Was The Party Doomed From The Start?

[Amechra]

Off topic slightly: I have a completely justified player death to recount.

Alright, so a "friend" of mine was playing a wizard in a low level campaign. Because he, iirl, has shit for brains, he decided to Burning Hands/Grease Zulkov, an impossibly rich and vengeful NPC.

(A little information on my character; his name iswas Crazy Ben. He was a Diplomacy based Bard, and was Gerrick's bestest best friend.
Sadly, Crazy Ben was not pulling anywhere near his weight, and I had missed 3 sessions, so he was 3 levels behind everyone else, so we planned a little death for him. It really stuck witht eh rest of the players. I had only played him for one session, so it wasn't as if I was killing an important, contributing member. Sorry if this seems cold.)

So the first thing that happened was the Dwarven Rogue sent after him. We dispatched it without trouble, thanks to the DMPC (an actually lovable Dwarven Paladin with the intelligence of a 6 year old. His name is Gerrick) smiting the hell out of him.

And then, after the battle with the 30 undead cats (long story), I tracked down Zulkov, and managed to convince him that killing the wizard directly was not a winning proposition. So he then sent my DM's other PC after him.

(A little backstory; two NPCs (the Assassin and the Warlock) are actually characters from my DM's and my last mini-adventure.)

Over the course of the 3 sessions I missed, the Assassin basically stalked my "friend's" character, making him more and more paranoid.

When I rejoined everyone, they were finishing a dungeon crawl up, and I was with them (in my group, when the player isn't there, the character slips into a coma.). To make a long story short, we met up with the Warlock, who had taken the Eldritch Claw feat. I will always remember this because he stabbed Crazy Ben in the back. And critted. And did 43 damage. To my 11 HP. The ruling was that my ribcage had vaporized.

Now, to the death of Kallel, the wizard:

As soon as we left the dungeon crawl, Gerrick gets the notion that Kellel killed Crazy Ben. It took at least 20 minutes of careful negotiation to calm Gerrick down, skillfully helped by my new character, Lucky Stranger (a Gunmage IK). Anyway, with that disaster averted, Kellel decides to pay Mr. Zulkov a visit. The Assassin comes back, and as a warning sticks a dagger in his back. Kellel goes on, and that dagger is supplemented by a shortsword. That shortsword is then supplemented by a greataxe; this makes Kellel begin to bleed out, and he manages to stabilize himself at -9 HP. And then, of course, Zulkov began pouring the local equivalent of Vodka all over him, for the shear fun of it (did I mention Zulkov is a dick?) Then shit-for-brains did something really stupid. He pulled the greataxe out of his back and then attacked Zulkov.

He rolled a natural one.

We all laughed about it, even him. Because seriously, what's not to love about the image? You know, of a scrawny little wizard, vodka dripping off the weapons implanted in his back, cleaving himself in two?

That's my 2 cents.

TL;DR: His death was totally justified.

[veekie]

I dont know if this question was asked or not, but did the players enjoy the adventure? Did they feel they lost fairly?

Assuming they responded to me honestly about it - there's been some debate on the likelihood of this within this thread - they enjoyed it, and were interested in overcoming the difficulty of the challenge this particular lock-down combo presented.

In that case, it was a good game. Fair or not.

The only thing that matters is you all Had Fun.

[RobbyPants]

I dont know if this question was asked or not, but did the players enjoy the adventure? Did they feel they lost fairly?

Assuming they responded to me honestly about it - there's been some debate on the likelihood of this within this thread - they enjoyed it, and were interested in overcoming the difficulty of the challenge this particular lock-down combo presented.

In that case, it was a good game. Fair or not.

The only thing that matters is you all Had Fun.

There is a lot of truth to that.  Any individual gaming group will find different things fun.

For example, my old group totally loved stuff that Conventional Board Wisdom said was bad.  This included stuff like railroading and near-DMPCs.  When I tried to make things more open-ended and remove helpful NPCs from most combats, they didn't like the change.  When I tried to make the game more player-centric and give them more control in the game, I'd still have one veteran player telling the new players that I was "God" and what I said goes with no arguments.

So, yeah, they just got used to a certain style of play, and they had fun with it.

[Empirate]

I dont know if this question was asked or not, but did the players enjoy the adventure? Did they feel they lost fairly?

Assuming they responded to me honestly about it - there's been some debate on the likelihood of this within this thread - they enjoyed it, and were interested in overcoming the difficulty of the challenge this particular lock-down combo presented.

In that case, it was a good game. Fair or not.

The only thing that matters is you all Had Fun.

+1. My point exactly.

[Drull]

Maybe a bit unrelated to everything said in this thread, but does everyone have purely homicidal no self preservation encounters these days?
My prior DM (I'm DMing now....again) didnt have a single encounter, be it a human demon or a gazebo run from us or offer to surrender when on low hp.

Anyway, as for the op, killing players is something I have no problems with, however personally I choose to give them a chance to survive. And when I say a chance, I literally mean that.

Wasnt it possible to (for example) say the wizard doesnt kill unless he REALLY has to? And when you had the party fogged and grappled offer them in game a chance to surrender, drop their weapons, surrender their armor and go away? Then even send a CR appropriate weak melee encounter that will either make them squirm or make them run. Or wipe......... but they had a chance.

And if they refused the chance offered by the wizard then indeed blast away without the feeling of remorse. They had their chance, they said no.
Sucks to be them

Edit: Just read the last page and noticed you said the party said they enjoyed the encounter and want more of it. Then I have nothing to say but keep up the good work! As long as both you and the players are having fun, you're doing a good job!

