I've seen this happen a few times in my games. Someone gets slapped with a really bad roll(or good/high roll) and they're left with no choice but to sit out the rest of combat. Or massively disrupts the plan/flow that was going on.
As 2 examples, I've seen a player basically quit the fight because they got turned to stone for 4 turns. Given most Pathfinder fights last about 4-6 turns anyway it seems, this meant he'd be out of most if not the entire combat. And we didn't have any way of curing him during the fight.
In my other example, I've been in a group that came up with a pretty good plan on how to kill the boss and the resulting demon we were sure was going to show up after we killed him. Phase one went pretty well, till more than half the team failed a Fear save and had to run away through 2 rooms, leaving me and one other character(Bob) to fight for 3-4 rounds. This resulted in Bob dying in a rear guard action to let me escape but you could tell the rest of the fight he and the others were kinda checked out of it.
It's weird isn't it? As players we seem to like Crowd Control/disables/"Save or suck" when used against enemies but the moment we end up getting tripped/disarmed/stoned/feared/controlled ourselves it's a massive pain to the point it can break encounters if not games depending on how bad they are.
I don't know, I suppose I'm looking for a discussion about how people handle it from both Player and GM sides. Myself I privately roll the effect and question and usually limit it to it's medium length(1d4 turns is closer to 1d2 turns without telling them). And no I don't worry about my players finding out, I only have one player that visits here.
SO what do others think/handle this? Are these examples bad players or have a point? Poorly handled or flaw in the system/expectations of the game?
Just two nights ago my cleric was stuck to some spikes on the back of a golem with literally no way except the necromancer's giant zombie rolling a nat 20 to get off.
Got down to 3 hit points out of 82 (140 counting the heal spell I cast early instead of freedom of movement... which was a bad choice)
The druid cast baleful polymorph on me (passing the will save), and the GM ruled that let me slip away and take advantage of the wind walk I had cast earlier to flee.
I spent... five? rounds doing nothing but slowly dying, everyone else was doing nothing but failing, but a good time was had by all. Still would have been a good time if it had been death.
Failed saves lose PCs. That's how it works. Having the effect removed after combat is perfectly fine. Having to flee and leave dying PCs is fine. It can lead to a boring session, and that sometimes sucks.
If you want to play softball for control effects, that is perfectly fine too!, it's just not the default assumption.
As a DM, I hit my players with CC spells frequently.
Caster's are not stupid and CC is their main tool to keep a party from beating them into the ground with action economy.
It also encourages players to fight more intelligently and build characters for more than DPR. Hit the party wizard with a few Black tentacle spells and he suddenly cares about Escape Artist. The occasional pit spell and reflex saves become important for everyone. And so on, if it's fair game for the players, of course intelligent NPC's are going to use it.
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If your character dies from hit point damage, is that fun? If not, should we remove player character death entirely? Would that be more fun?
Sometimes, you lose. Getting paralyzed or petrified is just another less serious way of losing compared to getting killed. If you find your character unable to act, think about how you got there and learn from the experience.
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I mean, I think it's bad entitled players. Even if a player's PC is out of commission they can follow along, roleplay some amusing details about their condition if nothing else. Roleplay out a spectacular death scene. If your character is totally out of commission or dead for multiple rounds, go ahead and cheer on or joke about the combat out-of-character, of course the combat goes faster if your character is out of commission. To me, even as player (PC), the game is not all about any one PC, a PC is just a character on-screen of a movie, so what happens to any PC isn't really determinant as to game which about the over-all story being told.
Too many players just too strongly identify with the powerful-in-control mode of winning the game, ignoring that "losing a fight" is no less an opportunity for roleplaying. And their own play-styles open them up to vulnerabilities in first place, vs. if they played more defensively and were more prepared to create a withdrawal from a fight, or manage effectively if reduced to Standard action. Even if you are reduced to a Move Action you can try to make the most of that - I've even moved up to an enemy and draw a sword (while Sickened and can't make a normal attack) because the enemy doesn't necessarily know that and drawing attacks to me can help allies win, or if enemy ignores me and moves away maybe I can get an AoO so why not try every little thing?
