Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Enderlaand 06-04-07, 10:26 AM	Hello all, I just this weekend ran the adventure in the back of the Eberron Campaign Setting. It was a pretty dismal failure. For one, I hadn't really prepared to run the adventure. I had read it through, once, several weeks ago. Two friends of mine came over, made a shifter cleric and a human spellthief and we started the adventure. I was pretty confident, after they took out the first warforged in the adventure in a round or two without much trouble. They succeeded at all the RPing elements throughout the adventure as well. They made it to the final battle with Saber (taking and healing a lot of damage along the way) and got horribly killed. A critical hit from a flaming crossbow bolt took out the spellthief, leaving the cleric on his own to take on the CR 3 character. Not good. Saber opened him up and took him out in one swing. They really should have listened to him when he said to give him the schema. Does anyone else have stories of their biggest failed games, or their funny/ironic TPKs?
Nomadicc 06-04-07, 11:06 AM	More curious than critique, but... since the adventure was written and balanced for a group of 4, did you offer them any "assistance"? If not, I'd expect a TPK vs a group of 2, unless they were quite lucky.
ChronosCrow 06-04-07, 02:05 PM	Back in my very very early days of being a DM I didn't quite comprehend the CR vs EPL scenarios. I pitted 6 players against an elder red dragon. She came up to the group and breathed fire on them once. They all died, even the ones that made saving throws for half, died. Needless to say, in one of my most giagantic blunders as a DM I "rewound time" for the game and had her children attack instead. That was 6 years ago, since then I've learned a whole lot, but my darn players still won't let me forget about it.
korcheck 06-04-07, 03:04 PM	I wasn't the DM at this time but my character did something a bit funny (at least to the others at the table and thanks to dm discription it was funny.) We were play in the wheel O' time game and I was one of those spear guys. It started out that I had to try to jump on a boat crossing a river but failed my roll for my fear of water and instead skidded off the end of the dock into the water from there the night went down hill.... Standing on a roof I tried to shoot an arrow at another building so I could rope across again I failed my roll miserably so the DM escribed the arrow as flying astray followed by the sreeming cry of a cat when I hualed the arrow back I also hauled the cat back but it wasn't dead just really ticked off (this happened once more before I gave up on trying to get across the street in this manner).... Again on the same roof I tried to jump on the back of a moving horse below me... yep you guessed it the roll failed I landed behind it catching a face full of dirt and scaring the rest of the group who I had yet to catch up with... Of all of this everytime we get together they ask me if I have shot any cats lately...
(Psi)SeveredHead 06-04-07, 06:02 PM	As a DM... ark dragon (CR 17 flightless dragon). The CR is only accurate if the PCs are competent. They weren't. I wiped out half the party, most with a single breath attack (they got initiative, too), then it cast Magic Missile at the fleeing barbarian, killing him too. (It didn't help that one PC was a sorcerer with high Strength but low Con who preferred melee to, well, spellcasting. No, he wasn't multiclassed or using a fighter/mage PrC or anything like that. He made his Reflex save and still died!) Another PC, the wizard, managed to kill himself without interference from the dragon, and he was one of the more competent players. I killed so many PCs in that campaign... In a weird campaign, I was a martial artist (not monk!), which meant I didn't suck in combat. Unfortunately, the campaign was weird and so didn't really follow the rules... It didn't help that I had bought this new red d20, on the grounds that my old purple d20 with dark gold writing was too hard to read. This red d20 didn't seem "unbalanced" in the sense that the average was far from 10.5, but it did give me a ridiculous number of 1s and 20s. This was my first session using the red d20, so I think I should be forgiven :) I got into a fight in a church, infested with zombies and led by the former reverend (also zombified). Every time I rolled a 1 on an attack, the enemy got a counterattack. I spent the first three rounds in combat on the floor due to excessive natural 1s. Finally, I got the space I needed to charge the priest, so I jumpkicked him, then next round tripped him, then failed to hit him as he lay on the ground due to rolling a 1. He got a counterattack, and already had a touch spell prepped. I took more than 40 points of damage and was also thrown across the room. New spell. Go figure. Also I was stunned. Freaking annoying. The PC cleric spent more time healing me than doing anything else. Grrr... Later on things got even weirder. We found ourselves fighting this incredibly powerful necro-golem, but at least we had a catapult. No convenient ammo though. Naturally the most acrobatic character (eg me) decided to launch himself at the necro-golem. And naturally, he rolled a one. So the catapult managed to launch itself with me still inside it! Fortunately that red d20 also gives lots of natural 20s, so I rolled one for the Jump or Tumble (I forget which) check to, well, survive. The necro-golem took more than a hundred points of damage ... but didn't flinch. Ow.
