Have any of the Heroes fought plant monsters before? After 900 comics you’d think we’d have set them against animate topiary at least once. Do angry background treants count?
Of course, I haven’t gathered you all here to discuss lawn maintenance. What’s really at stake is the maintenance of your players’ HP. If you’ve ever asked a half-dead ranger, “What’s your current HP?” only to be met with, “Don’t worry about it,” you know the kind of anxiety I’m talking about. After all, players aren’t the only ones who grow attached to PCs, and so there’s a very real temptation to nerf the monster damage.
There are plenty of incentives for this kind of GM behavior. A PC death means a sudden departure from your regularly scheduled adventure. All at once the party has to head out and find diamonds, beseech some gods, or possibly consult a druid. The fast-paced dungeon romp becomes another in-town session, and your high adventure is replaced by a shopping session. Blech. Especially if we’re talking about campaigns with a revolving door of death, the interruption just doesn’t feel worth the dramatic payoff.
Then there’s the equal and opposite fear. If there’s no chance for resurrection, you’ve just slammed the door on a promising storyline. All the effort to develop an interesting character arc slips down the tubes. And that sort of thing can be anathema to certain player psychographics. We don’t want to yuck our players’ yums, do we?
In the heat of the moment, this sort of thinking may affect the part of the GM brain that calculates damage. After all, says this traitorous bit of lobe, I have a GM screen standing between my players and the truth. Why shouldn’t I lowball the damage?
And so, for today’s discussion, what say we each answer that question for ourselves? As a GM, have you ever been tempted to save a PC on the ropes? Did you go through with it, or did you let the damage dice fall where they may? Tell us your tales of divine DM intervention down in the comments!
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I’m way too guilty of this.
This is the situation: One or more players couldn’t do it to the session. It’s still early, like we started playing half an hour ago, and we are at the first combat encounter. The party is not really cautious and get ambushed, after the first combat round half the party is in low health. There is no healer.
Very specific situation, right? Well, I managed to find m/yiself in that specific situation more than a half dozen times by now.
Then I try to avoid a total party kill so that we can continue playing the game, making enemies target characters who hadn’t been hit, giving the enemies lower odds of hitting, reducing the damage and most frequently making enemies surrender after a good hit since the players don’t know how much health they have left.
Basically, I am a softy who wants to play the game, so the odds of a combat enocunter actually being fair and deadly are proportioned to how long have we been playing that day.
I feel like the TPK can be handled easier than just one PC going down. Because the TPK can be rolled into a prison break scenario. But I don’t want to have one player sitting there waiting another hour and a half to jump back in to the fun.
You have my sympathy. “Avoid TPK so we can play the game” may be the most succinct summary of this problem.
While I haven’t gone so far as fudging dice to save characters, I’ve definitely held back tactically from time to time. If a PC is getting overwhelmed, I may have enemies start targeting other characters more to give them some breathing room, or use less effective abilities. I don’t want to kill off characters just because they got unlucky; I’d rather save it for when it’s narratively satisfying.
On a related note, I’ve recently started thinking about alternatives to having death as a strict combat mechanic in D&D-type games. While it’s good for gritty war stories and such where unpredictable character turnover is the norm, for a story focused on specific characters, you don’t want them suddenly dying without a good reason. Thus, I’ve started coming up with variant rules where in-combat “death” isn’t the same as actual death and it just takes you out of the fight unless you or the GM decide it’s an appropriate end for your character. This would ensure PCs only get killed off deliberately rather than by accident, eliminating the need for GMs to hold back mechanically.
There are A LOT of levers to change combat difficulty that don’t involve actively changing numbers. “Monster AI” may be the biggest one, and it’s always struck me as the most palatable choice.
I roll in the open.
Same, with the one exception of enemy stealth checks. But even then I don’t fudge the rolls, I just don’t want the party to know they lost a contested perception check or they get metagamey about choosing THAT exact time to be cautious.
Do you find yourself dealing with a lot of TPKs? Serious question.
I usually make enemy attack/damage rolls twice and take the worse result if it looks like a PC is going to die outright. It’s subtle enough that I don’t think any of my players have ever caught on to me doing it, but it tips the scales a bit more in their favor when they’re down of their luck. If they STILL die even with these secret rerolls, well, I guess it was just meant to be.
This is a terrible, wonderful idea, and now that you have planted the idea in my head, I’m going to be tempted do it.
I feel like I’ve walked into a GM confessional with this comic.
We’re broadly fine with fudging. *In general*, characters in our campaigns can die from one of two causes — heroic sacrifice, or reckless stupidity (or possibly both at the same time) — but not of bad luck.
That said, it’s less likely to be about fudging the dice, and more about the situation. For example, enemy tactics may deteriorate if things are going badly for the heroes… they might risk a few more opportunity attacks, or they’ll bunch up a bit as a target for an area attack. Or an NPC will help… e.g. a civilian might pour a healing potion down someone’s throat to get them back on their feet, etc. Or they’ll be taken prisoner, if that fits the situation.