It's just entitlement because the game so consistently tilts things in PCs favor, they simply can't deal when it happens that they suddenly look ineffectual or likely to lose. Some players are just too used to being Guaranteed Winners, they can't stand even a few rounds where their normal modes of being an effective hero don't seem available. Suddenly dying is one thing, but facing multiple rounds of lack of heroic efficacy just intolerably shatters their comfort zone.
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Some players are 'audience'. They will provide minimal participation; they want to sit there and be entertained.
Some players are 'stars'. They are only interested in what they get to do. When other players are doing things, they'd rather be playing a game on their phone than paying attention.
The best players are balanced; engaged in everything.
The 'star' players are the ones who handle paralysis the worst.
Options for handling it:
Have a Cleric (or similar) in the party who takes the responsibility of curing conditions very seriously. There's almost nothing that doesn't have a Remove spell to counter it.
Have excellent saves so it happens less.
Play a different game. In D&D 5e practically every Save Or Suck is a 'make a new save at the end of your round to shake it off' effect. Or it's a Concentration effect, so every time the caster takes damage the victim has a chance to recover. (This makes condition-removal spells far less important than in Pathfinder.)
Have a friendly NPC that the player can run while the PC is out of action.
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I disagree with the premise that players like save or dies when they use them. I sure as hell don't, and deliberately avoid creating characters that exploit them because putting the boss to sleep on the first round is basically just skipping the fun part. The caster gets to pat themself on the back and the GM didn't get to show off any of the Cool Things they had prepared with this big monster.
Naturally, I feel the same way in the reverse. Why should I care what's happening if I'm paralyzed for the entire encounter? Nothing I do or say is relevant. Leaving the room to get a snack would be more "in character" than continuing to participate in any way because... my character isn't participating either.
And before any of the people already in this thread saying you can just improve your defenses to avoid these situations gets all high and mighty, my most recent experience with this was on a Samurai character that spent a feat and a trait to improve her will save, had an Order ability that gave a bonus to saves, and burned Resolve to roll twice on the save. This did not prevent her from being completely removed from an entire fight by Hold Person. Binary save or dies are awful and if you are going to defend them then I am going to judge you for it.
Why should I care what's happening if I'm paralyzed for the entire encounter?
I'd be worried that my PC / party might die. I'd be powerless and frustrated, but I'd still care.
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My players are adults with busy lives; I try to avoid forcing them to sit out of a session for an hour because they rolled poorly. That's a poor use of valuable free time, and even if it is part of the game, it would demonstrate in a way that I don't respect them. Even if they're knocked unconscious or die, there's an unspoken agreement not to make them sit out for long- they can control an NPC or a follower while the other PCs try to get them back on their feet as quickly as possible.
Crowd control that restricts their actions instead of rendering them totally unable to act, though? That can lead to creativity. How does the Wizard deal with being silenced? Is he the sort of guy who runs away and hides, pulls out a Silenced spell, or loads his crossbow? I enjoy that a lot more, and my players seem to too.
I think there are ways to “check out” but still be respectful to the GM and other players. If my PC is turned to stone (and I know that no one can reverse it anytime soon), I might say “hey, I don’t want to metagame, so I’m just going to step away until my PC is restored”. I’ll usually stay within earshot so I can answer questions about my PC or help with the odd rules search but sometimes removing yourself and then playing on your phone is the nicer option.
I didn't respond to the rest of your post because making up for my inability to take my own turns by trying to take other players' turns for them is even worse. "Tension and drama" my ass, I've literally never seen a GM use a CDG before combat is over. Killing a neutralized PC when the rest of the party is still very much a threat is an irrational move by the NPC's and really is just your GM being a dick and telling you to reroll your character because they said so.
Please, explain to me how I'm supposed to expect a tenth level solution to a problem caused by a sixth level enemy while the party was fourth level. I'll wait.Why should I care what's happening if I'm paralyzed for the entire encounter?I dunno... maybe because you're one break enchantment away from being full participating and knowing what's been transpiring on the table is useful?
Because this is actually a decent question, I'm going to expand on the two examples I gave. To help better show what was going on and a little of the group dynamic. After all there is a difference between complaining you got CC'd and getting CC'd when the cure is in someone's pocket.
