My group seems most pleased by battles that actually bloody us, or even drop someone unconcious. I should say most of my group, we have one player who complains every time he gets hit, and if he gets close to bloodied its the end of the world... He's a paladin.
Our last battle we were in was a fight against some thugs, the encounter was actually at least 1 level below us. My warlord instead of actively participating, rode around the edges of the battle and taunted my companions instead of actively joining in. My worthwhile actions consisted of one Inspiring Word, when the thugs first attacked our fighter with a sneak attack, and a Knights Move to help the fighter get back on his feet when he was knocked off his horse, and one or two Intimidates just thrown in for effect. As to our Paladin he complained the entire time, that I did nothing but watch, when he took 0 damage the entire fight.
As a GM I've before offered to reroll an attack when it was another in a long streak of powerful hits (3rd Crit in a row vs. a character). Most of the players are more insulted by this, except that one Paladin that falls unconcious from the blow.
So how are your battles, and how would you handle this one player that seems so off the mindset of everyone else in the group? I think next time we start new characters I'm going to have him do something non-defender.
Generally, I like a lot of small battles that consume 10% of the party's resources, and then a boss battle.
And generally, I'm more interested in combats that require a lot of ingenuity and creativity, like fighting between platforms over a bottomless pit or across mounts or between innocent bystanders in a crowded street.
The combats where the DM seems intent to make at least one character come close to death feel like battles where the PCs win by luck. I hate those battles. I want to feel skilled, not damn lucky.
In my current campaign, the DM will typically drop a character (usually mine, playing a combat type) near-death, and then the other characters will barely mop up the remaining monsters. Then he will say, "That's exactly what I was hoping would happen - one near-death."
Except I've DMed a long time, and I know that you can't plan out a single character's near-death. It's luck, and it's unbelievably frustrating.
When I DM, I like to occasionally throw out a 1st- or 2nd-level encounter to higher-level PCs, just to let them feel how far they've come from those first encounters. They're always a hit.
Of my current groups one agrees me aside from a single person, and the other group would prefer easier encounters. (so i tone them down a little, to a 20-25%)
I lean towards the crippling both as a player, and DM.
Generally as a player, I am the one out of game mentioning how a giant squid demon encounter would fit perfectly here, every time we get on a boat. Or how ninja croc people had better be in this sewer system, as we pass over a grate.
Other players occasionally disagree with me. (do we really need a giant squid demon, we are level 3...)
Non-Storyline-Critical Combat:
-Not really that lethal.
The monsters don't make use of the ideal tactics at their disposal, or at least, not all the time. Combats are designed to be won by the PC's. If luck turns against the PC's, depending on the scenario, I will fudge dice rolls/not quite kill characters/storyline a non-fatal ending...
-Fudge Dice Rolls: Conveniently, I didn't notice that hit was a critical since I know that will drop the player.
-'Not-Quite-Kill': If the character goes unconscious due to bad luck, fatal rolls instead become 'severe injury' rolls. The character hits -9, is stable, and suffers some sort of debilitating injury based on the type of attack used. This can result in severed limbs, missing eyes, brutal scarring, etc...
They receive short-term penalties that a quick trip to the healer can cure.
Note: Since monsters don't use ideal tactics, they never think to finish off the severely injured opponent.
-'Storyline a non-fatal Ending': If the entire group has seen a streak of horrible luck, the bad guys leave the group before any PC fatalities occur. They may openly gloat, steal an important item, or simply find something else to do, but the end result is that they leave the PC's horribly injured, but alive to fight another day.
It also gives me convenient 'reoccurring villains.'
The only thing that is fatal in 'non-storyline combat' is stupidity. There is nothing that can prevent death by stupidity...
Storyline Combats (i.e.: BBEG fights):
I tell my players up front that these fights are lethal, and that I will not be pulling any punches. Death is death. They can lose if they don't fight smart. The villains do NOT show mercy.
__________
In general, my gaming group responds well to this set-up. The game feels a little more heroic (since PC death always occurs at the hands of a major villain/challenge), and they don't have to worry too much about a string of bad luck killing off a beloved PC during general combat.
As a new DM, I think intelligent creatures fight intelligently, dumb creatures fight dumb. It doesnt necessarily make them an easy fight, but a lot of my challenges will probably start a bit easy, because 2nd lvl 3.5 characters are too easy to kill with a bad couple of rolls.
I am a combat fiend as a player, and I will be a combat fiend as a DM (of intelligent NPC's especially). If the NPC's are fighting for their lives (especially when they figure out who the hell they are messing with) then the fight should never feel easy. It should feel as though the PC's have control of a situation...until said situation changes...hehehehe mwuahahahahaha!
I will not design encounters to cripple the party, PC's tend to do enough stupid things so that I dont have to do this for them. Make encounters challenging so they challenge the PC's to come up with creative solutions, rather than go for hit point ablation once again.