[Sunic_Flames]

Well, surrender is a fate worse than death even if you have reason to believe the enemy will treat you fairly.

[PhaedrusXY]

Well, surrender is a fate worse than death even if you have reason to believe the enemy will treat you fairly.

Umm... what?

[RobbyPants]

Sunic likes making overly broad statements like they're somehow right 100% of the time.

Because, you know, there has never been a prisoner exchange or anything like that in the history of the world.  After all, being captured and then released several months/years later is worse than death.

Granted, capture scenarios tend to be annoying to the players, so the DM has to be careful how he does this, because after a while, a TPK might start to look more appealing to the players.

[Sunic_Flames]

The history of the world... in which possessions are not significantly more valuable than people? This has what bearing on D&D, again?

[RobbyPants]

Okay, how about actual practical D&D, then?  Like the kind that happens at a gaming table?  How's that go down?

1) Party gets beaten in combat and surrenders.
2) They get taken and lose all their crap.
3) They're either ransomed off for money or put in an easily escapable situation (for reasons that don't make sense).
4) They either get all their crap back during their Great Escape!, or they get new stuff due to DM fiat, or they simply fight easy encounters for a few fights that have disproportionately high treasure.

That's what actually happens at a table, like, you know, in D&D.  Does it necessarily make sense?  Probably not other than maybe the ransom scenario (where the captors get their loot and some money), but it's what's going to happen.  DM's run capture scenarios for two reasons:

1) They think it'd be cool (so it was planned)
2) The fight went south and they don't want a TPK or Deus Ex Mechina.

[Sunic_Flames]

Translation = game derailment and a metric fuckton of bullshit. This is useful in what way again?

[RobbyPants]

Useful in that it's what actually happens when you play the game.  Seriously.  If the DM decides to go from combat mode to hostage mode, that's what he's going to do.  He's not going to waste time detailing their capture followed by their execution or something.

Discussing your whole "fate worse than death, always" scenario just doesn't matter.  Like, at all.

[Soda]

TPK = game derailment and a metric fuckton of bullshit.

[PhaedrusXY]

Translation = game derailment and a metric fuckton of bullshit. This is useful in what way again?

It's a fucking game. In what way is any of it useful, except as an amusement? If the DM and players enjoy that kind of story element, then it is as "useful" as any other. Some of my most memorable adventures as a player were when some of the PCs were captured and the others had to come back and rescue us, or we had to escape somehow, etc.

TPK= the end of the game, usually.

[archangel.arcanis]

Translation = game derailment and a metric fuckton of bullshit. This is useful in what way again?

It's a fucking game. In what way is any of it useful, except as an amusement? If the DM and players enjoy that kind of story element, then it is as "useful" as any other. Some of my most memorable adventures as a player were when some of the PCs were captured and the others had to come back and rescue us, or we had to escape somehow, etc.

TPK= the end of the game, usually.

This ^^

Also something to keep in mind is that this wasn't a true TPK. There are several other players in this game that were not there, thus their characters weren't there either. Those characters could easily show up for the next session and dispatch the wizard then res their friends. Or even just find their friends and have them taken care of after the wizard cherry picks the items he wants, because really is the wizard going to take the time to remove their armors and sell them later.

[RobbyPants]

Like I said earlier: overly broad statements like they're somehow right 100% of the time.

Now comes the part where he vehemently defends his stance, calls us dumbfucks, and engages in some form of No True Scottsmen to tell us how real D&D is played.

[pixledriven]

Well, outside "what really happens in D&D" (because that assumes good DM), there is a point buried in there.

For a non-caster, gear is life. So when you lose all your gear, you are now moderately to completely useless - especially if you're a beatstick. Whereas before you were somewhere between useful and 'nice to have around' 

I've had to retire characters in the past because I managed to lose all my gear on a melee tuned character, and the DM didn't make any allowance for getting re-geared. I generally don't stay in those games very long, but first I learn to pack a caster.

TLDR: Caster - gear = "Ooo, I can't cast some of my spells;" Non-Caster - gear = "FML."

[PhaedrusXY]

I've had to retire characters in the past because I managed to lose all my gear on a melee tuned character, and the DM didn't make any allowance for getting re-geared.

That's the DM being a retard. Wealth by level means exactly what it says on the tin. That's how much stuff you're supposed to have at any given level. If you lose all of it, you're supposed to gain it all back miraculously somehow, like in the motherfucking Book of Job. If you don't, your DM isn't doing his job, and yes, you should find a new game. If you don't agree with that, you're doing it wrong.

Note: Despite this containing a quote of your post, this isn't directed at you, pixledriven. Just at DMs (and other nobs) Mouth breathing fuckwits who think losing all of your gear is a fate worse than death. It's not actually supposed to work that way.

[InnaBinder]

First off, I'd like to clarify that I'm asking both sides of the flaming to stop, without any fingerpointing or "he started it... but Dad!" balderdash.  Let's pretend we're adults.   

So Inna have you decided how you are going to resolve these dead characters? I'm just curious as to how you are handling it.

The party had, as a whole, gotten tired of the amount of combat inherent in a 'military campaign against the dragons.'  A new campaign concept was agreed upon, at 6th level, where [random party member rolled in public] became the proud new owner of a keep out in east Nowhere, and needs the help of his pals from The Last War in order to clear it out, draw in serfs to work the land and such, and make nice-nice with the neighboring cities and countries.

[McPoyo]

So I take it the dead ones rolled up new guys, or did the other PCs recover the bodies and resurrect them?