Enderlaand 06-05-07, 12:21 PM	More curious than critique, but... since the adventure was written and balanced for a group of 4, did you offer them any "assistance"? If not, I'd expect a TPK vs a group of 2, unless they were quite lucky. Actually I did tone things down as best I could. I also allowed for some creative solutions to some problems. For example they killed the swarm of beetles by crushing them under some of the ruins nearby. They had no other method of killing them at all, so I allowed it. As I said, I hadn't really prepared the adventure for two players, so I had to do the alterations on the fly. I toned down all of the combats, when necessary, but they actually did quite well anyway. They took out both of the first two Warforged quite handily, but their death at the hands of Saber in the finale was unavoidable.
ChronosCrow 06-05-07, 01:38 PM	Actually I did tone things down... They took out both of the first two Warforged quite handily, but their death at the hands of Saber in the finale was unavoidable. I guess the unavoidable fact is the Crit with the flaming crossbow. When "crit happens" often times will kill a lvl 1 player. Then a one on one fight with a BBEG isn't a good combo.
BrotherDog 06-06-07, 02:33 AM	Hello all, I just this weekend ran the adventure in the back of the Eberron Campaign Setting. It was a pretty dismal failure. For one, I hadn't really prepared to run the adventure. I had read it through, once, several weeks ago. Two friends of mine came over, made a shifter cleric and a human spellthief and we started the adventure. I was pretty confident, after they took out the first warforged in the adventure in a round or two without much trouble. They succeeded at all the RPing elements throughout the adventure as well. They made it to the final battle with Saber (taking and healing a lot of damage along the way) and got horribly killed. A critical hit from a flaming crossbow bolt took out the spellthief, leaving the cleric on his own to take on the CR 3 character. Not good. Saber opened him up and took him out in one swing. They really should have listened to him when he said to give him the schema. Does anyone else have stories of their biggest failed games, or their funny/ironic TPKs? This sounds familiar. Did your players remember to use their action points? They help more than realized by many.
Edymnion 06-06-07, 01:03 PM	Actually I did tone things down as best I could. I also allowed for some creative solutions to some problems. For example they killed the swarm of beetles by crushing them under some of the ruins nearby. They had no other method of killing them at all, so I allowed it. As I said, I hadn't really prepared the adventure for two players, so I had to do the alterations on the fly. I toned down all of the combats, when necessary, but they actually did quite well anyway. They took out both of the first two Warforged quite handily, but their death at the hands of Saber in the finale was unavoidable.Honestly, this will sound a little mean, but good. Its good that they died. There is no sweetness in victory if there is no bitterness in defeat. Actually losing from time to time reminds the players that they aren't automatically going to win just because they're the PCs. If they go up against something bigger than them, and don't back down when they realize they're in trouble, they die. I wouldn't call it a failed game, I'd call it a successful life lesson.
Enderlaand 06-06-07, 01:57 PM	I was hoping that it would be a positive experience, but all that it amounted to was one player saying, "I'm never playing a cleric again. They suck compared to my Paladin in the other campaign!" Not really the outcome I was hoping for. About action points - Often they failed by margins that even getting a 6 on the die wouldn't help. I told them as much when they asked about it.
korcheck 06-06-07, 03:07 PM	The thing to remember is that the shield is a DM's bestfriend it's ok to fudge a roll or two as long as it's good for the story just don't use it make the pc's think they're god's.
BrotherDog 06-07-07, 03:08 AM	Very awesome point, Korcheck. Also remember that an action point can also in dire times be used for an extra action, or to stablize one's elf.
Edymnion 06-07-07, 08:25 AM	Very awesome point, Korcheck. Also remember that an action point can also in dire times be used for an extra action, or to stablize one's elf.Thats a good point. Were they using their action points?
