The first 4E deaths I witnessed occurred a week after 4E came out. My group and I rolled up characters. I had taken some time to read the whole set of books and had spent time on the forums, so I was knowledgable about what was good and what wasn't. Most of my groupmates did not. Instead they opted to just make "what seemed cool". Also we rolled stats....
First death came from our fight with Irontooth. The dragonborn great weapon fighter charged into the fray alone. He got wiped in 1 turn. Also note, his stats were below 22 buy pt, so he might have been playing dumb. He also said, his character was always one to lead the charge and never back down from a fight.
Lessons learned, don't charge alone. Don't roll stats because the low stat PC's suck in comparison. And great weapon fighters need to tank in pairs, coupled with another tank or a striker.
Second death was a halfling rogue from the same party. The sad thing about his guy was my feylock consistently outdamaged him. He was too scared to get into flank for CA. He died because we got attack from behind and his character was so poorly created he couldn't hold in hand to hand for a turn.
Lessons learned, read the books and understand the class mechanics before making your character. His stats, feats, skills and class features didn't have any synergy. He was good at skill challenges...to an extend. If that is all you can say about a PC, well, that's just horrible.
The final PC death from this group was an eladrin fighter. He had a 16 str and a 16 int. Why....not sure. He probably didnt read the book before making the character. He was also a great weapon fighter. He switched to sword and board after the Irontooth battle, even though I had told both before we started that both being GW fighters would be bad. they didn't listen, but they learned. He teleported in to save his "brother", the party wizard and got crited twice.
Lessons learned, read the book and make sure everything you provides synergy. Nothing should be done in isolation. Don't get crited twice, especially to save your blaster wizard brother who was just as horribly made has his character was.
In sum. Read the books and do research. Character creation should be done as a group to lend synergy between PCs. Take encounters powers that are useful 100% of the time. Do not waste time with encounter powers that are circumstantial. You should be using them every encounter. Save your dailies for those "just in case" situations. Also, don't play in games that has you rolling stats. It's so archaic, it makes me throw up. In a game based on balance and mathematics, why would you go an ruin all of the game designers' hard work?
Lesson: They aren't as scary as enemies using powers, but OA's aren't to be ignored, particularly in numbers.
The OA's didn't actually kill him, though. Only knocked him out. Our Wizard's Thunderwave later in the same turn did that.
Lesson: Being prone provides no bonuses against area attacks.
Lesson in aggregate: If you learn more than one thing between positive HP and death, you're probably having a really bad day.
Character creation should be done as a group to lend synergy between PCs.
This part makes 4E less attractive to me (assumng it is true). A group of D&D characters should not fit together that well (at least not at the beginning). For story reasons it is better that a group of characters that weren't built with group synergies in-mind can come together and be successful, IMO.
This part makes 4E less attractive to me (assumng it is true). A group of D&D characters should not fit together that well (at least not at the beginning). For story reasons it is better that a group of characters that weren't built with group synergies in-mind can come together and be successful, IMO.
And story-wise, that's certainly true. Mechanically, though, you're going to have a lot of trouble if the group doesn't coordinate at all during character creation and ends up with five wizards.
For story reasons it is better that a group of characters that weren't built with group synergies in-mind can come together and be successful, IMO.
For story reasons is is better that a group of character are built with group synergies in mind, because it provides an explanation for why they become a group. They find out they work well together.
A group that comes and works together despite not being able to work well together is just forced.
Lessons Learned: Orcs are tough. Marking every target possible and continuing to Mark when you're well on your way to death is not the best plan. Healing potions - when all the healing your party's got is a Warlord - are a good thing. The Heal Skill is important. Very important. And, finally, yes Fighter, the Dice Gods do hate you. ;)
The PCs charged into the white dragon's lair even though they were out of healing surges, and out of daily powers. They got their buts handed to them. The warlord was knocked below zero HP. The fighter heroically held the dragon back while the warlock and rogue escaped. The dragon dragged the warlord's limp body back into the cave. The next day the fighter, warlock, and rogue came back and showed the dragon what a fully armed and operational adventuring party is capable of.
Lessoned learned: rest when half your party (especially the defender) is out of healing surges, and everyone (especially the leader) is out of daily powers.