How do you and your group prefer your battles?
My group seems most pleased by battles that actually bloody us, or even drop someone unconcious. I should say most of my group, we have one player who complains every time he gets hit, and if he gets close to bloodied its the end of the world... He's a paladin.
...
As to our Paladin he complained the entire time, that I did nothing but watch, when he took 0 damage the entire fight.
...
So how are your battles, and how would you handle this one player that seems so off the mindset of everyone else in the group? I think next time we start new characters I'm going to have him do something non-defender.
As a player, and not as a DM, my character would start to either mock this guy for his cowardice, or complain about him getting a share of the loot. Our current group (playing another system) had a wizard who wanted to ONLY talk, investigate, and problem solve, and generally just loitered about on the edge of combats, not really helping.
Once other characters started treating him as a useless fringe character (asking him to fix dinner, go get stuff from the saddlebags, gather up stray arrows), and NPCs started assuming he was a clerk or a retainer, he started being a bit more heroic.
As a DM my encounter difficulty dials default setting is &@#* HARD(some try & claim impossible).
For example, in 3.5, for a party of 4 characters, their 1st encounter was an ogre. At lv 4 they faced a wyvern.
Guess what? Through good play (not just rolling of dice) they survived these and other encounters.
Here in 4e? I'll have no qualms about throwing encounters that are 6-8 levels above character lv at them.
Even the average - slightly above average encounters get played in such ways that they seem harder & are remembered long after the fact.
Ultimately I like the Crippling fights the best, nothing like a frenzied mess of dice rolling and near death experiences to make you feel alive. In a fantasy sense.
I am not at all fond of players that don't pull their own weight and hang back. I typically will make it a point in character to ridicule them, ask them why they are holding the party back, and that when the time comes to divide up the spoils they will only receive a share equal to their effort.
If they have a hard time with that, it is put up or shut up time.
Usually this only takes one or two times of being called out before they get the point and change their attitude.
Now, I do tend to run episodic (and typically formulaic) games. My plan is that each "episode" will be 5 encounters with an occasional 2-parter. I will probably have 3 easy encounters, 1 standard, and 1 hard encounter in each episode. My intention is to have the players get through all 5 encounters without taking an extended rest. Of course, once I begin running my games, I'll tweak as needed.
Now....to the OPs issue of the "whiny" player:
- Is the GM needlessly picking on him compared to other players?
- Does the player feel like he's being picked on due to his Defender role?
- Is the player just being a cry-baby?
If it's the first issue, the GM needs to be more considerate. If it's the 2nd issue, the player should probably play a different role. If it's the 3rd issue, try having the player play a different role (it could simply be that the player doesn't like his character).
Also, is the player whining in every game session? Or was it just one particular session? People have bad days and real-life pressures that can impact their performance in a gaming session. It's possible the whining really had nothing to do with the game.
Now....to the OPs issue of the "whiny" player:
- Is the GM needlessly picking on him compared to other players?
- Does the player feel like he's being picked on due to his Defender role?
- Is the player just being a cry-baby?
The reality is sometimes DMs pick on players, but in our games it averages out over time. This week it was my turn to be picked on, as the plot kind of revolved around me. It isn't always fair, but such is life; nothing to really whine about.
But for some people that is just their personality, they play a character and they get all doom and gloom whenever someone lays a glove on them; and then every miss is a disgusted dice firing moment. I am sure you know the type.
I remember one guy rolled a bunch of 18s, 19s and 20s, in a row and he was so excied he got up and stuck his D20 in the freezer.
I said, what is that about?
He said, I have to be sure to freeze in the luck.
We had another encounter an hour later, he retrieved the die and it turned on him so he threw it in the microwave.
I said "dude you are going to burn the place down!"
He said, "it turned on me it needs to be punished."
Things didn't change after the poor thing was irradiated so he threw it out the door and into the street. Then he bought a new one. We were playing in a game store at the time. Good for dice sales.
I say just talk to him about it, and challenge him to play better have more fun and not be such a kid about it all.
For example....the group of second level characters who managed to fight off 4 regular ogres and a 4th level ogre barbarian with only one PC and one NPC death--and the PC died from a badly time crit on the part of the barbarian. Or the group of first level PCs who executed a nearly letter perfect tactical retreat against several skeletons and a vrock (CR 2 thanks to Savage Species, but still!). We had two PCs down but stabilized and no cure spells left before we won, but that's the encounter story that gets repeated most often from that nearly year long (IRL) campaign.
I definitely prefer a rather middling mix: a few cake walk, some standard, and an occasional crippling to give us those great stories. Because fun as crippling can be, being near death all the time is going to end up getting frustrating.
(i've been drinkin'. I'll revisit this in a day or so.)