Just started running an AP. Characters are still level 1, Random encounter generator came up with shambling mound. Obvioulsy pitting them against that is a TPK. Out of character I had previously warned the players that not everything they find is going to be within their power to defeat, at least not right now. So I decided to use this as an in game demonstration of this point.
A fey NPC that had been playing with the PCs alerted them to the danger. Then tried to scare them away with some ninor illusions. They still refused to take the hint and one of them went to investigate. The fey then dropped all subtlety and just said to run away. Nope. The character then sees the shambler at the same time it sees him. He is told he can just outrun it. Nope, he leads it back to the rest of the party. 2 characters die before the rest finally get the hint and run away.
Is there any coming back from this?
You may want to just skip random encounters, but you also don’t have to have the PCs be the primary movers of such encounters. Instead have the players come across a placid looking pond. There is a deer drinking from the pond. Oh no, vines shoot out and drag the deer into the pond. Then let the PCs decide if they want to try dying from there.
A shambling mound is often more interested in feeding than killing. So, it would likely let the others run away to enjoy eating those who stayed behind. At that point, the survivors just have to meet their new party members at the next convenient location. Maybe the new PCs also just lost party members in a similar situation and they can bond over their shared experience.
First level characters are basically made of glass. A single lucky hit can often take them down and even kill them. Once they gain even a single level they have a much better chance of survival. It is not just the low HP, character relying on heavy armor or expensive weapons are not fully equipped. Unless the character is lucky, they cannot even afford chainmail much less any kind of heavy armor. There is no way an archer can afford composite bow with a +2 STR bonus. This makes it highly likely that a single mistake will wipe out the party. Until the character reach 2nd level, the GM needs to be very careful.
You may want to just skip random encounters,...on the mechanics side the random encounters should be within tier, or CR = APL to APL+2 for 4 PCs. Shambling Mound is CR 6 so players should be 4th level. You could do APL+3 but those should be plotted events.
So yes, APL+5 was overkill and should have never happened.
That would be correct if it was just sprung on them like normal random encounters. But in this case the saw it was an overwhelming threat, had every chance to escape, and chose to engage anyway.
What do you want to happen? Would you prefer for the players to roll up new characters? or have the survivors drag the bodies to a place where the dead can be revived?
AP's have enough in them already - no need to use Random encounters.
AP's have enough in them already - no need to use Random encounters.
Really depends on the specific AP chapter. Some of the authors bake them in and some just add them as an afterthought.
Really depends on the specific AP chapter. Some of the authors bake them in and some just add them as an afterthought.AP's have enough in them already - no need to use Random encounters.
well, we're on our 12th AP, and have yet to use a Random encounter. We use Milestone levelling so no need for extra XP, and they already take 12-18 months to finish an AP, so no need for extra stuff to do.. so yeah, we've yet to see a need for Random encounters.
If you’re on milestone leveling then it’s less important. You may end up a little low wealth, but maybe you are using ABP as well.
I do think that a player character or two dying at level 1 is more of a feature than a bug. In most campaigns that’s the best time to replace the character and it stings a little less if they die before you’ve invested a lot of play time in them.
But it also gives you the opening to balance out any weaknesses in party composition that caused the deaths
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Personally, I would use it to highlight to the players that sometimes encounters can't be defeated by their characters straight up. You did give them warnings, but sometimes players get used to GMs that "protect" them or only allow "level-appropriate" enemies (which the PCs can usually just overwhelm).
TBF, I started gaming back in 1st Ed AD&D ("old school") so I may have a different frame of reference. However, IMO "adventuring" should be approached as a dangerous activity that requires a certain amount of caution, preparation, and understanding of when it is better to "fight another day." Especially at lower level play, players should not think their characters are Big Bad Heroes (yet).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
well, we're on our 12th AP, and have yet to use a Random encounter. We use Milestone levelling so no need for extra XP, and they already take 12-18 months to finish an AP, so no need for extra stuff to do.. so yeah, we've yet to see a need for Random encounters.Really depends on the specific AP chapter. Some of the authors bake them in and some just add them as an afterthought.AP's have enough in them already - no need to use Random encounters.
