So, im currently running an Icespire Peak game (my first time) with 5 players (also first timers), and we've only just done the first sidequest and hit level 2. I had dropped hints to my players that i would help them stay alive until they reach level 2 and they get used to how the game works and to give them a chance to get out of the video game indset of "im playing a game, therefore i must kill it" mentality.
Now, they should have been TPK'd twice so far, and each individually killed at least once each, and im fairly confident that while they are about to get to grips with it, they wont in time not to kill off at least one of themselves. In this case, id like a bit of help fluffing out the details of a homebrew quest to revive them. I don't know enough about general lore to make everything fit well, but here are the points i have so far;-
1) The party currently have a magic scroll that when read aloud, brings to an apparition that is essentially just a tiefling cleric of whatever level the party are at. This is a mechanic i added in myself as we have one or two players that want to try out playing, or not be around a lot so they have a temporary character that has an excuse to essentially be zapped in and out of existence at will. I have hinted that this apparition is someone that has been brought back from the dead (or, at least not fully) and is a hounted one, so if the player wants to play frequently and wants it permenantly i can write in their "haunted objective" as something they can go and do to become fully revived. Ideally, id like this entwined with reviving a different PC as i think it would be a bit dumb to have two completely seperate revival mechanics in play, at level 1/2
2) My current leading idea is to create a place that can be travelled to through a portal, which will be heard about through the apparition (im envisioning if someone dies they can take over that immediately). This portal will lead to an ethereal place where should they brave through, will find an item that contains their dead PCs soul. If they blaze through this (either through luck or my own incompetence) then ill bulk it out with a process to reanimate or inhibit another body (and possibly give them a chance to respec as some have absolutely horrible stats. I'm looking specifically at the "tank" that somehow ended up with 8 base HP). Unfortunately, even to me this sounds a bit waaaaaaay off base for what is essentially supposed to be a cmapaign about 5 level 1s tracking and fighting a dragon and levelling on the way. Can anyone think of a better situation to encapsulate this whole thing in?
3) once a character is revived, i was thinking about rewarding the party with a homebrew item that will allow communication with the deceased, as long as the deceased died within the presence of the object. This is obviously to try and stop the item becoming immediately stupidly powerful, but if another character dies they can gleam information at least from them (and maybe give them a chance to ask if they want to be revived or not to remake anew). Can anyone think of any other problems this may cause? cos who knows what random shit they're gonna try in the future and i don't want to ruin the game thanks to a dumb item i created, nor do i want to reward them with some useless mcguffin which makes everything think it wasnt worth the effort of the quest except to the person that died.
While this idea might be fairly basic compared to some of your other concepts, one route that I've used in some of my own campaigns (especially for newer players) is to give them a magic item that helps keep them alive a little longer. The item that I've used the most often is a homebrewed magical ring that basically allows the wearer to cast the revivify spell once per day without needing a spell slot of the required 300gp worth of diamonds.
Ring of Revivification
Ring [very rare] is considered magical and requires attunement.
Revivify (1/day): As an action, the wearer can touch a creature that has died within the last minute and return it to life with one (1) hit point.
Special: If the ring wearer diesand the revivify power has not been used that day, the wearer automatically revives with one (1) hit point and the power is expended for the day.
Pro: Party gains access to an extra (and free) 3rd level spell once per day, which could be fairly powerful at early levels. Loses impact at later levels but still potentially useful if it helps save a spell slot for something else.
Con: Limited usefulness and potentially useless if the attuned wearer cannot get to a dead party member within 1 minute. Plus, unless you change the uses to more than once per day, the ring wouldn't help much with a TPK (since it would only revive a single party member).
The could come across more senior/higher level adventurers who is traversing the location on their way someone else, but able to help reviving a downed player. It gives the opportunity to pass on sage advice, but also signal it as a one-off event once the group moves on.
