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I would say its more normal for enemies to focus on whatever foes go down quickest(aka perhaps the least dangerous) But thats just me and my preffered strategy as a forever dps. I particulary like to takeout healers first unless thiers a special mechanic that makes that a bad idea, if no healers then any other mage of some kind based on the situation if no mages then supports, then debuffers, and when i say healers i mean squishy healers not like paladins in full platemail. (I don't just play D&D where every healer wheres heavy armor and has a mace)
Something I have used to adjust difficulty on the fly is adjust monster perceptions in a dungeon. Maybe the gobos in the next room hear the fight and investigate, maybe the brace for the adventurers maybe they just assume the others are bickering again and ignore it.
As an old school player/gm I find it really interesting that the idea of running from fights is a lost art. I’m not sure when it got lost, I’m not sure if it was more players from video games, or the games creating more super heroes at lower levels? But when I do get a chance to play (which is not often) these days and battle starts going sideways I still remember I can run. It shocks the other players, as I am leaving them to their fates, but I can always come back and loot what is left. :)
Retreat happens all the time when games actually have retreat rules. 5e and Pathfinder don’t. Letting 2 PCs die to save a 3rd every time rolls go bad just isn’t satisfying for most players. That worked in OSR games because character investment was generally low, but that’s not the play standard anymore. (i.e. if a character died every time the hobbits retreated, none of them would have reached Rivendale in Lord of the Rings).
I think part of the issue is that RAW, it's kinda impossible. In 5e at least most monsters will win in a foot race against PCs, and the chase rules that could be used to facilitate a retrat are awful and cumbersome. As a result few classes can actually retreat from a fight with a good chance of success, outside of higher level games where you could teleport out.
@@hodgepodgesyntaxia2112 Retreat isn't always about rules mechanics. Imagine the party is struggling against a pack of wolves... they can throw down food as a distraction and run. If it's orc mercenaries, they can throw some gold or gems and run. A caster can use an illusion to present a more tempting target. Most monsters either can be distracted or they're slower than the players. There's very few times a clever group of players can't find something to give them time to break away and flee.
To those talking about retreat .. There weren't rules about Retreating in the older games either. OP is right 5E players never retreat because they have no fear. As this was a P2 Game however a good amount of fault probably lies on the PCs Tactics. A Shambler is slower than most PCs and between P2 having a rather interesting Stealth sytem and a 3 Action Economy, they could've easily ran. They just didn't. The mentality has shifted.
Why do you need rules for retreat? Oh right opportunity attacks, that stupid rule. Or maybe a vindictive GM that wants to rundown the players that ran? Yea it is better to just dig in and constantly make the GM have to make these choices that Luke is talking about? It is never on the players to make better choices? You can run before ANYONE dies!
My first step is always to remind the characters that there’s nothing wrong with fleeing an encounter to rest , and then coming back to finish it with a new approach
Must be nice to have a group where half the players don’t get extra butt-hurt when they run away or lose a fight. One day I will find a group that actually plays this game rather than using it to live out their power fantasies.
I once had a gm bring in a rival hero to save the party when we bit off more than we could chew. We players had mixed emotions. We learned a lesson about our own hubris, we hated that the gm rescued us, but we embraced the rescuer as a rival. He became our frenemy -- we went out of our way to show him up, and he went out of his way to show us up. Eventually, we were in a position to save him, which we did, because we were heroes; it was a memorable roleplaying moment. So maybe don't dismiss the rescue if there is a way to leverage it later.
i was gonna make a comment about rivalries and how they could make for good npc rescuers because of their narrative potential - so it’s cool that you have an actual example of this happening! rescue by a rival is such a classic trope in certain types of media, i imagine some people might really enjoy it.
I approve of the way you solved the Shambler encounter using role play. Giving the creatures motivation and using that to 'help' the players out and can grow their adventure arc. Rather than just an encounter, they become heroes trying to rescue their friends.
My group had been teleported to the Feywild and they came across a low-level Dryad who was meant to be a social encounter. The group got snippy with her and she summoned two low-level spectral wolves when combat began. At the time I had a brand new player who was joining for a few sessions to get a feel for D&D. With the combat going south, on the new player's turn she was taking a second to figure her move. Knowing she had something on her magic list to help, I said "Take a look at your spells and see if something can help you." She eventually found the spell, but used it somewhat incorrectly, however, it was enough to break up the enemy attack and they were able to safely retreat.
I use the a mix of having the monster start using more powerful abilities/attacks and HP adjustment, but the later in a specific instance. I think I have a meta gamer looking up monster stat blocks during a fight and they gave themselves away when they were shocked their last attack and spending Ki points for bonus attacks didn't drop the Dragon; ("Bro, are you sure its not dead?" "Yes, I'm positive it's not dead.") They were counting HP and damage. When I get a sense of this happening, and it has been on more than one occasion, I do add HP along with using more of the monster abilities.
I have meta gamers that track AC and HP. Really throws their OCD and controlling personality into freak out mode. Especially when I give a foe a feat that neutralizes the rogue and monk's ability to dodge disengage. I really hate when they hit once and ask if it is dead. so they can spread their attacks.
I just tell players I actually roll for HP instead of using the standard MM hit points. My players cheat for HP when they level, I might as well do that, too.
@@joebogart7093 how can you _not_ track AC? If you hit on a 22, and miss on a 21, you know what the AC is. Just like every caster is paying attention to those saves, every martial class is watching what hits and what doesn’t. That isn’t meta gaming, that is _paying attention._ If you are just randomly changing your AC with no description or mechanical reason, your players know you are just bullshitting.
instead of NPC rescuer, I've seen a "PC rescuer From a friend's campaign, told to me One party member decided to change his character, but wanted to do it when his character died. They were in a dungeon a fair bit in, when his character died, then his new one catches up during the tough combat, and helps the party succeed, then sticks around. He joined at partial health with 1 level of exhaustion, since he got the 'quest' after the party and raced off to "beat them there" only to get there when they were in need of an extra pair of hands
I think the trick is more in making the rescue feel earned. You could also make the argument that Gandalf is actually a player as well, that got split from the party and made it back just in time to save his friends. So he's not actually an NPC.
I used the Gandalf effect to make an antagonist for the PC’s to hate and want to kill. The whole campaign was over powered encounters(constructed by the Gandalf to swoop in and be the hero, sometimes pinning the PC’s as the bad guys to cause reputation/trust problems for them) PC’s needed to uncover the plan, they started calling him Gandalf in the beginning of the campaign, then they hated him. They were so happy to defeat him, they didn’t even know it was a scooby doo episode.
This actually reminds me of two instances in my own history. The first was a fight when I was DMing, challenge ratings seemed appropriate just like with your shambling mounds... but the monsters weren't a common one and EVERYONE failed their Knowledge checks making the fight go from slightly challenging to impossible. While it shouldn't have been allowed based on the location and some information I had not told the players yet, when the spellcaster decided to teleport the group to safety I had to internally breath a sigh of relief as I let the spell work. The second was a game I was the player in, among other things the DM summoned a fire elemental... but it was the fire elemental that threatened to TPK the party. Then I realized where we were, on the docks. The WOODEN docks, over the lake. After talking with the DM I got the okay to attempt to sunder the docks, taking my pc and the elemental both below the water where we fought for a few rounds and prevented the TPK long enough for them to mop up and save me from my own looming doom.
Last week my players downed the BBEG of the arc in less than one round. I think it was the highlight of their role-playing career. Their screams of joy woke up the blocks (it was 1am). They lured him out, felt like they outsmarted him. Then they had a whole dungeon to explore feeling like gods, being reckless and escaping with a couple hp. But they were so happy I couldn't take the kill from them :)
In one of my one-shots, the final encounter was a bit of an anticlimax because the PCs had talked an NPC wizard into joining their party. The wizard was a summoner, so now they had 2 extra characters in the fight which made it a cakewalk. I could have ruled against the wizard joining them (he was only supposed to give advice) but they rolled criticals in their efforts to convince him, and the wizard did have the same goals. I didn't want to arbitrarily deny that.
Persuasion is not mind control(does not matter how convincing someone is, a straight guy who has never had a homosexual thought would not just drop his pants to go with the bard). He could have desired to come assist but he had duties that kept him from being able to go on a life or death adventure.He could have provided them a scroll of summon monster
That or sometimes I make NPC assistants purposefully not take their entire action economy -- taking two turns to cast a spell, refusing to dump spellslots in general, etc. In your scenario maybe the wizard is willing to help by casting some cantrips, but he had better things to do with his spellslots
I agree 100% with the statement “death should be a possibility otherwise it’s not worth playing.” I played a game for 7-10 year olds at a birthday party once. The young players were playing teenage detective types investigating things. instead of “death”, the players could get caught by adults and grounded. This accomplished the same thing as death because the players knew that getting grounded meant their character was effectively out of the game…same as death. So as long as there’s a consequence similar to “your character cannot act on the world anymore.” You don’t need death. Players can be kidnapped, retire, be convinced to leave, get grounded, arrested, put back in the dog pen (if you were playing a dog rpg lol)
Instead of NPC rescuers, I may sometimes use wandering monsters who either hate the enemies or all those fighting yet happens to attack the enemies first. The monster can serve as a distraction for the party so they can either escape or gain an advantage on the distracted enemies (though they may have to deal with the wandering monster after that).
Ironically, I've done the same in a fight involving shambling mounds... I had a large, ornery herbivore show up and decide to try taking a bite out of them and "almost" trample members of the party, in that case a bull mammoth crashed into the scene and break up the actual fight enough that the players could hightail it out. Another time, with other monsters, I unleashed some more powerful enemies into the mix that were not allied with the ones they were tangling with. After all, these new enemies see it as a win/win about which side wins, but they aren't going to charge after the group if they run and might end up being the major focus of the previous monsters there
3:42 Hey, woah, hold up. Shamblers are level 6. If your party was level 4 and you threw 2 of those at them, that was an Extreme encounter (50/50 TPK chance). Moderate would have been for a single one. Even if you run 6 players, that's still a Severe fight. Either the calculator was wrong, an input got missed, or you adjusted the Shambler's stats to be Level 4 creatures, but I didn't think it was the last since you didn't mention it.
Just yesterday I had a pf2e session where the players had an epic boss fight. I guess I still have that 5e brain thinking in action economy, because I gave the boss a bunch of stuff that basically give him free action. The worst one was called Counterattack which was a once per turn free action that would hav let him make a strike if a player critically misses him. When the fight actually started I quickly realized this guy has a 50% chance to crit and this was doing way more damage than expected. That free action went right out the window as if it never existed in the first place. The fight ended up being one of the best fights of the campaign so far, through some excellent teamwork they survived by the skin of their teeth.
I trained my players to never fight fair or stand and fight. I started it with giant centipede with god-level grapple and insane danger, so they fed a bandit to it loaded with bombs. It allowed me to throw some insane challenges their way and prompted them to get creative.
NPCs stepping in to rescue PCs is a great way to move the narrative forward and bail the PCs out. The key is the PCs need to initiate it. _Sending_ , or most recently, _Feather Token (Bird)_ have been successfully used recently by my players to call for help. It changes the hopeless combat from a certain TPK to a frantic bid to buy enough time to for relief to arrive. In many d&d-like systems, full retreat isn't really an option, as the PCs are _slower_ than their enemies, but if they just need to drag the fight out from 4 rounds to 20, falling back and barricading doors can easily buy the time required.
If the PCs ask for help it's absolutely fair game, and doesn't even fit the warning against using NPCs to bail them out. What could be fudged at that point is the time until help arrives.
Number 5 I do occasionally admit to what I did. But, I am training some future DMS. I have only 2 TPKS since 1980 both in 5E. Because I allow PCs to run away or surrender. Now with Adventure League I have to remind people they can surrender which just results in the lost of the final magic item.
Waves This principle is 1 of the best things a DM can employ. Another thing about Waves is it can also be used to change the battle parameters. Maybe you have to collapse the tunnel before more arrive or end the ritual or kill the leader.... Waves is where it's at!
As far as the "NPC rescue" is concerned, one idea I've seen suggested is that if the characters help a powerful NPC, the NPC could give them a Sending Stone or similar item and say basically "if you need my help in an emergency, give me a call." Then the PCs have the choice of when to use their assist, and depending on the NPC, perhaps they might not show up for a few rounds, where the party has to switch tactics to survival until the cavalry arrives. Haven't tried this in practice, but I like the idea since while it is still an NPC saving the party, it is the party's choice of when they want that assistance, and it's a reward that they've earned.
