Death

[The Dungeon Master]

I know there have been a lot of deaths lately. Leaving the Dire Shark incident out of the picture (and possibly the water), I'd like everyone to consider the manner of the deaths we have seen. These modules have been increasingly tough, but I don't think especially brutal. WLD can be tough or not, depending on wher you are when, so to speak.
The reason I bring this up is I don't plan on softballing standard encounters (will definitley try to even out what look lke certain death things in the future, though) but I'd like to not perpetuate a meat-grinder feel to all the games.
To give you insight as to how I "monster-think;" I try and use all my resources and inherently better knowledge of home turf, and act according to either instinct or previously determined battle plans. Enemies may not always try to kill you, but if getting you out of their territory the fastest way possible means death, they probably won't care.
Animals, especially, will tend to be very territorial.

Please don't read more into this than I am saying. The only person I would criticize here would be me in the shark and flood incidents. But there is a somewhat reckless approach to combats and exploring (this may be a common factor and I just haven't noticed it before), that translates into "another combat at X with X" and doesn't seem to take into account the unique environmental issues or abilities of the enemies.

Let's be careful out there.

[Admin Account]

I honestly don't see us being as reckless as we were in the past. In fact it seems most of us have become more careful.

Unfortuantly things have played out in a way that our precautions are typicaly worthless.

Now the centaur standing next to the ledge was not the best plan, and that was indeed our only death last week. However lets look at each encounter.

The drowned: We checked for traps, we listened, we tried to increase the light inside so as to spot things hidden. Candi was a bit over zealous going in alone, but we also were not jumping to go with her. We kept an eye on her as best we could and we took precautions to make sure that we kept an eye on her.
Result: Kicked it's but, hardly any party damage.

The undead big thing: Listend, checked for traps. Due to the set conditions in this module we are forced to take 20 to get the door open. This give the creature time to prepare and in turn is ready to attack us with suprise. There is nothing we can do to prevent this. Our one hope is to not open the door all the way and try to figure out the situation before it is forced on us. Unfortunatly we can't open any of these doors unless we open them all the way. So yet again there is nothing I can think of that we could have done differently, but we are immediatly on the disadvantage in the combat.
Result: Some hps lost.

The ape battle: No door, so no trap check. No listen due to no door. We are again suprised. I am not sure what we could have done differently.

For the most part I think we are being about as cautious as we can be.

What we could do differently:

Send a thief ahead of the party all the time.
Stop and make a listen check every 5 feet.
Start using more recon spells.

Problems we need solutions to:
How can we not be forced to use up our daily resources of spells and the like at such a rapid rate (necessitaded by the strength of our opponents)
How can we prevent the doors from opening all the way all the time. (I don't grasp why this happens, so I can't offer much suggestion here).

The characters in the D&D game are designed arround a central balancing element called the EL. X part can handle X amounts of EL a day and be expected to have the ability to do so. If you drastically increase the X variable of the EL, then the players will need more downtime to be ready for the future challenges. When you factor in the that every creature behind or near a door will know we are coming and will often have some feature of the encounter to there advantage, the EL goes up even higher.

This module is not written with this idea in mind, and as such we will continue to have a harder time due to our priests and our mages using up there abilities quicker. In fact our fighters would be in the same boat if we did not have so many healing wands. The module is not balanced properly and yet expects you to play at the speed of a balanced module.

I am stating this as a percieved fact. Now I am not suggesting that we A. Don't play the module or B. The DM tones it down. However at the same time I don't see how anyone can expect the body count to be low in this situation.

So is life. I still have fun in this game, and I am ok knowing there is a good chance my character will be dead before it ends.

[The Dungeon Master]

I forgot about the drowned! Honestly, my biggest apprehensions about party death were the drowned and the dire tiger. Why? Massive hit points, almost guaranteed hits, and some nasty special abilities ( at least with El Bloat-o). And they both got rolled. The apes? Nah, you really had a good plan with the rogues being careful and going out first. Chance was against you in that one. 1 in 4 chance ledge was not being patrolled. Nope. I tnen picked a random starting location for the apes. Close, oof. The apes have scent. I randomly determined wind direction. You were downwind, oof again.
The rest was all ape tactics. very territorial. Will try and bull rush enemies off the ledge. Roars will bring next pair in 1d4+1 rounds. 3rd pair will arive 1d4+1 rounds after that. If ledge is the one near the girallons quarters (he's big daddy ape), he'll arrive in 1d4+1 rounds from the start of the battle.
Oops, it's THAT ledge.

[cw]

Adam said:

I honestly don't see us being as reckless as we were in the past. In fact it seems most of us have become more careful.

Yeah, I think we've been more careful, too, and I think it's paid off. This time, only one of us died, and it was hardly an insta-kill.

[The Dungeon Master]

CW said:

Yeah, I think we've been more careful, too, and I think it's paid off. This time, only one of us died, and it was hardly an insta-kill.

Sorry, I didn't mean to give the wrong impression. By and large you all have been much more careful. I was looking at the past several sessions as a whole, not just the last one.

[Admin Account]

rexartur said:

Sorry, I didn't mean to give the wrong impression. By and large you all have been much more careful. I was looking at the past several sessions as a whole, not just the last one.

I do think however we have not been as reckless as the impressions seem to be. I'd say the only real reckless thing was opening the door to the scorpion room before looking in.

The water thing was ridiculous. Lets put a no save large damage non trap behind a door. Lets provide a means to open it via the guards already there. Lets prodide absolutly no clue as to what is on the other side.

And the shark thing was worse. Lets put a creature no 6th level party has a chance in hell of killing in a place where the party is at a huge disadvantage. Lets make it so they have to go out in that place with him.

Anyhow.. it will all be over soon.. one way or another

[anomalousresult]

I blame the writer!