Normally the way I use "random" encounters is to mine them for inspiration. But this AP is Kingmaker where you need some rndom encounters to populate the wilderness.
I am using milestone leveling but some random encounters count toward the milestone milestone count.
Did any of the characters have any ranks in knowledge nature? And if so, did they make the DC 16 check to identify the shambling mound? Since the DC of the knowledge check is higher than 10 only a character trained in knowledge (or a bard) can attempt the roll. Since it was a “Random” encounter there should not have been any rumors about it for the players to be forewarned.
People complain all the time when a player uses out of character knowledge to their advantage. Why is this any different than a player without knowledge nature pulling out the cold iron weapon when they see a fey creature?
It’s not really metagaming to think your level 1 butt needs to run from the large walking tree with vines, especially if it hasn’t trapped you yet and it’s not directly between you and your goals.
Kingmaker is pretty easy to bring new characters into. I’d just have the two who lost characters make new ones.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Did any of the characters have any ranks in knowledge nature? And if so, did they make the DC 16 check to identify the shambling mound? Since the DC of the knowledge check is higher than 10 only a character trained in knowledge (or a bard) can attempt the roll. Since it was a “Random” encounter there should not have been any rumors about it for the players to be forewarned.
People complain all the time when a player uses out of character knowledge to their advantage. Why is this any different than a player without knowledge nature pulling out the cold iron weapon when they see a fey creature?
Yes, it was identified. And they still didn't run until it killed 2 of them. One of them had grease prepared and didn't try to slow it down so they could run, he stood there and hit it with acid splash.
All of the players have been playing Pathfinder for at least 3 years.
well, we're on our 12th AP, and have yet to use a Random encounter. We use Milestone levelling so no need for extra XP, and they already take 12-18 months to finish an AP, so no need for extra stuff to do.. so yeah, we've yet to see a need for Random encounters.Really depends on the specific AP chapter. Some of the authors bake them in and some just add them as an afterthought.AP's have enough in them already - no need to use Random encounters.
Normally the way I use "random" encounters is to mine them for inspiration. But this AP is Kingmaker where you need some rndom encounters to populate the wilderness.
I am using milestone leveling but some random encounters count toward the milestone milestone count.
Yeah I forgot about Kingmaker - that one is basically nothing but random encounters - god I hated that AP.
Most of the APs simply list what level the party should be by certain points in the Adventure - we just go by that regardless of what you have encountered. (most APs are pretty linear - so you generally don't miss many encounters)
as for Wealth, most of the APs seem to do pretty decent in giving wealth enough to be close to WBL - so we haven't seen much need for extra treasure drops.
Was it one of the characters that identified it? If it was the fey that was “playing” with them I can understand them not taking the warning seriously.
If it was a PC that identified it, how much information did you give them?
I know several people who if their character would not have the information, they probably would do what your party did. These people have decades of experience in a variety of games but tend to get very into their character even when the player knows better.
Was it one of the characters that identified it? If it was the fey that was “playing” with them I can understand them not taking the warning seriously.
If it was a PC that identified it, how much information did you give them?
I know several people who if their character would not have the information, they probably would do what your party did. These people have decades of experience in a variety of games but tend to get very into their character even when the player knows better.
The fey was messing with them for a while. It always stayed invisible while stealling stuff or playing other pranks. But since they were taking out the bandits it decided to help them when it saw the shambling mound approaching their camp site. It used ghost sound to wake them up. When the one person went to investigate it, while still invisible, it told him to run away.
