Don't you people ever die?! A DMing thread

[Terex4]

Originally Posted by Julford Hajime

3. Any thoughts on this premise for a villain? Heroes futz around for the first gaming session or two before meeting the future-villain NPC, who is not at all future-villain seeming. NPC promises to hire adventurer party for money well beyond their normal amount of gold for that level, in exchange for escorting him to an artifact he's been 'researching'. Assuming party doesn't get greedy and runs off with it (This is a very real risk), he would then hire them once or twice more for increasingly more money to get increasingly more powerful items. After the second/third time doing such a quest, the NPC gives them their money, and tells them he no longer requires their services. Reveals true intentions, murders helpless orphans, blah blah blah, evil stuff. He does nothing to spurn the party, keeps true to his word, and when is all said and done has treated them very well and likely offers them a spot in his new world order. Hell, if they take it, campaign ends after a massacre or two, and I have the setting for villains in a future campaign

If you have proactive players, let them create the villain. The best example of this is my DM with his previous group rolled on the random encounter table and got Mage with Golem. The party was just starting out and he knew they couldn't handle such an encounter, so he improvised.

The encounter was a mage lying on the ground after a forced teleport by his associates with an inactive golem next to him. The mage was a red wizard of Thay who had fallen out with his peers as well as a master golem maker.

The party, seeing a red wizard and being the typical cutthroat players that they were, decided to steal all his stuff and throw him off a cliff. He survived the fall and started chasing the party. They found more of his stashes and continued to rob him. The party could have gotten rid of him by simply returning what they had stolen, but instead decided he needed to die.

Needless to say the villain pulled some seriously fucked up things on the party and they ultimately died to a lich they decided to rob to get magic items to kill the wizard.

Highlight of the game:
The party's sponsor was the mother of one of the members. While they were off plane, the wizard murdered her, reanimated her as a flesh golem, and married her becoming the owner of the adventuring company as a result.

[Azisien]

My 4E party just cannot die. I mean yeah ok they could be but the only time I've ever KO'd everyone was through absolutely unrealistically overwhelming odds that made it obvious it was one of those "Oh we have to lose this fight" things.

They're level 7 with level 4-5 gear and honestly they beat groups of monsters that are level 11. 4E pisses me off that way.

I have been trying some alternate guerilla tactics too. Tonight I unleashed a small horde of Deathjump spiders in a dark tunnel they were passing through. I had the spiders use an at-will ability to shift 6 squares and pounce for 3d6+5 damage with ongoing poison, slow, and prone status effects. As soon as the spiders started taking damage they would also retreat into their webs or the ceiling after every attack and try to stealth. Then they would all ready actions to pounce the first PC to be all alone.

It still didn't work! Argh! Die!

[Meister]

Another example situation I and a friend came up with would be a slave galleon, where characters could be anything from slaves or slave drivers to the captain or a passenger; play out one normal day on the galleon, and then have it get into a storm and crash, with the PCs as the only survivors, left with barely any equipment in a dangerous area. That, we thought, has a lot of potential, especially with slaves and slave drivers - they just established a hierarchy and the slave driver has probably made himself unpopular, and now they're suddenly on equal ground and have to work together.

Originally Posted by Azisien

My 4E party just cannot die.

Heh, you could have left it right there. 4E characters are tough. The only time I managed to drop a character to negative HP was in the fourth encounter that day, but it was the Defender so I'm still counting that as a success. Are they at least having a hard time and just barely pull through, or do they breeze through everything?

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by Julford Hajime

It's gonna be a weekly 4e group, and the first campaign I've ever led (I've done one-off dungeon runs before, including a well-recieved remake of the Cathedral dungeon in Chrono Trigger). Wanted to get some advice from you guys, as y'all seem to have led a fair number of groups....

4. This is likely to be a very fast leveling game, like one per session. That way my players have options, and I can ensure that the campaign ends fairly fast (I'm looking at a five/six week run here, maybe more, but definitely ending it at level 10, which is the end of the paragon tier). Really, it's gonna be mostly quest exp, as fighting always takes up a lot of time with this group. Should I start them a bit higher leveled than 1? I was thinking starting at level 3, which gives them their first utility skills as well as a second encounter skill to use.

