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3 years ago ::
Feb 01, 2010 - 9:16PM
#41
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- Dragon Slayer
- If only he would apply himself
- Dammit Jim, this is Star Trek, not D&D!
Date Joined:
Jan 31, 2006
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I could have CdGed several times at DDXP - I thought of this conversation every time it came up. I don't think it would have contributed anything to the combats. Rather, it would have likely detracted from the enjoyment of the players. This is true even in combats where the PCs used CdG on the monsters.
I can see it working in some situations, but very seldomly.
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3 years ago ::
Feb 01, 2010 - 11:15PM
#42
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Date Joined:
Nov 15, 2004
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I heard about a DM who, after knocking a PC unconscious with drow poison, had all of his monsters provoke from a striker (pursuit avenger) in order to gang coup-de-grace the unconscious PC. Trying to kill a PC who has zero chance of being a threat in the combat anymore (kicking a guy when he's down and can't get back up) seems like really bad form to me. Also, it makes no sense for the monsters to do that - why would they risk their lives to kill someone who can't possibly hurt them anymore while ignoring all the PCs that can hurt them?
It turns out it was a really bad tactic too. The unconscious PC was still close to full hit points before the coup-de-graces, so the leader just healed all the wounds and undid the monster's turns (while the rest of the party continued to beat them up).
Sorta goes against the "make the game fun for everyone" guideline when you try to kill PCs just to kill PCs.
This is what I would do if I thought the encounter was looking too hard, or was taking too long. It's a great way to introduce fake difficulty: the PCs think you're out to get them, but instead you've made an incrediably stupid tactical move (because what you saw is what will happen. Monster crits don't do much extra damage, PCs have a big HP buffer before death, healing starts at 0, and the extra attacks from provoking to move over will shorten the combat.)
Also, from a character perspective, Drow would be the first ones to CdG someone. Drow are jerks.
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3 years ago ::
Feb 01, 2010 - 11:27PM
#43
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Date Joined:
Oct 19, 2008
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Also, from a character perspective, Drow would be the first ones to CdG someone. Drow are jerks.
We sure are.... One of my favorite things at DDXP was asking my table on saturday "Do you want me to kill you, or do you want to make it through this" Not try to kill you mind you, but "Do you want me to kill you" they thought I was mostly, till I knocked the ranger unconscious with the first set of monstesr to go in one of the rounds, they had highest initiative and just dropped him, could have killed him had they asked for the super crunchy version =)
Blah blah blah
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3 years ago ::
Feb 01, 2010 - 11:28PM
#44
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Date Joined:
Aug 26, 2008
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Well this is LFR we are talking about. The idea is that the DM follows the guidelines in the module along with the tactics for the monsters during encounters. A wise DM would look at his/her monster stat block and play at their intelligence.
I hate this argument. Fisticuffs is generally not a hobby of geniuses. Canines are not intelligent creatures, but a pack can implement cunning tactics far beyond an untrained mob of violin prodigies. In addition, intelligent creatures are equally prone to survival instincts—panic and fear can greatly change a creature's tactics under duress.
For instance, when the BBEG has managed to drop a character next to/within reach of him and has the action to be able to threaten the rest of the PCs. A "Leave, or your friend dies! (ready action to CdG)" kind of thing. Or as a means of negotiating an escape.
I tried this after reading another thread. The PC in question was a level 1 warden playing H1 on high, the monsters in question were those ridiculous brutes with practically no attack bonus. I threatened CdG because they pretty much couldn't hit PCs any other way, and the BBEG was already down. The PCs ignored me an attacked anyway.
I missed.
I rolled a 3 + 6 attack bonus, + 2 combat advantage + 5 for helpless. It was the most relieving thing—I had no desire to kill anyone. I think I'll CdG a little more after reading this thread; I never thought about knocking the PC unconscious. Taking a character out of a mod is no fun, but if a fight is winding down, taking a character out for a few rounds will add some tension to what would otherwise be mop-up.
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3 years ago ::
Feb 02, 2010 - 4:09AM
#45
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Out of curiosity:
How would you feel about CdGing with Mind Flayers?
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3 years ago ::
Feb 02, 2010 - 4:34AM
#46
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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We sure are.... One of my favorite things at DDXP was asking my table on saturday "Do you want me to kill you, or do you want to make it through this" Not try to kill you mind you, but "Do you want me to kill you" they thought I was mostly, till I knocked the ranger unconscious with the first set of monstesr to go in one of the rounds, they had highest initiative and just dropped him, could have killed him had they asked for the super crunchy version =)
Not to derail, but... as a player, I hate this. I /know/ the DM can always kill my PC. The DM has all the cards, you can DME up the difficulty if you need to, and so on. It's not a fair competition. What I want is the illusion of danger. I want you to walk that line which makes me feel like my PC is about to die, but I've pulled it out because I'm smart.
If you ask me if you should try and kill me, and I say yes, you can kill me. If I say no, you've stripped away the illusion of danger and the adventure becomes boring.
