Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Jason_Vorhees 13 08-17-05, 12:25 AM	Lets face it, at some point of your D&D time you’ve encountered something that…well just didn’t go according to plan, be it a DM’s major plot hole, a misuse of teamwork, or simply an encounter that seemed much harder then intended (by much harder I mean the DM must send a powerful ally in to help the PCs from facing a rather gruesome death). Though these tend to be a major pain in your D&D game and possible make it less fun, they tend to be important by allowing us to realize the error of our plans and how to help avoid it in the future. So I thought that if we heard of things that have also happened to other DMs (recent or years ago) then we might be able to avoid the problem all together (or at least help to avoid it, and if it’s been on our minds then we can solve it much easier) Ok I’ll start off, last Sunday me and 3 other players got together, I was DMing, and because I had been playing God of War and reading my Heroes of Battle book then I was thinking something along the lines of, PCs are in a town that’s being plagued by an orc tribe, which will soon turn into an all out war. So I had them start out lvl 7 (the larger battles will happen much later) so that they’d at least have magic and better equipment to help insure survival. So one became a Reptilian Bugbear fighter, the other a dwarf fighter, and a Maenad Soulknife. I was counting on a party like this; we’re all 15-16 so we all have a little bit of powergamer still inside of us (not to mention one of the players had been looking through my Savage Species book). So I advised a battle that would hopefully get the PCs interest in slaughtering the orcs so I go to the back of my HoB book and find the stats for an Orc Platoon 30 privates (regular orcs) 3 corporals (2nd lvl barbarian) 3 sergeants (3rd lvl barbarian) 1 lieutenant (4th lvl barbarian) Now I know I’m not an incredible good DM when it comes to making sense of what a “fair” encounter is, so I don’t know if I had make my mistake here, but that thought didn’t cross my mind. So we begin, it occurs on a dirt road where the orcs are in rows; the PCs are in a straight-line formation, from left to right Soulknife – Bugbear – Dwarf Now they have different speeds, so when the battle begins the PCs go first, so the bugbear moves up 30ft (about 10 or 15ft away), the Dwarf moves up 20ft, and the Soulknife moves up 15ft, now if the error of the encounter was not my fault for deciding if this fight would work, then this is where everything slowly started to go to hell. The orcs simply charged, I’m sure most of you could see the battle grid now and could tell that with the orcs movement speed, the PCs weren’t in a good position. So after a while each PC is completely surrounded so there are a lot of flanks, allowing the orcs to have a chance to hit go through the PC’s AC, within turns the Dwarf is the only one standing, but that didn’t really last long -_- Luckily (thanks to DM magic) the Human soldiers searching the area found the PCs and took them back to the medics who healed and revived them. Now I know that probably had a lot of flaws that you all could see when it came to my DM style of how lenient to be on the PCs, well this style works for me, but this didn’t go without learning something. I learned that I should try to figure the EL of an encounter before simply throwing it out, I learned that I should have some NPCs help the PCs in times like this, after all I’m sure that the PCs wouldn’t of gotten flanked as easily had there been a few soldiers with them, and hopefully my PCs saw that orcs can be major threats, and when they can flank they are much stronger then one might expect. So tell us of your own disasters that have plagued your encounters that, while could have possibly been like going through hell, you can still at least say “at least we learned how to function properly in that kind of battle” oh and might I add, after this the PCs wanted revenge on the orcs, so it acually went according to plan in it's own way :)
UltimateReality 08-17-05, 01:10 AM	Now I know I’m not an incredible good DM when it comes to making sense of what a “fair” encounter is, so I don’t know if I had make my mistake here, but that thought didn’t cross my mind. If you're curious, there's a nice encounter calculator here (http://www.d20srd.org/encounterCalculator.htm) that you can use. Plugging in your party's numbers and the orcs', it tells me that your party's level was 6.2 and the orcs altogether were EL 11. It's a handy thing; even lists the xp each charracter should get. *** My own DMing mistake...once, I designed this quasi-intricate dungeon, with a hidden passage to go elsewhere. The PCs were hired to clean out the mines, etc., etc., which they happily did. However, they completely missed the hidden passage and elected instead to extensively search the rest of the dungeon. What I should have done is simply move the passage to that area. What I did do was leave it as is, tell them they didn't find anything, and by the time they got back to the city to collect their payment, they were told they didn't finish the job and would only get part of the cash, unless they went back and did it right. My only excuse for that is that I was new to DMing, and tired from a long day. I still wasn't quite used to all the mental effort a DM has to expend to keep the thing going (man is it exhausting! and thirsty!) and IIRC one player was pissy about his character dying in a random encounter (from a chart which he himself made for me). Now, I make all my random encounter tables myself, and I add notes for modifying things or moving them around in case the PCs don't go where I planned. I also try to mentally run through scenarios in my head and consider what I would do if I was a PC.