I do like this idea. I like simple especially because as a new DM id prefer things to be easy to remember and traverse rather than some insanely complicated thing i came up with on the spot. Who would be the best member to award it to? Or would it be best to just let them fight it out amongst themselves (there have already been threats towards their own bard for pocketing something and not telling anyone about it)
I do like this idea. I like simple especially because as a new DM id prefer things to be easy to remember and traverse rather than some insanely complicated thing i came up with on the spot. Who would be the best member to award it to? Or would it be best to just let them fight it out amongst themselves (there have already been threats towards their own bard for pocketing something and not telling anyone about it)
Difficult to say who would be the best party member, since each group of characters (and players) could make the choice different. Speaking anecdotally, most of my groups have given the ring to their main "healer" in the group. The idea being you want to ensure that you protect the primary character, who keeps everybody else healed and on their feet. However, it doesn't necessarily have to be the cleric or bard.
Ultimately, I'd probably provide the treasure and see how the players decide to use it. If there's concerns about a party member pocketing the treasure, then maybe make it more of a "gift" from an NPC that wants to help ensure the party succeeds. This approach would help ensure that every party member is aware of the ring and what it can potentially do.
So, im currently running an Icespire Peak game (my first time) with 5 players (also first timers), and we've only just done the first sidequest and hit level 2. I had dropped hints to my players that i would help them stay alive until they reach level 2 and they get used to how the game works and to give them a chance to get out of the video game indset of "im playing a game, therefore i must kill it" mentality.
Now, they should have been TPK'd twice so far, and each individually killed at least once each, and im fairly confident that while they are about to get to grips with it, they wont in time not to kill off at least one of themselves. In this case, id like a bit of help fluffing out the details of a homebrew quest to revive them. I don't know enough about general lore to make everything fit well, but here are the points i have so far;-
What you have been teaching them is not that they shouldn't kill everything they see, you're teaching them that there are no consequences for killing everything they see.
Adding in a resurrection if a PC actually dies despite this will really hammer home that they cannot be killed no matter how recklessly they attack things.
On the other hand... how are they getting into this situation repeatedly? Most players are quite risk averse, to get this number of characters killed off (even if you've juked things a bit to help them survive), something else is going wrong.
By allowing them to resurrect at low level you're telling them that this is how the game will work, and death isn't really possible. The next time a different character dies, the player will feel cheated if they aren't allowed to resurrect in a similar fashion. What is the point of these combats if the characters cannot be killed?
I'd advise, instead of assuming another one of them will die, just telling them outright that there are no outs if they die and that character death is permanent unless they already have magic to reverse it. Tell them that you've fudged the TPKs if you have to, in order to get the message across, but I think your approach will give you the opposite impact of what you want.
That does make sense. I feel a bit bad for them letting them lemming themselves straight into consequences but my thought was that as they are new, they will not get a chance to bond with their characters a bit and the opposite will happen, where they don't really care whether they live or die as they can just keep remaking. I of course don't want to tell them they can't participate anymore and not allow them to remake. Obviously, shoot me down if this is not the case, im just speculating as a brand new DM. Additionally to this, i suppose i could always come up with some arbitrary penalty for having to remake, but that almost feels vindictive.
*minor icespire peak spoilers ahead*
As for how they keep getting into these situations, they're just barging into places without doing checks of any sort, even after doing the subtle "are you sure?" prompting. they've done the dwarven excavation and nearly got wiped out my the ochre jelly as they ignored and legged it past the npcs that were supposed to warn them about it (i had to get the NPCs to drag them out against their will) and they would have gotten wiped at the end of the location despite ample warnings that taking the gem would result in heavy damage. There was a couple of other times as well, but i dont really count them as they were just unlucky (they rolled the dragon appearing above the excavation on literally the first time the left the starting town, and seeing as they had a dragonborn i figured id give him the opportunity to talk his way out of it. he nat 1'd, of course) and another homebrew encounter i give them to start the campaign with and get used to how the dice work etc. it was just the usual barfight against commoners but it took them a little while to get the hang of it.
If you feel badly about them making their own choices, how do you feel about taking away the consequence of that choice if it is good? People like to give out rewards, I know lots of people who like to give out rewards for good decisions. Not allowing the bad consequence removes the half of the spectrum that makes the good results, well... good. It's a whole shifting-relative-perspective thing.