The main way I handle the "NPC Rescue" is simply having them occasionally scripted into a fight beforehand and maybe foreshadowing it (indicating that the NPC wasn't just added from oblivion to save them)
This is a great video! I can give a good example from literally Yesterday. I run a Curse of Strahd and my players just for to the Old Bonegrinder at lv3. They had suspicions of the women (They expected them to be either vampire spawns or werewolves) but asked them for a place to sleep. I planned if they get into a fight, the Hags would capture them and make deal to deliver them the bones from Vallaki or maybe help them sneak into the Abbey in Krezk. However (skipping the details), they figured out that they are hags and agreed to escort one of the daughters to Vallaki to sell the pastries. I also ruled that the only Hag with a Heartstone is Morgantha at this point, and at this point the hags were not suspicious, they just thought they were stupid, cause the halfling drank the Youth Elixir. The encounter was reasonably on the easier side, but that's because the players took time to prepare, but I have plans to adjust it for later ^^
Funny how this video comes out and last Friday during my game session I did the npc rescuer during a boss fight. Although I did it only to progress story and introduce a new player who I was running a solo campaign with to catch her up to the group in terms of story etc. She also happened to befriend an important powerful npc during her solo which lead to them forcing the boss to run away. Thankfully the other players were excited about it all and weren't upset that the fight ended and got rescued but I probably won't do that again. Thanks for the tips and tricks Luke, keep up the great work!
This is why you should never get so attached to your characters that their deaths will have a tangible impact on you. Yes, the characters and their development over a campaign is a part of the experience, but so is their untimely demise. Death can even have as much of a positive impact as it does a negative, the survivors can use the death to spur them harder to succeed ("Win just one for the Gipper!"). I've lost many characters in my time in the hobby and it's always just been that, a lost character. Also helps that characters aren't treated like they came into the world as fully formed heroes. They lived a life as any other person in the world and, as such, they are a part of that world and it's lethality.
That Shambler Vine Lash was potentially very nasty indeed. I did notice you changed tactics to give them a break, but it did make some sense from the monster perspective. Also: Krobby burn! 😂
You forgot one: using the environment to increase difficulty and dynamic of play: In a ruin, falling debris In a deep cave, rising water/magma level On a glacier or on ice, splitting icebergs etc Outside, change of weather or temperature In a city, involve guards/authority On a slope, mudslides....etc There's lots of ways that the environment can help and hinder the PCs.
One way that CAN work with NPC saving (used sparingly) is to assure that either the NPC or his/her others are badly affected in the combat, so that they don't make a huge impact, just interference. Said differently, the myconid example you suggested, they show up, and four of the 6 are wasted by the shambling mounds due to their vine-whip, the other two survive after helping (not saving) just enough to give them the PCs the break they needed. OR a solo NPC gets involved, and loses a pet companion, or takes a near-mortal wound in the process and requires the PCs to save him/her. Either way in the end, the PCs can see that the encounter took a big(ger) toll on the NPC(s). Afterwards, the myconids (or NPC guy) explain that these shamblers have been problematic for a while, are grateful to the PCs and indicate there's a larger foe/force at work and asks the PCs to look into it. So now it focuses back on the PCs being the heroes needed to intercede and make things better. When done sparingly - it could seem that this was all by design and not a bail out, to link the PCs journey with the NPC and their plot-hook in the first place. (Sparingly meaning no more than a couple times per campaign).
Allow me to offer this... as many have said, run away today, live to fight another day. As a DM, never be afraid of a TPK. Don't seek it, but if that's how it rolled, that's how it rolled. Lastly, if they kill the BBEG quickly and easily, then draw upon Homer. In the Iliad, Achilles close friend Patroclus uses Achilles armor and gets himself killed fighting the Trojans. I've had this happen a couple of times, only for the party to find out it was an ally or minion of the BBEG masquerading as the BBEG. Thank you, Homer. Edit: parting shot... use location specific damage. In my current campaign, the rogue is lethal with the bow, a stone cold killer. Except in one encounter, she got backstabbed by a bounty hunter that hit them in the shoulder, eliminating her ability to use the bow. It made the situation more dramatic and forced a shift of tactics.
We learn from our mistakes. It's ok to make them. I've been a DM for over 30 years, and I usually tell players what mistakes I made. I do not do that at the current session. It could be weeks later while having beers together. Players make mistakes. They expect the DM to make them, too. They are pretty forgiving about it, and it never does any harm. Another way to handle the Shambler encounter might have been to let the shamblers wreck them. Then, have them drag them away to be eaten. Before they get eaten, have the mushroom dudes save them. The PCs now get a stern talking to by the mushroom dudes, and the mushrooms expect some compensation. This could be an unexpected favor (A quest of sorts), or some big bucks, or an item they think they should have. Ungrateful PCs get turned into decor or something. Killing PCs is a form of failure, sure, but there are plenty of consequences more creative than just killing them. Lastly, I've been ok with fudging dice rolls on a rare occasion. This also goes hand in hand with rolling dice behind my screen for no reason, and pretending to look concerned. Keeps 'em on their toes. Just be careful not to snicker.
I don't think having a friendly NPC intercede to save a party form a tpk is all that humiliating. Not if you don't make it so. Don't make the rescuing character a Mary Sue, don't make them a dmpc, allow the players to rescue them at some other point, and allow the players to reengage the encounter at a later time for round 2. Being rescued from a tight spot can be one of the many tools a DM can use to save the story from an abrupt unsatisfying end. Variety is king after all.
Some thoughts: 1. NPC rescues - one way to play this in a way that isn't a deus-ex-machina/DM-saves-your-bacon kind of thing is to just full on elevate it into a fixed mechanic - in the event of a likely TPK the party has a 50% chance of NPC rescue or other lucky twist of fate. If the manage to live thru one such check (where presumably the check succeeded), the next check is 30% chance. After that 10%. After that it's fixed at 1%. To make it a bit more realistic, put the check on an additional cooldown (have to survive 3+ encounters before the check re-charges, at the lower % chance of course). It's a safety net but not a guarantee, & can mostly be played out in the open 2. Re: modifying monsters on the fly - many adventures straight up use hacked versions of bestiary standard monsters anyway... including power-reduced versions for tutorial purposes.
I like the idea of a powerful NPC coming in to save them, but it's a FAKEOUT. Either they are allied with the BBEG or they are there to help but get like, disintegrated to show the players the stakes of the fight
Good idea! That second method looks good for both the role-playing and for the dice-rolling, especially in a system like DND 5e where players worry a lot about the action economy. The NPC sacrifice doesn't let off the PCs without cost, but it gives the PCs a chance to retain agency while staving off immediate TPKs for a round.
Since the slower classes move at 25ft while a shambling mound moves at 20ft. Escape should be fairly simple (unless the location prevents this somehow). Even if the shambling mounds have grappled characters, the rest could just keep their distance and kill them with ranged attacks, then move in to retrieve the bodies.
I like the retreat rules from 13th Age. If the party agrees to flee then they get away. However they suffer a campaign loss. The BBEG plot ticks closer to doomsday etc. Later things may be more difficult. There may be things that are time sensitive. Prisoners may be killed. There's a cost to fleeing but it's not directly to the PCs.
This happened in my very first session as a GM as we ran Death House from COS as a one-shot. The players were all 5th level and experienced. The party ended up on the 2nd or 3rd floor of Death House where a suit of animated armor was standing guard. Since the players were all 5th level, I had changed the stats of the animated armor (CR1) to Stradh’s animated armor (CR6). After the first round, I realized this wasn’t just hard, it was deadly. Way too hard for the party. I changed the encounter on the fly using one of its ranged attacks (shocking bolt). In stead of the suit of armor shooting its shocking bolt from its fists, I elected to fire the attack from a gem in the middle of its chest. This caused the players to focus on the gem. One player managed to grab a hold of it and tear it out with a successful strength check causing the suit of armor to fall motionlessly to the floor. The party felt great and I was very relieved to not have a TPK in the first 2 hours of my GM career.
I've broken an unwritten rule when concerned that a TPK would happen, as luck would have it, this was a pair of shambling mounds as well. The mounds were dealing too much damage too fast, and it looks like we're going to be printing fresh character sheets and rolling d6's. Then one player gets a lucky crit. And I narrate how the player cuts off a limb from the monster, eliminating multi-attack and cutting its damage output in half. I've also given a monster a "surprise vulnerability" to a damage type. Of course these golems take double damage from thunder. The concussive force breaks them apart because the wizard who made them wasn't willing to spend enough on quality materials.
I'm preparing a Leiutenant boss fight and some of the items they bad guy will use is a Vorpal Sword. Which is something a player desparately wants for his character. And just in case that foe crits, there will be some scrolls they can find to resurrect anyone that is beheaded. Also, I use several of the combo's listed here to help manage a fight and make it balanced. the HP thing helps as well as stat/attack buffs. Extra cannon fodder for the BBEG helps also. I've spread the attacks, and even had the "eating" thing happen. All good advice.
Had my players in a tournament with a variety of creatures from different kingdoms and cultures around the world. One of the encounters had 3 goblins that has some player class abilities. One lower level than the party, One slightly higher level than the part, and one over twice the level of the party. The trick? The Highest level one had a knife wound in their head that severely hampered their intelligence (2 Int, incapable of understanding any language without their Pact of the Chain Familiar present) One of my players with Fey Touched decided to take Speak With Animals. And used it to talk to the goblin and make the High Level Goblin think that it was the statues in the arena that had attacked it for the first 2-rounds. It was fantastic.
I ran a session not too long ago where my party of 3 lvl 10 characters had their long rest interrupted by a pair of shambling mounds, and it got surprisingly hairy. Seriously thought they'd shrug it off pretty easy. They'd just breezed through a fight with a beholder a couple sessions earlier. They'd gone toe-to-toe with a death knight(their first encounter with the campaign's BBEG, who, in fairness, cast a 5th level command spell and told them to flee BEFORE the fight started🤦🏼♀️) at level 7. They ended up fleeing that fight after the paladin died horribly, but they were doing pretty well up until that point. They are a strong, capable party. But, caught with their pants down, were nearly brought down by the shrubbery.
Mostly agree with everything here. I do think there are times, narratively, where having an NPC swoop in works. I once set up an encounter for a level 5 group (5 players), with a Vampire + 2 Vampire Spawn. The intent was to have the players beat down, and a werewolf run in to attack the Vampire at the end of round 2. SEVEN Nat 20 attacks later, the Vampire was toast by the middle of round 2. The player with the highest passive perception noticed a large Werewolf with Grey hair standing on a nearby hill just shake his head and run off.
My players just got through an encounter. They went through a hallway, right past a monster. Into the room at the end, right past the monsters. Into the next room, where they encountered more monsters. That's 5 monsters they've passed without a fight. Find a crystal, breaking it opens a side door. They break the crystal, summons a water elemental. The door opens, there's another monster inside. That is 7 monsters now, one CR 2, and the rest are CR 4-5. Instead of taking several fights against one or two creatures at a time, they wait until this point to attack, instigating a fight against these 7 monsters. These encounters were supposed to be a bit tough, but nothing truly serious for a level 6 party. Just something to wear them down over time. Not... what we wound up with. Through negotiation, they got the water elemental and the CR 2 creature to back out of the fight, and then the Tabaxi Rogue almost died but everyone did make it through in one piece. Except the Cueyatl Moon Priest. He got split in two by the Barbarian.
If there is no consequence for death battles/enemies are meaningless. Let me explain. At my very first game, with my very first character (a level 1 fire elementalist magic user with 2hp, yes ad&d) my caster used his only fire spell and cast burning hands. The DM (my brother) then has the angry fighter hit my caster with his great axe dealing 12 points of damage. I rolled a "new" character (I changed a vowel) but it affected my brother more then me. Over the decades my characters had plot armor. If I said I was low on health, the mobs would leave me (the meat shield) and attack someone else. When I stopped indicating my health status, he "saved" my characters in other ways. I was low on hp, failed a save and said "I'm dead" he changed the DC so I made the save. "I'm still dead" he then lowered the damage and I miraculously survived. He started a Dragon of Icespire Peak game. our first adventure had the dragon (the boss of the boxset) at the encounter. I charged it with my wizard. The namesake of the first one. I should be dead right? Nope he drove off the dragon. I finally pitched a fit in that campaign when we encountered starving ghouls and a banshee. I fell to the banshee and the "starving" ghouls turned from the slumped over wizard to attack the paladin. I said "No, I'm down, they are starving, I should get multiple attacks from them." The rest of the table agreed. I fell, the party fled (instead of a TPK) I rolled a new character and we destroyed the dungeon.