Dragonsblood 08-17-05, 01:51 AM	I was a player, and my team was required to kill two werewolves by some horse-man guardian because the werewolves were hunting wild horses. We were told where their lair was, and when they usually hunt. We set up an ambush in the lair, but completely forgot to move our horses into the cave with us. So what ended up happening was the horses got slaughtered, and we had to take on two buffed up werewolves (one was a cleric) on their home turf. Somehow we still won, but we didn't have any belladona (we knew we needed it, but neglected to get any for some reason) or access to spells to cure lycanthropy - after that tough fight, half of our party had to subdue the other half who turned. After all this we ended up paying through the noise to get our party cured at the near by city. So I learned two things from this encounter. 1) Always mind your horses 2) Always bring fresh belladona The DM also learned to be more careful sending werewolves at PCs (especially in a group of relative newbies).
Cherry 08-17-05, 01:52 AM	:shocked:THAT IS THE MOST AWESOME (and convienient) CALCULATOR EVER! that is all....
Disco 08-17-05, 02:10 AM	Not sure how accurate it, for example, 5 level 6 characters fight a level 6 challange rating monster and it is "easy" 5 level 6 characters fight a level 6 challagne rating monster and 3 level 1 monsters and it is "very difficult" Does that sound right?
Gnome_Dragon_Disciple 08-17-05, 02:38 AM	It depends... I know there are some ways to have summoners or necromancers get some fairly powerful "CR1" underlings. Really, I've forgone random encounter tables... my brain is the only random encounter generator I need :P That said, I've found that trying to convert powergamers and min/maxers to actually care about their characters as more than numbers on a sheet (or even trying to get them to speak in character) is kind of a waste of time. Best to just try to get intelligent players (before I get the "but you play with FRIENDS, right?" people, that's experience from a college lounge in which you played with whoever you wanted).
ShadowDragon8685 08-17-05, 02:45 AM	Melee PCs should always move at the rate of their slowest. And when there's multiple PCs, they need to get used to fighting back-to-back. With your PCs in a staggered straight line, they were probably getting three flanks each. Four PCs back-to-back can only get, at most, two flanks. Same for a triangle of PCs. They should also learn to guide their attacks together to destroy flanking monsters ASAP. if they look at the grid, there's usually one monster that at least two of them can hit that will take out one or two flanks. In a grid like this (with M being an orc, and P being a PC, and O being an empty space,) O M M M M M P M M P P M M M M M As you can see, the most flanks any one PC can take are two. The guy in the corner of the formation can only take one. If they all attack the orc that's within range of all three of them, the M here: M P P P then they will OMGWTF PWN him, and they cut down to one flank for two PCs, zero flanks for the corner PC. As opposed to: O O M M M O M M P M M M P M M M P M M O M M M O O This formation, where no fewer than 15 orcs can gang-bang the PCs, and only two of them are failing to participate in a flank.
FireHeart 08-17-05, 12:35 PM	My lesson learned. My first return to DMing after a very long hiatus (and switching to 3.X), I needed a random encounter - so I created a giant (cloud/fire?) fighter on some npc generator. My players started at 8th level or so I think so that's the # of fighter levels I gave the giant. I proceeded to kill (read: hammer in to the ground the party's paladin.) He charged. My giant then leveled 3 (or 4?) attackes on his initiative. After the party somehow manages to kill the giant. Spells and ranged attacks I think, my husband asks me what exactly I did...it was at that point we realized Giants have an LA of like +8. The encounter was fully twice what it should have been. Lesson: fully read up on your monsters before you use them. And make sure when you add class levels to monsters you pay attention to things like LA. ~T
VinylVillichi 08-18-05, 02:24 PM	This was an "Oops" from my first (and last) time GMing Cyberpunk, but it can apply to D&D, just think "artifacts." I designed the ultimate BBEG, I thought. There were full conversion borgs, super robots with human brains. They were planty tough and took a long time for the party to take out. So far so good. But then the party starts shopping for trustworthy doctors...and having their brains put into the borgs. lesson learned- don't give the bad guys things you don't want to end up in the party's hands without a way of taking it away.
