Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Ringmereth 12-08-03, 10:31 PM	Or: Worse than TPK. My party (5 5th level characters) is currently stuck, naked, at 1 HP, in a set of prison cells. Why? My evil DM attacked us while we were resting in a 5 foot wide corridor, 40 feet above a cistern (sp?) in the sewers. We ran down the corridor, climbed/fell down a ladder. A bunch of soldiers (presumably 2nd or 3rd level) attacked us from the corridor with a number of evil things: 'firebombs', a balista (no clue how they got all this stuff in the corridor) which I destroyed with a well-placed Acid Arrow, and finally an Iron Golem! While they were attacking us, a group of 3 Kou-Toa monks, 4 Whips, and 3 soldiers attacked us from the only passage into the cistern. Sound unfair? Well, not only were we cornered by a force that could kill us if we had a defensible position, but we were already injured and low on spells after a fight with a cryohydra. We all died, after expending a lot of potions and item charges. Instead of just letting us get resurrected by the adventurer's guild, he had the Koa-Toa heal us up to 1 HP, steal all our stuff, and imprison us. Did I mention that we're all total newbies? Now is it just me, or was that totally unfair? It wasn't the DMs intention to capture us, it just happened that way. Now, I have no clue how we're going to escape, let alone get any of our stuff back (and we each had around 10-15 thousand GP worth of hard-to-find items). Opinions, anyone?
Koga:The ninja trick 12-08-03, 10:38 PM	Relax, no matter how cruel a DM they can't let the worse happen to thier party or else the game can't run. Just have faith that the DM is just conducting some elaborate scheme that will leave you all speechless. The Koga says this cause I aint good at stradegizing or getting people out of tough predicaments.. :P
Capt. Pixel 12-08-03, 10:46 PM	Hey! Whatsa matta you? Hey! Gotta you no respect? Why you sound so blue? Why you sound so sad? Itsa not so bad! Itsa nice-a place! Ahhh Shaduppa yo' face!! :D Look at it this way - at least you're still alive. If you get out of this intact, you'll have one great story to tell your grandkids. :cool:
Ringmereth 12-08-03, 10:57 PM	One heck of a story to tell my grandkids- IF we get out. I know I shouldn't be so pessimistic, but still- that was a nasty encounter. It would have been better if we had just rolled up new characters, maybe... then again, maybe he does have something planned. We'll see. And by the way, does anyone know what CR this encounter should have been? We're a 5th level party who took on a cryohydra (CR7), and this was way harder. So what do you think this was- CR9? CR10? CR11 (after all, we weren't prepaired for the fight)?
Capt. Pixel 12-08-03, 11:22 PM	It seems just a bit high for the party. But just a bit. I don't know how well-endowed your groups is with magic, for instance. I've found that Magic can skew Effective Level pretty severely. You also state a party of five PCs. Having more than four PCs in the party increases their capabilities proportionally. With five PCs and assuming average magic for your level - I'd qualify your party as 6th level overall. Remember that your 6th level party should be able to tackle roughly Four CR 6 encounters before having to R&R. A single CR 10 encounter should totally exhaust a PC party. Iron Golems are CR 13 (by the MM) and I would have to say that is a bit heavy-handed. But, if the terrain is such that you can out-maneuver the golem, that alone can be a leveling device. Perhaps your DM has no intention of playing to Status-Quo, and you will be faced with encounters that are just out of your league. In such instances, I suggest you run away. It could also be that he's trying to adjust his encounters to your groups playing style and class capabilites - and he got it wrong. He over-played his side of the game. Balancing encounters is a lot harder to do than it seems to a non-DM. It's very easy to throw monsters at the party with full expectation of the PC's success. Only to have the monster roll incredibly well, and the PCs to roll incredibly poorly. The end result is TPK, and the DM is left wondering what happened. The fact that your DM manipulated a way for the entire party to survive, albeit destitute, speaks highly of his DM style, in my opinion. I, too, have my "Cavalry Arrives in the Nick of Time" tricks to pull the party out of an unfair situation that I'd created as DM. It's embarassing to use those tricks, but it keeps the Players happy and playing. :cool:
AlteredEgo 12-09-03, 12:47 AM	Did you think perhaps to surrender?
green_yawgmoth 12-09-03, 01:44 AM	Originally posted by AlteredEgo Did you think perhaps to surrender? Surrendering is for panzies! Besides, he probably would have just said "no dice" or "ok, they force you to..." and he'd be in the same situation with a few more HP.
