Given what you have said, it seems to me like you could have gotten away yourself. Action Darkness, Bonus action Disengage, move at your 40 speed to run the heck away. I understand being in the moment and not coming up with the perfect solution, but instead of blaming your party members for not saving you mayhaps taking some of the blame since you totally could have gotten away RAW.
I mean... in the end you still sound like you are trying to tell other people how they should RP their characters.
Would you accept instructions from the other players in how to play your character? I'm guessing not. And if not, then why do you seem to believe you are in a position to dictate to them how they should have played their characters.
Again, if we think to my bard... at low level, as I was intending to play her, with her lack of self-confidence, she would not have believed that jumping in would have helped you, because she didn't trust in herself yet. If we are at the table together and you started grumbling that, for metagame reasons, I could have saved you, I'd not have been pleased, as a player... You don't get to tell other people who to play their PCs.
While players have the liberty of constructing unique player characters and roleplaying those characters as they see fit, there is also the expectations that those player characters will adhere to certain rules that are necessary for the game to be played, including the following:
1) that your character will be willing to be in a party
2) that your character will be willing to work cooperatively with your party
3) that your character will fight to protect the lives of members of the party
Mobile requires that you make an attack on a creature to not allow that single creature to get an opportunity to attack against you. If they were surrounded by 8 people they would need to disengage so all creatures would be unable to take an attack of opportunity.
Seems there's a conflict between the common sense heroic ethos of "no party member left behind" and mutual aid. However, Out of the Abyss is written to allow the DM to literally cow the PCs. Sometimes forlorn hopes are heroic, but sometimes Kubyashi Maru (Star Trek Starfleet Academy exercise of a no win situation where "the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few, or the one" is foreshadowed). If Out of the Abyss had the PCs truly intimidated at this point, I could find cutting their losses at the expense of another character, while a dark turn for the game, actually a reasonable action, that might have lasting consequences.
I think the problem though is that it sounds like you're sort of pre-airing a personal grievance. That is, you feel the party gave up on you not because of where their characters minds were, but what they think of you the player personally. As I think you're seeing in this thread there are games where an unbreakable heroic spirit is maintained (in which case, why OOTA?) others play a bit more cutthroat with little honor among thieves. This board isn't going to be able to tell you where you literally sit with your group. That's something you can only request from your table. If it's personal and related to game play, maybe feedback will lead to more constructive game play. If it's personal and not related to game play, you have a right to call foul, but there really isn't a remedy to it other than possibly apologies. And again, this sort of "nope" to diving into Drow defenses (which is probably perceived as merely the first layer to robust defenses) could well just be in character.
At my table, when a player announces actions that's at cross purposes with another character or puts another character in jeopardy, I'll actually have a "hang on, what's your character thinking here?" moment. Sometimes before I even rise it up the affected, or actually usually another player will pull the "hold on a second" and I'll moderate before the player in question commits to their actions. That might have defused the tension this event in your game has apparently built.
The polling is in principle and challenged by the situation you outline.
There's a wide range of different acceptable behaviors within a gaming group. Cooperating with your party is one of the core ones, as is not throwing them under the bus in the middle of a fight.
What I think the breakdown here is, is that a lot of people are reading your posts and interpreting them as "why didn't my party sacrifice their characters to try and save my character?" If the combat was dangerous enough that you had absolutely no chance of escape - not victory, but escape - then it was dangerous enough to risk a TPK. You were infiltrating with magical assistance - if the situation were not dangerous enough to threaten the entire party with imminent demise, why bother? Why not simply roll through and take what you needed? The way your story is set up and presented, it sounds like a very typical Rogue Issue - when you infiltrate somewhere far away from the party, you take your chances. Rogues everywhere have fought, and often died, in solo infiltration missions away from their party. It's sort of a rogue's job, honestly - it's why they get two extra chances to take useful escape-and-evasion skills and why they get Cunning Action to allow them to be extremely slippery and difficult to pin down.
In this instance, I honestly think the DM goofed a bit in not allowing you to roll initiative against the guards to get up from prone and bolt, but it is what it is. Continuing to blame the party for not throwing away their characters in what most reasonable readers would interpret as a likely vain attempt to save your character does not come off well. If you truly believe the party could've easily swooped in and saved you in a round or two with no threat to themselves? Then all right - bring that up with them.
But first, ask yourself - would you have thrown away your character to Save The Rogue, were somebody else in your shoes? And second of all, how interesting is the story going to be of what your party has to do to get you back, now that you've been captured - or how cool with the story of your clever escape from captivity be?