This reminds me so much of my first major campaign attempt. First encounter with a squad of mini-bosses meant to be the first major plot hook, I roll up about 7 DMPCs (in terms of stat blocks), 1 of which is a good guy with the party, mainly designed as an exposition source. TL;DR version, Psionic champions serving an extradimensional juggernaut. First mini-boss encounter: A psionic (not yet known) assassin covered in manifested darkness. Sorcerer casts Banish, enemy fails. Damn. Rather than banishing the being, it disrupts the psionic power that came from the extradimensional BBEG. Enemy basically short-circuits for a minute until they can regain control. Second mini-boss encounter: A teleporting archer and living elemental maelstrom. Elemental caster gets shot immediately by party, dropped by 90% of HP on the first round. Narrated that they fell back behind cover but reappeared a few rounds later. Teleporting archer leads the party on a chase through city alleyways. Illusion spell finally caught them in an almost instant death save. That was the one time I actually had to fudge some rolls and DCs. Interjected another mini-boss to rescue the archer in the end.
I had a campaign,where there was an ally NPC that literally turned into an unkillable god and intimidated a T-Rex all while my character was attempting to capture and tame it. The NPC was praised and my character was shunned. Good thing to note: DO NOT CREATE OP NPCS! I left the group regardless.
So two things love the let cool ideas work in dire situations its my favorite way to help the party help themselves. The second is dice fudging I absolutely had to one evening as I rolled 7 consecutive nat 20s as attacks the first two I fudged behind the screen and after being called out on it I rolled the next 5 in front of them and asked want me to fudge these or you wanna make new characters lol
I just ran a game for a group of 6 new players, I had adjusted an encounter beforehand to account for their bigger action economy but the dice were treating them very poorly so I ended up just not adding modifiers to damage rolls about halfway through the encounter, it was still a tough fight and they all had a great time and no one was the wiser.
One of the most epic endings to a boss fight I ever had was back in the day where we were playing Gamma World. We were fighting a death robot (whatever they were called, can't remember) and getting our butts kicked. The GM was not holding back and two of our team were down and only two of us left and we were about dead. It was like midnight and a couple of us had began packing up figuring it was over. I wanted to try and target it's CPU or something like that in my attack (which would have crippled it), and the GM said to roll a % and if I got 98 or better, he'd say it worked. I rolled a 99!! Everyone erupted in cheers and couldn't believe it (and the DM was stunned). But, I crippled it and we won. From that point forward, when I was GMing I never fudge and try to help.. I let the dice roll. Because something like that stays with you. Even today when I talk to my friends, we all remember that awesome fight and ending 40 some years later.
Pulling back the DM screen may seem like natural way to break tension or excuse what you see as a failing, but I don’t do it. I have found that players are less immersed if you start doing this. It becomes a numbers game, or an improv game. Stick to your guns (even if you’re fiddling with the mechanics of those guns behind the screen…😅). That confidence is where the magic is. If something crazy happens, act like it was always part of the plan, and you’ll keep your players guessing.
I roll all my dice in the open, so fudging rolls is out of the question (as it should be). Personally I would run any encounter with no change, even if things were too easy or hard. But if a fight is going to be really important, I'll do a dry run of the fight on my own. I can't perfectly anticipate what players will do, but it helps.
one suggestion i have for all dms is if you worried about an encounter being to easy or to hard test it. i always have access to my players character sheets. so when i want to test an encounter i grab their characters and run the encounter on my own time.
For the NPC rescuer, I do agree that its bad....most of the time. But it can lead to epic moments as well. For example, a PC has a parent that is missing or abandoned them. Wait for that PC to be on the verge of death, and have that be the moment the parent comes back to save their child. That is an epic character moment. So I would say its fine so long as the NPC has background ties to the PC, AND it creates a story moment
The gelatinous cubes forced my players' characters to retreat. While trying to avoid the cubes, they were exploring and they found the treasure they were looking for. I added some special anti-acid arrows to the treasure to help them kill the cubes that got them cornered in the treasure room.
I was playing lost mines with a group of level 1 people. They were in the cave with the goblins having to go save Sidar Hallwinter. Between bad dice rolls and all. One of my players almost lost their pc in the second session of the game. I had to think real quick to step in so a level 1 wouldn't just out right die. So I had the goblins feed her a potion of healing, but still had her knocked out for the rest of the fight.
About waves, I ran a 2E campaign, and when the PCs were lvl 3-4, they fought off 40 grimlocks. I had to do it in waves because I had no idea how to keep straight which grimlock was which, so I had them attack in waves of 10, and used 10-siders numbered 1 to 10 (0) to keep track. (We used to play white-wolf, that's why we have so many 10 siders)
I forgot to mention I used the dice as minis. I do that alot because I'm too poor to get fancy minis and don't have time to make them. Besides, the numbers help me keep track.
best games I have ever been in, the GM was clear that her goal was to kill the party, only constrained by agreeing to make balanced encounters, by the numbers. we were super proud to never give her the TPK, by playing smart, knowing the monsters wanted us dead as much as we wanted them dead. watching a monster target the healer, after casting healing, and totally attack after they went down was some great shit, its how it should be.
Gonna say this again, NPC assistance feels _really cool_ when the NPCs have to resort to absolutely drastic measures to help. Probably _the_ most memorable encounter I've _ever_ had in a TTRPG was in a PF1e campaign, where the party was fighting an undead dire crocodile that was about to kaiju its way through a port city if we didn't stop it. Why was it memorable? Because the city guard had to resort to the literal _cannons_ on their coastguard ships to meaningfully contribute, and their damage was only about on par with what my cute little naiad swashbuckler was doing with her rapier. At one point she crit the thing with her rapier, and immediately afterwards a cannon shot hit it for 2/3rds the damage. (For all the 5e players who watch this channel, a crit is not a rare event for a PF1e swashbuckler. She scores a critical threat on a 15 or higher, and she only needed like a 4 or something silly like that on the critical confirmation roll to confirm it. So almost 30% of the time she outdid the normal hit damage of a cannon by a fair bit.) Also got a fun moment in that encounter where the DM had to fudge rules to have damage break a grapple, because otherwise the undead crocodile was going to use Swallow Whole on one of the party members and the damage _would_ just kill him, so she had a cannon hit knock it off-balance enough for the grapple to break. We all knew what was going on but that didn't make the moment any less fun _or_ less tense, partly because we got to share the DM's tension as she _prayed_ the dice would cooperate so she could free the guy, and partly because he deserved the consequences of his actions and we all knew it but didn't wanna kill the new player session 1, so the DM trying in a panic to rescue him from his own stupidity was _very_ funny. And, of course, it helped that the NPCs were literally using a _cannon_ to do it, because that made it a cool cinematic moment.
Something I have used to adjust difficulty on the fly is adjust monster perceptions in a dungeon. Maybe the gobos in the next room hear the fight and investigate, maybe the brace for the adventurers maybe they just assume the others are bickering again and ignore it.
My first game (some homebrew that was something like a 1e/2e hybrid with a bit of 3.5 skills mechanics swirled in) was run by a DM who a) set up tons of basically hopeless encounters because he was essentially telling the story of his high level wizard NPCs and their low level PC hirelings and b) had them rescue us on the regular. It was not satisfying when I failed to sneak past a beholder at level 4 or 5 and got disintegrated, since I never really felt like I had a choice. And it was also not satisfying when the level 20 or whatever necromancer resurrected me. I was mostly just along for the ride. Oh yeah and when you died you started over at level 1.
I actually got saved by my DM in our session 1 or 2, it was our 1st mini boss fight against a half ogre on top of a high speed train. My PC was about to get molly-whopped with a crit that would've sent him off the train, but earlier in the session I had found an old corpse and put it to rest, the ghost appeared and gave me Adv on char. Checks for 24 hours but in that moment my DM decided that the ghost would take away the temporary Boon in order to save my life for showing kindness, then I ended up getting a crit on my next turn and took the boss down. I feel like if the DM can thread in natural resources from your adventures then in a pinch, I'm sure players would rather be saved by a miracle
I know usually I'm the one who is last TPKed so I usually use my last actions to get people out of there and do mass healing, but some of it can be fun like the time I set the floor on fire to make the Big bad fall through into the basement giving me more time to get everyone out, you can always flavor retreat but this is good for the DM because he can always reuse that big bad for future encounters
As a fairly new dm running an official, i can say a lot of these work. For example, my party was fighting a verbeeg, but due to a combination of good rolls and initiative, they had done like, 50 damage before the verbeeg even had a chance to move, meanwhile, on the verbeeg's turn it nearly killed the monk almost instantly, increasing damage wouldn't help, and this was supposed to be the big fight of the session, so i gave the verbeeg way more health, which effectively gave it another round... where it then nearly killed the monk again (verbeeg crits are something else). And that worked out pretty well to give the party a challenging, yet manageable encounter Also i did something similar for the shambling mound, as my players were fighting a grell that had grabbed one of the characters, and was dragging them to go throw them off a cliff about 50 feet away, issue is that grells move 30 ft per turn, and because of the situation, it would be 2 turns untill half the party joined combat, and i didn't want to so unceremoniously kill a PC, so i had it only move 10 feet per round when grappling someone, but gave it some extra health, that way it was still very much a race against time, but now a lot more paced out
The intro talking about how both sides are trying their best and it could go either way and it's down to the wire... That reminded me of a trend I noticed in my own games. I personally like to use enemies (usually boss and mini-boss enemies) that are built like PCs... i.e they have the same classes and class features, equipment restrictions, attunement slots, feats... even their HP progression is like a PC and not an Monster (Had a Medium Sized Level 6 Paladin as a boss and instead of having Xd8 HP like you would expect, he had 6d10+Con*6 HP) One weird quirk about trowing out enemies that could easily be PCs in a different campaign causes very "Swingy" fights. Like every single crit, hit or miss seems to have a noticeable impact on how the encounter is going. I've had a single boss fight where it went from "Wow... this fight is way too easy" to "HOLY SHIT! This is going to be a guaranteed TPK" to " No, the party's got this" back to "Everyone except one guy is down! Party is doomed" to finally the PCs winning due to healing potion spam. I am not sure if using PC-like enemies is a good idea or not. I think I'm leaning towards "no" on that one. I bring it up because I find that the way the combat changes from monster vs PC is interesting.
Shambling mound PTSD. One of my early games back in D&D 3.5, after two (of four) of us had retired our old characters and a new guy had just joined, the DM decided that the three of us would have a little combat by ourselves to get things going. He pitched us against a shambling mound. Which happened to be immune to half of our abilities. So we got our butts handed to us by a compost heap, and the new guy's character died. Everyone was so frustrated by the whole thing that game ended once the shambling mound was killed. Granted, that game was already having some internal issues, which were why two of us were choosing to play different characters, but this was definitely the final straw.
Good advice and info here! This is a common issue and dilemma, and this is good advice. Morale checks and "monsters don't always fight to their deaths!" is crucial to believability. Stupid monsters are not fun. Smart monsters, incl those that flee and have a grudge and want revenge, are long term fun.
When it comes to the NPC helper, I have found success in giving my party a one time use "oh crap!" button. Giving them the choice if and when they call for help from an allied organization. They only get one for free, and the rest cost an astronomical amount of gold if they want another. Seems to have worked well so far, especially with brand new parties that are not used to playing together.
Great video Luke. I'm DMing my first campaign at the moment, which is Lost Mines of Phandelver. The final boss the Black Spider (drow wizard) looks a bit underwhelming. Your video has given me the idea of adding a few Fireballs to his spell list (he currently only has level 2 spellls) in case he starts to go down too easy. If I need to use them I'll make him say something like "looks like I underestimated you, or perhaps you underestimated me" before he lets rip with one!!!
The wave method is amazing. Especially when combined with TACTICS. If its too hard of a fight then maybe you only do 3 waves not 4. Maybe that last wave was supposed to have a boss, so remove the boss. If its too easy then add a wave, add a few hobgoblins to what were goblin waves. Or have two waves occur simultaneously. Use wave two to hit the squishy players in the back. Give em a scare. Tactics: elevation +/-, encirclements, flanking, traps that manually go off at a specific time. Choke points, timing of attacks, environmental hazards, etc.
At the start of my D&D games I will secretly roll for the starting Fate Points for each PC. A Fate Point represents the gods’ favour with the character and occasions for Divine Intervention. I will use techniques like those described here to tweak a deadly encounter by consuming a Fate Point from the central character. Often they describe some desperate measure.. and it succeeds against all odds. I never let the players know when they’ve used a Fate Point, or how many more they have left. Often the players can guess when one was used. They can secretly earn more Fate Points as karma for good actions.