Well now you’ve got me all manner of curious with that “in general” comment. Was there some specific incident where you did let luck become the deciding factor?
I’ve been in sessions where the monsters rolled consistent critical hits and the players rolled consistent critical fumbles, sometimes comically so.
In one online game, in the final boss battle, everything failed…spells, feats, regular attacks, sneak attacks, all rolling ludicrously low numbers while the evil mastermind made every save with impunity.
It all came down to our Monk who’d rolled a 1 for initiative and had to wait to attack…she needed a 2 to hit the bad guy…a TWO !!! She rolled six 1’s in a row…everyone just looked at each other then the DM looked embarrassed and said “he had a magic shield up ?”
We all got up simultaneously and went out for a smoke, even the ones that didn’t smoke.
We had a chance to really run with the ‘invincible’ evil guy, impervious to any attack, and probably should have just to see what happened but when the universe so obviously loads the dice against you, it’s time to take a break. 😉
That monk wouldn’t happen to be named Clown Shoes…?
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/fearsome-foe
Can’t really remember but the player almost burst into tears, then she started laughing so quietly and maniacally that we wanted the tears instead…
One of the things I like about 5e is death saves;because it takes this sort of things out of my hands a little. I don’t feel quite so bad about downing a PC; and once they’re down it’s player roles in the open that decide their fate. One of my most memorable combats was a harrowing one in the ruins of Tamoachan where they defeated a vampire, only to all fumble their medicine checks and have the rogue die in their arms. It felt like a tragic and important moment.
But death saves aren’t perfect narrative crafting machines; I’ve also witnessed natural 1’s in the first session that we decided to ‘roll once more’. Moderation, I guess?
Kind of heartwarming to see the whole table agree, “That one doesn’t count!”
“‘What’s your current HP?’ […] ‘Don’t worry about'”
As a healer, I’ve had this conversation with another player before. He had it in his head that there was no way my character would know that information.
So I didn’t worry about it. I didn’t heal him. And his character died. Funny how that works.
Any ways, to answer your question, I used to fudge rolls behind the DM screen from time to time to favor the players.
But now days not so much. Now I might try to play less tactily so as to take the heat off some of the players. But that’s about it.
Heh. I know that meme.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/jb1rw7/well_played/#lightbox
I waffle on this as a GM.
On the one hand, I cannot save you from yourself. If you run down the hallway with 3 HP then what happens happens.
On the other, a PC gets hit by a critical hit that takes him from full HP to dead dead. (Negative con score is what I run with) The party has no way of reviving him, no way of getting back to a friendly temple, we just started the session, and there isn’t a good way to introduce a new PC right now. “How much did I say? Oh wait, I added that wrong. It actually did X.” Or, “Yeah, you survive this but *horrible lasting injury goes here*”.
Because when you show up to play D&D, you’re committing to what? Three hours? I don’t want a player just sitting there bored out of his mind waiting to play the game he set his Friday evening aside to play!
Welcome to the club.
Unless it’s a touch-delivery system for something, like ghoul’s paralysis on the last PC standing, I’m more likely to fudge the damage than the attack roll. I see my job as facilitating the *feeling* of mortal danger, and if I can do that without a TPK every encounter, all the better. Sometimes it’s an encounter that looked great on paper, but on game night the PCs can’t roll worth a dang and can hardly land a single hit. Now that 2-round pushover of a guard is an unstoppable juggernaut! About the only character I don’t worry about is a DMPC, where I’m likely to have made the rolls and done the math ahead of time to decide that “If these shades remain unchanged, [insert character here] dies on page twelve.”
A DM is a like a magician. Just gotta keep that illusion alive. Just don’t let them peek behind the curtain!
I had a set of “DM” dice that hated the players. When they started acting up, I would put them in “time out” in front of the players. Then the player loving dice would appear. Seriously, those dice LOVED the players. I never rolled so many critical misses and failures with anything else. Of course all the rolls were behind the screens :). I won’t be obvious and I won’t keep a character from dying if it happens, but I will bend the rolls to help the group a bit.
I’ve had plenty of TPKs and dead characters, so I’m not being “Monty Haul”, but I tend to be on the groups side instead of the monsters.
> bend the rolls
Methinks Kineticist would be interested in such secret techniques as “roll bending.”
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/original-character
As a DM I have a policy of rolling in the open. It makes everything fairer. One time my dice were particularly hot. I felt pangs of conscience.
I decided to do “my math wrong” and reduce their attack roll. The player who I would have hit called me out on it immediately, I was so proud.
Lawful Good rules lawyer FTW!
I will say that without the blurb I thought it was that Fighter was rolling really badly, not that Theif was taking minimum damage.
>_>
I only fudge it when it becomes clear to me that I have wildly miscalculated the difficulty of the encounter. It’s one thing for players to die, especially in PF1 (which is most of what I play these days), but if I have thrown an encounter at them that I realize is going to just absolutely crush them (usually because I underestimated an environmental variable or some such) that’s when the big box of GM cheats comes out.