Nevarre 06-07-07, 09:13 AM	Enderlaand, I've run the Forgotten Forge a couple of times now, and from what you've written I wouldn't call what happened in your game a 'dismal failure'. It's not an easy 1st level adventure, the swarm, the dire rat thingys (dammit, I can't remember the name!), the trap in the Forge and finally Saber, can be nasty for many a group. In my book a dismal failure would be that they beat up the patron for no reason, or get into a fight amongst themselves and refuse to play ever again. Though never pleasant (at least not for me as a DM) TPKs do happen and both you and the players have no doubt learnt something from it. The question about use of action points is very relevant - they literally ARE life savers. Assuming that they didn't use them to stabilise were they both killed in or just taken to negative? (ie are they actually dead or slipping of this mortal coil as you failed to black - splattered with lots of red...) I wouldn't dwell on what you could of done, how about think about how best to proceed from here.. Some options. If they ARE just unconscious, ask the players if they want another crack at the whip and tell them an action point will stabilise them, over time they will heal. Once that happens use your imagination on what's happened. Perhaps: Saber's captured them and wants to know what they want the schema for. Maybe they get a chance to escape. They wake up, having been left for dead, and stagger to the church to rest. Now they return in failure, but possibly there's a clue as to where Saber is and cue you own plot to track down the warforged (before he takes his prize to the Mournland). They wake up in the care of someone else. You chance to introduce an NPC that they now owe a favour to (could be anyone, a cleric looking for the church within the ruins, an agent of Elaydren, or better yet Merrix, a hobgoblin bard/priest - giving you a great chance to re-enforce the idea that goblinoids aren't the bad guys, etc etc) If they are dead: Elaydren will need to employ someone else to find the schema, so she hires another group. The players will have metagaming knowledge, but it's easy to get around that - different monsters, etc. And of course they will also find the bodies of their previous PCs (nothing like looting your own body!!). They can find a clue, or follow a trail. What if they find Saber dead, or unconscious and the schema gone? Cue a hunt to recover it in Sharn (kinda cool if they have to repair Saber before questioning him - "What attacked you?" etc) The silver-lining to this is that if you do follow it up the players are likely to be emotionally involved in the adventure (which is half the battle for any great game) and you've introduced a sense of consistency and consequence to failure (which could be argued is the OTHER half of the battle..) Hope that helps.
Soltares 06-07-07, 09:15 AM	In the famous moathouse encounter in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, my Ftr/Wiz archer was busy hammering the beastie with spells and arrows from a position away from the others. We'd realized, via flying familiar report, that there was a dragon in there before combat, and discussed tactics, such as not all clumping together to avoid breath weapons (we had no idea what color the dragon was, 'cause the familiar only saw in black and white...). So in the second round, a spellcaster runs over to my position and then starts casting spells from there. Naturally the dragon sees two party members right next to each other and breathes on us. I remind him that we weren't going to do that and move away, drinking a potion of healing. Three rounds later he runs up and stands in front of me again, and I ask, "Why are you standing in a line between me and the dragon again?" Dragon goes next and breathes, we both die. "Oh, you wanted to get me killed. That's sweet." Unlucky die rolls are frustrating, but at least you can microwave the offending die into a puddle of flaming goo. Other players getting you killed doesn't allow for such anger-management techniques. :)
Enderlaand 06-07-07, 10:03 AM	I wasn't really looking for an answer on how to save the game. I ran the adventure as a one-off to kill an afternoon, thinking that MAYBE we'd continue with the rest of the modules. I am a fairly experienced DM, and your comments are helpful, just not to me. The Spellthief character was DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. I allowed a fort save to stay stable at -9, which he bombed. The player had given up, so no action points were used. The other guy said he hated his character, and would never play a cleric again. Enough of my adventure! I want to hear more of your dismally bad games! Bad rolls! Poor planning! Forgetful Players! Bring it on!