Well, since your other questions were more or less answered, I suppose I should tackle this one. I would usually approve, especially if you want to get to around tenth in six sessions (third level would be pretty good), if you've not run a longer campaign it becomes important that you've had experience with higher levels of play. If you haven't had experience running things at levels higher than first, I'd start there, just to get the feel of it. If you have, then third level is a great place, but I'd recommend at least second level. As far as villain-power, remember this:

Originally Posted by Meister

Heh, you could have left it right there. 4E characters are tough. The only time I managed to drop a character to negative HP was in the fourth encounter that day, but it was the Defender so I'm still counting that as a success. Are they at least having a hard time and just barely pull through, or do they breeze through everything?

That said, I must be doing it wrong, or something. So far, in both 4E campaigns I've DM'ed, I've rather steadily killed one player character per 'adventure'.
Campaign One: First adventure, I killed the paladin and permanently wounded/scarred one wizard. Second adventure I (almost) "killed" both wizards (one twice), the rogue, and the cleric (they used up all their healing potions on him and every healing ability the party had to save his life). Third adventure, I more-or-less killed the non-wounded wizard, again, twice* (she got better).

Campaign Two: First adventure, I killed the rogue* (he got better!), and turned him into a newt dragon[SWAO="*"] (he got better... sort of)[/SWAP].

Meister, the lolcats are back in action! or "can I haz this ohpaneeng"?

Originally Posted by Meister

Another example situation I and a friend came up with would be a slave galleon, where characters could be anything from slaves or slave drivers to the captain or a passenger; play out one normal day on the galleon, and then have it get into a storm and crash, with the PCs as the only survivors, left with barely any equipment in a dangerous area. That, we thought, has a lot of potential, especially with slaves and slave drivers - they just established a hierarchy and the slave driver has probably made himself unpopular, and now they're suddenly on equal ground and have to work together.

Wow. This is one of the most awesome campaign-openers I've ever heard of. I may just have to steal it. (please)

On campaign openers, here's three I've run or prepared that I especially liked. There are a couple of ALTernate or possible reasons/explanations for them that I haven't tested, but might work for your game(s):
* Mass amnesia... plus!the party wakes up more or less naked in the middle of a field that has obviously undergone an explosion (there are bits and pieces of clothes they can cover themselves with around). They seem unscathed. None of them have any of their memories.
~ ALT: they know exactly what happened, and each of them has a different story/reason for being there.
~ ALT: they're friends from a war-time band and on the battlefield.

* Everyone has a different reason for not being able to talk about/know why.the party wakes up in the "rain", but everything is fuzzy and they feel others all around them. It's then they realize, it's not rain, they're in a dripping sewer, and the "others" are dead bodies. One has no memory, one has no tongue/voice (the illiterate savage bard {like barbarian}) who doesn't speak the local language, and one was deactivated at the time "stuff" happened (the warforged), meaning there's no way to communicate what really occured or how they all got down there. Then, they're pretty much immediately arrested.
~ ALT: they all have lycanthrope (probably were-rats)!
~ ALT: they were the survivors of a savage, cultic massacre.
~ ALT: both!

* Drafted into the position.the party is drafted into service by the local city. Any wandering "adventurers" who passed through are placed into assigned groups, put under contengient curses, given a minor magic item, and guaranteed food and decent wages for their services.
~ ALT: they all voluntarily showed up at recruitment centers
~ ALT: this is religious, not secular authority that performs the action/holds the drive (great for parties of divine classes).

[Meister]

Originally Posted by tacticslion

That said, I must be doing it wrong, or something. So far, in both 4E campaigns I've DM'ed, I've rather steadily killed one player character per 'adventure'.

