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I generally GM with the assumption that bad guys don’t attack downed PCs, but instead focus on current threats. There are exceptions, of course, such as bad guys who have the Death Knell spell prepped, or otherwise get some sort of boon out of damaging a downed foe, and I’ve had animals try to carry off a downed PC rather than keep fighting the ones who are left up. But that not my general practice.
Yesterday I ran an encounter with an Aurumvorax, though, and a situation came up that hadn’t so far in my PF2 career. It had a PC grabbed and executed its Rapid Rake, which allows it four strikes for the cost of two actions, but all against the same target. It critted on strike 2, putting the PC at Dying 2.
Like I said, I don’t usually have a monster continue attacking a downed PC, but the beast had already “invested” actions on the activity and literally couldn’t do anything in its place if he stopped. Fortunately MAP kept it from landing both additional strikes.
Have folks run into this sort of situation where mechanics sort of guide you to choices you wouldn’t otherwise make?
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Some monsters are just more likely to kill by their very nature. A successsion of attacks like this always runs that risk. So does running a large group of creatures on the one initiative roll. As a GM I guess you should limit the number of these types of encounters. The party is supposed to be able to help each other.
Remind the cleric that he can take Breath of Life to help in this type of situation. It is not normally a great pick. But if this is happening a lot in your games its worth it.
Might just be a matter of "shit happens". I probably wouldn't use those as anything but at-level or lower threats because of how vicious they are, and then at least the players might have the tools to undo a death.
Also, personally I wouldn't let a player perma-die from the first ever display of an aurumvorax's frenzy. I'd fudge a roll or two if I had to to make that happen. If they know how vicious they can be and then proceed without sufficient caution, then they can risk getting deleted.
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I mean... That's why hero points exist I guess ?
I often have intelligent foes focus fire, but then leave downed targets down.
If they get back up then they fight to keep them from getting back up.
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I generally GM with the assumption that bad guys don’t attack downed PCs, but instead focus on current threats. There are exceptions, of course, such as bad guys who have the Death Knell spell prepped, or otherwise get some sort of boon out of damaging a downed foe, and I’ve had animals try to carry off a downed PC rather than keep fighting the ones who are left up. But that not my general practice.
Yesterday I ran an encounter with an Aurumvorax, though, and a situation came up that hadn’t so far in my PF2 career. It had a PC grabbed and executed its Rapid Rake, which allows it four strikes for the cost of two actions, but all against the same target. It critted on strike 2, putting the PC at Dying 2.
Like I said, I don’t usually have a monster continue attacking a downed PC, but the beast had already “invested” actions on the activity and literally couldn’t do anything in its place if he stopped. Fortunately MAP kept it from landing both additional strikes.
Have folks run into this sort of situation where mechanics sort of guide you to choices you wouldn’t otherwise make?
Been there. I made the monsters do all its attacks. Once, Hero Points saved the day. Another time I got bad rolls and didn't kill the character.
But I play in hard mode. I rarely help my players.
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I generally GM with the assumption that bad guys don’t attack downed PCs, but instead focus on current threats. There are exceptions, of course, such as bad guys who have the Death Knell spell prepped, or otherwise get some sort of boon out of damaging a downed foe, and I’ve had animals try to carry off a downed PC rather than keep fighting the ones who are left up. But that not my general practice.
Yesterday I ran an encounter with an Aurumvorax, though, and a situation came up that hadn’t so far in my PF2 career. It had a PC grabbed and executed its Rapid Rake, which allows it four strikes for the cost of two actions, but all against the same target. It critted on strike 2, putting the PC at Dying 2.
Like I said, I don’t usually have a monster continue attacking a downed PC, but the beast had already “invested” actions on the activity and literally couldn’t do anything in its place if he stopped. Fortunately MAP kept it from landing both additional strikes.
Have folks run into this sort of situation where mechanics sort of guide you to choices you wouldn’t otherwise make?
This situation should be survivable if the PC has at least one Hero Point left to use Heroic Recovery:
Core Rulebook pg. 460 2.0 If you have at least 1 Hero Point (page 467), you can spend all of your remaining Hero Points at the start of your turn or when your dying value would increase. You lose the dying condition entirely and stabilize with 0 Hit Points. You don’t gain the wounded condition or increase its value from losing the dying condition in this way, but if you already had that condition, you don’t lose it or decrease its value.Source
If the second hit put him at Dying 2, even two more crits would be survivable (using heroic recovery on the second crit would put the PC back to Dying 0 (instead of Dying 4), which would increase to Dying 2 after the last crit (not a good place to be, but better than being dead)).
If the player is out of hero points but the party has resources to resurrect him fairly easily (I know we found multiple elixirs of life in AoA), I'd probably say kill the PC.
Otherwise, I'd be somewhat reluctant to kill the PC*: He/She should die per the rules, but that's (presumably) just no fun for anyone...
*Please note that this assumes the PC got into this situation due to pure bad luck rather the suicidal tactics: Your reluctance may vary...
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Don't be afraid to kill a player character. If the monster grabs it and execute its attack and it rips apart the PC, then let it happen. The monster isn't going to go, "Gee, I might kill this guy if I do my full attack. That's not so nice."
Execute the attack, kill the PC, let the player's know death is real in the world.
No, I don't hold back unless I screwed up and the creature was too strong for the PCs to win. I certainly don't care if they get unlucky or the monster gets lucky and kills a PC if the challenge is fair. I only care if I have made the encounter too strong and the PCs are losing badly, quickly because of it where the entire party will die. But a single PC dying because of a monster's attack routine? Nope, I don't stop it. I kill the PC. Let the party experience death.
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I mean... That's why hero points exist I guess?
This, so much this. I regularly read and hear players (and GMs) who are fearful of creatures that appear to be over-tweaked, but the Hero Point system is so incredibly powerful, once you embrace it and let it sink into your game approach, you will be much less concerned about extremes of dice swings, monster crits, multi-attack combinations, etc.