Nevarre 06-07-07, 10:49 AM	I wasn't really looking for an answer on how to save the game. I ran the adventure as a one-off to kill an afternoon, thinking that MAYBE we'd continue with the rest of the modules. I am a fairly experienced DM, and your comments are helpful, just not to me. The Spellthief character was DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. I allowed a fort save to stay stable at 9, which he bombed. The player had given up, so no action points were used. The other guy said he hated his character, and would never play a cleric again. Enough of my adventure! I want to hear more of your dismally bad games! Bad rolls! Poor planning! Forgetful Players! Bring it on! Sorry, guess I missed the point of your post :( *Tries to think of a failed game* I don't tend to remember failed games unless they are humourous. ;) There's a character in my current Eberron game that suffers of unlucky dicerolls all the time. You can guarantee that he will miss, fail the diplomacy, climb, hide, etc checks. It's become farcical and when asked if he as actually good at ANYTHING one of the other players piped up: "Scapegoat?!" A long time ago my 10 year campaign came crashing to an end because of disagreements amongst the PCs. Some of the decisions made by players were contentious and angered other players around the table. The adventuring party broke down entirely, with PCs leaving the group (literally, "I'm packing my bags and leaving the city") and the atmosphere around the table was frigid. I closed the book, took down the DMs screen and said "Enough, I don't want to play this anymore". I walked away from the table and have never returned to complete that game. A shame because I poured so much work into that campaign over the years and had what I thought was the perfect way to end it. Perhaps one day we will return to complete it (I know the majority of the players would like to) but it comes with so much baggage I'm not sure any of us will be able to fully relax and enjoy it. Sometimes I guess we need to remind ourselves that it is 'only a game'...
retillin 06-07-07, 06:06 PM	Best/worse moment I can think of? My 3 friends and I had been playing for about 3 months or so. A 4th guy came over and wanted to play. So we spent 2 hours making his guy. He made a knight type player. No more than 20 mins into the game we are riding dragon back fighting more dragons (we had it really easy and the evil dragons were fleeing) and he thought he'd jump from the back of his silver, to a red 20 feet below him. Needless to say, that lucky "1" got rolled on and he totaly missed. Everyone who had a shot to save him failed as well. So the 2 hours we spent making his guy was shot after only 20 mins of game time.
erciyes 06-25-07, 06:53 AM	Most failed game: hmmm yep there was one: But it was in the Alien Universe: we as players got an assignment to recover a missing space ship. Naturally it was invested by aliens. Dumb as we were we went directly to the (small) queen to the enigne room (hot). One of our players saw a human being integrated into the slime wall and shot him to shorten his suffering. BAD, very BAD! 6 seconds later we were all dead... about 1 h good roleplaying to get the job, to find the missing ship and whooops: one player ruins it all by an overreaction. (he knew above our heads was alien movement). In Eberron: everythings went well, currently I DM "Shadows of the last War" after "The forgotten Forge". I just read "Eyes of the Lich Queen" and plan to DM this sometime in the future.
Sarlax 06-25-07, 12:37 PM	The Dorasharn encounters are all rather tough and compound the "mortality problem" of first-level PCs. The sewer encounter features 4 NPCs, all of whom are a level higher than the PCs. The warforged rogues should be deal 2d6+1 damage from flanking. Later you have the beetle swarm, which is a very tough encounter. While notes are provided on how to harm it, they assume the PCs have area-of-effect fire attacks available to them. What if all the PCs have darkvision, use sunrods, or bought a source of Continual Flame? Fortunately, there's the option to avoid them for 3 consecutive rounds - but the PCs don't know the beetles will run off so quickly. Horrid rats. Ack. These guys are specifically said to flank the weakest-seeming party member, meaning they'll attack at +6 and probably do 4d6 together. The iron defenders are rough with their AC 17 and 21 HP each, and they deal an average of 6.5 damage per strike. Finally, Saber is very tough. AC 19, DR/2, 28 HP. 7.5 damage from the longsword (+7 to attack) or 8 damage from the crossbow (+4 to attack). Every encounter features an attack the can probably drop any first-level characters in a single, not-too-improbable strike - except the beetles, but that's dealing 1d4 per round to everyone, given its space. The PCs probably won't have the healing magic they need; even a cleric will likely be tapped at this point and at first-level it's hard to pay for potions or wands of cure light wounds. At higher levels, this kind of arrangement works just fine. You can have an 8th-level party deal with encounters at CR 9 or CR 10 because they have a cushion of HP and resources to deal with the unexpectedly strong attacks, but a first-level party will find it rough times even with CR 1 creatures, let alone CR 3s.