The final PC death from this group was an eladrin fighter. He had a 16 str and a 16 int. Why....not sure.
A 16 strength is high enough for a Fighter. They don't need to hit to mark, and marking is the most important thing for a Fighter to be doing.
A 16 intelligence is good for a Fighter. It gives him good AC in hide armor (which keeps him mobile) and a great Reflex defense. Fighters need high defenses all around.
Going the great-weapon route was the only bad choice I see from this character. His other choices might not have been the best, but they weren't bad either.
my group's wizard (i'm the GM) is often absent and unfortunately, so was the warlock. so they came onto Irontooth undermanned with but the bow-ranger, warlord & paladin.
this group is one that knows guerilla tactics & strategy and they managed to properly bottleneck the enemies and slowly whittle away at their numbers through a mix of heavy defense and the ranger's focused fire.
but they were wearing out. encounter attacks missing, dailies doing minimal damage & Irontooth coming closer and closer while that kobold mage kept shifting out of hiding, firing a fireball, shifting into hiding and forcing the group to eat their surges like nobody's business. the dragonsheilds kept shifting out of flanking & causing general chaos to keep the PC's occupied.
then came irontooth and the facesmash slugfest. it ended as PCs VS Irontooth, but the resilient (and bloodied) goblin won.
lesson learned: know when to cut your losses and run, kobolds are friggn dangerous in large numbers, and don't mess with any goblin who's fig is Snig the Axe.
16 dex > 16 int for fighter. Pure and simple. He had no consideration of which weapon mastery he would have wanted. Probably the heavy blade one, but he would have screwed himself out of the selection.
Also note, RP and combat are 2 distinct aspects of 4E. RP should be done however you want. Combat should be done with full metagaming knowledge of you and your allies' abilities and powers. If not, you will die. Or at least have to rest every 3 encounters...at which point you might as well kill yourself. Never give yourself a disadvantage in combat, or your group for that matter. If you do....you'll end up posted on this thread.
Opposite example: 1 group I had metagamed our characters to try and go from level 3 to lvl 4 (10 encounters) without taking a daily rest. Because we hammered out synergy and tactics between class/role/power selections we actually did that. Think about it. How often is your party resting. How often is your DM doing unrealistic things in game to accommidate your having to rest. Halfway through an enemy stronghold but need to refresh. Just rest and let the rest of the enemies in the stronghold rally and attack as one. See where that gets you....
Irontooth, but not for the reason you would think.
my group's wizard (i'm the GM) is often absent and unfortunately, so was the warlock. so they came onto Irontooth undermanned with but the bow-ranger, warlord & paladin.
this group is one that knows guerilla tactics & strategy and they managed to properly bottleneck the enemies and slowly whittle away at their numbers through a mix of heavy defense and the ranger's focused fire.
but they were wearing out. encounter attacks missing, dailies doing minimal damage & Irontooth coming closer and closer while that kobold mage kept shifting out of hiding, firing a fireball, shifting into hiding and forcing the group to eat their surges like nobody's business. the dragonsheilds kept shifting out of flanking & causing general chaos to keep the PC's occupied.
then came irontooth and the facesmash slugfest. it ended as PCs VS Irontooth, but the resilient (and bloodied) goblin won.
lesson learned: know when to cut your losses and run, kobolds are friggn dangerous in large numbers, and don't mess with any goblin who's fig is Snig the Axe.
My Paladin example was the Irontooth fight as well. We were actually doing very well, he just made a less than stellar tactical play (and then I Thunderwaved him).
The OA's didn't actually kill him, though. Only knocked him out. Our Wizard's Thunderwave later in the same turn did that.
(and then I Thunderwaved him).
Oh lordy, lol.
Oh lordy, lol.
Sometimes Darwinism is a little off target, what can I say.
Edit: and ignores attack penalties for prone targets.
This part makes 4E less attractive to me (assumng it is true). A group of D&D characters should not fit together that well (at least not at the beginning). For story reasons it is better that a group of characters that weren't built with group synergies in-mind can come together and be successful, IMO.