So long as the DM, in this case you OP, gives the party enough information to make a well informed decision, there should be no hard feelings. Sometimes, our players need to be handed information in a more blunt manner, subtlety can be lost on players at the table. Just flat-out tell them when a creature is far beyond their capabilities. Remind the party that combat is one form of conflict resolution, diplomacy is another. Give them the tools, and remind them that they have them at their disposal, that allows them to make choices that aren't "hit-it-with-a-stick = more xp". That said, if your party likes combat, roll with that. But shift the encounters to be challenging, but winnable. Spread your damage around the room a bit. Every hit-point counts, and if one PC is at full health while the others are nearly dead, or are at 0, you've focused fire a little too well.
As far as the dragging PCs out against their will, I can't get behind this idea at all. DMs control the time in the game. You had the opportunity to stop them with the NPCs before they ran headlong into unknown danger. Slow the game down so that you can react to the players' and their shennanigans. Nothing was stopping you from having one, or all, of the NPCs in your last description physically stop the party, flat tell them this is a bad idea (or warn them of the bad ideas contained within) and then let them continue on.
And, understand that I'm not telling you that you DM'd bad, or wrong-called this. I'm pointing out missed opportunities and how to capitalize on them in the future. You made the decision at the time that mattered, nothing wrong with that at all.
Forewarned is fore-armed, maybe five-armed with the right intel.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
By all means tell me I dm'd bad. It was my first and currently only session and I expected no less. I even recorded it so I could watch it back from a player perspective and it's god awful. I just need to get used to it more. I don't have enough base knowledge to come up with random stuff on the spotz or enough ideas of how to react to PCs being PCs. I welcome every idea that I can keep in my arsenal.
Don't beat yourself up too much either! You stepped up and ran a session. We all make mistakes (I can't think of a single session i've ever run that went absolutely perfect in every angle - but they were still fun, and that's the most important)
I don't know if you ran a session zero with the group - but finding the style of how you run the game can be important. If you want to run a deep an emotional RP campaign, and half the table just want to murder-hobo, it will get tricky. It might be an idea to talk to the table about what they like and hope to get out of the campaign.
But specifically in terms of protecting the players from death - I would recommend congratulating them on surviving the first session with help from the DM, and perhaps borrow a video game analogy that the game gets harder from now on. This allow you to dial back the level of interference you need to run to prop them up if they go down. Other thing to discuss is whether they want to consider having backup characters rolled up in case they lose their current character (that should make them realise the possibility).
In terms of supporting the players versus leading them into a false sense of security, one option is to let them all go down, but be rescued/stabilised. I had a similar situation a while back where a group were starting to think themselves invincible and made a silly mistake in attack a group of creatures bigger and stronger than themselves. all but one went down (last one ran into the forest), and the characters found themselves waking up hours later, stabilised, but without all their gear, alone and soundly beaten. Technically, it is possible that one or two of them should have died permanently, but I think they learned their lesson. And if there was ever to be a repeat performance, it's likely that they won't make it at all.
So you are not in a situation that is unfixable, you just need to turn the danger dial up a bit for them over the next session or two :)
Well, the next session is this sunday im looking for a way to scare them a bit i think. I was kinda hoping to do that with their lucked (unlucked?) into encounter with cryovain, but i can't control their nat 1s. Thankfully, they are probably going to choose the Gnomengarde quest next (as they have been picking based on gold reward) and when they do that i might make the chances of them running into the mimic a bit higher than usual. Now that i think about it, im noticeably less hesitant to let them die horribly now they've survived at least one session (and that i have a mechanic in place to let them immediately rejoin with the temp character if they havent prepared for it). Plus if they go the other way they'll encounter a manticore thats intended to be reasoned with as opposed to attacked so i guess ill have my chance to rough them up a bit.
A question on new characters though...... im assuming they would be brought in at the same level as their original character was upon their death? I wouldnt mind knocking them back to level 1 (and make up a homebrew quest to do so they can get back on track in pace with the book) as this will give it more clout, but i don't want to set that as precedence for if they get genuinley TPKd later in the campaign when they're all put the work in.