While players have the liberty of constructing unique player characters and roleplaying those characters as they see fit, there is also the expectations that those player characters will adhere to certain rules that are necessary for the game to be played, including the following:
1) that your character will be willing to be in a party
This has nothing to do with your example. Being willing to be in a party and being willing to throw your life away in a hopeless bid to save someone and thus doom you both, is not the same thing as being willing to be in a party.
2) that your character will be willing to work cooperatively with your party
That is normally the assumption. Did you ensure during session 0 that the table was going to play that way? Because not every table does, so you should check. Also, "cooperating with you" and "taking a bullet for you" are not the same thing.
3) that your character will fight to protect the lives of members of the party
Fighting to protect does not equal "throwing away my life in a hopeless bid to save a doomed character that will also doom myself."
You should normally expect characters to help you out when they are not also going to die. But if they thought they would die too, then I don't think you can justify your anger at them for not being willing to die for/with you.
What I see happening here is sour grapes. You don't like how the rest of the table played out the situation, and you came here to gripe about it. Then you asked us what we think and most of us told you well, it all depends on the situation, the character development of the other PCs, and a variety of other things. Although with most of my PCs, I would probably not leave another character to die, that is not always going to be the decision.
If you have that much of a problem with this talk it out with the other players. We, here, really can't help you.
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Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
While players have the liberty of constructing unique player characters and roleplaying those characters as they see fit, there is also the expectations that those player characters will adhere to certain rules that are necessary for the game to be played, including the following:
1) that your character will be willing to be in a party
2) that your character will be willing to work cooperatively with your party
3) that your character will fight to protect the lives of members of the party
Otherwise, the game doesn't work, right?
In general yes. But in particular instances there are exceptions as to what's reasonable conduct. Being in a party is not a suicide pact. Playing a character who is going "point" or scouting ahead of the party is putting themself at risk for the sake of the party, and there's the understanding that a character who is willing to take that risk may take a fall for the sake of the party. Being a skulker does not grant you marker to call in the cavalry because the defenses overtook you. Really, I'm not sure why you're playing a rogue if sticking your neck out is outside your comfort zone. If you want to be guaranteed party protection, play a support character.
Again, this sounds like there may be a personality issue at table or you're not aware of how the party operates. Someone threw out the "strike team" analogy, in reality, in a covert operation a compromised team member doesn't expect rescue. I mean a more edge lord group might even snipe a kill shot at you if you're brought to HP 0 to make sure your death tells no tales about the rest of them. Again, not comfortable with moral ambiguity, rogue may not be your best class choice as its a risk taker. You get to do some of the high wire acts, but you also have to face the risk of falling.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Mobile requires that you make an attack on a creature to not allow that single creature to get an opportunity to attack against you. If they were surrounded by 8 people they would need to disengage so all creatures would be unable to take an attack of opportunity.
Attacks of opportunity are only against targets you can see. Darkness will prevent them without disengage.
How would they even know you got captured? Even if they could hear guards shouting, they would probably assume you would be able to escape. That's what scouting skills are for.
And they don't know the size of the force either, unless this was happening out in the open like 50 feet away. If the party could rush to a scout's aid every time they got caught, it would kind of take all the risk out of scouting in the first place.
The other flag here is the DM just declaring you are immediately surrounded. When I hear something heavy-handed like that, it tells me the DM has already decided how this is going to go because they are already shutting down your options. Your players might have come to the same conclusion.
I agree with others that putting your life on the line in an unknown situation is not necessarily part of D&D's social contract. You should certainly fight as a team and support each other, but it would take something away from the game if everyone was basically a selfless paladin eager to die in the name of brotherhood or whatever.
Mobile requires that you make an attack on a creature to not allow that single creature to get an opportunity to attack against you. If they were surrounded by 8 people they would need to disengage so all creatures would be unable to take an attack of opportunity.
Attacks of opportunity are only against targets you can see. Darkness will prevent them without disengage.
Good call. All they would need is darkness and they could have escaped unscathed, even using their bonus action to hide when they got back with their allies.
Given what you have said, it seems to me like you could have gotten away yourself. Action Darkness, Bonus action Disengage, move at your 40 speed to run the heck away. I understand being in the moment and not coming up with the perfect solution, but instead of blaming your party members for not saving you mayhaps taking some of the blame since you totally could have gotten away RAW.
I mean... in the end you still sound like you are trying to tell other people how they should RP their characters.