How is that necessarily edition-exclusive?
if the party jumps in too fast, they will be overwhelmed immediately
*Just my quick analysis. I'm not solid with the new mechanics yet. Just a few one-shots before this campaign.
The rest of us retreated, and had an easy time of it. It seems like you need a specific combination of factors to actually die in 4e:
1. An extremely harsh encounter. This was designed for 5th level characters, with 1st level PCs, according to the RPGA GM.
2. Incredibly stupid tactics. 4e holds your hand, so that as long you choose the right moves, you can't die. It takes effort to die. In other words, bad tactics.
I miss the lethality, personally, but I know others disagree. In any case, this has been my experience with death and 4e.
Beyond that, making use of tactics, healing abilities and potions keeps you alive, period. No one should be dying, ever.
First death came from our fight with Irontooth.
Almost every group experiences death vs. Irontooth. Throwing a level 6 encounter against 1st level PC's (who had been having easy encounters up until then) is bound to cause a surprise like this.
I've been noticing that 4e has a lot of unexpected pnw'age when you start raising the encounter levels. Sure, earlier editions had a lot of deaths at first level too, but the balance seems wonky'er than I had expected of 4e.
don't play in games that has you rolling stats. It's so archaic, it makes me throw up.
Agreed.
4e holds your hand, so that as long you choose the right moves, you can't die. It takes effort to die. In other words, bad tactics.
Unless the DM is handing out magical items like candy, not setting appropriate encounter levels, or not constructing encounters with synergy, the fights shouldn't be "too easy".
A DM who's tip-toeing around the use of monster recharge abilities or monster tactics stated in the MM will not have challenging encounters.
Subtle dig at 4e? My shock!
How is that necessarily edition-exclusive?
In the earlier editions you could take any fighter/ranger/paladin, any MU/wizard, any cleric, and any thief put them together and the party could be successful. You didn't need to collaborate on character creation (not that there was much to character creation in the earlier editions), but it wasn't that hard to adjust things if you were missing a cleric or thief or whatever.
As a player I don't mind being a fighter because that's what the party needs, but I don't want to select my powers or feats based on what the rest of the party selected for their powers or feats. I want my choices to fit the character concept that I create.
For story reasons is is better that a group of character are built with group synergies in mind, because it provides an explanation for why they become a group. They find out they work well together.
A group that comes and works together despite not being able to work well together is just forced.
That is very limiting story-wise.
4e holds your hand, so that as long you choose the right moves, you can't die. It takes effort to die.
While that was what was initially thought of 4e (especially with a guaranteed minimum of 3 rounds before dying), it's unfortunately not correct.
I play with a pack of rules lawyers and strategy-heads, but the difference in power of something just a few levels above us (plus the general swinginess of combat) have caused enough domino effects that serious axe-whuppings are bound to happen.
Now this player is playing a Tempest fighter and he's doing just fine. What a difference 2 AC makes.
That is very limiting story-wise.
I usually solve the problem by making the group a collection of people thrown in the middle of a situation, rather than a pre-existing adventuring party that happens to have synergy.
In the earlier editions you could take any fighter/ranger/paladin, any MU/wizard, any cleric, and any thief put them together and the party could be successful.
You mean a Defender, a Controller, a Leader, and a Striker? Uh, yeah, that's the way it still works. ;)
What exactly do you think is different here between 4E and previous edition? Collaborating at character creation to make sure you've got all your bases covered has always been a good idea.
You mean a Defender, a Controller, a Leader, and a Striker? Uh, yeah, that's the way it still works. ;)
What exactly do you think is different here between 4E and previous edition? Collaborating at character creation to make sure you've got all your bases covered has always been a good idea.
The OP was saying that not only do the different roles need to be covered, but the choices you make for each character should mesh with the choices the other players make for their characters. This is different than previous editions (well at least pre-3E and probably 3E too I would guess).
The OP was saying that not only do the different roles need to be covered, but the choices you make for each character should mesh with the choices the other players make for their characters. This is different than previous editions (well at least pre-3E and probably 3E too I would guess).
Yeah, but in 3E, you didn't actually need a Party. One guy with the right build and the right items could solo any Level+5 Encounter with almost no resource expenditure.