Absolutely love the video and the insight you gave us, definitely will take some of those things into account, especially when running my 1v1 campaign, I'm sure lots of rebalancing to encounters will happen and some of it on the fly, even after carefully preparing everything. Combat is fast there and the threat of death is very real, even with a sidekick and I would really love to provoke my player to look for out-of-the-box resolutions to defeating an enemy and avoid bullet-sponging at all costs, while also making enemies and circumstances (terrain/place itself/weather/health hazards) around them feel dangerous. This paired with some of the PF2 rules you use, from your another video will sure make it a banger, especially because I loved 3.5e rules in NWN 1-2 (haven't played them on tabletop, it's my 2nd time DM'ing). Great stuff from you in both of those videos. But holy shit, are those AI pictures straight up burning garbage and they tint your well made video with colours of low effort and TikToky "made to consume/idgaf" vibes. I understand that it's fast and easier than always finding the right illustration that evokes certain feelings, but seeing a guy holding a sword with another sword coming out of it or the dude with two completely different in size sticks that were supposed to be a staff in perspective, with the disembodied flame coming 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 out of it kills the mood greatly. There's a reason visual artists hate them with passion and I feel them.
I have only killed two characters one was last night and the other was about a year ago. I have found that ether increasing or decreasing HP on my monster is my best way of helping my players.
Main one I remember was my party getting split up across and entire multi-building complex with a red dragon guarding it they had no idea was there that was a major threat. So instead of just having her thrash them all I had her try to bargain with the party against a greater threat. They refused, so one PC did end up dying and she left them for her boss to deal with. Sometimes you try to help and the party doesn't want to help themselves lol.
So I run a complete homebrew system with my own world, encounters, everything. The frustration at not being abke to predict difficulty can be very real! I want things to be challenging, I want my players to feel stress about the situation, and then feel like theyve overcome something that could havr gone so much worse if they hadnt used critical thinking. That being said, I have been known to alter HP for the sake of rewarding player strategy, or a very good decision or epic moment. Nothing is more anticlimactic than passing a bunch of rolls for this amazing plan to attack, only to have the damage fall a few hp short of defeating the monster.
My players were fighting a band of orcs at the base of a mountain during winter. The mage got to try his new Fireball and took out over half of the orcs . . . but then they heard a rumble from the mountain. All combat stopped, and both sides watched in horror as a crack formed in the snow accumulated several hundred feet above them. Both sides resumed battle, but everyone grimaced whenever swords clashed, the orcs were whispering their warcries, and that mage looked for the quietest of his spells (especially when I asked them to hold on, I needed to get more six-siders "just in case").
We ran a session and the Life Cleric misty stepped into the middle of 7 baddies. The caster made a wind wall right in front of their front lines(fodder) the front row took the dodge action in a choke point. The cleric went down then 2 fighters then the rogue. The sorcerer was down to 4HP and asked to try and convert spell points to a spell, but he was out of spell points. He asked if it could permanently burn out one of his 3rd level spell slots. As he drew the power and felt it missing he drew harder on the power and it allowed him to cast aid on his fallen companions. The cleric healed everyone and they won the day. The orb that represented spell slots on the Warforged is now black and cannot fill back up. It still comes up from time to time. SOOOOOO cool and I would have never come up with it.
I was DM for three players that hadn't played very long, and I put them up against a group of 8 werewolves and then almost immediately saw that they were too strong for the group and had to change them to wererats. The three did better, killing a few and then splitting up 2-1 and the one got bitten by a wererat while the other two chased off the rest. Afterwards, they had to visit a cleric and make a deal with him to get remove curse. The player wanted to stay as a wererat, but I told him I wasn't ready to deal with player mechanics like that yet. Then, I used two npc archers to help in another encounter but one lost his bow on round one and the other got killed quickly. The three players took care of the creature without their help though.
Your first mistake was trusting the Challenge Rating system. Also, Shambling Mounds have the engulf attack. When the party "dies," have them wake up while inside them. They're either get a sneak attack off, of they'll wait to see where they're taking the party. Once they get them to wherever they're going, have them either spit the party out in front of soem druid type character who sent out the mounds to go find adventures to go get him to 10 bear asses or whatever the quest is.
So I often add a turn to the initiative that I label as "Super Special Surprise." Or some variant thereof. And that is if I know that the encounter is going to be hard of going in to have that NPC Ally B scripted to appear in x amount of rounds or to have the enemy gain some sort of benefit in that amount of time it is not entirely related because this is preparation but I do like to account for potential shifts in the combat
From my Frostmaiden campaign: "Can someone please hit that damn giant?" "...Wait, is the DM actually... rooting for us to *win*?" That poor, sweet summer child had only played with an adversarial DM previously... I want my players to win their battles (rare exceptions apply), but I want them to do so fairly, not because I desperately help them...
Been a DM for… approaching 3 years next month! And yeah, I have definitely made some mistakes (I mostly run Modules). And I won’t lie, if I notice something, I may bring it up after the fight/session. Just recently, I’m running Lost Mine of Phandelver as a Mini-Campaign for my group that I’m usually a player for. They went on the Orc Hunt quest to Wyvern Tor. Well, during it, I overlooked a KEY FEATURE of the Orc statblock, which meant Round 1 was no where near as nasty as it should have been (and thus the party pretty quickly handled them all). That feature is “Aggressive”, which let’s Orc’s Dash as a Bonus Action. Hilarious cuz I PLAY an Orc in our main campaign (but it had been a month at this point and was a feature I rarely used). So in riund 1, Orcs were dashing WITH THEIR ACTION. I didn’t realize till AFTER the fight ended. When I did, I burst out laughinf and told the party what happened. We all got a laugh out of it. I’m also INFAMOUS for Terrible Dice luck when in the DM chair. So I’ve taken to Buffing enemies (either with ways for them to force Saving Throws instead of making Attack Rolls, or giving them different ways to have Advantage on their attacks. Or in some cases, just giving them a Stat Buff in the case of a certain 3/4 Mark Boss in the module). I also began throwing new enemies (3rd party stuff) into the Random Encounters to catch them off guard. They’ve been fighting Stirges a lot, and I fiund an enemy that is basically Stronger Stirges in “Tome of Beasts”. The Clockwork Leech. Threw 4 of them at my level 3 party. Some nasty hits, and they are TANKY, but they didn’t have a High Attack Bonus, so they weren’t MURDERING the party. It definitely led to some interesting challenges and decisions
had a boss fight against an elemental prince the pc handled the minions and were going after the boss. 2 pcs down fighter a few hp left and was looking like a tpk. the cleric was screw it hail mary time and commune with their diety. i gave them a 10% chance for it to work and the cleric made the roll. the diety banished the elemental prince back to its plane of existence.
I use a system Limit Break/Desperate Measures rules, which let the players use custom powerful moves to edge the battle in their favor. Still sometimes running is the best option
I wouldn't think a shambling mound is going to eat a player in the common sense. They are giant, living plants. I would think they have a "compost pile" somewhere and they will just bury the bodies inside them and sit on the pile. Eating but not eating.
I have 20 years of GMing experience and I GM and play with people that were playing and GMing about 5 years before me. There is one thing we all agree with our combining experience: in every d20 system of every edition, there is always some monsters that are stronger that their "challenge rating" number. We notice it and, after the game, make side-by-side comparison with other creatures of equal CR and similar "shape" of stats and attacks. You'll find a CR 4 monster that are almost as strong as most CR 6 monsters and put two of them as a moderate encounter (because the "CR calculator" says it is moderate) and then you'll see your players get destroyed even when they're landing most attacks/spells. This is not due to their stats on damage and hit points, but the game developers sometimes makes a special ability of the monster be very effective without adjusting its CR up from it. They believe that ability is of "standard value" for a monster of that given CR and move on. Mistakes happen, we don't hold against the developers, but GMs should expect this to happen and improvise. Most of us use the same solution to this: when we see things are getting out of control: as soon as we feel that the PCs should've won, they win (the current attack drops the monster to zero hit points) and we don't tell the players we did this. It is not about removing difficulty and death in the game, we only do that when we find that the encounter difficulty is being deceitful and also NOT due to the PCs having a noticeable bad luck at dice.
I usually try to err on the side of making foes too weak instead of too strong. If they're too weak, they can call in reinforcements or run away, which are reasonable things for them to do. It's harder to weaken the monsters on the fly. It's a lot harder to sell the idea of the master swordsman suddenly missing all the time...
I lost a character to a shambling mound. Partially due to my choices and the DMs prior choices. I rolled poor on my hit dice during a short rest and started the fight 1/4 down on HP because I refuse to retcon my choices. I realized mid combat that the DM lied about the creature's move speed a couple months prior when the mound reached my wizard in one turn, took him unconcious and ate him.
I had to adjust an encounter taking place in an underground hive of Kruthiks that had been infested with these infectious crystals that granted psionic powers. I had planned to run a boss encounter right after, but half a dozen Kruthiks backed by a Hive Lord proved to be quite difficult, wearing down the party's resources to the point that they were guaranteed to die against the upcoming boss. So... I made the encounter HARDER. I gave the Hive Lord a third eye that grew from its forehead that allowed it to fire beams of psionic energy in a line, a deadly attack to use in tunnels. Making the encounter harder made it feel climactic and exciting, and it let me skip that final boss encounter to instead use the current encounter as a boss fight. The players loved it and they got some baby Kruthiks to raise and tame for themselves! So yeah, I buffed a hard encounter to make my player's lives easier! Making up for an encounter you have to cut out of the game can be a major boon when used at the right time, so never stick too hard to your notes or plans as the players and dice sure as hell won't.
I once had a group that encountered an antagonistic faction. They had met them before and grudgingly worked toward a mutually beneficial goal, but that deal had concluded and neither side owed the other anything, Including letting the other side walk way unscathed. My players had also hidden a way to track and detect the other faction at a distance which was an obvious breach of trust. Well the players needed some equipment and items from the other faction but they offered nothing in Compensation except to remove the betrayal from before. The antagonist faction had them at a severe disadvantage in terms of combat ability and should have initiated combat. But that would 100% have ended in the death of about half the party (perhaps more if they decided to double down on their blunder) and I'm not proud to say I chickened out, I didn't want to derail what had so far been an amazing campaign. I regret that decision to this day.
Something similar happened to me with a cyberpunk campaign using a 5e based system. Random encounter in the slumps of the city, 1d6 bandits... I maxed that dice. On level 1 characters. I had to do the excuse of the others bailing when the first falled dead.
My most recent one was a when a party member was absent and there's only 3 players in that campaign. I homebrew a lot including the campaign setting so the third encounter was with a modified black guard. On two crits, he took out the monk and his third hit put him down 2 death saves. They were doing an escort mission for a wizard at the time so, monks turn, he fails the death save. Full dead. My tweak was giving the wizard revivify so he could get the monk back bc the healer was the absent player. The wizard was up immediately after the monk so it was a quick save but it was a very close call bc I rolled all 3 attacks against the monk as he was the only one face to face with the black guard and couldn't change the declared attacks without letting my player know I was intentionally sparing him. On the other hand, I have killed a player by mistake but this is my first time intervening to prevent it from playing out
I remember going through a TPK, and what it came down to was just dumb shit the players did, and character morality, we encountered a cursed archfey who could freeze anything she touched, the curse on her meant that she would never be able to feel true warmth, except in some VERY specific scenarios, she even froze fire. We were definitely not at a level we could handle a deity, think we were like level 6 or something, the DM gave us a few outs and the players just kept shutting them down or completely ruining the chances offered. In the end we were left with but one last recourse, to leave one of the PCs to their fate in her lair and leave, my character was pragmatic, and definitely had some issues with the character in question, she was willing to leave them to their fate so the rest could escape with their lives, even the sacrifice was encouraging us to leave them there and go. The other two players refused to leave them behind no matter what though, one of them being strongly against leaving a team member behind no matter the cost, and they pissed this archfey off enough that our fates were sealed.
Sounds like the big bad should finance raising the players as undead, and need a do-over fight after they level up some more to liberate themselves from some sort of controlling geas spell.
re: "Never fudge dice" When I'm at the head of the table (actually, I walk around), I roll all dice in front of the players. No fudging possible. It's all up to the dice gods.
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I would say its more normal for enemies to focus on whatever foes go down quickest(aka perhaps the least dangerous) But thats just me and my preffered strategy as a forever dps. I particulary like to takeout healers first unless thiers a special mechanic that makes that a bad idea, if no healers then any other mage of some kind based on the situation if no mages then supports, then debuffers, and when i say healers i mean squishy healers not like paladins in full platemail. (I don't just play D&D where every healer wheres heavy armor and has a mace)
Something I have used to adjust difficulty on the fly is adjust monster perceptions in a dungeon. Maybe the gobos in the next room hear the fight and investigate, maybe the brace for the adventurers maybe they just assume the others are bickering again and ignore it.
As an old school player/gm I find it really interesting that the idea of running from fights is a lost art. I’m not sure when it got lost, I’m not sure if it was more players from video games, or the games creating more super heroes at lower levels? But when I do get a chance to play (which is not often) these days and battle starts going sideways I still remember I can run. It shocks the other players, as I am leaving them to their fates, but I can always come back and loot what is left. :)
Retreat happens all the time when games actually have retreat rules. 5e and Pathfinder don’t.