Would you accept instructions from the other players in how to play your character? I'm guessing not. And if not, then why do you seem to believe you are in a position to dictate to them how they should have played their characters.
Again, if we think to my bard... at low level, as I was intending to play her, with her lack of self-confidence, she would not have believed that jumping in would have helped you, because she didn't trust in herself yet. If we are at the table together and you started grumbling that, for metagame reasons, I could have saved you, I'd not have been pleased, as a player... You don't get to tell other people who to play their PCs.
While players have the liberty of constructing unique player characters and roleplaying those characters as they see fit, there is also the expectations that those player characters will adhere to certain rules that are necessary for the game to be played, including the following:
1) that your character will be willing to be in a party
2) that your character will be willing to work cooperatively with your party
3) that your character will fight to protect the lives of members of the party
Otherwise, the game doesn't work, right?
Correct. Yes, those are the three basic rules that every player needs to follow, otherwise they are being a Wangrod.
It is no different than if you are playing baseball and after a teammate gets a hit, you refuse to run to the next base. That is what D&D is, a cooperative team based game.
This situation is no different. I would have gladly came to your aid were it me. A level 8 party against a handful of gargoyles and a couple guards? pfff. Please. After a quick >1 min scrap (there is no way reinforcements would appear out of thin air before that) you guys dip. With the item you were after, to boot.
Yea, your party were not only Wangrods but just tactically poor players.
While players have the liberty of constructing unique player characters and roleplaying those characters as they see fit, there is also the expectations that those player characters will adhere to certain rules that are necessary for the game to be played, including the following:
1) that your character will be willing to be in a party
2) that your character will be willing to work cooperatively with your party
3) that your character will fight to protect the lives of members of the party
Otherwise, the game doesn't work, right?
Why does the game not work otherwise?
These are excellent expectations to establish before the campaign starts, but if the group doesn't do that they're really just a couple of assumptions. The first one is pretty much implied, granted. The second, not so much really. I've been in several campaigns where cooperation was a matter of convenience, nothing more. Several where it wasn't unusual for the party to split up occasionally so individual PCs could go off and do their own thing, not always with the other characters' knowledge and not always with the party's best interests at heart. The third, not at all. For probably the majority of my campaigns that held true, but for the most part because it was agreed on beforehand. Not an assumption, more of a social contract - an explicit one, not an implied one - and usually with some caveats about how strictly that rule applies if the odds are overwhelmingly poor.
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Yea, your party were not only Wangrods but just tactically poor players.
According to the OP, the situation of coming to the aid of the Rogue was taken out of their hands. BEFORE initiative was rolled, the PC was killed/captured. Knowing this, there would be little or no point rushing in. We also do not know how far the party was. If they were 200 feet away, that's at least 2-4 rounds of just closing distance, giving ample time for the defenders to sound alarms, call for aid, and lock the doors. If the party thinks the Rogue is dead, there is no point attacking an alert base.
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"real life is a super high CR."
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"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Recently, I played a game in which the following occurred.
In playing Out of the Abyss, my character Zesstra, a drow rogue assassin, while in Mentol-Berith, approached the drow enclave alone while her party lay in hiding in an attempt to misrepresent myself as a representative of the Zhentarim and negotiate. I was rebuffed and turned away. I returned to my party and had a companion cast invisibility on me so that I might attempt to search the drow guards and surrounding gargoyles for an item. I inadvertently set off a glyph which caused me to lose invisibility and fall prone. The DM determined that before initiative was rolled I was surrounded. Though it was very likely that I would be killed by the two drow guards and the six gargoyles, my companions made the decision to not intercede on my behalf and did nothing.
In my experience playing D&D, there comes the rare occasion, where the actions of the other player characters, are more a reflection of the attitude of the actual people playing the game toward a particular person in the group, than a reflection of the fictional characters that are being roleplayed. I think that this might be the case here. It seems to me to be inconceivable that your companions would not come to your aid. Though clearly, the characters that we choose to create and roleplay are diverse and unique, it is essential that they adhere to some basic principles. One of those principles is that you come to the aid of your companions, particularly in matters of life and death. If that is not the case, then clearly there is something else in play. Don't you agree?
What do you think?
That situation is pretty difficult if the other party members weren't Drow themselves! Kind of impossible, even.
I don't know if your DM allows Elves to be raised, or rezzed or what... (Contingency-cloned?). I voted, "yes, I'd try to save another players life..." but context is everything. Maybe I played WoW too much... but the party has to ask if going in to save a scout from death will lead to a wipe. In a DnD context, wouldn't everyone charging in basically set off the cities alarms and defenders? One strange Drow doing something bad in a Drow city, and getting caught and killed, isn't that unusual. One strange Drow, who gets caught and is rescued by a Dwarf, a Gnome, a Human, & etc. would be very unusual.