And story-wise, that's certainly true. Mechanically, though, you're going to have a lot of trouble if the group doesn't coordinate at all during character creation and ends up with five wizards.
We had an al wizad party in 2nd ed. One wizard then an illusionist, conjuror, invoker, and transmuter. Kinda fun.
In the earlier editions you could take any fighter/ranger/paladin, any MU/wizard, any cleric, and any thief put them together and the party could be successful. You didn't need to collaborate on character creation (not that there was much to character creation in the earlier editions), but it wasn't that hard to adjust things if you were missing a cleric or thief or whatever.
That's more restrictive than the class roles that exist now. It's actually the exact opposite of less restrictive.
You could not have a functioning group before without a cleric or druid. Now you can have a warlord or paladin and manage with a good defensive balance.
Saying it's more restrictive now makes no sense at all - especially considering the example you gave.
That's more restrictive than the class roles that exist now. It's actually the exact opposite of less restrictive.
You could not have a functioning group before without a cleric or druid. Now you can have a warlord or paladin and manage with a good defensive balance.
Saying it's more restrictive now makes no sense at all - especially considering the example you gave.
I never said choice of class was more restrictive. The OP said that for a party to be successful the party should coordinate its character building (powers, feats, etc.) and I thought that was to restrictive (e.g. I need to take power X because Bob has power Y). When I make a character I want to make choices that makes sense for the character concept I have and what fits well with the back story, not what may mesh well with this group of characters he may have just met.
Yeah, but in 3E, you didn't actually need a Party. One guy with the right build and the right items could solo any Level+5 Encounter with almost no resource expenditure.
That may be true but has nothing to do with what I was talking about. I am not trying to start an edition war. I was merely commenting on one aspect of 4E that didn't appeal to me.
That is very limiting story-wise.
Not really. It's just the most sensible story. If you want a story where the people can't work together and constantly step on each other's toes, then you can. You'll just have trouble working together and constantly step on each other's toes.
During a "random" encounter we were rolling horribly. When we found out the Zombies had a Ref 12, Our Warlord told me to use shocking orb even though 3 of our party would be inside the blast. I reluctently agree, roll, look down and see a natural 20. After max damage, bonuses, and the extra d10 from my orb, I dealt a total of 35 damage, killing the zombies, ranger, and warlord.
In 4e, for most area effect rolls, you roll an individual attack die against each target.
So maybe they shouldn't have died...Still, thats a pretty epic way to go for heroic tier! =D
During a "random" encounter we were rolling horribly. When we found out the Zombies had a Ref 12, Our Warlord told me to use shocking orb even though 3 of our party would be inside the blast. I reluctently agree, roll, look down and see a natural 20. After max damage, bonuses, and the extra d10 from my orb, I dealt a total of 35 damage, killing the zombies, ranger, and warlord.
You definitely need to re-read the rules on area attacks. You use the same damage roll for every target, but you have to make an individual attack roll for each. That natural 20 would only have criticalled one of the targets.
I never said choice of class was more restrictive. The OP said that for a party to be successful the party should coordinate its character building (powers, feats, etc.) and I thought that was to restrictive (e.g. I need to take power X because Bob has power Y). When I make a character I want to make choices that makes sense for the character concept I have and what fits well with the back story, not what may mesh well with this group of characters he may have just met.
And again - how is that edition-specific in any way?
You definitely need to re-read the rules on area attacks. You use the same damage roll for every target, but you have to make an individual attack roll for each. That natural 20 would only have criticalled one of the targets.
agree. i use the same houserule as jera's group, but it is a houserule. we use it to cut down on rolling.
And again - how is that edition-specific in any way?
Because I have never seen it in previous editions. Pre-3E there weren't a lot of decision to be made at chracater creation, but I have never seen or heard of anyone coordinating their 1st level spell choices or feats with other characters. And even if they did I have never heard anyone talk about how the party couldn't be successful without the coordination.
That is how it is different.
I said it once and I'll say it again. 4E is really 2 games in one. Combat and RP. They are nearly mutually exclusive. Maximize your combat effectiveness as a group and individual. In the RP part, you can do whatever you want how every you want. It is stupid not to work together before the first dice gets rolled. Any good GM can make a fitting storyline for people who made their combat mechanics synergize. It has no/none/nothing to do with RP. They are 2 separate parts of the game.