If you're regularly building enemies as PCs like you implied, that might be part of it - if that works for you and your group, by all means continue, but it's definitely not the way it's supposed to work. PC characters have a much larger average damage output and less hit points than monster/enemy characters, and they're designed to be able to survive many encounters per day, whereas monsters are designed to give all they have in one encounter. So if an enemy built as a PC character gives all they have against another PC character death is far more likely.

But if you're only doing that rarely and they regularly die against regular enemies then either your tactics are great or theirs aren't and they need to step up their game.

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by Meister

If you're regularly building enemies as PCs like you implied, that might be part of it - if that works for you and your group, by all means continue, but it's definitely not the way it's supposed to work.

Yeah, it's only for the recurring villains that I do this for. Further, I usually only do this after they've survived one full encounter. I don't wanna haf'ta go to the trouble make a nice, unique villain, then have him on display for one encounter.

Originally Posted by Meister

But if you're only doing that rarely and they regularly die against regular enemies then either your tactics are great or theirs aren't and they need to step up their game.

I'd guess this, but my "tactics" have failed me against superior power as a player, though we were second level v. Umberhulks, so I'm not sure if that counts. Anyway, it works for my group, I guess. I'm just kind of surprised that this seemed so difficult to kill player characters - every time one of mine has nearly died (with the exception of the cleric), it was against fairly generic, unmodified monsters. The rogue in the second campaign was probalby overwhelmed by numbers, and a bit fatalistically reckless, but the paladin was just straight up killed. He was so badly ended so quickly, that I actually had him "live" (though unable to do anything) until the end of the encounter, so he could have a fare-well death-scene. The monster wasn't too far above party average, they had a couple of magic items higher than the monster, and, well, I don't know. The again, about the only one I haven't nearly killed in that game is the fighter.

[Azisien]

Originally Posted by Meister

Heh, you could have left it right there. 4E characters are tough. The only time I managed to drop a character to negative HP was in the fourth encounter that day, but it was the Defender so I'm still counting that as a success. Are they at least having a hard time and just barely pull through, or do they breeze through everything?

They ended up having a so-so time with the spiders. Lots of bloodied all around, but nowhere near dying at any point. It's ok though, they only killed one spider, the rest simply retreated.

The encounter BEFORE I successfully ambushed them with the aptly named Ambush Drake, a few of 'em. It was the first time in a while I did put a PC into negative hit points. The shaman took the brunt of the ambush and dropped to -8HP in one round. Of course the party cleric used Return From Death's Door a round after that, which made us imagining this fight rather hilarious all around.

I am constantly trying to think of interesting challenges, moreso than ever with 4E. My group will get quite high and mighty if they go more than a few encounters with little difficulty, but I also don't want to dishearten them by throwing level 16 monsters at them. I do have some climatic campaign moments coming soon, too.

Anybody got any good ideas on encounters near or around a volcano?

[DarkDrgon]

ok, I think ive mentioned my Video game campaigns before, but I have a dilema. Half of my players love the Pokemon/Fantasy mashup Im doing and the other half is totally bored with it and wants to move back to a Hyrule or my own setting game.

The pokemon has brought 3 new players into the group that probably will not join in on a setting shift yet, but might If I keep letting them play Pokemon Trainer/Beastmasters. any advice?

[tacticslion]

Azusien, is this what you're looking for?

Originally Posted by Azisien

Anybody got any good ideas on encounters near or around a volcano?

Well, the obvious one is the magma beasts, considering, you know, they're made of magma.

Archons have fire archons and elementals give you the firelasher and rockfire dreadnought, while several demons - especially the undead Immolith - make fine choices and almost all devils have decent fire resistance. Fire giants and fire titans could settle in a volcanoe, and would be likely to do so.

Ifreet, salamanders, nightmares, and azers all add a nice extra-planar touch with a less "generic" feel. You also have some decent draconic selections, with Red Dragons, or Red Dragon Spawn. Alternatively, if you've got the chromatic draconomicon, a fantastic one is the pyroclastic dragon, but you're players have to be really tough for that. Even if you decide to go with the standard kinds, you could create a polychromatic dragon and surprise your players with a white dragon with fire resistance, or something similar.