Letting 2 PCs die to save a 3rd every time rolls go bad just isn’t satisfying for most players.
That worked in OSR games because character investment was generally low, but that’s not the play standard anymore.
(i.e. if a character died every time the hobbits retreated, none of them would have reached Rivendale in Lord of the Rings).
I think part of the issue is that RAW, it's kinda impossible. In 5e at least most monsters will win in a foot race against PCs, and the chase rules that could be used to facilitate a retrat are awful and cumbersome. As a result few classes can actually retreat from a fight with a good chance of success, outside of higher level games where you could teleport out.
@@hodgepodgesyntaxia2112
Retreat isn't always about rules mechanics. Imagine the party is struggling against a pack of wolves... they can throw down food as a distraction and run. If it's orc mercenaries, they can throw some gold or gems and run. A caster can use an illusion to present a more tempting target. Most monsters either can be distracted or they're slower than the players. There's very few times a clever group of players can't find something to give them time to break away and flee.
To those talking about retreat ..
There weren't rules about Retreating in the older games either. OP is right 5E players never retreat because they have no fear. As this was a P2 Game however a good amount of fault probably lies on the PCs Tactics. A Shambler is slower than most PCs and between P2 having a rather interesting Stealth sytem and a 3 Action Economy, they could've easily ran. They just didn't. The mentality has shifted.
Why do you need rules for retreat? Oh right opportunity attacks, that stupid rule. Or maybe a vindictive GM that wants to rundown the players that ran?
Yea it is better to just dig in and constantly make the GM have to make these choices that Luke is talking about? It is never on the players to make better choices? You can run before ANYONE dies!
My first step is always to remind the characters that there’s nothing wrong with fleeing an encounter to rest , and then coming back to finish it with a new approach
Must be nice to have a group where half the players don’t get extra butt-hurt when they run away or lose a fight. One day I will find a group that actually plays this game rather than using it to live out their power fantasies.
@@Chris-fn4dfDo you play online or in person?
I once had a gm bring in a rival hero to save the party when we bit off more than we could chew. We players had mixed emotions. We learned a lesson about our own hubris, we hated that the gm rescued us, but we embraced the rescuer as a rival. He became our frenemy -- we went out of our way to show him up, and he went out of his way to show us up. Eventually, we were in a position to save him, which we did, because we were heroes; it was a memorable roleplaying moment. So maybe don't dismiss the rescue if there is a way to leverage it later.
i was gonna make a comment about rivalries and how they could make for good npc rescuers because of their narrative potential - so it’s cool that you have an actual example of this happening! rescue by a rival is such a classic trope in certain types of media, i imagine some people might really enjoy it.
I approve of the way you solved the Shambler encounter using role play. Giving the creatures motivation and using that to 'help' the players out and can grow their adventure arc. Rather than just an encounter, they become heroes trying to rescue their friends.
We were fortunate that our tank, who is a healer and has thorns that punish attackers, was a primary target. He did a great job heal tanking.
My group had been teleported to the Feywild and they came across a low-level Dryad who was meant to be a social encounter. The group got snippy with her and she summoned two low-level spectral wolves when combat began. At the time I had a brand new player who was joining for a few sessions to get a feel for D&D. With the combat going south, on the new player's turn she was taking a second to figure her move. Knowing she had something on her magic list to help, I said "Take a look at your spells and see if something can help you." She eventually found the spell, but used it somewhat incorrectly, however, it was enough to break up the enemy attack and they were able to safely retreat.
I ask for a low dc int check from the whole group, and anyone that passes 10, I give them a hint about what to do so they don't die 😂
I use the a mix of having the monster start using more powerful abilities/attacks and HP adjustment, but the later in a specific instance. I think I have a meta gamer looking up monster stat blocks during a fight and they gave themselves away when they were shocked their last attack and spending Ki points for bonus attacks didn't drop the Dragon; ("Bro, are you sure its not dead?" "Yes, I'm positive it's not dead.") They were counting HP and damage. When I get a sense of this happening, and it has been on more than one occasion, I do add HP along with using more of the monster abilities.
I have meta gamers that track AC and HP. Really throws their OCD and controlling personality into freak out mode. Especially when I give a foe a feat that neutralizes the rogue and monk's ability to dodge disengage. I really hate when they hit once and ask if it is dead. so they can spread their attacks.
I just tell players I actually roll for HP instead of using the standard MM hit points.
My players cheat for HP when they level, I might as well do that, too.
@@joebogart7093 how can you _not_ track AC? If you hit on a 22, and miss on a 21, you know what the AC is.
Just like every caster is paying attention to those saves, every martial class is watching what hits and what doesn’t. That isn’t meta gaming, that is _paying attention._
If you are just randomly changing your AC with no description or mechanical reason, your players know you are just bullshitting.
@@joebogart7093It should be obvious when a blow strikes down a foe, and not letting PCs know is yet another bad homebrew that fucks over martials.
instead of NPC rescuer, I've seen a "PC rescuer
From a friend's campaign, told to me
One party member decided to change his character, but wanted to do it when his character died.
They were in a dungeon a fair bit in, when his character died,
then his new one catches up during the tough combat, and helps the party succeed, then sticks around. He joined at partial health with 1 level of exhaustion, since he got the 'quest' after the party and raced off to "beat them there" only to get there when they were in need of an extra pair of hands
Think the hobbits were grateful of Gandalf rescuing them 😂
I think the trick is more in making the rescue feel earned.
You could also make the argument that Gandalf is actually a player as well, that got split from the party and made it back just in time to save his friends. So he's not actually an NPC.
I used the Gandalf effect to make an antagonist for the PC’s to hate and want to kill.
The whole campaign was over powered encounters(constructed by the Gandalf to swoop in and be the hero, sometimes pinning the PC’s as the bad guys to cause reputation/trust problems for them)
PC’s needed to uncover the plan, they started calling him Gandalf in the beginning of the campaign, then they hated him. They were so happy to defeat him, they didn’t even know it was a scooby doo episode.
Same thing happened to me in PF2. Our group had a tougher time with two skeleton monks than either of boss encounters later in the same day.
This actually reminds me of two instances in my own history.
The first was a fight when I was DMing, challenge ratings seemed appropriate just like with your shambling mounds... but the monsters weren't a common one and EVERYONE failed their Knowledge checks making the fight go from slightly challenging to impossible. While it shouldn't have been allowed based on the location and some information I had not told the players yet, when the spellcaster decided to teleport the group to safety I had to internally breath a sigh of relief as I let the spell work.
The second was a game I was the player in, among other things the DM summoned a fire elemental... but it was the fire elemental that threatened to TPK the party. Then I realized where we were, on the docks. The WOODEN docks, over the lake. After talking with the DM I got the okay to attempt to sunder the docks, taking my pc and the elemental both below the water where we fought for a few rounds and prevented the TPK long enough for them to mop up and save me from my own looming doom.
Last week my players downed the BBEG of the arc in less than one round. I think it was the highlight of their role-playing career. Their screams of joy woke up the blocks (it was 1am). They lured him out, felt like they outsmarted him. Then they had a whole dungeon to explore feeling like gods, being reckless and escaping with a couple hp. But they were so happy I couldn't take the kill from them :)
In one of my one-shots, the final encounter was a bit of an anticlimax because the PCs had talked an NPC wizard into joining their party. The wizard was a summoner, so now they had 2 extra characters in the fight which made it a cakewalk.
I could have ruled against the wizard joining them (he was only supposed to give advice) but they rolled criticals in their efforts to convince him, and the wizard did have the same goals. I didn't want to arbitrarily deny that.
Persuasion is not mind control(does not matter how convincing someone is, a straight guy who has never had a homosexual thought would not just drop his pants to go with the bard). He could have desired to come assist but he had duties that kept him from being able to go on a life or death adventure.He could have provided them a scroll of summon monster
That or sometimes I make NPC assistants purposefully not take their entire action economy -- taking two turns to cast a spell, refusing to dump spellslots in general, etc.
In your scenario maybe the wizard is willing to help by casting some cantrips, but he had better things to do with his spellslots
I agree 100% with the statement “death should be a possibility otherwise it’s not worth playing.”
I played a game for 7-10 year olds at a birthday party once. The young players were playing teenage detective types investigating things. instead of “death”, the players could get caught by adults and grounded. This accomplished the same thing as death because the players knew that getting grounded meant their character was effectively out of the game…same as death.
So as long as there’s a consequence similar to “your character cannot act on the world anymore.” You don’t need death. Players can be kidnapped, retire, be convinced to leave, get grounded, arrested, put back in the dog pen (if you were playing a dog rpg lol)
Instead of NPC rescuers, I may sometimes use wandering monsters who either hate the enemies or all those fighting yet happens to attack the enemies first. The monster can serve as a distraction for the party so they can either escape or gain an advantage on the distracted enemies (though they may have to deal with the wandering monster after that).
The Godzilla tool, cool.
Ironically, I've done the same in a fight involving shambling mounds...
I had a large, ornery herbivore show up and decide to try taking a bite out of them and "almost" trample members of the party, in that case a bull mammoth crashed into the scene and break up the actual fight enough that the players could hightail it out.
Another time, with other monsters, I unleashed some more powerful enemies into the mix that were not allied with the ones they were tangling with.
After all, these new enemies see it as a win/win about which side wins, but they aren't going to charge after the group if they run and might end up being the major focus of the previous monsters there
Three way battles can be a powerful GM tool, since the other sides can easily change who they are attacking for balance.
@@alexj1989 And it even makes sense tactically for them to do so.
3:42 Hey, woah, hold up. Shamblers are level 6. If your party was level 4 and you threw 2 of those at them, that was an Extreme encounter (50/50 TPK chance). Moderate would have been for a single one. Even if you run 6 players, that's still a Severe fight. Either the calculator was wrong, an input got missed, or you adjusted the Shambler's stats to be Level 4 creatures, but I didn't think it was the last since you didn't mention it.
Just yesterday I had a pf2e session where the players had an epic boss fight. I guess I still have that 5e brain thinking in action economy, because I gave the boss a bunch of stuff that basically give him free action. The worst one was called Counterattack which was a once per turn free action that would hav let him make a strike if a player critically misses him. When the fight actually started I quickly realized this guy has a 50% chance to crit and this was doing way more damage than expected. That free action went right out the window as if it never existed in the first place. The fight ended up being one of the best fights of the campaign so far, through some excellent teamwork they survived by the skin of their teeth.
I trained my players to never fight fair or stand and fight. I started it with giant centipede with god-level grapple and insane danger, so they fed a bandit to it loaded with bombs. It allowed me to throw some insane challenges their way and prompted them to get creative.
NPCs stepping in to rescue PCs is a great way to move the narrative forward and bail the PCs out. The key is the PCs need to initiate it. _Sending_ , or most recently, _Feather Token (Bird)_ have been successfully used recently by my players to call for help. It changes the hopeless combat from a certain TPK to a frantic bid to buy enough time to for relief to arrive. In many d&d-like systems, full retreat isn't really an option, as the PCs are _slower_ than their enemies, but if they just need to drag the fight out from 4 rounds to 20, falling back and barricading doors can easily buy the time required.
If the PCs ask for help it's absolutely fair game, and doesn't even fit the warning against using NPCs to bail them out. What could be fudged at that point is the time until help arrives.
Number 5 I do occasionally admit to what I did. But, I am training some future DMS. I have only 2 TPKS since 1980 both in 5E. Because I allow PCs to run away or surrender. Now with Adventure League I have to remind people they can surrender which just results in the lost of the final magic item.
gotta pump those numbers up, unless your pc's are just flawless tacticians anyway.
@@DellikkilleD numbers you say. 492 AL sessions 131 Kills. 3 in the last session because they would not flee. Working on my 4th Skull.
Waves
This principle is 1 of the best things a DM can employ.
Another thing about Waves is it can also be used to change the battle parameters.
Maybe you have to collapse the tunnel before more arrive or end the ritual or kill the leader....
Waves is where it's at!
As far as the "NPC rescue" is concerned, one idea I've seen suggested is that if the characters help a powerful NPC, the NPC could give them a Sending Stone or similar item and say basically "if you need my help in an emergency, give me a call." Then the PCs have the choice of when to use their assist, and depending on the NPC, perhaps they might not show up for a few rounds, where the party has to switch tactics to survival until the cavalry arrives. Haven't tried this in practice, but I like the idea since while it is still an NPC saving the party, it is the party's choice of when they want that assistance, and it's a reward that they've earned.
The main way I handle the "NPC Rescue" is simply having them occasionally scripted into a fight beforehand and maybe foreshadowing it (indicating that the NPC wasn't just added from oblivion to save them)
This is a great video!