Because I have never seen it in previous editions. Pre-3E there weren't a lot of decision to be made at chracater creation, but I have never seen or heard of anyone coordinating their 1st level spell choices or feats with other characters. And even if they did I have never heard anyone talk about how the party couldn't be successful without the coordination.
That is how it is different.
I'm double posting because it's my thread. In prior editions, there weren't nearly as many abilities/powers that can be strung together in a "combo" format. Example, wizard casts a sustainable zone. The defenders and strikers use push/slide effects to keep knocking the enemies into the zone.
There's a thousand possible combos. Getting CA is everything in 4E. There are lots of class features and powers that are better used with other classes. Basic attacks and warlords, etc.
Think about it. How often is your party resting. How often is your DM doing unrealistic things in game to accommidate your having to rest. Halfway through an enemy stronghold but need to refresh. Just rest and let the rest of the enemies in the stronghold rally and attack as one. See where that gets you....
I know exactly where that gets you. And so do the players I DM for. It gets you killed.
*Note: There are no minions involved in this story.
The group in question infiltrated a hobgoblin fortress a few weeks back. Through dumb luck they managed to avoid attention, various patrols, and most occupied rooms. They eventually found themselves standing in the middle of a 20' wide, 4-way intersection in the heart of the unaware fortress. Passages to the left & right, hallway/stairs they came up from behind & a solid wood door in front of them. The normal gaurd patrol in this area was due to enter in 5 rounds.
The party chose to stand around and bicker about wich way to proceed, wether or not to open the door, etc - for all 5 rounds!
Of course they were discovered.
Instead of fleeing/falling back to a more advantagious area? They chose to stand thier ground and wage a very noisy battle.... And thanks to the dice not a quick one either.
This, coupled with one of the hobgoblins fleeing for reinforcements, of course eventually attracted more, much more, attention. From 3 directions.
About 4 encounters worth of attention.
Slowly it sank in to the PCs that this was not the best place to stand & fight. So they fled down the long right hand passage with the hobs in close pursuit. Well, about 1/2way down it branched. They arbitrarily chose a direction. And ran around a corner & smack into an occupied torture room -with no other exit.
And another 3 fresh hobgoblins joined the fray....
Later in game session: "The cleric just fell off a cliff into river rapids in his plate mail ... well, at least we still have all those healing po-oh, (feces)."
Next fight, T-remainder of the -PK.
After that he pinned the angel against the wall, the dragon flew behind him and flanked him. Then, for the next seven rounds, the fighter, the angel, and the dragon, got into an epic slug-fest where the angel and dragon could do almost no damage against the fighter (Battlerager), and the fighter didn't roll anything higher to hit than an eight. It didn't help that he wasn't attacking the dragon, whom he had a +4 to hit against thanks to the Warlord. Not that I think he could have hit anyway with the rolls he was making.
In the end, we killed the angel, but the dragon wore us down so much that its bloodied breath attack killed us all flat out. We also gave it the key to open a portal which would allow Tiamat to stage an invasion of the material plane. Go us.
Lesson Learned: It does not matter if you are the Juggernaut (...b****), bad dice rolls -will- kill you. Also, healing surges are very important. To important enough to bet on a skill challenge. I also need to learn how to make skill challenges better.
They were a group of "pirates" (arr), that sailed the seas on a boat that was ordered by the law to scope out new islands in the new world and such. So one island they found was based largely on my new Draconomicon, and involved Blue Dragons and RedBlue Dragons in a millenia-long war. The PCs were level 7, so I didn't intend for them to do anything really serious. They fought A dragon as a test of their worth to the Blue Dragons, and were drafted upon success to be the egg-slayers during a raid.
Well, this was largely my fault as DM. Y'see, Red Dragon Wyrmlings are demonic babies. If I had looked them over, I might've modified them accordingly. But they were monstrous. Level 5 Elites any one of them. +13 to attack rolls with claws or bite, and they do 2d6 + 6 with either of them. But they can do a double claw attack every round. And when I should've put only two of the beasts into the battle (plus some small chump allies), I had erred in putting four things to fight. And to defend myself, I had found my PCs actually fairing rather well in battles that were higher-than-average in deadliness. This was exception.