Expanded Example 1; The group is Brawler, Sorcerer, Druid, Paladin(Who got turned to stone), with an Inquisitor NPC. Paladin was turned to stone thanks to Medusa heads, which is a poison effect something the Paladin isn't immune/resistant towards. I think the only way to cure them is with Stone to Flesh or something even stronger. But I don't think our Sorcerer knows that spell nor does the NPC have a way to cure that. So Paladin was going to be sitting out 4 rounds, and the Brawler might have had a good chance to follow. This group favors RP more than combat but we do like rolling dice and hitting stuff.
Example 2; Now this was a good while ago and I lost contact with them. But the party was Alchemist, Alchemist Swashbuckler, Spiritualist, Cleric or Warpriest, and I want to say Fighter or Slayer. This wasn't the OG team, we had a Paladin but they got killed off by session 2-3(Hello Strange Aeons how you doing?). During the boss battle of book 1, the 2 spell casters we had along with pure melee ended up getting feared and running. Leaving the 2 Alchemists to fight the boss. Looking back, I'm not entirely sure what he did or if was even legal but some bending of the rules I think is allowed for bosses. Whatever happened caused the 3 party members to run for 3 rounds.
By the time we grouped up, Alchemist Swashbuckler was dead, and Alchemist was wounded. And the plan we had descended into hit and run tactics due to the CC the boss was fond of throwing out every other turn. This group was very low on the RP and ran it more "Kick in the door, kill the monsters, take the treasure" way.
I hope this helps a bit.
It also encourages players to fight more intelligently and build characters for more than DPR. Hit the party wizard with a few Black tentacle spells and he suddenly cares about Escape Artist. The occasional pit spell and reflex saves become important for everyone. And so on, if it's fair game for the players, of course intelligent NPC's are going to use it.
And yet most the time info is all about pushing a build to do as much damage. You can't afford to pick up Escape Artist, you have feat taxes to worry about.
That said, the group in Example one tends to home brew the feat system a bit with stuff like the Feat Tax rule set that's floating around and allowing some feats to grow, letting you get the next level of a feat automatically when you met the requirements. And it's something I tend to do in my own games. Personally I think you should be allowed 3-4 feats you want and not what your build demands. But this is a different argument.
Besides picking up the required Cloak of Resistance(Or passively getting it with Automatic Bonus Progression), most people don't build for defense or resisting CC. After all, Death is the best CC.
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CDG the character who failed the save against hold person before she successfully saves and re-entered the fight? Not irrational.
CDG the unconscious and dying character before he is healed and brought back into the fight? Not irrational if it's been shown that the party is willing and able to do so.
This did not prevent her from being completely removed from an entire fight by Hold Person. Binary save or dies are awful and if you are going to defend them then I am going to judge you for it.
Not to detract from your point, but hold person gives you a new save every round, so it's not really a binary save-or-die. That's some bad luck if you failed every round for a long fight. You can have similarly bad luck failing your attack rolls every round, though, so *shrug*
Please, explain to me how I'm supposed to expect a tenth level solution to a problem caused by a sixth level enemy while the party was fourth level.
A scroll of Break Enchantment is 1125gp, less than 5% of the total party wealth of a typical level 4 party. I probably wouldn't have one, but it's not impossible.
A scroll of Remove Paralysis is 150gp. Every party above level 2 should aim to have at least one of those.
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Leadership and a willingness to let other players who have been taken out during a combat to control them during a fight. An NPC who is around that can pinch hit for a bit.
Etc.
The only "Save or Suck" that I try and actively avoid using or house rule on the fly are most things that have a fear ability. Being Panicked for minutes every fight is back breaking. I've often lessened the level of fear something generates or allowed saves every round the source of the fear is not present.
I wonder if professional athletes who are sent to the penalty box stop paying attention to the game.
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Most of my players are pretty well behaved. Once in a while one will try to grab the last beer, and then I go for the pepper spray which works pretty well.
One session, my cleric was going to be out for 24 hours for a Hallow spell. [Found a desecrated temple to his god.] This meant he would not be part of the continued exploration of the area. The GM allowed my to play an NPC cleric that was part of the party.