The character ignored they fey's advice and went in the direction he was told not to until he saw the shambler. He could not identify it. Despite being told he could outpace the shambler if he wanted to he led it back to the rest of the party. They were all up and as buffed as they wanted to be. When the explorer came back the wizard identified the shambler. He got 2 peices of info and was interested in resistances and AC. The wizard moved closer to hit it with an acid splash and the explorer charged it with a (reach) melee weapon.4 rounds later those 2 were dead and the party had done about 10 points of damage total. The other 2 got the hint and ran away.
From my point of view the fey was an antagonist not an ally, why should the PC believe it. The shambling mound could have just as easily been another illusion of the fey to get the party to run away.
Why is the wizard deciding what information it gets? The GM should be the one determining that not the player. The way I usually handle identifying monster’s abilities is to start off with the most obvious or well known. I might consider what the players are asking but would probably start with how tough the creature is.
I am not saying the players are blameless, but from what you have said they may not have really known how outclassed they were despite the wizard being able to identify it. If the GM is using an encounter to teach the players they should run away, it should be clearer that they are outclassed.
I have seen a lot of GM that like to give the players minimal information on how well they are doing or how tough the monster is and then wonder why the players did not flee. In one encounter my character did 15 points of damage. When I asked the GM about how well my hit was, his response was "it took some damage". This GM would never give out monster stats including HP, AC and was never clear how much damage if any the party was dealing until the monster dropped dead. We had no real way of knowing if the monster was almost dead or barely wounded.
From my point of view the fey was an antagonist not an ally, why should the PC believe it. The shambling mound could have just as easily been another illusion of the fey to get the party to run away.
Why is the wizard deciding what information it gets? The GM should be the one determining that not the player. The way I usually handle identifying monster’s abilities is to start off with the most obvious or well known. I might consider what the players are asking but would probably start with how tough the creature is.
I am not saying the players are blameless, but from what you have said they may not have really known how outclassed they were despite the wizard being able to identify it. If the GM is using an encounter to teach the players they should run away, it should be clearer that they are outclassed.
I have seen a lot of GM that like to give the players minimal information on how well they are doing or how tough the monster is and then wonder why the players did not flee. In one encounter my character did 15 points of damage. When I asked the GM about how well my hit was, his response was "it took some damage". This GM would never give out monster stats including HP, AC and was never clear how much damage if any the party was dealing until the monster dropped dead. We had no real way of knowing if the monster was almost dead or barely wounded.
For info on monsters I let the players ask questions that they want answers for. That way they get info that they feel is relevant for the situation at hand. Also they cannot accuse me of feeding them useless info. I have no problem giving out game info like AC, hit points, hit dice, or saves. After all many spells directly interact with these stats and a caster who made his check is likely to know if his sleep spell can affect a bog standard critter based on HD.
As far as player experience the one with the least experience has been playing for at least 3 years. Another for at least 6 years, and the other two for at least 10 years. They know how tough a shambling mound is.
I really don’t think monster info was even important here. It was a large creature and they were level 1 adventurers. Even the weakest of large creatures are dangerous to level 1 adventurers.
As I mentioned many people get int the roleplaying aspect of the game and try and separate out player knowledge from character knowledge. While not all players are that dedicated to roleplaying, there is nothing wrong with that approach. The whole point of gaming is to have fun and if your players are the type that really like getting into their characters and making decisions based only on character knowledge as a GM you need to accommodate that.
While large creatures are dangerous there are lots of large creatures that would be a level appropriate challenge for a 1st level party. An Assassin Vine, an Ogre and a Giant Wasp are all CR 3 threats, so would be a level appropriate challenge for a 1st level party.
I don’t think CR3 actually is appropriate for level 1. The challenge system just isn’t adequate at that level. Those CR 3 challenges can one shot most level 1 PCs and will take multiple rounds worth of PC attacks to take down with their large hp pools. When you see such things in an adventure, it’s usually combined with environmental factors that can make the fight a lot easier on the PCs
If you are level 1 and wander across the path of a large size creature, then you should run unless there is no other path than through that creature.