So they got slaughtered, though it came down to just one dragon baby left standing. And as a point of interest, the PCs got about 1/4 of their job done. Warlock with the rod that replaces pact boon with a burst of curses was allowed to curse the fetuses inside the eggs in the room, and he used Cursebite. Killed every fetus, and then his Dark Pact was enough to just butcher a wyrmling instantly.
At least we moved on. I can't stay to a campaign setting I can't focus on. This one is far more interesting to me to DM. And hopefully I won't have to come back here with a relevant tale of it any time soon.
Not wanting to fight the dragon, we left the cave and found a camping spot. I suggested a spot an hour back down the mountain where the dragon wouldn't bother looking. The warlock didn't think this was necessary and the warlord suggested that we camp five minutes up the mountain in a small ravine. The wizard wanted to set up an Eye of Alarm ritual to warn us if the dragon was near by.
The dragon flies over head and appears not to notice us. But the Eye of Alarm spell sure did notice the dragon as it let off it's loud *HONK HONK HONK*, giving away our position to the dragon. The dragon lays waste to our party. First he killed the warlock with a breath weapon. The fighter goes unconscious and the warlord is out of healing surges so he decides to tank the dragon. No fool, I the rogue am sniping the dragon with daggers out of a hiding spot and quickly revive the fighter with a potion.
But the fighter reaches the dragon right as it rips the warlord in half. Meanwhile the wizard, who only has cold powers and thunderwave is woefully ineffective, and goes unconscious from a breath attack with no healing surges left. The fighter and my rogue barely manage to end the dragons life by the skin of our teeth. The wizard lived, but the player decides to retire him out of shame (and the DMs nearly nonexistent use of minions).
Fortunately, the players have learned since then and we've had no more deaths (though several close calls).
The OP was saying that not only do the different roles need to be covered, but the choices you make for each character should mesh with the choices the other players make for their characters. This is different than previous editions (well at least pre-3E and probably 3E too I would guess).
This is not different than previous edition. A party performs optimally when it's members are better coordinate. However, what what OP is wrong about is that it's any more necessary in 4E than it's even been before. It's not.
Because I have never seen it in previous editions.
Where have you been?
And even if they did I have never heard anyone talk about how the party couldn't be successful without the coordination.
That was wrong in previous editions, and it's still wrong in 4E. Being optimal is not necessary in order to be successful.
That is how it is different.
The only difference is what you've heard of versus what you haven't heard of. You have zero reason to assume any of this is related to edition. Correlation does not prove causation.
Huh. I've seen it go many different ways. No coordination and it going well or to hell, coordinating and the same. In 3rd and 4th.
Mostly it just comes down to what the GM sets the bar at for the game, and how well the players are at thinking up new strategies on the fly. Does coordination help? It can. Is it necessary? Not really. Is this edition specific? Not in my experience.
Heck, if anything, I'd say 4th requires less coordination. Since everyone can heal themselves to a limited degree, there isn't as much pressure for someone to play a cleric or druid.
agree. i use the same houserule as jera's group, but it is a houserule. we use it to cut down on rolling.
I never really understood that rule, to be honest, since even back in the old days (pre 4e), everything would get its own saving throw - the dice rolls just happens at the attacker's end.
He got killed when the party decided "yeah, we can handle the final encounter of H2 even though we've kinda boneheaded that last few encounters and a couple of us are low on surges and out of dailies..." Of course, as usual, it was the Rogue runnning low. Followed by a crazy 'terrain feature' that dazed everyone in the party for several rounds running, and the aparently WotC-standard overlevelled Elite Controller who Lightningbolted several different PCs, but always seemed to target - and tag - the Rogue with one of the secondary attacks.
It was a near TPK, with several PCs dropped at various times, but, only the one death. We did raise him, though. FWIW.
Lesson: rest before the last encounter in a WotC module. It's going to be an elite controller 4+ levels higher than you.
