Seatbelt
2007-05-23, 01:23 AM
I got my first kill tonight. I feel kinda bad about it. I have 3 players, two of which are great "dice" players and know how to make and run a good character. The other one isint. He knows the rules, but does dumb things, and he was playing a spellcaster, so he's been doing dumb things since the first tactical encounter. The other two understand character death is a normal thing, so of course I manage to kill the one who takes it kinda hard. Whats worse is that this is the first character he's made that has any kind of real effort put in to back story at all, and he put a fair amount of effort into optimization for levels 6-12 (his cleric would have sucked at lvl 20, but would have been great in this adventure, which was his goal). What makes this EVEN WORSE is that this was only our second session, and 5th tactical encounter.
Here is the story: We're playing Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, with some rules tweaks borrowed from the Ravenloft PHB. This is a lethal module. CR2 zombies have 42HP for crying out loud. This is not a module that forgives dumb mistakes. They're in the cellar of a church, fighting a blaspheme. They've neutralized all the other baddies, so everyone is a little beaten up and low on spells. The Blaspheme is damaged, but with 147HP it might as well be untouched.
This Cleric has the lightbringer variant where he deals straight damage to undead instead of turning them (1D6 per cleric level, will save DC 10+cleric level+cha for half), and he took extra turning twice (to use some of the less broken turn attempt feats). He is perfectly set up to sit there, pulsing his Lathandarbeacon each round for good damage. ESPECIALLY since he has 5HP left. After each of the Paladins get hammered on hardcore, he has the brilliant idea to step up to it and cast cure moderate wounds spell on the Blaspheme. Now this thing is dumb, but smart enough to know that clerics = bad. And he only has to roll a 3 to hit the cleric. And he does +13 damage on a hit. The party had already guessed those stats. This was known. So I have to kill him. Both because it's what the monster would do, and to show him that this is lethal, and you cant be an idiot in a lethal adventure.
So short of rolling a 1, there is no way I cant kill him. So ofcourse I do, and he moped around while the rest of the party killed the thing and looted the place. We were playing at his house BTW, so hecouldnt even leave. There is no way to raise his character either. There are no clerics in the area of high enough level to raise him. I could probably fake something with the Vistani fortunetellers.. But anyone powerful enough to raise the dead is also powerful enough to try to take on Strahd, so it kinda destroys the point of the game.
I just feel bad, because he's being all mopey. On the other hand, I just got my first PC kill so I'm all w00t!ed. Does anyone else want to share a particularly unfortunate/your first PC kill?
Here is the story: We're playing Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, with some rules tweaks borrowed from the Ravenloft PHB. This is a lethal module. CR2 zombies have 42HP for crying out loud. This is not a module that forgives dumb mistakes. They're in the cellar of a church, fighting a blaspheme. They've neutralized all the other baddies, so everyone is a little beaten up and low on spells. The Blaspheme is damaged, but with 147HP it might as well be untouched.
This Cleric has the lightbringer variant where he deals straight damage to undead instead of turning them (1D6 per cleric level, will save DC 10+cleric level+cha for half), and he took extra turning twice (to use some of the less broken turn attempt feats). He is perfectly set up to sit there, pulsing his Lathandarbeacon each round for good damage. ESPECIALLY since he has 5HP left. After each of the Paladins get hammered on hardcore, he has the brilliant idea to step up to it and cast cure moderate wounds spell on the Blaspheme. Now this thing is dumb, but smart enough to know that clerics = bad. And he only has to roll a 3 to hit the cleric. And he does +13 damage on a hit. The party had already guessed those stats. This was known. So I have to kill him. Both because it's what the monster would do, and to show him that this is lethal, and you cant be an idiot in a lethal adventure.
So short of rolling a 1, there is no way I cant kill him. So ofcourse I do, and he moped around while the rest of the party killed the thing and looted the place. We were playing at his house BTW, so hecouldnt even leave. There is no way to raise his character either. There are no clerics in the area of high enough level to raise him. I could probably fake something with the Vistani fortunetellers.. But anyone powerful enough to raise the dead is also powerful enough to try to take on Strahd, so it kinda destroys the point of the game.
I just feel bad, because he's being all mopey. On the other hand, I just got my first PC kill so I'm all w00t!ed. Does anyone else want to share a particularly unfortunate/your first PC kill?