Undead devotees could consist of flameskulls with their fire resistance and regeneration. Backed up by hell hounds, these could be cultists dedicated to the elemental chaos/primordials, maybe even led by a primordial naga (although those are normally level 25, so yours might want to be 'permanently wounded' or de leveled somesuch).

If you're looking for more esoteric, less obvious stuff, you could pull something like air archons [Manual of the Planes] with the warlock dark pact (focus on poison spells) [class-on-monsters template in DMG, dark pact in Forgotten Realms Player's Guide], mindfire miasma (a type of living breathweapon from the draconomicon [chromatic]), and galeb duhrs with the and the scion of fire template [MM and DMG]: these all work well with a volcano theme while avoiding any "cliche" stereotypes.

Heck, if you really wanna throw the party for a loop, simply drop a nest of pheonixes on them.

Other fiery critters include scorpions (hellfire scorpions) and snakes (flaming cobras) - both of which are great with the combined poison/fire theme. A group of trolls with the fire scion template would be downright evil, but easily doable.

Really, what level, scope, and theme (other than "volcano") are you looking for? I could PM you some of the stats for stuff, if you need, but it's really just up to you. I'm liking the archon-living breath weapon-galeb duhr combo, myself, but that would be 16/18, 27, and 8/11 level combo - in other words it would need adjustment or it's balance'd be all over the place. You mentioned before that your characters were 7th level, but is that still true? How many volcanic encounters do you need? Have you checked the XP-budget in the DMG to figure your desired number and kind of encounters?

EDIT:

Originally Posted by DarkDrgon

any advice?

Why, yes, I'm full of it! Advice, I mean! Yeah, that's it! Advice...

Er, ANYway...
On Taming Hyrule

Originally Posted by DarkDrgon

ok, I think ive mentioned my Video game campaigns before, but I have a dilema. Half of my players love the Pokemon/Fantasy mashup Im doing and the other half is totally bored with it and wants to move back to a Hyrule or my own setting game.

The pokemon has brought 3 new players into the group that probably will not join in on a setting shift yet, but might If I keep letting them play Pokemon Trainer/Beastmasters.

The question is, what's wrong with doing both? One of the fun things about fantasy gaming is the ability to blend two things that ordinarily shouldn't work. Really, if you drop it into Hyrule, you can let them be trainer/beastmasters. It's okay. In fact, it would be very similar to sorcerers who'd be using Ganon's powers against him. The trick and deal is you must, must, must make your conjurers do the legwork. Ensure that they have the stats prepped before hand, limit them to the known critters, and rely on them to handle most things. They can't sit around and let you do it all - you're only one person. In a "catch and bind" system like pokemon, that's easy enough - they only have what they catch. You can do the same thing in Hyrule, too. Ganon's minions are effectively shadow-monsters based on the way they (often) burst into puffs of smoke when defeated. This would make perfect sense, then, that mystically-minded characters would desire to capture the villain's own magic and turn it against him. Alternatively (or simultaneously, in different ways) there's the Beast Master prestige class in the Complete Adventurer (a 3.5 book) that allows you to have tons of animal companions. Let someone design a druid or ranger, take away one or two spells or specials, grant them a familiar, and let them take that prestige class, and you've got a variant conjuerer who uses natural power against unnatural mystical forces, or however you want to spin it. Perhaps they can only take their companions/familiars from The Big Bad's forces? Whatever you want, you can design.
Hope that helps! By the way, what edition are you playing?

[DarkDrgon]

Lion responseThe problem is I already have an established campaign in hyrule. In the last D&D thread I talked about the adventures I ran based on Majoras Mask, and then segued into ocarina of time. The Pokemon campaign is a seperate one based on a small continent in my Campaign setting that looks suspiciously like if Johto got smashed onto the coast of australia, and the locals didnt take kindly to it.

So I can't just transplant characters from one setting to another. I have no problem allowing any class they want to play. im in 3.5, btw.