I can give a good example from literally Yesterday. I run a Curse of Strahd and my players just for to the Old Bonegrinder at lv3. They had suspicions of the women (They expected them to be either vampire spawns or werewolves) but asked them for a place to sleep.
I planned if they get into a fight, the Hags would capture them and make deal to deliver them the bones from Vallaki or maybe help them sneak into the Abbey in Krezk. However (skipping the details), they figured out that they are hags and agreed to escort one of the daughters to Vallaki to sell the pastries. I also ruled that the only Hag with a Heartstone is Morgantha at this point, and at this point the hags were not suspicious, they just thought they were stupid, cause the halfling drank the Youth Elixir. The encounter was reasonably on the easier side, but that's because the players took time to prepare, but I have plans to adjust it for later ^^
Funny how this video comes out and last Friday during my game session I did the npc rescuer during a boss fight. Although I did it only to progress story and introduce a new player who I was running a solo campaign with to catch her up to the group in terms of story etc. She also happened to befriend an important powerful npc during her solo which lead to them forcing the boss to run away. Thankfully the other players were excited about it all and weren't upset that the fight ended and got rescued but I probably won't do that again.
Thanks for the tips and tricks Luke, keep up the great work!
This is why you should never get so attached to your characters that their deaths will have a tangible impact on you. Yes, the characters and their development over a campaign is a part of the experience, but so is their untimely demise. Death can even have as much of a positive impact as it does a negative, the survivors can use the death to spur them harder to succeed ("Win just one for the Gipper!"). I've lost many characters in my time in the hobby and it's always just been that, a lost character. Also helps that characters aren't treated like they came into the world as fully formed heroes. They lived a life as any other person in the world and, as such, they are a part of that world and it's lethality.
16:40 I say, if the players want to turn a social encounter into a combat encounter, let them face the consiquences of their actions.
That Shambler Vine Lash was potentially very nasty indeed. I did notice you changed tactics to give them a break, but it did make some sense from the monster perspective. Also: Krobby burn! 😂
Always Krobby Burn! Now Krobby have Fireball!!
You forgot one: using the environment to increase difficulty and dynamic of play:
In a ruin, falling debris
In a deep cave, rising water/magma level
On a glacier or on ice, splitting icebergs etc
Outside, change of weather or temperature
In a city, involve guards/authority
On a slope, mudslides....etc
There's lots of ways that the environment can help and hinder the PCs.
One way that CAN work with NPC saving (used sparingly) is to assure that either the NPC or his/her others are badly affected in the combat, so that they don't make a huge impact, just interference.
Said differently, the myconid example you suggested, they show up, and four of the 6 are wasted by the shambling mounds due to their vine-whip, the other two survive after helping (not saving) just enough to give them the PCs the break they needed.
OR a solo NPC gets involved, and loses a pet companion, or takes a near-mortal wound in the process and requires the PCs to save him/her.
Either way in the end, the PCs can see that the encounter took a big(ger) toll on the NPC(s).
Afterwards, the myconids (or NPC guy) explain that these shamblers have been problematic for a while, are grateful to the PCs and indicate there's a larger foe/force at work and asks the PCs to look into it. So now it focuses back on the PCs being the heroes needed to intercede and make things better.
When done sparingly - it could seem that this was all by design and not a bail out, to link the PCs journey with the NPC and their plot-hook in the first place. (Sparingly meaning no more than a couple times per campaign).
Allow me to offer this... as many have said, run away today, live to fight another day.
As a DM, never be afraid of a TPK. Don't seek it, but if that's how it rolled, that's how it rolled.
Lastly, if they kill the BBEG quickly and easily, then draw upon Homer. In the Iliad, Achilles close friend Patroclus uses Achilles armor and gets himself killed fighting the Trojans. I've had this happen a couple of times, only for the party to find out it was an ally or minion of the BBEG masquerading as the BBEG. Thank you, Homer.
Edit: parting shot... use location specific damage. In my current campaign, the rogue is lethal with the bow, a stone cold killer. Except in one encounter, she got backstabbed by a bounty hunter that hit them in the shoulder, eliminating her ability to use the bow. It made the situation more dramatic and forced a shift of tactics.
We learn from our mistakes. It's ok to make them. I've been a DM for over 30 years, and I usually tell players what mistakes I made. I do not do that at the current session. It could be weeks later while having beers together. Players make mistakes. They expect the DM to make them, too. They are pretty forgiving about it, and it never does any harm. Another way to handle the Shambler encounter might have been to let the shamblers wreck them. Then, have them drag them away to be eaten. Before they get eaten, have the mushroom dudes save them. The PCs now get a stern talking to by the mushroom dudes, and the mushrooms expect some compensation. This could be an unexpected favor (A quest of sorts), or some big bucks, or an item they think they should have. Ungrateful PCs get turned into decor or something. Killing PCs is a form of failure, sure, but there are plenty of consequences more creative than just killing them. Lastly, I've been ok with fudging dice rolls on a rare occasion. This also goes hand in hand with rolling dice behind my screen for no reason, and pretending to look concerned. Keeps 'em on their toes. Just be careful not to snicker.
I don't think having a friendly NPC intercede to save a party form a tpk is all that humiliating. Not if you don't make it so. Don't make the rescuing character a Mary Sue, don't make them a dmpc, allow the players to rescue them at some other point, and allow the players to reengage the encounter at a later time for round 2. Being rescued from a tight spot can be one of the many tools a DM can use to save the story from an abrupt unsatisfying end. Variety is king after all.
Some thoughts:
1. NPC rescues - one way to play this in a way that isn't a deus-ex-machina/DM-saves-your-bacon kind of thing is to just full on elevate it into a fixed mechanic - in the event of a likely TPK the party has a 50% chance of NPC rescue or other lucky twist of fate. If the manage to live thru one such check (where presumably the check succeeded), the next check is 30% chance. After that 10%. After that it's fixed at 1%. To make it a bit more realistic, put the check on an additional cooldown (have to survive 3+ encounters before the check re-charges, at the lower % chance of course). It's a safety net but not a guarantee, & can mostly be played out in the open
2. Re: modifying monsters on the fly - many adventures straight up use hacked versions of bestiary standard monsters anyway... including power-reduced versions for tutorial purposes.
I like the idea of a powerful NPC coming in to save them, but it's a FAKEOUT. Either they are allied with the BBEG or they are there to help but get like, disintegrated to show the players the stakes of the fight
Good idea! That second method looks good for both the role-playing and for the dice-rolling, especially in a system like DND 5e where players worry a lot about the action economy. The NPC sacrifice doesn't let off the PCs without cost, but it gives the PCs a chance to retain agency while staving off immediate TPKs for a round.
Since the slower classes move at 25ft while a shambling mound moves at 20ft. Escape should be fairly simple (unless the location prevents this somehow). Even if the shambling mounds have grappled characters, the rest could just keep their distance and kill them with ranged attacks, then move in to retrieve the bodies.
I like the retreat rules from 13th Age. If the party agrees to flee then they get away. However they suffer a campaign loss. The BBEG plot ticks closer to doomsday etc. Later things may be more difficult. There may be things that are time sensitive. Prisoners may be killed. There's a cost to fleeing but it's not directly to the PCs.
This happened in my very first session as a GM as we ran Death House from COS as a one-shot. The players were all 5th level and experienced. The party ended up on the 2nd or 3rd floor of Death House where a suit of animated armor was standing guard. Since the players were all 5th level, I had changed the stats of the animated armor (CR1) to Stradh’s animated armor (CR6). After the first round, I realized this wasn’t just hard, it was deadly. Way too hard for the party. I changed the encounter on the fly using one of its ranged attacks (shocking bolt). In stead of the suit of armor shooting its shocking bolt from its fists, I elected to fire the attack from a gem in the middle of its chest. This caused the players to focus on the gem. One player managed to grab a hold of it and tear it out with a successful strength check causing the suit of armor to fall motionlessly to the floor. The party felt great and I was very relieved to not have a TPK in the first 2 hours of my GM career.
I've broken an unwritten rule when concerned that a TPK would happen, as luck would have it, this was a pair of shambling mounds as well. The mounds were dealing too much damage too fast, and it looks like we're going to be printing fresh character sheets and rolling d6's. Then one player gets a lucky crit. And I narrate how the player cuts off a limb from the monster, eliminating multi-attack and cutting its damage output in half.
I've also given a monster a "surprise vulnerability" to a damage type. Of course these golems take double damage from thunder. The concussive force breaks them apart because the wizard who made them wasn't willing to spend enough on quality materials.
I'm preparing a Leiutenant boss fight and some of the items they bad guy will use is a Vorpal Sword. Which is something a player desparately wants for his character. And just in case that foe crits, there will be some scrolls they can find to resurrect anyone that is beheaded.
Also, I use several of the combo's listed here to help manage a fight and make it balanced. the HP thing helps as well as stat/attack buffs. Extra cannon fodder for the BBEG helps also. I've spread the attacks, and even had the "eating" thing happen. All good advice.
Had my players in a tournament with a variety of creatures from different kingdoms and cultures around the world. One of the encounters had 3 goblins that has some player class abilities. One lower level than the party, One slightly higher level than the part, and one over twice the level of the party.
The trick? The Highest level one had a knife wound in their head that severely hampered their intelligence (2 Int, incapable of understanding any language without their Pact of the Chain Familiar present)
One of my players with Fey Touched decided to take Speak With Animals. And used it to talk to the goblin and make the High Level Goblin think that it was the statues in the arena that had attacked it for the first 2-rounds.
It was fantastic.
I ran a session not too long ago where my party of 3 lvl 10 characters had their long rest interrupted by a pair of shambling mounds, and it got surprisingly hairy. Seriously thought they'd shrug it off pretty easy. They'd just breezed through a fight with a beholder a couple sessions earlier. They'd gone toe-to-toe with a death knight(their first encounter with the campaign's BBEG, who, in fairness, cast a 5th level command spell and told them to flee BEFORE the fight started🤦🏼♀️) at level 7. They ended up fleeing that fight after the paladin died horribly, but they were doing pretty well up until that point. They are a strong, capable party. But, caught with their pants down, were nearly brought down by the shrubbery.
Mostly agree with everything here. I do think there are times, narratively, where having an NPC swoop in works. I once set up an encounter for a level 5 group (5 players), with a Vampire + 2 Vampire Spawn. The intent was to have the players beat down, and a werewolf run in to attack the Vampire at the end of round 2. SEVEN Nat 20 attacks later, the Vampire was toast by the middle of round 2. The player with the highest passive perception noticed a large Werewolf with Grey hair standing on a nearby hill just shake his head and run off.
My players just got through an encounter. They went through a hallway, right past a monster. Into the room at the end, right past the monsters. Into the next room, where they encountered more monsters. That's 5 monsters they've passed without a fight. Find a crystal, breaking it opens a side door. They break the crystal, summons a water elemental. The door opens, there's another monster inside. That is 7 monsters now, one CR 2, and the rest are CR 4-5. Instead of taking several fights against one or two creatures at a time, they wait until this point to attack, instigating a fight against these 7 monsters. These encounters were supposed to be a bit tough, but nothing truly serious for a level 6 party. Just something to wear them down over time. Not... what we wound up with.
Through negotiation, they got the water elemental and the CR 2 creature to back out of the fight, and then the Tabaxi Rogue almost died but everyone did make it through in one piece. Except the Cueyatl Moon Priest. He got split in two by the Barbarian.
If there is no consequence for death battles/enemies are meaningless. Let me explain. At my very first game, with my very first character (a level 1 fire elementalist magic user with 2hp, yes ad&d) my caster used his only fire spell and cast burning hands. The DM (my brother) then has the angry fighter hit my caster with his great axe dealing 12 points of damage. I rolled a "new" character (I changed a vowel) but it affected my brother more then me. Over the decades my characters had plot armor. If I said I was low on health, the mobs would leave me (the meat shield) and attack someone else. When I stopped indicating my health status, he "saved" my characters in other ways. I was low on hp, failed a save and said "I'm dead" he changed the DC so I made the save. "I'm still dead" he then lowered the damage and I miraculously survived. He started a Dragon of Icespire Peak game. our first adventure had the dragon (the boss of the boxset) at the encounter. I charged it with my wizard. The namesake of the first one. I should be dead right? Nope he drove off the dragon. I finally pitched a fit in that campaign when we encountered starving ghouls and a banshee. I fell to the banshee and the "starving" ghouls turned from the slumped over wizard to attack the paladin. I said "No, I'm down, they are starving, I should get multiple attacks from them." The rest of the table agreed. I fell, the party fled (instead of a TPK) I rolled a new character and we destroyed the dungeon.