DoveArrow 06-25-07, 01:40 PM	My first campaign I ever ran was absolutely awful. It was a Forgotten Realms game (before Eberron, and before 3.5). Among the things that went wrong: I had a player who rolled five 18's and decided to play a monk. This isn't anything that an experienced DM can't handle, but as a new DM it was an absolute nightmare trying to adjust the challenge rating of encounters so that the monk couldn't just walk through every encounter by himself, but also, so that if the monk went down, the players could still take on the encounter. Suffice it to say, there were a lot of near TPK's in that campaign. I wanted the players to be seafarers, and was using Seas of Blood by Mongoose Publishing. I had worked it out so that I figured a 1% profit on any trading expedition would be a reasonable amount of money for the party. However, one of my players convinced me I had done my math wrong and wanted 10%. Alas, I'm not terribly good with percentages, and so I agreed he was probably right. Note to everyone out there: If you have already figured it out ahead of time, and you aren't good with percentages, don't let your players try to convince you otherwise. I had some grigs play a few practical jokes on the party. It wasn't anything terrible. They made some illusory versions of the party, and cast otto's irresistible dance on one of them. Well, the PCs didn't take to it very well and slaughtered the grigs in the most gruesome way imaginable. One of them even took the bodies of the grigs, and pinned them to a tree. Anyway, to teach them a lesson, I sent a treant after them. The problem was, they had received a potion of fire breathing (it's an elixir now) from the Sunless Citadel adventure module, and wound up taking the treant down. They then carved out the treant's face and attached it to the mast of their ship with a wooden sign that said "Don't Mess with a Dwarf's Dignity!" I made the classic mistake of creating an NPC that was supposed to 'get away' (yes, this is what we call railroading). Well, as luck would have it, the guy was caught trying to steal this sword from the party, lost initiative, and was killed in one blow. Alas, I didn't have any backup plan, and the character was absolutely pivotal to what was supposed to happen next. So after going outside for a moment to try and keep myself from having a panic attack, I came back and told the players the problem. Fortunately, they were good enough to suggest that he just 'got away' and we moved on. However, it was certainly a low point for the campaign. Suffice it to say, this campaign was a learning experience for me. Unfortunately, I had to learn everything the hard way.
Jewelprotector 06-25-07, 02:05 PM	I haven't had a total failure as a DM in a long, looong time. But so far I'm two characters for three dead at least once, and it seems only a matter of time before my current monk follows, esp. if she keeps picking fights with wizards. Three apprentice wizards--not a problem. Three full-fledged wizards armed with many wands and area-affect spells and a grudge? Only a matter of time. But it'll be fun goin' down.
Kid SixXx 06-25-07, 04:17 PM	The Dorasharn encounters are all rather tough and compound the "mortality problem" of first-level PCs. The sewer encounter features 4 NPCs, all of whom are a level higher than the PCs. The warforged rogues should be deal 2d6+1 damage from flanking. I thought there were 3 NPC's: two shifters and the single WF rogue? Later you have the beetle swarm, which is a very tough encounter. While notes are provided on how to harm it, they assume the PCs have area-of-effect fire attacks available to them. What if all the PCs have darkvision, use sunrods, or bought a source of Continual Flame? Fortunately, there's the option to avoid them for 3 consecutive rounds - but the PCs don't know the beetles will run off so quickly. If you ask Elaydren enough questions, the beetle swarm is a throwaway encounter. She does everything short of purchase several vials of alchemist's fire for you and tells you where to aim. Horrid rats. Ack. These guys are specifically said to flank the weakest-seeming party member, meaning they'll attack at +6 and probably do 4d6 together. This was our first really bad encounter. Fortunately our WF Artificer was smart enough to scribe a scroll of Sleep & a scroll of Grease when she rolled up her character. She took Mithril Body as her armor feat & sorta regretted not taking Adamantine Body, but no harm no foul. The iron defenders are rough with their AC 17 and 21 HP each, and they deal an average of 6.5 damage per strike. But the defenders don't attack anyone that has the journal & doesn't attack the defenders or goes for the vault. It's almost like a free Sanctuary spell if the party figures out what's going on. Sadly the only time you can test your theory is while you're in combat taking that average 6.5 damage per hit. Finally, Saber is very tough. AC 19, DR/2, 28 HP. 7.5 damage from the longsword (+7 to attack) or 8 damage from the crossbow (+4 to attack). Here is where Adamantine Body works against you. Saber nearly killed our entire party and tactics don't really help. It's pretty much a kill or die slugfest. I agree totally that Forgotten Forge can be pretty lethal, but if you play your cards right, it isn't so bad. The caveat is that I game with a bunch of experienced D&Ders so our teamwork gelled nicely. FF is a 1st level adventure that might be a novice's first experience with D&D, much less Eberron, & a lack of general experience could prove fatal on paper.