So, on the first fight, first round, the NPC gets hit with a Polymorph spell that turned him into a pebble for an hour. So my temp character got sidelined for an hour, and so sat out that fight and some subsequent exploration.
Yeah, it sucks, but I still enjoyed that session because the party advanced their goals and my PC clensed the temple.
As for checking out, I don't think I have ever done that. Once I got hit for a fear effect and ran for rounds. Because we don't rocket tag, the fight was still going on by the time I ran back. Still, I was reduced to counting how many rounds I would have to run before I could get back into the action, but at least I saw the fight wasn't over when my turn came.
/cevah
I don't have a lot of sympathy for a party who doesn't have break enchantment, dispel magic, remove paralysis, etc., to clear these conditions quickly in combat.
What if the guy with the stone to flesh scroll gets petrified?
What if the guy with the stone to flesh scroll gets petrified?
why does your party only have one guy holding one stone to flesh scroll?
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Because they cost 1,650gp each. How many of those scrolls would you have in your level 6 party, if that was when you first met a CR 7 Medusa?
Because they're only useful for one specific rare circumstance and even then they kill the person it's cast on unless they can make a DC 15 Fortitude save, and if you could pass that reliably, you could probably have passed the DC 16 save that got you petrified in the first place.
Because the spell is high level, and isn't on many spell lists, and not everyone can pass a DC 26 Use Magic Device check.
Binary save or dies are awful and if you are going to defend them then I am going to judge you for it.
I like them. I can't be bothered to defend them, though. Do I still get judged?
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Binary save or dies are awful and if you are going to defend them then I am going to judge you for it.
Oh hi badwrongfun. Haven't seen you in a while. Hows your sister the stop having fun guy and your parents gate keeping and "balanced houserules."
Because they cost 1,650gp each. How many of those scrolls would you have in your level 6 party, if that was when you first met a CR 7 Medusa?
Because they're only useful for one specific rare circumstance and even then they kill the person it's cast on unless they can make a DC 15 Fortitude save, and if you could pass that reliably, you could probably have passed the DC 16 save that got you petrified in the first place.
Because the spell is high level, and isn't on many spell lists, and not everyone can pass a DC 26 Use Magic Device check.
In addition, Shrieking Medusa Heads are CR 4 which was the case in my example. While not as deadly as a full Medusa's Petrify, It's still annoying to deal with. Out of action for 4 turns at most, you get tagged for 2+ turns of it, what do you do? As the Paladin put it "I guess I'll find something else to do?"
I would also like to update another factor for my examples which might not change some opinions but I feel I should have mentioned it. Both examples were played through roll20 or some other online system. So it wasn't people walking away in real face to face life but over screens and text.
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I second the idea of importing the rule from 5e that says you can make a new save to break the same or lose every round. Also I remember in late 4e books they made it so with some petrifying monsters you could cure the petrification by rubbing the monster's blood on the petrified creature. You could use this to make it so, unless there was a TPK, petrification would last till the end of the fight at worst and you wouldn't have to deal with a PC being a statue for 75 percent of the session. I also actually agree with people who temporarily leave (not rage quit) when their character is petrified as what can they do? Indeed, one could argue continuing to pay attention is metagaming in that situation since their character is supposed to be unconcious and unable to perceive his surroundings at all.
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Just two nights ago my cleric was stuck to some spikes on the back of a golem with literally no way except the necromancer's giant zombie rolling a nat 20 to get off.
Got down to 3 hit points out of 82 (140 counting the heal spell I cast early instead of freedom of movement... which was a bad choice)
The druid cast baleful polymorph on me (passing the will save), and the GM ruled that let me slip away and take advantage of the wind walk I had cast earlier to flee.
I spent... five? rounds doing nothing but slowly dying, everyone else was doing nothing but failing, but a good time was had by all. Still would have been a good time if it had been death.
Failed saves lose PCs. That's how it works. Having the effect removed after combat is perfectly fine. Having to flee and leave dying PCs is fine. It can lead to a boring session, and that sometimes sucks.
If you want to play softball for control effects, that is perfectly fine too!, it's just not the default assumption.
Just out of curiosity was the golem in question a converted cadaver collector from 3.5? I always thought those were cool.