This reminds me so much of my first major campaign attempt. First encounter with a squad of mini-bosses meant to be the first major plot hook, I roll up about 7 DMPCs (in terms of stat blocks), 1 of which is a good guy with the party, mainly designed as an exposition source. TL;DR version, Psionic champions serving an extradimensional juggernaut.
First mini-boss encounter: A psionic (not yet known) assassin covered in manifested darkness. Sorcerer casts Banish, enemy fails. Damn. Rather than banishing the being, it disrupts the psionic power that came from the extradimensional BBEG. Enemy basically short-circuits for a minute until they can regain control.
Second mini-boss encounter: A teleporting archer and living elemental maelstrom. Elemental caster gets shot immediately by party, dropped by 90% of HP on the first round. Narrated that they fell back behind cover but reappeared a few rounds later. Teleporting archer leads the party on a chase through city alleyways. Illusion spell finally caught them in an almost instant death save. That was the one time I actually had to fudge some rolls and DCs. Interjected another mini-boss to rescue the archer in the end.
I had a campaign,where there was an ally NPC that literally turned into an unkillable god and intimidated a T-Rex all while my character was attempting to capture and tame it. The NPC was praised and my character was shunned. Good thing to note: DO NOT CREATE OP NPCS! I left the group regardless.
So two things love the let cool ideas work in dire situations its my favorite way to help the party help themselves. The second is dice fudging I absolutely had to one evening as I rolled 7 consecutive nat 20s as attacks the first two I fudged behind the screen and after being called out on it I rolled the next 5 in front of them and asked want me to fudge these or you wanna make new characters lol
I don't mind making a new character, but you gotta make my PC's death epic. :P
I just ran a game for a group of 6 new players, I had adjusted an encounter beforehand to account for their bigger action economy but the dice were treating them very poorly so I ended up just not adding modifiers to damage rolls about halfway through the encounter, it was still a tough fight and they all had a great time and no one was the wiser.
Checking for balance is not just an exercise for creating the encounter. If should be done before, during and after. Adjust as needed.
One of the most epic endings to a boss fight I ever had was back in the day where we were playing Gamma World. We were fighting a death robot (whatever they were called, can't remember) and getting our butts kicked. The GM was not holding back and two of our team were down and only two of us left and we were about dead. It was like midnight and a couple of us had began packing up figuring it was over. I wanted to try and target it's CPU or something like that in my attack (which would have crippled it), and the GM said to roll a % and if I got 98 or better, he'd say it worked. I rolled a 99!! Everyone erupted in cheers and couldn't believe it (and the DM was stunned). But, I crippled it and we won. From that point forward, when I was GMing I never fudge and try to help.. I let the dice roll. Because something like that stays with you. Even today when I talk to my friends, we all remember that awesome fight and ending 40 some years later.
Pulling back the DM screen may seem like natural way to break tension or excuse what you see as a failing, but I don’t do it.
I have found that players are less immersed if you start doing this. It becomes a numbers game, or an improv game. Stick to your guns (even if you’re fiddling with the mechanics of those guns behind the screen…😅). That confidence is where the magic is. If something crazy happens, act like it was always part of the plan, and you’ll keep your players guessing.
I roll all my dice in the open, so fudging rolls is out of the question (as it should be). Personally I would run any encounter with no change, even if things were too easy or hard.
But if a fight is going to be really important, I'll do a dry run of the fight on my own. I can't perfectly anticipate what players will do, but it helps.
one suggestion i have for all dms is if you worried about an encounter being to easy or to hard test it.
i always have access to my players character sheets. so when i want to test an encounter i grab their characters and run the encounter on my own time.
In one of my recent games, the cleric saved the entire party from a tpk with a lucky divine intervention roll. It was awesome.
For the NPC rescuer, I do agree that its bad....most of the time.
But it can lead to epic moments as well.
For example, a PC has a parent that is missing or abandoned them. Wait for that PC to be on the verge of death, and have that be the moment the parent comes back to save their child.
That is an epic character moment.
So I would say its fine so long as the NPC has background ties to the PC, AND it creates a story moment
The gelatinous cubes forced my players' characters to retreat. While trying to avoid the cubes, they were exploring and they found the treasure they were looking for. I added some special anti-acid arrows to the treasure to help them kill the cubes that got them cornered in the treasure room.
I was playing lost mines with a group of level 1 people. They were in the cave with the goblins having to go save Sidar Hallwinter. Between bad dice rolls and all. One of my players almost lost their pc in the second session of the game. I had to think real quick to step in so a level 1 wouldn't just out right die. So I had the goblins feed her a potion of healing, but still had her knocked out for the rest of the fight.
About waves, I ran a 2E campaign, and when the PCs were lvl 3-4, they fought off 40 grimlocks. I had to do it in waves because I had no idea how to keep straight which grimlock was which, so I had them attack in waves of 10, and used 10-siders numbered 1 to 10 (0) to keep track. (We used to play white-wolf, that's why we have so many 10 siders)
I forgot to mention I used the dice as minis. I do that alot because I'm too poor to get fancy minis and don't have time to make them. Besides, the numbers help me keep track.
best games I have ever been in, the GM was clear that her goal was to kill the party, only constrained by agreeing to make balanced encounters, by the numbers. we were super proud to never give her the TPK, by playing smart, knowing the monsters wanted us dead as much as we wanted them dead. watching a monster target the healer, after casting healing, and totally attack after they went down was some great shit, its how it should be.
Gonna say this again, NPC assistance feels _really cool_ when the NPCs have to resort to absolutely drastic measures to help. Probably _the_ most memorable encounter I've _ever_ had in a TTRPG was in a PF1e campaign, where the party was fighting an undead dire crocodile that was about to kaiju its way through a port city if we didn't stop it. Why was it memorable? Because the city guard had to resort to the literal _cannons_ on their coastguard ships to meaningfully contribute, and their damage was only about on par with what my cute little naiad swashbuckler was doing with her rapier. At one point she crit the thing with her rapier, and immediately afterwards a cannon shot hit it for 2/3rds the damage. (For all the 5e players who watch this channel, a crit is not a rare event for a PF1e swashbuckler. She scores a critical threat on a 15 or higher, and she only needed like a 4 or something silly like that on the critical confirmation roll to confirm it. So almost 30% of the time she outdid the normal hit damage of a cannon by a fair bit.)
Also got a fun moment in that encounter where the DM had to fudge rules to have damage break a grapple, because otherwise the undead crocodile was going to use Swallow Whole on one of the party members and the damage _would_ just kill him, so she had a cannon hit knock it off-balance enough for the grapple to break. We all knew what was going on but that didn't make the moment any less fun _or_ less tense, partly because we got to share the DM's tension as she _prayed_ the dice would cooperate so she could free the guy, and partly because he deserved the consequences of his actions and we all knew it but didn't wanna kill the new player session 1, so the DM trying in a panic to rescue him from his own stupidity was _very_ funny. And, of course, it helped that the NPCs were literally using a _cannon_ to do it, because that made it a cool cinematic moment.
Something I have used to adjust difficulty on the fly is adjust monster perceptions in a dungeon. Maybe the gobos in the next room hear the fight and investigate, maybe the brace for the adventurers maybe they just assume the others are bickering again and ignore it.
My first game (some homebrew that was something like a 1e/2e hybrid with a bit of 3.5 skills mechanics swirled in) was run by a DM who a) set up tons of basically hopeless encounters because he was essentially telling the story of his high level wizard NPCs and their low level PC hirelings and b) had them rescue us on the regular. It was not satisfying when I failed to sneak past a beholder at level 4 or 5 and got disintegrated, since I never really felt like I had a choice. And it was also not satisfying when the level 20 or whatever necromancer resurrected me. I was mostly just along for the ride.
Oh yeah and when you died you started over at level 1.
For the adjusting hp, Just state that you rolled for their health and the numbers where low for that combat
I actually got saved by my DM in our session 1 or 2, it was our 1st mini boss fight against a half ogre on top of a high speed train. My PC was about to get molly-whopped with a crit that would've sent him off the train, but earlier in the session I had found an old corpse and put it to rest, the ghost appeared and gave me Adv on char. Checks for 24 hours but in that moment my DM decided that the ghost would take away the temporary Boon in order to save my life for showing kindness, then I ended up getting a crit on my next turn and took the boss down. I feel like if the DM can thread in natural resources from your adventures then in a pinch, I'm sure players would rather be saved by a miracle
I know usually I'm the one who is last TPKed so I usually use my last actions to get people out of there and do mass healing, but some of it can be fun like the time I set the floor on fire to make the Big bad fall through into the basement giving me more time to get everyone out, you can always flavor retreat but this is good for the DM because he can always reuse that big bad for future encounters
As a fairly new dm running an official, i can say a lot of these work.
For example, my party was fighting a verbeeg, but due to a combination of good rolls and initiative, they had done like, 50 damage before the verbeeg even had a chance to move, meanwhile, on the verbeeg's turn it nearly killed the monk almost instantly, increasing damage wouldn't help, and this was supposed to be the big fight of the session, so i gave the verbeeg way more health, which effectively gave it another round... where it then nearly killed the monk again (verbeeg crits are something else). And that worked out pretty well to give the party a challenging, yet manageable encounter
Also i did something similar for the shambling mound, as my players were fighting a grell that had grabbed one of the characters, and was dragging them to go throw them off a cliff about 50 feet away, issue is that grells move 30 ft per turn, and because of the situation, it would be 2 turns untill half the party joined combat, and i didn't want to so unceremoniously kill a PC, so i had it only move 10 feet per round when grappling someone, but gave it some extra health, that way it was still very much a race against time, but now a lot more paced out
The intro talking about how both sides are trying their best and it could go either way and it's down to the wire... That reminded me of a trend I noticed in my own games.
I personally like to use enemies (usually boss and mini-boss enemies) that are built like PCs... i.e they have the same classes and class features, equipment restrictions, attunement slots, feats... even their HP progression is like a PC and not an Monster (Had a Medium Sized Level 6 Paladin as a boss and instead of having Xd8 HP like you would expect, he had 6d10+Con*6 HP)
One weird quirk about trowing out enemies that could easily be PCs in a different campaign causes very "Swingy" fights. Like every single crit, hit or miss seems to have a noticeable impact on how the encounter is going. I've had a single boss fight where it went from "Wow... this fight is way too easy" to "HOLY SHIT! This is going to be a guaranteed TPK" to " No, the party's got this" back to "Everyone except one guy is down! Party is doomed" to finally the PCs winning due to healing potion spam.
I am not sure if using PC-like enemies is a good idea or not. I think I'm leaning towards "no" on that one. I bring it up because I find that the way the combat changes from monster vs PC is interesting.
Been binging some old videos lately, pretty cool to be here early for a new one!!
Shambling mound PTSD. One of my early games back in D&D 3.5, after two (of four) of us had retired our old characters and a new guy had just joined, the DM decided that the three of us would have a little combat by ourselves to get things going. He pitched us against a shambling mound. Which happened to be immune to half of our abilities. So we got our butts handed to us by a compost heap, and the new guy's character died. Everyone was so frustrated by the whole thing that game ended once the shambling mound was killed. Granted, that game was already having some internal issues, which were why two of us were choosing to play different characters, but this was definitely the final straw.
Good advice and info here! This is a common issue and dilemma, and this is good advice. Morale checks and "monsters don't always fight to their deaths!" is crucial to believability. Stupid monsters are not fun. Smart monsters, incl those that flee and have a grudge and want revenge, are long term fun.
When it comes to the NPC helper, I have found success in giving my party a one time use "oh crap!" button. Giving them the choice if and when they call for help from an allied organization. They only get one for free, and the rest cost an astronomical amount of gold if they want another. Seems to have worked well so far, especially with brand new parties that are not used to playing together.
Great video Luke. I'm DMing my first campaign at the moment, which is Lost Mines of Phandelver. The final boss the Black Spider (drow wizard) looks a bit underwhelming. Your video has given me the idea of adding a few Fireballs to his spell list (he currently only has level 2 spellls) in case he starts to go down too easy. If I need to use them I'll make him say something like "looks like I underestimated you, or perhaps you underestimated me" before he lets rip with one!!!
The wave method is amazing. Especially when combined with TACTICS.
If its too hard of a fight then maybe you only do 3 waves not 4. Maybe that last wave was supposed to have a boss, so remove the boss.
If its too easy then add a wave, add a few hobgoblins to what were goblin waves. Or have two waves occur simultaneously. Use wave two to hit the squishy players in the back. Give em a scare.
Tactics: elevation +/-, encirclements, flanking, traps that manually go off at a specific time. Choke points, timing of attacks, environmental hazards, etc.