Friggin’ CR 3 shadows…
I generally only do this if I need to rectify a screw up I made, like misjudging how dangerous an ability I gave a monster or perhaps the synergy between two enemies, etc. Of course, I really should just run with the bigger numbers because we’re most of the way through Curse of Strahd and I’ve only killed two of the PCs… ; )
Well look at it this way. If you kill ’em all off, then Ravenloft can’t inflict a fate worse than death.
Let the dice fall as they may and revel in the lamentations of the Players.
“If there’s no chance for resurrection, you’ve just slammed the door on a promising storyline. All the effort to develop an interesting character arc slips down the tubes”
All stories come to an end. Some do so a bit before the “author” (read: Player) might be expecting it to is all.
Of course i also run what I consider to be a superior system, GURPS. It affords me the luxury to grant my Players the tools to generally (not always) mitigate the kinds of ‘mistakes’ that can lead to Character death. Since I run a high action cinematic game, I want the chandelier swinging over-the-top stunts to feature just as often as the super-sneaky cautious danger avoidance plans, so I provide the Players with the resources to mitigate failure and to be “better lucky than cautious” when necessary. Of course some PCs use up their luck (or most of it) outside of combat, mitigating terrible dice rolls in social situations, or just materializing contacts or allies among groups they’ve never actually encountered before. This means those Players are going to be naturally more cautious in combat. But I also have Players who don;t care as much about the “out of combat” side of the game and thus are going to be gonzo in combat knowing they can mitigate some of those risky “go big or go home in a body bag” stunts if necessary.
Lamentations you say?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBGOQ7SsJrw
If he dies, he dies. Fortunately, my dice luck is bad enough that they usually win anyway.
I gather that your sympathies in this comic largely lie with Thief.
The dice fall where they fall.
The dice gods are a cruel lot.
I will freely admit to fudging dice rolls. In fact, just last Tuesday I blatantly rerolled an attack roll after a couple wolves got
threetwo crits in two rounds. I want the PCs to die because they made bad decisions, not because they had bad luck (after making bad decisions)!Friggin’ pack tactics can be brutal.
I run a Pathfinder game on the Foundry virtual tabletop system. I really like how it streamlines combat, automatically tracking the sprawl of bonuses and penalties Pathfinder is known for. Just one click and the calculated attack rolls and damage are there for all to see.
The downside is the attack rolls are and damage are there for all to see. I will occasionally fudge enemy hit points a bit. Usually this is to maintain pace and excitement, either finishing a creature a bit early when combat drags or letting a creature persist an extra turn. Once in a while it will be a way to tilt the balance of combat. But when an enemy pulls out their scythe with its x4 critical hit damage, all I can do is hold my breath with the rest of the group. With the rolls in the open, there’s not much I can do to fudge your character getting cleaved in half with a lucky 50+ damage crit.
I may have taken similar tactics in the past….
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/claiming-the-throne-part-4-5-spotlight-moments
The party healer was both a newb and a complete tactical waste. Another damage dealer would’ve been more useful. This particular encounter really needed the party Cleric to bring at least B game, and this guy was bringing the F game. He makes a complete tactical blunder by casting a stationary buff field that doesn’t protect the party from the lich, actually makes it harder for them to fight the lich’s minions, and really doesn’t stop the lich from blasting the whole party with those wonderful Bad Touch spells.
I look at the party’s health bars ‘cuz this is R20. I grit my teeth because I don’t want to ‘give them’ a win, but I also don’t want to vaporize them on the spot with the lich’s next move (I estimate three players would’ve survived. Maybe)
…so I decided in my head to give them ONE round to pull it out of the nose dive they were in. The lich let’s out a gloating laugh. Monologues at them. Oh look it’s your turn. DO SOMETHING GOOD HERE.
…it worked although a couple of them called me out on it later.
It’s a tough choice to make. Did they say that they might have made a different call?
Fortunately, my players are pretty good at their jobs so I don’t have to do much, but I’m not afraid to twist things in their favor if necessary. All my games are online now, so the players can’t actually see any attack or damage rolls I do anyways, while I can see the PCs’ HP automatically. Generally, just spreading damage among PCs keeps things stable – enemies focusing fire on one PC is their “optimal” move, but not the most fun one.
At least in my sort of long, narrative-focused games, I feel that PC death often causes more trouble than it is worth. I generate apprehension in my players with context and presentation like “You open the door and a big hand comes out and grabs your face” or the ever-present “additional enemies arrive from another direction” rather than doing big damage. Throwing grenades that will explode at the start of the next round also works well, especially as the players have a chance to actually do something about it.
I don’t talk too openly about this philosophy with my players, though I suspect they suspect it. I am open about my disdain for certain mechanics like ability drain, and I’ll sometimes say “this monster is supposed to have ability drain, but I changed it to the more manageable and fun ability damage instead.”
Like Jay said further up the page, your job is facilitating the *feeling* of mortal danger. 😀