had only one death there), and especially so if someone moves away from the party with all the halved and quarter movements and limited to no visibility. The player's actions seem really stupid in context of the game and especially conditions. But, I probably wouldn't have CDG him if there were other targets even though it would have been a rational decision for the fey.
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I'm remembering now why I stopped reading these forums... Everybody always seems to be replying to comments without having first read the other replies to see if anyone else has said the same thing.
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My only issue here is you combined my name into one word, captainyesterday is an imposter, I have no direct affiliation with that guy. :-)You know, I believe people are absolutely entitled to varying opinions on a topic. However, before sharing ones opinions, especially in a forum labelled "Advice", those opinions should be carefully considered.
The last bunch of negative GM posts here have shown very little regard for the actual situation nor have they actually read the OPs full posts. That makes an opinion almost useless in what is an otherwise considered discussion really. It's the equivalent of saying "because I said so, nerrrrr" in a discussion with academic experts in a topic you are vaguely familiar with.
At least guys like TOZ and CaptainYesterday had reasons why they thought fey, or indeed enemies,in general,,would not have Coup De Gras'd. And they knew the source of the module and the reasons why the enemies were different than normal. Those are opinions,I,can respect even if I don't agree.
Edit - sorry for excess commas. Typing on iPad and my fat fingers hit the wrong spot occasionally. Stupid fingers.
i live in the same house though
in the vents| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
So, there's a lot of misinformation here. I'm going to go over the statistics of the winter-touched sprites (not "winter pixies") as-written.
The module gives them Deadly Aim. It gives them "paladin radar". It describes them as malevolent and hateful towards humans. It says that they use stealth as much as possible. It also gives them some nasty spell-likes and arrow effects that it almost sounds like the GM chose not to use.
It does not say the sprites flee with their allies if one goes down. It does not say that the snow is deep enough to provide cover and concealment. That was purely the GM being extremely generous to their players.
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Yeah, there were two left at the time.
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...
I, as an example, am completely unsurprised if a level one character gets killed. They're only just more effective than common folk. I am lot more surprised if level 8 characters die. But again, I am happy enough to,just run with things no create a new character and keep,telling the story.
I'm thinking the guy in this scenario isn't the same though. He's more invested in the character, I'm more invested in the plot.
At the risk of going off topic a bit, I just wanted to comment on the idea of character vs plot.
While not so much at 1st level (especially first session!), I have found that over the course of a long campaign or AP, the plot actually becomes inextricably meshed in with the characters themselves. At a certain point, if there is a TPK it becomes really hard to justify re-creating a whole new group of characters to continue the plot, as they lack the same connection to the setting, the NPCs and the story.
While killing off individual characters has a much lesser effect, it can definitely have negative impacts on the overall narrative, as newly created characters rarely have the same connection. I'm currently playing through an AP where one player went through something like 5 or 6 characters, and none of them have ever really made a strong connection with the rest of the party or to the plot. Fortunately we otherwise have a strong core of 'original' characters, but I can imagine it would really detract from the overall narrative if one or more of those characters died (and couldn't be brought back somehow).
All of which goes to say that, for me, I tend to favour the idea of a DM 'staying their hand' where a PC's life is at stake and where such mercy is reasonably justifiable in the circumstances. I feel it serves both character AND plot in most cases. (Though, again, this has less bearing at 1st level/1st session, as in the present case.)
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So, there's a lot of misinformation here. I'm going to go over the statistics of the winter-touched sprites (not "winter pixies") as-written.
The module gives them Deadly Aim. It gives them "paladin radar". It describes them as malevolent and hateful towards humans. It says that they use stealth as much as possible. It also gives them some nasty spell-likes and arrow effects that it almost sounds like the GM chose not to use.
It does not say the sprites flee with their allies if one goes down. It does not say that the snow is deep enough to provide cover and concealment. That was purely the GM being extremely generous to their players.
Ok, now makes more sense. Unless the Pixies got close it was a ranged fight, who dies first, but the PCs had the advantage of +4 cover.
I'm not really sure any of the listed classes had actual class features/spells to reach that far.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I learned long ago that the axiom isn't "never split the party", it's "never run off by yourself and tell none where you are going".
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On the 7th round, the paladin misses his attack, shots shock and knocked out, and promptly coup de graced by his diminutive enemy.
Coup was out of line.
Why didnt he use a Swift action to LoH himself??
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Again, they aren't pixies. Sorry, this is starting to drive me nuts.
Also, the OP actually describes what some of the characters were capable of. One of them was a climbing alchemist. Another was, of course, a flying paladin, who might have been able to help the others had he shown some sense and not blundered off to tell his own story.
I do wonder what the inquisitor and rogue were doing, though. Given that the other players had fun after the paladin left, I'm inclined to guess they were able to contribute in some way, but it's hard to say. It seems like the rogue was stealthing around, while another was playing spotter.