Sussin 12-09-03, 07:34 AM	ask what exactly is in the prisons. Spiderwebs, dust, gwanno ect. you never know what you can use for a spell component. Try and be creative that way. Or try the old, "GUARD GUARD! MY FRIEND IS SICK COME QUICK!" trick
Mister Mayhem 12-09-03, 08:11 AM	Given that you each have "10-15000" gp of rare magic items, it sounds to me as though this might be a deliberate DM plan to put you back down to the 5000gp or so that characters of your level should have. An extra 10000 golds worth of magic items is probably enough to bump your parties effective level up a couple of points anyway... Of course, one might ask why you were trying to make camp in teh middle of hostile territory, and why you didn't think the badguys might actually do something about it.
Orcy The Green Wonder 12-09-03, 08:15 AM	The bad guys should respect the laws of "Leave me alone I'm camping" it would make the world a better place. :D
Gravedigga 12-09-03, 08:42 AM	its called hard loving. Don't forget your DM loves you!!! :love: :behold:
E-Vile 12-09-03, 09:32 AM	- Mister Mayhem: Er... at level 5 to 6 they should have around 13k gp if you follow the DMG Anyway, hey it could be worse, if the DM was really trying to hurt you he couldda trown some antimagic poisions at you (HUGE stat drains, uncureable in any way cept for direct Divine Intervention, almost rendered my epic monk useless). But if you want advice, what characters are in your party? What is the enviroment? Why the hell do city guards and Kuo Toa want you dead? Ps. An Iron Golem at level 5? ouch...
Platinumwarlock 12-09-03, 09:39 AM	Iron Golem? Cryohydra? First things first. Go talk to your DM about how he interprets Challenge Ratings, and makes sure that he's reading the rules correctly. By all rights, after facing down that kind of punishment at 5th/6th Level, you should have had a TPK. Secondly, I know from my own DMing experience that I only capture the party if there's a reason behind it. Does your capture serve a plot point? Did you rest in (openly) hostile territory without setting a guard/alarm? I would recommend giving him another session to see where he's going with the capture. If there's no reason to it, and he comes to the game session saying things like "So, you're all captured....what do you do?" I would begin to question his ability to DM. Since you say you're all pretty new to the game, cut him some slack in this regard, but let him know that the game's not much fun if the players can't Play.
gerbilattack 12-09-03, 12:37 PM	U Couldn't of won. I think You're Being Railroaded, or DM's got judgmental probloms... or OTHER
Bacon and Eggs 12-09-03, 01:04 PM	I remember the good old days when CR was just a myth.
Ringmereth 12-09-03, 04:50 PM	Okay... answers to various questions and comments... 1. Did we try to surrender? Sorta. We tried to bribe the Koa-Toa to let us escape, but our idiot ranger backstabbed them. They got mad and attacked us. The DM, by the way, never planned for that to happen (our cleric knows aquan, has a lot of ranks in Diplomacy, and rolled really high). As for the guards, we tried to get them to listen to us, but when we mentioned that we killed the cryohydra, the lead guard was like "What?? You killed our pet??" And then they threw firebombs at us. 2. Resting in hostile territory. Perhaps I should have explained the situation better. After killing the cryohydra, we found a ladder leading up to a secret door only openable by elves. We went down a long corridor, found another secret door, and found a small prison area, with a bunch of cells and pits, and a door leading (presumably) to the guard's quarters. We decided to rest in the corridor, and had the rogue lock the secret door. We did have our rogue standing guard, as well. A few hours later, the guards found the door and forced it open. We ran back to the cistern where we fought the hydra, and that's when we were attacked by the guards, and a few rounds later, the Koa-Toa. 3. 10-15000 GP: Yes, it is just a little high. But only a little. Our DM is deliberally giving us more loot than we techincally should have, but I don't know why he'd be generous and then set us back 10000 GP. General stuff about our group: Our party consists of 7 players, 2 of which were gone that session. Human Wizard 5th Elven Rogue 5th Human Rogue 3rd/Fighter 2nd Human Cleric of Pelor 5th Elven Ranger 5th Elven Ranger 5th (gone that session) Human Monk 5th We techinically have a minotaur in the group as well, easily the most powerful character in the group, and also the only non-newbie player. He hasn't been to any sessions for a long time, though, since he got a new job. Our DM has been playing and DMing for a long time though... 