I played with a group for a long time that called each gaming session The Savage Beatdown. Routinely we had TPKs because that was how that particular GM liked to run, so character death is not a new thing for me. Would I prefer that the character lives? Of course, but I have learned the hard way that the dice can be a fickle mistress.
Aqua - I agree with you. If you're going to die, a heroic death, saving the party or a group of people is a worthwhile end. A random death, or worse an arbitrary one, is very discouraging.
I was pondering the other day with some friends that games like 13th Age, that build the campaign around the player characters, making killing them off bloody difficult.
It'd be like if you got to Return of the Jedi and Luke crashes his speederbike into a tree and dies. Meanwhile, Vader's standing there waiting to take his son to the Emperor. Ooops! How does the GM course correct that!?
There's also the balance of effort vs. benefit. When one spends a lot of time building a character sheet, background, hooks, goals, etc. it's no fun if they get offed at level 1.
.... and using that logic it is even worse as they get to higher levels as even more time and emotion is invested. I'd rather have my 1st level pc, that I've played a couple of months, die, than my 7th level pc that I've played for several years.
Nem - Yes, that is an issue for the DM indeed. You either have to come up with creative/dramatic/inventive circumstance to mitigate it, such as fudging dice rolls or having some unknown "Force" power reveal itself to save him, or you have to go the route Wolf does in his world where the pcs are no more important to the world than the NPCs are (and in many cases less important). Luke dies and so suddenly Vader pivots to trying to convert Leia to the Dark Side or some other previously unknown bastard sibling shows up.
When we were 'table topping' ... character death was (almost) never permanent. At higher levels our cleric could fix that. At lower, we would 'go into town' and get some help ... for some coin <chuckle>
BTW, Aqua, I think at one point when you were discussing casting Healing Word for Sindar you said something about not wanting to use the spell since he only gets it once per day? Unless he has cast all of his 1st level spells already and only has a single 1st level spell slot left that is not how spellcasting works in 5e.
Basically he chooses a pool of spells each day (memorized) from which he can pick and choose to use his spell slots on. So if he chose four 1st level spells he could cast each of them once, 2 of them twice, or 1 of them 4 times up to the limit of his slots. He isn't limited to having to cast each spell on his list.
We seldom had more than one ... occasionally two ... 'deaths' in any encounter <shrug> But ... in the end ... as long as we were having a good time ... it didn't really matter <wink>
BTW, Aqua, I think at one point when you were discussing casting Healing Word for Sindar you said something about not wanting to use the spell since he only gets it once per day? Unless he has cast all of his 1st level spells already and only has a single 1st level spell slot left that is not how spellcasting works in 5e.
Basically he chooses a pool of spells each day (memorized) from which he can pick and choose to use his spell slots on. So if he chose four 1st level spells he could cast each of them once, 2 of them twice, or 1 of them 4 times up to the limit of his slots. He isn't limited to having to cast each spell on his list.
Fair enough and the source of my confusion.
Going back to the point where, if I'm playing someone else I'm not going to start getting creative with trying to balance a limited resource. I'll do the basic/obvious/what the party suggests. While it may have seemed I was playing the character, in fact I was just being creative in describing what an unplayed character on autopilot was doing.
While I'm happy to discuss joining this campaign in the future, it's going to be after the next plot arc and likely something I'll figure out on my own if I can fit it into the plot.
Nep - So the rules image you shared says you start with Breath Points equal to your Con Modifier X10, with a Minimum of 5 (for people who have no Con modifier I suppose). Meaning if you have a Con modifier of say +2 for a 14 Con that you start with 20 Breath points?
Yes and thanks for identifying a mistake I made. If your CON bonus is 0 you start with 5. If your CON bonus is +1 you start with 10. If your CON bonus is +2 you start with 20. If your CON bonus is +3 you start with 30. If your CON bonus is +4 you start with 40.
The constrictor snake is +1 so he starts with 10 and since it's the start of his turn, he has 9 now.
Interesting to think if Sindar hadn't drunk the potion but committed to swimming/floating, he'd keep his 10 breath points for a few turns, and be floated/forced vertically out of melee range of the submerged KT, thus avoiding the opportunity attack.
Can I 'stand up' removing Davroar's prone status and attempt to constrict Oosith? If Davroar is successful with a constriction, can others still hit Oosith without hitting Davroar? Question to other players: Or should I just try and kill KT2 (or KTM?) to reduce number of attackers?
From a Meta-gaming standpoint it is always best to "concentrate fire" on the most dangerous opponent. On the downside, it will make some AOE spells unusable without hitting Davroar. However making Oosith's attacks have Disadvantage and giving everyone Advantage to hit Oosith is a really good effect.
Neptune would have to give a ruling on whether Oosith could be hit without hitting Davroar.
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