This is, of course, just me.
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3 years ago ::
Feb 02, 2010 - 5:37AM
#47
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why would they risk their lives to kill someone who can't possibly hurt them anymore while ignoring all the PCs that can hurt them?
Well sounds like the PC did get up again and hurt them. So the CdG makes sense from a monsters perspective.
Its not a stupid tactic, probably just a series of bad rolls that kept the PC alive-and thats part of the game too.
If you fail your saves from drow poison, you are unconscious for the entire encounter, no save. There's absolutely nothing you or anyone in your party can do to get that PC back in the fight. Unless the monster intends to run away and continue the fight again later (after a short rest so the PC can regain consciousness), the poisoned PC is absolutely no threat at all. (All the leader's healing did was keep the PC from actually dying. The PC was still unconscious and out of the fight completely.)
I wasn't actually playing at the table where this happened, so I don't know all the details, but there are several problems with having all of your monsters provoke in order to mass-CdG a drow-poisoned PC.
(1) It sucks for the poisoned PC if he really does get killed by these attacks. It's no fun to be killed due to something you have absolutely no control over. And it's not "challenging" either. There's nothing you or anyone else can do - so what could be challenging about it? I suppose finishing the mod with one fewer PC would add some challenge to the rest of the party, but there are better ways to add challenge than just killing off PCs. It's not enjoyable for the poisoned PC to just sit at the table writing down the massive amounts of damage they're taking. It's bad enough that they're essentially helpless/stunned for the entire encounter.
(2) It's boring for the rest of the table. In this case there were 2 leaders and the unconscious PC had plenty of hit points, so there was no real threat of actually killing the PC. By focusing all their attacks on a PC that was already out of the combat and ignoring the entire rest of the party, the other PCs weren't threatened at all and it took the excitement and danger out of the fight for everyone else. It's almost like walking in on a BBEG torturing someone, attacking him, and having the BBEG ignore you and continue to kick the unconscious prisoner while you rain death upon him. (If you're using this tactic to reduce the difficulty of the fight..., well, I guess that makes sense, but since it's such a stupid tactic for your monsters to use your player's might see right through your little trick. One monster doing this? Fine. ALL of the monsters provoking to do a stupid tactic - gets suspicious.)
(3) It doesn't make any sense for the drow to do this. Yes, drow are jerks. But they're also very cunning and intelligent. They know how their poison works. I'm assuming that these weren't supposed to be mentally challenged drow. If there were only 1 or 2 PCs left standing, then I could buy that a drow might CdG one of the PCs. But drow are also always looking out for themselves. I find it hard to believe that a drow would really provoke from a striker in order to CdG a PC that had only been hit a few times and had two leaders standing over him when the entire rest of the party was still a threat and when the drow knew that the poisoned PC had absolutely no chance of being a threat again. Now, if the PCs are storming the drow stronghold and the drow are particularly faithful and don't want the PCs to kill their leader in the next room (i.e. next fight), maybe I could see a drow CdGing a poisoned PC to protect their leader and reduce the threat to the temple/stronghold/whatever.
Lori Anderson
WotC Freelancer, LFR author
@LittleLorika
CALI3-3 The Agony of Almraiven (co-author)
NETH4-1 Containing Shadow (co-author)
CALI4-1 Plain of Stone Spiders (author)
QUES4-1 Liberation (co-author)
EPIC5-1 Plaguewrought Prism (co-author)
TotalCon: http://www.totalcon.com/RolePlaying.html
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3 years ago ::
Feb 02, 2010 - 7:04AM
#48
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Date Joined:
Jun 26, 2003
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Comments -
1. Whether mind flayers CdG or not is up to them. Honestly. They're mind flayers. Who understands a mind flayer?
2. People cry about drow poison. That's why you use Keoghtom's ointment before the PC falls unconscious. You have plenty of rounds to do it. This is why people just don't think. You know you're gonna face monsters that inflict the petrified condition at level 11+, you know you're gonna see drow poison at level 11+, you know saves are going to be important at level 11+, so prepare! Buy the consumable that removes petrified condition, bring Keoghtom's ointment. It isn't just halfling dice and war rings and bloodiron weapons that win the day, it's thinking ahead and being prepared!
3. Teos mentioned he *could* have CdGed at DDXP. You-know-who's verbal briefing for the DMs was "If you can kill these guys in the framework of D&D, I want you to do it." Tsk tsk, you old softy you.
Of course, I can't really talk. I CdGed once out of the twelve plus opportunities I had. I did kill two PCs, though.
(Note: I could EASILY have slaughtered the entire table twice over, and had extra PC deaths on top of that. When you throw that many XP at a party, something's gonna pay unless the PCs were optimized, which the ones I faced weren't. Well, there was a drow sorcerer that was pretty good, and a dwarf feat based build that was pretty good, but that wasn't enough to compensate for the lack of, say, an Astral Seal using pacifist cleric, or broken equipment like vicious and/or armbands of power, etc. etc. Not bad for regular LFR, but for a BI, it's a wee bit different.)