If you couldn't be raised from the dead... isn't there room to ask, do we rescue our friend, risking a wipe AND certainly setting off alarms across a Drow city, or do we let him die and try to salvage the mission? Also, given that it was a Drow city... mistakes are usually fatal. Would you WANT the party to rescue your character if it meant there'd be a wipe?
That's what I mean by context. It's normal to expect your party mates to have your back, but I think trying to figure out if they can snatch your corpse and revive you somehow, rather than all plunge into likely collective doom, isn't unreasonable. lol.
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“Desitutus ventis, remos adhibe” When the Winds fail you, row.
There have been narrative-based circumstances where I would let a player “die”, or otherwise meet an unenviable fate.
Sometimes, though...saving them isn’t the best thing to do.
One other player at my table had a Paladin character, named Markus.
Markus had recently gone through some morally-questionable sh*t. So when our party got a bit overwhelmed by a mine filled with zealous kobolds, Markus decided to “hold them off” so the rest of us could escape.
Really, the paladin was looking for a valorous death, and low-key the player was looking to give them a proper send-off before rolling a new character.
Our party, however, decided that we could not let our fellow party member throw their life away, and so we rallied behind him, and actually won the fight.
(side-note: ironically, this is how I lost my Horizon Walker Ranger; who was barely hanging on by the end of the encounter, and ended up getting killed by a witch just outside. Oh well.)
Anyway, while we saved Markus, and he ended up staying in the campaign until the end...on the next campaign, the player became the DM, and Markus...kind of lost his mind.
That “morally-questionable sh*t” had, apparently, been really hard on him...so much so, that poor Markus became influenced by an Eldritch horror, and sort of...brought about an apocalyptic scenario.
If we had just let him have his “noble death”...none of that would have happened.
I answered yes because it would depend on details you did not include. How many guards were there? If it looked unwinnable I would not get involved. Are there vital secondary goals that would be failed if the whole party tipped their hand? How far away is the party. If they're 500 feet away, it's unlikely they can do anything before the combat is over.
I definitely would try to think of everything possible.
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Again I was surrounded.
While players have the liberty of constructing unique player characters and roleplaying those characters as they see fit, there is also the expectations that those player characters will adhere to certain rules that are necessary for the game to be played, including the following:
1) that your character will be willing to be in a party
2) that your character will be willing to work cooperatively with your party
3) that your character will fight to protect the lives of members of the party
Otherwise, the game doesn't work, right?
Mobile requires that you make an attack on a creature to not allow that single creature to get an opportunity to attack against you. If they were surrounded by 8 people they would need to disengage so all creatures would be unable to take an attack of opportunity.
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"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."
Seems there's a conflict between the common sense heroic ethos of "no party member left behind" and mutual aid. However, Out of the Abyss is written to allow the DM to literally cow the PCs. Sometimes forlorn hopes are heroic, but sometimes Kubyashi Maru (Star Trek Starfleet Academy exercise of a no win situation where "the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few, or the one" is foreshadowed). If Out of the Abyss had the PCs truly intimidated at this point, I could find cutting their losses at the expense of another character, while a dark turn for the game, actually a reasonable action, that might have lasting consequences.
I think the problem though is that it sounds like you're sort of pre-airing a personal grievance. That is, you feel the party gave up on you not because of where their characters minds were, but what they think of you the player personally. As I think you're seeing in this thread there are games where an unbreakable heroic spirit is maintained (in which case, why OOTA?) others play a bit more cutthroat with little honor among thieves. This board isn't going to be able to tell you where you literally sit with your group. That's something you can only request from your table. If it's personal and related to game play, maybe feedback will lead to more constructive game play. If it's personal and not related to game play, you have a right to call foul, but there really isn't a remedy to it other than possibly apologies. And again, this sort of "nope" to diving into Drow defenses (which is probably perceived as merely the first layer to robust defenses) could well just be in character.
At my table, when a player announces actions that's at cross purposes with another character or puts another character in jeopardy, I'll actually have a "hang on, what's your character thinking here?" moment. Sometimes before I even rise it up the affected, or actually usually another player will pull the "hold on a second" and I'll moderate before the player in question commits to their actions. That might have defused the tension this event in your game has apparently built.