At the start of my D&D games I will secretly roll for the starting Fate Points for each PC. A Fate Point represents the gods’ favour with the character and occasions for Divine Intervention. I will use techniques like those described here to tweak a deadly encounter by consuming a Fate Point from the central character. Often they describe some desperate measure.. and it succeeds against all odds. I never let the players know when they’ve used a Fate Point, or how many more they have left. Often the players can guess when one was used. They can secretly earn more Fate Points as karma for good actions.
Absolutely love the video and the insight you gave us, definitely will take some of those things into account, especially when running my 1v1 campaign, I'm sure lots of rebalancing to encounters will happen and some of it on the fly, even after carefully preparing everything. Combat is fast there and the threat of death is very real, even with a sidekick and I would really love to provoke my player to look for out-of-the-box resolutions to defeating an enemy and avoid bullet-sponging at all costs, while also making enemies and circumstances (terrain/place itself/weather/health hazards) around them feel dangerous. This paired with some of the PF2 rules you use, from your another video will sure make it a banger, especially because I loved 3.5e rules in NWN 1-2 (haven't played them on tabletop, it's my 2nd time DM'ing). Great stuff from you in both of those videos.
But holy shit, are those AI pictures straight up burning garbage and they tint your well made video with colours of low effort and TikToky "made to consume/idgaf" vibes. I understand that it's fast and easier than always finding the right illustration that evokes certain feelings, but seeing a guy holding a sword with another sword coming out of it or the dude with two completely different in size sticks that were supposed to be a staff in perspective, with the disembodied flame coming 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 out of it kills the mood greatly. There's a reason visual artists hate them with passion and I feel them.
I have had 3 campaigns in TOTAL with the 4th just starting last week. The first 3 were all TPK. I don't see it as a bad thing.
I have only killed two characters one was last night and the other was about a year ago. I have found that ether increasing or decreasing HP on my monster is my best way of helping my players.
Main one I remember was my party getting split up across and entire multi-building complex with a red dragon guarding it they had no idea was there that was a major threat. So instead of just having her thrash them all I had her try to bargain with the party against a greater threat. They refused, so one PC did end up dying and she left them for her boss to deal with. Sometimes you try to help and the party doesn't want to help themselves lol.
Thank you dor mentioning the other channel. Foing ober ther for Thieves Abound, right after this video.
So I run a complete homebrew system with my own world, encounters, everything. The frustration at not being abke to predict difficulty can be very real! I want things to be challenging, I want my players to feel stress about the situation, and then feel like theyve overcome something that could havr gone so much worse if they hadnt used critical thinking. That being said, I have been known to alter HP for the sake of rewarding player strategy, or a very good decision or epic moment. Nothing is more anticlimactic than passing a bunch of rolls for this amazing plan to attack, only to have the damage fall a few hp short of defeating the monster.
My players were fighting a band of orcs at the base of a mountain during winter. The mage got to try his new Fireball and took out over half of the orcs . . . but then they heard a rumble from the mountain. All combat stopped, and both sides watched in horror as a crack formed in the snow accumulated several hundred feet above them. Both sides resumed battle, but everyone grimaced whenever swords clashed, the orcs were whispering their warcries, and that mage looked for the quietest of his spells (especially when I asked them to hold on, I needed to get more six-siders "just in case").
We ran a session and the Life Cleric misty stepped into the middle of 7 baddies. The caster made a wind wall right in front of their front lines(fodder) the front row took the dodge action in a choke point. The cleric went down then 2 fighters then the rogue. The sorcerer was down to 4HP and asked to try and convert spell points to a spell, but he was out of spell points. He asked if it could permanently burn out one of his 3rd level spell slots. As he drew the power and felt it missing he drew harder on the power and it allowed him to cast aid on his fallen companions. The cleric healed everyone and they won the day. The orb that represented spell slots on the Warforged is now black and cannot fill back up. It still comes up from time to time. SOOOOOO cool and I would have never come up with it.
I was DM for three players that hadn't played very long, and I put them up against a group of 8 werewolves and then almost immediately saw that they were too strong for the group and had to change them to wererats. The three did better, killing a few and then splitting up 2-1 and the one got bitten by a wererat while the other two chased off the rest. Afterwards, they had to visit a cleric and make a deal with him to get remove curse. The player wanted to stay as a wererat, but I told him I wasn't ready to deal with player mechanics like that yet. Then, I used two npc archers to help in another encounter but one lost his bow on round one and the other got killed quickly. The three players took care of the creature without their help though.
Your first mistake was trusting the Challenge Rating system.
Also, Shambling Mounds have the engulf attack. When the party "dies," have them wake up while inside them. They're either get a sneak attack off, of they'll wait to see where they're taking the party. Once they get them to wherever they're going, have them either spit the party out in front of soem druid type character who sent out the mounds to go find adventures to go get him to 10 bear asses or whatever the quest is.
So I often add a turn to the initiative that I label as "Super Special Surprise." Or some variant thereof. And that is if I know that the encounter is going to be hard of going in to have that NPC Ally B scripted to appear in x amount of rounds or to have the enemy gain some sort of benefit in that amount of time it is not entirely related because this is preparation but I do like to account for potential shifts in the combat
From my Frostmaiden campaign: "Can someone please hit that damn giant?" "...Wait, is the DM actually... rooting for us to *win*?"
That poor, sweet summer child had only played with an adversarial DM previously...
I want my players to win their battles (rare exceptions apply), but I want them to do so fairly, not because I desperately help them...
Been a DM for… approaching 3 years next month! And yeah, I have definitely made some mistakes (I mostly run Modules). And I won’t lie, if I notice something, I may bring it up after the fight/session. Just recently, I’m running Lost Mine of Phandelver as a Mini-Campaign for my group that I’m usually a player for. They went on the Orc Hunt quest to Wyvern Tor. Well, during it, I overlooked a KEY FEATURE of the Orc statblock, which meant Round 1 was no where near as nasty as it should have been (and thus the party pretty quickly handled them all). That feature is “Aggressive”, which let’s Orc’s Dash as a Bonus Action. Hilarious cuz I PLAY an Orc in our main campaign (but it had been a month at this point and was a feature I rarely used). So in riund 1, Orcs were dashing WITH THEIR ACTION. I didn’t realize till AFTER the fight ended. When I did, I burst out laughinf and told the party what happened. We all got a laugh out of it.
I’m also INFAMOUS for Terrible Dice luck when in the DM chair. So I’ve taken to Buffing enemies (either with ways for them to force Saving Throws instead of making Attack Rolls, or giving them different ways to have Advantage on their attacks. Or in some cases, just giving them a Stat Buff in the case of a certain 3/4 Mark Boss in the module). I also began throwing new enemies (3rd party stuff) into the Random Encounters to catch them off guard. They’ve been fighting Stirges a lot, and I fiund an enemy that is basically Stronger Stirges in “Tome of Beasts”. The Clockwork Leech. Threw 4 of them at my level 3 party. Some nasty hits, and they are TANKY, but they didn’t have a High Attack Bonus, so they weren’t MURDERING the party. It definitely led to some interesting challenges and decisions
had a boss fight against an elemental prince the pc handled the minions and were going after the boss. 2 pcs down fighter a few hp left and was looking like a tpk. the cleric was screw it hail mary time and commune with their diety. i gave them a 10% chance for it to work and the cleric made the roll. the diety banished the elemental prince back to its plane of existence.
I use a system Limit Break/Desperate Measures rules, which let the players use custom powerful moves to edge the battle in their favor. Still sometimes running is the best option
I wouldn't think a shambling mound is going to eat a player in the common sense.
They are giant, living plants. I would think they have a "compost pile" somewhere and they will just bury the bodies inside them and sit on the pile.
Eating but not eating.
I have 20 years of GMing experience and I GM and play with people that were playing and GMing about 5 years before me. There is one thing we all agree with our combining experience: in every d20 system of every edition, there is always some monsters that are stronger that their "challenge rating" number. We notice it and, after the game, make side-by-side comparison with other creatures of equal CR and similar "shape" of stats and attacks. You'll find a CR 4 monster that are almost as strong as most CR 6 monsters and put two of them as a moderate encounter (because the "CR calculator" says it is moderate) and then you'll see your players get destroyed even when they're landing most attacks/spells. This is not due to their stats on damage and hit points, but the game developers sometimes makes a special ability of the monster be very effective without adjusting its CR up from it. They believe that ability is of "standard value" for a monster of that given CR and move on. Mistakes happen, we don't hold against the developers, but GMs should expect this to happen and improvise.
Most of us use the same solution to this: when we see things are getting out of control: as soon as we feel that the PCs should've won, they win (the current attack drops the monster to zero hit points) and we don't tell the players we did this.
It is not about removing difficulty and death in the game, we only do that when we find that the encounter difficulty is being deceitful and also NOT due to the PCs having a noticeable bad luck at dice.
I usually try to err on the side of making foes too weak instead of too strong. If they're too weak, they can call in reinforcements or run away, which are reasonable things for them to do. It's harder to weaken the monsters on the fly. It's a lot harder to sell the idea of the master swordsman suddenly missing all the time...
I lost a character to a shambling mound. Partially due to my choices and the DMs prior choices.
I rolled poor on my hit dice during a short rest and started the fight 1/4 down on HP because I refuse to retcon my choices.
I realized mid combat that the DM lied about the creature's move speed a couple months prior when the mound reached my wizard in one turn, took him unconcious and ate him.
I had to adjust an encounter taking place in an underground hive of Kruthiks that had been infested with these infectious crystals that granted psionic powers. I had planned to run a boss encounter right after, but half a dozen Kruthiks backed by a Hive Lord proved to be quite difficult, wearing down the party's resources to the point that they were guaranteed to die against the upcoming boss. So... I made the encounter HARDER. I gave the Hive Lord a third eye that grew from its forehead that allowed it to fire beams of psionic energy in a line, a deadly attack to use in tunnels. Making the encounter harder made it feel climactic and exciting, and it let me skip that final boss encounter to instead use the current encounter as a boss fight. The players loved it and they got some baby Kruthiks to raise and tame for themselves!
So yeah, I buffed a hard encounter to make my player's lives easier! Making up for an encounter you have to cut out of the game can be a major boon when used at the right time, so never stick too hard to your notes or plans as the players and dice sure as hell won't.
I once had a group that encountered an antagonistic faction. They had met them before and grudgingly worked toward a mutually beneficial goal, but that deal had concluded and neither side owed the other anything, Including letting the other side walk way unscathed. My players had also hidden a way to track and detect the other faction at a distance which was an obvious breach of trust. Well the players needed some equipment and items from the other faction but they offered nothing in Compensation except to remove the betrayal from before. The antagonist faction had them at a severe disadvantage in terms of combat ability and should have initiated combat. But that would 100% have ended in the death of about half the party (perhaps more if they decided to double down on their blunder) and I'm not proud to say I chickened out, I didn't want to derail what had so far been an amazing campaign. I regret that decision to this day.
Something similar happened to me with a cyberpunk campaign using a 5e based system. Random encounter in the slumps of the city, 1d6 bandits... I maxed that dice. On level 1 characters. I had to do the excuse of the others bailing when the first falled dead.
My most recent one was a when a party member was absent and there's only 3 players in that campaign. I homebrew a lot including the campaign setting so the third encounter was with a modified black guard. On two crits, he took out the monk and his third hit put him down 2 death saves. They were doing an escort mission for a wizard at the time so, monks turn, he fails the death save. Full dead. My tweak was giving the wizard revivify so he could get the monk back bc the healer was the absent player. The wizard was up immediately after the monk so it was a quick save but it was a very close call bc I rolled all 3 attacks against the monk as he was the only one face to face with the black guard and couldn't change the declared attacks without letting my player know I was intentionally sparing him.
On the other hand, I have killed a player by mistake but this is my first time intervening to prevent it from playing out
I remember going through a TPK, and what it came down to was just dumb shit the players did, and character morality, we encountered a cursed archfey who could freeze anything she touched, the curse on her meant that she would never be able to feel true warmth, except in some VERY specific scenarios, she even froze fire. We were definitely not at a level we could handle a deity, think we were like level 6 or something, the DM gave us a few outs and the players just kept shutting them down or completely ruining the chances offered. In the end we were left with but one last recourse, to leave one of the PCs to their fate in her lair and leave, my character was pragmatic, and definitely had some issues with the character in question, she was willing to leave them to their fate so the rest could escape with their lives, even the sacrifice was encouraging us to leave them there and go. The other two players refused to leave them behind no matter what though, one of them being strongly against leaving a team member behind no matter the cost, and they pissed this archfey off enough that our fates were sealed.
Sounds like the big bad should finance raising the players as undead, and need a do-over fight after they level up some more to liberate themselves from some sort of controlling geas spell.
re: "Never fudge dice"
When I'm at the head of the table (actually, I walk around), I roll all dice in front of the players. No fudging possible. It's all up to the dice gods.