(Note 2: If the players that I DMed are happening to read this and wonder if they're the ones I'm writing about - remember the scimitar wielding ranger in hide that ran out in front for the first encounters that got pulverized, that ended up using a javelin in the encounter for the final round? Also remember all the warnings I gave you guys about how the monsters weren't going to hold back, and how I told you "you CAN call for help" just before I was about to administer a CdG on a downed PC? Wasn't your fault really - just needed more synergy & more brute healing, which a Str-based cleric can't really provide.)
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3 years ago ::
Feb 02, 2010 - 7:31AM
#49
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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I CdGed once out of the twelve plus opportunities I had.
Assuming it was against an Unconscious (rather than merely Helpless) target, why did you CdG that particular time? Ie, was it due to divine challenge, immobilization, specific tactics in the module, whatever?
Basically, was there a good reason to overrule the specific DMG instructions on this issue?
Keith Richmond
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
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3 years ago ::
Feb 02, 2010 - 7:36AM
#50
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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We sure are.... One of my favorite things at DDXP was asking my table on saturday "Do you want me to kill you, or do you want to make it through this" Not try to kill you mind you, but "Do you want me to kill you" they thought I was mostly, till I knocked the ranger unconscious with the first set of monstesr to go in one of the rounds, they had highest initiative and just dropped him, could have killed him had they asked for the super crunchy version =)
Not to derail, but... as a player, I hate this. I /know/ the DM can always kill my PC. The DM has all the cards, you can DME up the difficulty if you need to, and so on. It's not a fair competition. What I want is the illusion of danger. I want you to walk that line which makes me feel like my PC is about to die, but I've pulled it out because I'm smart.
If you ask me if you should try and kill me, and I say yes, you can kill me. If I say no, you've stripped away the illusion of danger and the adventure becomes boring.
This is, of course, just me.
While the derail is there:
I have been known to ask players if they would like the mean/deadly/extra crunchy version, but there is a trick to that which I am fairly sure ixibat was using as well. I would never ask just any table this and I would not do it with every adventure. I am fairly sure the adventure in question was a special. Those are high risk, high reward and tend to attract players that are there to be challenged. There is many a table that will actually enjoy "nightmare mode" in a special. Its a judgement call to ask at all, but if a table gives you the idea they might like it, I see no problem in the question. You will have to of course explain what makes up the extra crunchy mode.
For me:
Every NPC gets played to its intelligence or instincts no matter what.
A non brain dead NPC will not keep hitting the defender while the rogue is remodeling its back with a dagger simply because the defender has it marked, unless the price the NPC will have to pay for ignoring the mark is high enough. Pack hunters like wolves will flank, and neutral hungry monsters (like oh I don't know..Ankegs?) will try to grab their snack and run off with it. Smart NPC's will risk AO's to get as many people as possible in their burst or blast when they feel the tactical advantage is worth it and if needed include their NPC friends in the carnage, etc.
As for CdG's: all my NPC's will depend on the players to provide them with a better tactical option than using a CdG on a downed PC; an immobilized assassin standing over the unconscious body of their target will not suddenly decide to throw their dagger at someone else for piddling damage unless the PC's give it a reason to do so. How much of a reason is needed is variable and dependent on the tactical situation, the NPC in question, its motivation, its intelligence and last but definitely not least the players. I will always try very hard to not "be a ****" about it and it shouldn't normally take much to avoid the CdG. I have CdG'd often and will do it again, but up to now have not gotten complaints or even evil looks. Granted only one of the many resulted in a death  .
Basically there will always be danger, normal or crunchy doesn't matter there.
So then what is extra crunchy?
Well as DM's we all come across the slightly mean (maybe not the right word.. but its what I use) tricks NPC's can pull in combats. Things we will use if we feel a Yikes! moment is needed. Things that an NPC might not always logically think of but as a DM you do. Things like:
- Watching the avenger with fly movement zip around the battlefield and taking a ready action with your archer NPC to knock him prone at the highest point.
- Having the Halfling minion yell to the next room to "Kill that hafling in the dress, its the most dangerous!" and proceed to try and focus fire on the sorcerer in that next encounter.
- Dragging the cleric out of healing range from the rest of the party with your bugbear strangler. While they are all down a pit.
- Telling the greatbow archer to throw their bow in a portal while they are dominated.
- Having NPC's use a dominate effect on other NPC's to give them extra attacks.
- ..
I am sure everyone has lots of examples and since I am still jet-lagged the best ones wont come to mind Maybe something for a thread on its own. I am sure both players and and DM's have lots of these moments in the memory banks.
Anyway, normally if I think of tricks like that I might use them, but I will carefully consider the situation to make sure I am not adding difficulty where it is not needed, warranted or wanted.
In crunchy mode, I will probably just use them.
To DME, or not to DME: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous powergaming, Or to take arms against a sea of Munchkins, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;No more;
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