As I said in my first post a 1st level party is basically made out of glass. With a good roll a hit from nearly any creature can take out a 1st level character. If the characters are going to gain levels they need to face monsters that give decent XP. If all they face are barmaids and badgers reaching 2nd level is going to take forever.
The party had a chance to fully prepare for the encounter including buffing as much as they wanted to. Under those circumstances a 1st level party would have a good chance vs a CR 3 encounter. A few characters may be taken out but should still survive if the party wins.
. A few characters may be taken out but should still survive if the party wins.
And if you aren’t metagaming, then that means you should flee from such encounters, unless they are in the way of your goals.
As for slow leveling, there’s a reason that level 1 is so easy to level out of. But also there are story based xp rewards to supplement the monster xp. A lot of APs have you reach level 2 based more on goals than fights.
Is there any coming back from this?
Yes, you can come back from this. I would leave it up to your players: Do they want to roll up new characters? Do they want to handwave this encounter as a lesson learned (maybe it was just a shared dream) and move on since the players (I assume) are sort of new?
If you go with the second option, stress to the players that this is the only time you'll handwave a PC death. There has to be that risk of death in most rpg adventures.
I have not player the AP but from what I understand one of the goals of the first part of Kingmaker is to establish order by clearing the area of threats. It seems like a large monster would be a threat that needs clearing.
The players are rolling up new characters. That was never in doubt. What had/has me concerned is the disposable character attitude. For this book in the AP replacing characters is not that much of a chore, but it does mess with plot hooks for later books that have been established.
But once you hit book 2, and especially book 3, it is much harder to integrate a new character. It is one thing to ask a random stranger to go explore dangerous ruins with you. It is a different matter to ask that same stranger to rule a country with you.
Low level characters tend to die more often than at high levels, especially at 1st level. Most builds do not start to actually come online until somewhere between 3rd to 5th level.
Before that stats are actually more important than class. A first level eleven wizard with an 18 STR will usually be better at fighting with a sword than a 1st level fighter with a 10 STR.
Higher level characters are harder to kill and relatively cheaper to resurrect. 1st level character are borderline disposable with the way the game is designed.
With only reading the first post I knew it was Kingmaker :D
Yes, you did the right thing, hopefully the players (and characters) have learned. Even if they were fully playing in character (I can understand not trusting Perlivash or Tyg when either are telling you to run away) but after seeing one of their friends drop after (I'm guessing) a single hit... wait, 2 attacks per round... it killed both PCs in the first round of attacks, didn't it?.... If they weren't insta-kills, they all should've realized to run and to make a plan to clear it out of the area later on. If they were insta-kills, yeah, the other two running at the first chance was the right choice.
The Stolen Lands is a dangerous place. It should feel deadly. (The ruler in the game I ran died at the end of book 2 and it was great!)
As for replacing PCs later on, it's still easy... it's not "some random person joining them to explore the wilderness." Instead, it's the woodsman that they've seen around town quite a bit, it's the trapper that wants to help build a community, it's the wizard that set up shop months ago and wants to get out there making the area safer, it's any amount of characters doing whatever the players want to have been doing before they decided to become part-time politicians and joined up with the ruling council.
At the start of the 4th module (3 9th/10th level characters) the very 1st wandering monster roll was a 100 followed by a d4=4 for 4 adult black dragons (each cr 11). The most powerful encounter on the chart. We were scouting with an eidolon and were able to run away.
Scouting is very important. But I think it also helps to not make the random encounters so static as just standing around or waiting to ambush. Why would 4 adults dragons be together? Maybe 3 males are competing over one female. Maybe it’s very loud and obvious that the party shouldn’t get in the middle of that.
I'm with Melkiador... I had the random encounters be encounters / signs of the creatures instead of fights.
Roll a troll? Great! Give a sign about trolls being in the area for later on, or the group sees one in the distance.
I had... no idea what monster it was now... I had a monster stalking prey for food, that way the PCs could realize that throwing food at it and running away was an option if they got too close to it and they wanted to get away.