VirgilCaine 08-18-05, 02:35 PM	This was an "Oops" from my first (and last) time GMing Cyberpunk, but it can apply to D&D, just think "artifacts." I designed the ultimate BBEG, I thought. There were full conversion borgs, super robots with human brains. They were planty tough and took a long time for the party to take out. So far so good. But then the party starts shopping for trustworthy doctors...and having their brains put into the borgs. lesson learned- don't give the bad guys things you don't want to end up in the party's hands without a way of taking it away. Gee, that's simple. They're walking machines of death. They get hired to kill people--massacre civilians or POWs or easy enemies that can't hurt them much. They're hired to stand around and look nasty, intimidating enemies. Boooring. Also, they won't be hired to sneak into buildings anymore--they'll be hired to just smash through the front and Hulk their way to whatever they are hired to get.
Illion the Red 08-18-05, 02:55 PM	This was an "Oops" from my first (and last) time GMing Cyberpunk, but it can apply to D&D, just think "artifacts." I designed the ultimate BBEG, I thought. There were full conversion borgs, super robots with human brains. They were planty tough and took a long time for the party to take out. So far so good. But then the party starts shopping for trustworthy doctors...and having their brains put into the borgs. lesson learned- don't give the bad guys things you don't want to end up in the party's hands without a way of taking it away. EMP Grenades and Humanity Loss make full conversions touchy. Not everyone of those monstrosities is EMP shielded. But, then again, that's a different system entirely and the analogy holds true.
Karelzarath 08-18-05, 02:55 PM	Gee, that's simple. They're walking machines of death. They get hired to kill people--massacre civilians or POWs or easy enemies that can't hurt them much. They're hired to stand around and look nasty, intimidating enemies. Boooring. Also, they won't be hired to sneak into buildings anymore--they'll be hired to just smash through the front and Hulk their way to whatever they are hired to get. Even easier: instant cyberpsycho. Congrats, you're now an NPC. :evillaugh
Fanged Fremont 08-18-05, 03:29 PM	RULE 1: PC's never do what you expect them to. I've only ran one session, and here's all of what I learned. (this was a 10 hour session, not something I suggest for your first time) My friends like to play high powered campaigns and had a custom of having each player roll for two random pieces of magic equipment on top of the spending cash they got. I figured it couldn't hurt even though I prefer a low to mid power game. I in essence gave everyone twice the gold that was suggested for their character level, and I also failed to notice the suggestion about not letting them have an item worth 1/3 their suggested wealth. I had a level 8 cleric in the group with a 29 ac do to various enhancement bonuses. That taught me to not share secret munchkin techniques. I also learned that my players are greedy bastards. I had an adventure (I stole from giantitp.com) where the PC's where on a ship and came across another ship with a rich nobel couple saying pirates attacked and stole their treasure and kidnapped their son. The agreement was the PC's recover the treasure and the son and keep half. The captain of the ship would take them to the pirate island for 5% of the treasure they got. What do the PC's do? They make every effort to pilot the pirate ship on their own and take off. My groups also bloodthirsty, probably because I had overpowered them so much. I wanted them to negotiate with the pirates to let the PC's through without a fight to take care of the necro who had taken over the pirates, as long as the pirates got to keep some of the gold they stole. No can do. A lot of pirates is a lot of xp, and thats a lot of gold they were talking about. I should have slaughtered the PC's but I held back and let them slaughter the pirates, it was more fun for them that way. My group also apparently hates rogue npcs. I had one join them since they didn't have a rogue. I had him run off scared when they went to fight the 30+ pirates. To redeem him I said the pirate captain tried to make a run for it and the rogue had caught him while the party was having their big ol' war. What do the PC's do? Monk stunning fists the rogue, knocks him out, ties him up, and takes all his gear. They let him have most back after an interogation where the monk would break his finger, the cleric of heronious would heal his finger, then repeat. I had planned on them liking the rogue and the rogue being a contact for further adventures. No such luck. They were planning on gutting him specifically for his bag of holding, which none of them bought with their ridiculous amounts of money. Also, I learned the importance of KNOWING THE RULES! I was hoping for the BBEG to dramatically leap up to a balcony (ring of jump) and run off only to be blown back by his twisted experiments backfiring and have even worse nasty things for the PC's to fight. What happens? Monk grapples him everytime he jumps because he provoke and AoO everytime he moved. I though all you had to do was hit and then you've sucessfully grappled and the guy loses his turn or something. He would have easily beat the monks grapple check too... I ended up having him take 5 foot step off a cliff, which probably provokes an AoO, but nobody said anything. He then teleported/flew while invisble, went through a portal/whatever my players want to believe and then he got blown back by his experiments yadda yadda yadda. I thought that the party would be so worried about the new baddies that they would leave the BBEG on the ground and fight, at which point the BBEG would have cast meld to stone and get away when the party examined the rest of his lair. Nope, the swashbuckler starts dragging his body away from the other baddies. I had to pull a "portal sucking everybody in" bit so either he had to let go of the BBEG to grab onto something, or be sucked in too. I also learned that despite how crazy and gung ho my players are, they wouldn't knowingly jump through a portal to god knows where. I was really hoping that they would just jump in and get slaughtered by hell's minions so I could call it a night, and forget how crazy powerful I let them become and start from scratch. Eh, it was my first time. Next time it will be better....