10+ years. He knows what he's doing, but does make annoying decisions sometimes. As for the CR's, he deliberately gives us hard encounters, but generally we fight once (or maybe twice), then are able to go home and rest, get healed, spend loot, etc. We've been playing for maybe a dozen sessions and have gotten into about that many fights. So we're used to harder encounters than we should have. But fighting a bunch of Koa-Toa (3 of which were monks and 4 of which were priests), and a bunch of soldiers who had the advantage in terrain and equipment AFTER we had fought a hydra, is several CR above what we normally fight. Now, he says that next session the 2 other players will get to play a rescue mission. He says that he'll flip between DMing the PCs in prison and the rescue party, and that some or all of those in prison will get to play as NPCs or possibly the Minotaur that's been gone for about a month. And why do city guards and Koa-Toa want us dead? I don't know. There's been an infestation of them in the sewers (which we were investigating when we found the hydra), and we were searching beneith a castle. The guards were understandably angry when they found out that we killed their 'pet,' but the Adventurer's guild in the city has a very high status, and generally has the right to do what they want if it's on official buisness. Also, we got hints that the Koa-Toa and guards were working together in some way. Basically, we don't know what's up.
NeutralNeutral 12-11-03, 07:54 AM	So, you camped out in a possibly dangerous place for no good reason, and then blew two chances to escape?
Ringmereth 12-11-03, 09:41 PM	No, we camped in a possibly dangerous place for a good reason and blew one chance to escape. We needed to rest- we had just fought a cryohydra, alright? And how were we supposed to know that the guards kept hydras as pets? Backstabbing the Koa-Toa was really stupid though. Our ranger wasn't communicating too well. Our DM passed a note to him when he made a listen check and it said that he heard someone say "The Koa-Toa aren't doing their job. Bring out the heavy weapons" or something to that effect. He somehow gathered from that that the Koa-Toa were going to betray us, when it was actually the guards that said it. Idiot ranger.
Tardatog 12-12-03, 07:07 AM	Originally posted by Ringmereth Our ranger wasn't communicating too well. Idiot ranger. I once played with a guy who was so exited about his new spells from leveling that he wasn't paying attention to the game. we were round 13th level i think and he chain-lightninged well over a dozen beholders that (if paying even slight attention to anything) were very VERY obviously not hostile (until the lightning of course). He was vaporized and we quickly healed them so as to be only imprisoned and not killed (our DM was generous). He may not always have the keenest grasp of his suroundings, but neither do I and he's a good guy so if you end up reading this for some reason, don't hurt me kyle.
Ringmereth 12-14-03, 02:32 PM	Indeed. New spells are fun... but not when they kill you. Well. The next session is tomorrow, and it should be very interesting. We're inviting a couple of extra people, and will have 9 or 10 players. My DM said that since I took Improved Familiar, a Psuedodragon has been following me. Pretty much all of the NPCs that are sorta part of our party will be played by someone, and a veteran player will be coming in at some point as a high level wizard. This should be interesting.
Mr_Special 12-15-03, 12:03 AM	Originally posted by Ringmereth Our ranger wasn't communicating too well. Our DM passed a note to him when he made a listen check and it said that he heard someone say "The Koa-Toa aren't doing their job. Bring out the heavy weapons" or something to that effect. He somehow gathered from that that the Koa-Toa were going to betray us, when it was actually the guards that said it. Idiot ranger. sounds like a simple misunderstanding/misinterpretation of what the DM was giving him, which turned out to make a big difference... aside from that, the "problem" is pretty clear - you got a big party! THAT makes finding a good CR pretty hard. looks like this time your party wasn't so big, and didn't have as much extra power (the minotaur), which he probably made the encounter for... i suppose he didn't feel like changing the encounter/was too lazy/wanted to test you/forgot... at any rate, you should be able to get out with that kinda party. good luck, -Mr "S"