The polling is in principle and challenged by the situation you outline.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
There's a wide range of different acceptable behaviors within a gaming group. Cooperating with your party is one of the core ones, as is not throwing them under the bus in the middle of a fight.
What I think the breakdown here is, is that a lot of people are reading your posts and interpreting them as "why didn't my party sacrifice their characters to try and save my character?" If the combat was dangerous enough that you had absolutely no chance of escape - not victory, but escape - then it was dangerous enough to risk a TPK. You were infiltrating with magical assistance - if the situation were not dangerous enough to threaten the entire party with imminent demise, why bother? Why not simply roll through and take what you needed? The way your story is set up and presented, it sounds like a very typical Rogue Issue - when you infiltrate somewhere far away from the party, you take your chances. Rogues everywhere have fought, and often died, in solo infiltration missions away from their party. It's sort of a rogue's job, honestly - it's why they get two extra chances to take useful escape-and-evasion skills and why they get Cunning Action to allow them to be extremely slippery and difficult to pin down.
In this instance, I honestly think the DM goofed a bit in not allowing you to roll initiative against the guards to get up from prone and bolt, but it is what it is. Continuing to blame the party for not throwing away their characters in what most reasonable readers would interpret as a likely vain attempt to save your character does not come off well. If you truly believe the party could've easily swooped in and saved you in a round or two with no threat to themselves? Then all right - bring that up with them.
But first, ask yourself - would you have thrown away your character to Save The Rogue, were somebody else in your shoes? And second of all, how interesting is the story going to be of what your party has to do to get you back, now that you've been captured - or how cool with the story of your clever escape from captivity be?
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This has nothing to do with your example. Being willing to be in a party and being willing to throw your life away in a hopeless bid to save someone and thus doom you both, is not the same thing as being willing to be in a party.
That is normally the assumption. Did you ensure during session 0 that the table was going to play that way? Because not every table does, so you should check. Also, "cooperating with you" and "taking a bullet for you" are not the same thing.
Fighting to protect does not equal "throwing away my life in a hopeless bid to save a doomed character that will also doom myself."
You should normally expect characters to help you out when they are not also going to die. But if they thought they would die too, then I don't think you can justify your anger at them for not being willing to die for/with you.
What I see happening here is sour grapes. You don't like how the rest of the table played out the situation, and you came here to gripe about it. Then you asked us what we think and most of us told you well, it all depends on the situation, the character development of the other PCs, and a variety of other things. Although with most of my PCs, I would probably not leave another character to die, that is not always going to be the decision.
If you have that much of a problem with this talk it out with the other players. We, here, really can't help you.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
In general yes. But in particular instances there are exceptions as to what's reasonable conduct. Being in a party is not a suicide pact. Playing a character who is going "point" or scouting ahead of the party is putting themself at risk for the sake of the party, and there's the understanding that a character who is willing to take that risk may take a fall for the sake of the party. Being a skulker does not grant you marker to call in the cavalry because the defenses overtook you. Really, I'm not sure why you're playing a rogue if sticking your neck out is outside your comfort zone. If you want to be guaranteed party protection, play a support character.
Again, this sounds like there may be a personality issue at table or you're not aware of how the party operates. Someone threw out the "strike team" analogy, in reality, in a covert operation a compromised team member doesn't expect rescue. I mean a more edge lord group might even snipe a kill shot at you if you're brought to HP 0 to make sure your death tells no tales about the rest of them. Again, not comfortable with moral ambiguity, rogue may not be your best class choice as its a risk taker. You get to do some of the high wire acts, but you also have to face the risk of falling.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Attacks of opportunity are only against targets you can see. Darkness will prevent them without disengage.
How would they even know you got captured? Even if they could hear guards shouting, they would probably assume you would be able to escape. That's what scouting skills are for.
And they don't know the size of the force either, unless this was happening out in the open like 50 feet away. If the party could rush to a scout's aid every time they got caught, it would kind of take all the risk out of scouting in the first place.
The other flag here is the DM just declaring you are immediately surrounded. When I hear something heavy-handed like that, it tells me the DM has already decided how this is going to go because they are already shutting down your options. Your players might have come to the same conclusion.
I agree with others that putting your life on the line in an unknown situation is not necessarily part of D&D's social contract. You should certainly fight as a team and support each other, but it would take something away from the game if everyone was basically a selfless paladin eager to die in the name of brotherhood or whatever.
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(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Good call. All they would need is darkness and they could have escaped unscathed, even using their bonus action to hide when they got back with their allies.
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"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."