cvazi 08-18-05, 03:41 PM	The CR's in Savage species are totally hosed. High level harpy/sirens are WAY!!! too powerful. After TPK within 20 minutes of the game- i learned the fine art of running simulations of encounters instead of Encounter Calculators. Currently, I use encounter calculators only for the xp calculations. That taught me to not share secret munchkin techniques. :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh Yeah I learned that too. . . Bloody Dervish. . .
Serielle 08-18-05, 06:51 PM	I don't think I've ever had anything particularly spectacular failure, but they've all been useful lessons nonetheless. My brother plays all of his characters as CE, no matter what their alignment on the sheet may be. At one point, he told me wanted to find a blacksmith for get some equipment for his level 1 wizard. This is a good time to introduce my retired adventurer smith, I thought, who has plot importance far down the line. What does my brother do? Walk in, and without saying a word, casts charm person on the smith in hopes of securing free equipment. Lesson learned: PCs don't do what you expect them to. Unfortunatly I had to learn this lesson about a gajjilion more times before it set in... So he just ruined a plot hook that I wanted to develop, and unknowingly attacked an npc that was more than 5 times his level. I played it as I thought it should turn out, the NPC easily made the save and being an experienced adventurer, attacked to prevent him from casting any more spells. I was generous enough to let him get away after having his ass handed to him, and boy did he complain about having his butt kicked by a "commoner". Lessons learned: 1) Improvise. I could have easily switched out the adventurer smith with a regular run of the mill smith to preserve the plot hook, but it never occured to me at the time. 2)Don't go half-assed on PCs. Should have either of killed him, or not have had him get into combat with something that much more powerful at all. Letting him get away was too obvious that I relented after having made up my mind. 3) The importance of divulging information to players. He complained bitterly about how a shopkeep could be so powerful, oblivious to the fact that I had a two page backstory and full stats for this important NPC. Sometimes you should let your players know more than their characters would. I don't have a problem with evil characters in my campaign, but in this situation he (understandably) assumed that I was punishing him for acting in ways that I didn't approve of. In another situation, I had just gotten my hands on Manual of the Planes, and being a big fan of Torment the PC game, I decided to include some plane hopping in my campaign. Thus, I had a wizard cast a summoning spell in another plane that summoned the PCs, with the exception that the wizard was killed before the spell was over, and the PCs got stuck on the plane they were summoned to after the wizard was dead. In retrospect, lesson learned: No railroading. Fortunatly for me, the players LOVED the concept of being summoned, and being marooned in a planar metropolis, somewhere exotic and exciting. So eventually, the players get around to doing things and end up with money from this metropolis, which uses a certain type of gem as it's currency. They amassed something like 3000-5000 gems, and one player asked me off handedly for a conversion ratio to gold. I gave an answer without really thinking it through; you can guess where this is going. Five level 7 PCs ended up with 280,000 GP. Not wanting to railroad them further into a way of losing all the money they just gained, I let them have it, and simply put more stringent prices on what they could buy. Lesson learned: Running Improv games is trickier than it sounds. Be more careful with anything that could end up upsetting how much wealth the PCs have. In this group, I had four new players, and one experienced player who was a total munchkin. The new players looked at the dungeon master guide and had their eyes gloss over, and simply trusted the experienced player to get them all suitable equipment. You can see where this is going too, he ended up with twice the equipment anyone else did. Lesson learned: Erm, not entierly sure actually. I'm not sure how to handle this situation if it comes up again. Originally the munchkin wanted to keep all the gold for himself, but I intervened and made him share it with the party on grounds that it was party wealth. After that, I trusted the players to work out who gets what. They weren't angry at him, surprisingly, so there was no player conflict but it did make him grossly overpowered in comparision to everyone else. There's about a billion different situations that lead to you learning that PCs don't ever do what you expect them, and that improv is tricky when you don't think it through. Those two lessons are the ones that consistently show up game after game.