I never really understood that rule, to be honest, since even back in the old days (pre 4e), everything would get its own saving throw - the dice rolls just happens at the attacker's end.
well in 4th it just means that the wizard blasts the Spiretop Drake(ref 14),goblin warrior (ref 15) and the Hobgoblin Soldier (ref 16). wizard rolls d20(9)+6, gets a 15. drake +goblin gets hit, hobgoblin is ok.
in 3rd we would roll each individually but there were generally less monsters with less HP in one combat, so we didn't mind the rolling.
- First off, one of my friends was playing a mouthy wizard who ****** off the dwarf fighter in our ranks. So the wizard decides to try his hand at tanking and runs into the fray tossing off close blast/burst spells and naturally gets his ass knocked unconscious by some angry Drow. The moment he's down the annoyed dwarf runs over and Coup De Grace's his hammer straight through the wizard's face to stunned looks from everyone else.
-As punishment for the ultimate sin of Team Killing the DM summarily dropped the massive clockwork giant we had been fighting right on the head of said dwarf as it fell from being defeated. Naturally the dwarf's constitution didn't save it then. No one really mourned the loss either as my friend was testing the broken "invincible" Battlerager build.
Initiative is rolled. The rogue jumps behind a stalagtite. The warrior charges forward, ending his movement standing behind a stalagtite. The wizard steps forward to make sure he is in 10 square range and does a scorching burst right on all three, very happy that hit 2 and did ~20 damage.
The hexer goes next and blinds the wizard, doing ~10 damage.
Both archers then hit with CA given his blindness, doing something like 1d6+3 +1d6 for CA.
The wizard was about to rip up his character sheet, not realizing that being -6HPs wasn't yet dead. He was healed up the next turn and managed to crawl behind a stalagmite too.
The wizard was about to rip up his character sheet, not realizing that being -6HPs wasn't yet dead. He was healed up the next turn and managed to crawl behind a stalagmite too.
Ha. Hope he learned his lesson.
In a campaign earlier this week, the Cleric decided to investigate a mummy corpse. After it had already killed one party member with the Mummy Rot disease.
Guess who rolled two d20s with a sum lower than 5.
Lesson: Don't mess with the undead. They don't carry any gear, and they are living disease bags.
For story reasons it is better that a group of characters that weren't built with group synergies in-mind can come together and be successful, IMO.
For your stories, maybe, but that's by no means universal.
Our PC group are all members of a mercenary band that have been fighting together for several years. It makes perfect sense that we complement one another's strengths and can cover for one another's weaknesses.
As for the party composition: I got a new group now, a party of four strikers plus one leader, with the Warlord doubling at controlling, the Rogue and the Archer Ranger helps out with controlling and leading, while the TWF Ranger and Beastmaster Ranger do some quite good tanking. We 're slowly adapting to compliment each other's fighting style, so I think it works both ways, but the "laissez choissier" approach is a bit more difficult than the "preconstructed party" approach. Both 's fun tho'...
The closest we ever came to a large amount of player deaths was our last adventure. Fast forward a while in the same campaign to level 12. I decided to add in a trap, one of the first I've used in months, so the party suspected absolutely nothing when I said that there was a 10 foot wide pit in front of them filled with greenish water. For the first time since the otyugh incident seven months ago, our sorcerer-now-turned-wizard decided to be the first to leap the pit. Pity I put an invisible wall of force at the other end. And made the bottom of the 15 foot pit give a suction that would pull down anything in the water, DC 20 swim check to resist. She slammed straight to the bottom after horribly failing her check. So the warlord jumped in, and epically failed his swim check, and got pulled to the bottom. The party's cleric jumped after, almost got trapped, but managed to save the warlord. Eventually they free the almost drowned sorcerer, get to the surface, and almost pull her out only to roll and 2 and 3 to yank her from the bottom. Both slip on her hands and she heads back to the bottom. The rogue then decided to toss down her "magic rope" that she found earlier in the adventure. It was actually a rope snake, and after a few checks I smudged in their favor it still went straight for the sorcerer's throat and strangled her until she was quite dead.
Moral of the story is: the squishy never, ever, ever, goes first. And that one time when you think it's safe for the squishy to go first, no, it really isn't. And avoid water. Always.