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I remember in late 4e books they made it so with some petrifying monsters you could cure the petrification by rubbing the monster's blood on the petrified creature.
Pathfinder's Basilisks work that way too.
I second the idea of importing the rule from 5e that says you can make a new save to break the same or lose every round. Also I remember in late 4e books they made it so with some petrifying monsters you could cure the petrification by rubbing the monster's blood on the petrified creature. You could use this to make it so, unless there was a TPK, petrification would last till the end of the fight at worst and you wouldn't have to deal with a PC being a statue for 75 percent of the session. I also actually agree with people who temporarily leave (not rage quit) when their character is petrified as what can they do? Indeed, one could argue continuing to pay attention is metagaming in that situation since their character is supposed to be unconcious and unable to perceive his surroundings at all.
Why not just do that for PCs that get killed, too? Just give them a saving throw every round to get back up.
Are you implying that petrification is as easy to cure as HP damage? Because if not, your comparison just doesn't work. And that's not even talking about commonness, or that people to implement changes to prevent going from full HP to being dead (most commonly from a crit at early levels).
Because they cost 1,650gp each. How many of those scrolls would you have in your level 6 party, if that was when you first met a CR 7 Medusa?
Because they're only useful for one specific rare circumstance and even then they kill the person it's cast on unless they can make a DC 15 Fortitude save, and if you could pass that reliably, you could probably have passed the DC 16 save that got you petrified in the first place.
Because the spell is high level, and isn't on many spell lists, and not everyone can pass a DC 26 Use Magic Device check.
Well, I wouldn't whimsically throw a Medusa at the party at level 6 because there's no viable counters to petrification at that level and that's irresponsible to do as a DM (I've made that mistake before with a Circle of Death spell on a lvl 7 party with no defense against a spell like that, and that's a lesson I don't need to learn twice); personally I think Medusa's CR should be higher, but that's another discussion. Anywho, WBL for lvl 6 is 16,000gp and I wouldn't expect a lvl 6 party to just have even one Stone to Flesh scroll at all for "just in case". But, if the party is lvl 6 and they are specifically sent somewhere to subdue/kill a Medusa, then they really, really ought to have spent the money to have 2-3 Flesh to Stone scrolls and carry them on different people.
However, I would whimsically throw a Medusa at the party once they have access to lvl 6 spells (so lvl 11+) because they should have 82,000gp WBL and if the party doesn't have multiple counters to petrification by that point then that's their own fault.
Well, I wouldn't whimsically throw a Medusa at the party at level 6
I'd be perfectly comfortable having a medusa as the climactic encounter for a party of four 3rd-level adventurers. She wouldn't have a crummy dagger, either.
I'm not a big fan at all of instant kill effects. People don't tend to come to games to watch others play.
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I will say this- there is a major difference between using these abilities on players and enemies.
Players are usually in small parties where they use the same characters for long periods of time- potentially the entire campaign. Excluding pet classes and summoning, you are usually looking at 4-6 characters.
In comparison, the enemies controlled by the GM can be sent out by the dozen and wiped out without much effect. Such enemies are made to be consumed, and often to be consumed in as efficient way as possible. People usually only find an issue with it when the boss got taken out (in which case, it might be a single creature that was supposed to be powerful withing the narrative).
Going beyond the narrative difference, there is a difference in action economy. The relatively small party is often faced off against dozens of opponents at a time, depending on the battle. We all know action economy is king. Even a mass of weak enemies can be a major threat- I can easily see a powerful red dragon getting one shot if it stumbled into the prom for 1st year, level 1 wizard students (rays of frost en mass). The main counter to this is the use CC that stops the enemy from acting in the first place.
For the GM, the CC problem can sometimes be handled by simply adding more enemies than the spell covers. But for the players, they can only band aid with healing spells or try to buff up stats so they are never CC'd in the first place (...which just leads to rocket tag as the GM gives harder DCs just so they can have any effect).
So I can see the wisdom in the GM limiting his amount of crippling CC (area of denial is a separate matter- it is the party's fault if they rush into a patch of black tentacles put in their way).
Of course...these principles also work on the flip side. Feel free to use hard CC if the party spams summons. Maybe let the knocked out players control the remaining summons.