Depends on who your roleplaying really, but still for a party to actually get through a campaign they'll cooperate as a team.
Correct. Yes, those are the three basic rules that every player needs to follow, otherwise they are being a Wangrod.
It is no different than if you are playing baseball and after a teammate gets a hit, you refuse to run to the next base. That is what D&D is, a cooperative team based game.
This situation is no different. I would have gladly came to your aid were it me. A level 8 party against a handful of gargoyles and a couple guards? pfff. Please. After a quick >1 min scrap (there is no way reinforcements would appear out of thin air before that) you guys dip. With the item you were after, to boot.
Yea, your party were not only Wangrods but just tactically poor players.
Why does the game not work otherwise?
These are excellent expectations to establish before the campaign starts, but if the group doesn't do that they're really just a couple of assumptions. The first one is pretty much implied, granted. The second, not so much really. I've been in several campaigns where cooperation was a matter of convenience, nothing more. Several where it wasn't unusual for the party to split up occasionally so individual PCs could go off and do their own thing, not always with the other characters' knowledge and not always with the party's best interests at heart. The third, not at all. For probably the majority of my campaigns that held true, but for the most part because it was agreed on beforehand. Not an assumption, more of a social contract - an explicit one, not an implied one - and usually with some caveats about how strictly that rule applies if the odds are overwhelmingly poor.
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According to the OP, the situation of coming to the aid of the Rogue was taken out of their hands. BEFORE initiative was rolled, the PC was killed/captured. Knowing this, there would be little or no point rushing in. We also do not know how far the party was. If they were 200 feet away, that's at least 2-4 rounds of just closing distance, giving ample time for the defenders to sound alarms, call for aid, and lock the doors. If the party thinks the Rogue is dead, there is no point attacking an alert base.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
That situation is pretty difficult if the other party members weren't Drow themselves! Kind of impossible, even.
I don't know if your DM allows Elves to be raised, or rezzed or what... (Contingency-cloned?). I voted, "yes, I'd try to save another players life..." but context is everything. Maybe I played WoW too much... but the party has to ask if going in to save a scout from death will lead to a wipe. In a DnD context, wouldn't everyone charging in basically set off the cities alarms and defenders? One strange Drow doing something bad in a Drow city, and getting caught and killed, isn't that unusual. One strange Drow, who gets caught and is rescued by a Dwarf, a Gnome, a Human, & etc. would be very unusual.
If you couldn't be raised from the dead... isn't there room to ask, do we rescue our friend, risking a wipe AND certainly setting off alarms across a Drow city, or do we let him die and try to salvage the mission? Also, given that it was a Drow city... mistakes are usually fatal. Would you WANT the party to rescue your character if it meant there'd be a wipe?
That's what I mean by context. It's normal to expect your party mates to have your back, but I think trying to figure out if they can snatch your corpse and revive you somehow, rather than all plunge into likely collective doom, isn't unreasonable. lol.
“Desitutus ventis, remos adhibe”
When the Winds fail you, row.
Mostly, I try an keep the party alive.
There have been narrative-based circumstances where I would let a player “die”, or otherwise meet an unenviable fate.
Sometimes, though...saving them isn’t the best thing to do.
One other player at my table had a Paladin character, named Markus.
Markus had recently gone through some morally-questionable sh*t. So when our party got a bit overwhelmed by a mine filled with zealous kobolds, Markus decided to “hold them off” so the rest of us could escape.
Really, the paladin was looking for a valorous death, and low-key the player was looking to give them a proper send-off before rolling a new character.
Our party, however, decided that we could not let our fellow party member throw their life away, and so we rallied behind him, and actually won the fight.
(side-note: ironically, this is how I lost my Horizon Walker Ranger; who was barely hanging on by the end of the encounter, and ended up getting killed by a witch just outside. Oh well.)
Anyway, while we saved Markus, and he ended up staying in the campaign until the end...on the next campaign, the player became the DM, and Markus...kind of lost his mind.
That “morally-questionable sh*t” had, apparently, been really hard on him...so much so, that poor Markus became influenced by an Eldritch horror, and sort of...brought about an apocalyptic scenario.
If we had just let him have his “noble death”...none of that would have happened.
I think the worst thing a party can do, is leave a team to die, unless it was a heroic death.
I answered yes because it would depend on details you did not include. How many guards were there? If it looked unwinnable I would not get involved. Are there vital secondary goals that would be failed if the whole party tipped their hand? How far away is the party. If they're 500 feet away, it's unlikely they can do anything before the combat is over.
I definitely would try to think of everything possible.