By all means tell me I dm'd bad. It was my first and currently only session and I expected no less.
Being a new DM and being a bad DM are not mutually inclusive, so I'd second what overchord said about not beating yourself up too much. Very few people are great DMs the first time they sit behind the proverbial screen, but many do get better the more practice and experience that they get. Honestly, as a longterm DM, I'd give you kudos for not only being willing to take on the task of being the DM for your group but for also taking the time to try to be better.
Well, the next session is this sunday im looking for a way to scare them a bit i think. I was kinda hoping to do that with their lucked (unlucked?) into encounter with cryovain, but i can't control their nat 1s.
No, you cannot control the way a player's dice roll. Plus, the player's characters were all 1st-level, right? Low levels can be very swingy as far as a couple bad rolls by the players (or a couple good rolls by the DM) can make or break an encounter. Limited abilities and only a few hit points make a TPK a lot more likely at 1st-level. Hopefully, as the group progresses to higher levels, they will be less likely to die due to bad luck.
A question on new characters though...... im assuming they would be brought in at the same level as their original character was upon their death? I wouldnt mind knocking them back to level 1 (and make up a homebrew quest to do so they can get back on track in pace with the book) as this will give it more clout, but i don't want to set that as precedence for if they get genuinley TPKd later in the campaign when they're all put the work in.
There's no right or wrong answer to this question per se, although whatever you're going to do should be discussed with your players so they'll know what to expect. It's fairly common to just have a player introduce a new character at the same level as their previous character that was killed/retired. However, there are some groups that impose a penalty where the new character is brought in at a lower level; such as one level lower than the previous character or at the level of the lowest leveled party member.
Personally, I tend to favor just having the player bring in a new character at the same level as the previous character. I figure that losing a character usually is punishment enough. However, using the "lower level" approach helps put a bit more fear into player's who tend to be overly reckless with their characters. Whatever works for you as a DM and is fair for your player group.
Thanks for all the pointers. As an update to the session, two of my players bailed anyway so i decided to just homebrew the session with the remaining 3, and give them a chance to get the sending stones they missed by yolo-ing the excavation, and giving them a chance to fight a reduced-threat ochre jelly. In the fight they learned the hard way that physical attacks dont work well against it, and they got a little concerned they were done for. Thankfully, the dragonborn decided to use his breath attack to eliminate all of the jellies theyd managed to create at once which let me hit the other players standing close for 10 damage each (they wren't going to die from it and i was ending the session there with a long rest) so i think at least 3 of them now realise they need to think about what they do first before doing a yolo.
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So, im currently running an Icespire Peak game (my first time) with 5 players (also first timers), and we've only just done the first sidequest and hit level 2. I had dropped hints to my players that i would help them stay alive until they reach level 2 and they get used to how the game works and to give them a chance to get out of the video game indset of "im playing a game, therefore i must kill it" mentality.
Now, they should have been TPK'd twice so far, and each individually killed at least once each, and im fairly confident that while they are about to get to grips with it, they wont in time not to kill off at least one of themselves. In this case, id like a bit of help fluffing out the details of a homebrew quest to revive them. I don't know enough about general lore to make everything fit well, but here are the points i have so far;-
1) The party currently have a magic scroll that when read aloud, brings to an apparition that is essentially just a tiefling cleric of whatever level the party are at. This is a mechanic i added in myself as we have one or two players that want to try out playing, or not be around a lot so they have a temporary character that has an excuse to essentially be zapped in and out of existence at will. I have hinted that this apparition is someone that has been brought back from the dead (or, at least not fully) and is a hounted one, so if the player wants to play frequently and wants it permenantly i can write in their "haunted objective" as something they can go and do to become fully revived. Ideally, id like this entwined with reviving a different PC as i think it would be a bit dumb to have two completely seperate revival mechanics in play, at level 1/2
2) My current leading idea is to create a place that can be travelled to through a portal, which will be heard about through the apparition (im envisioning if someone dies they can take over that immediately). This portal will lead to an ethereal place where should they brave through, will find an item that contains their dead PCs soul. If they blaze through this (either through luck or my own incompetence) then ill bulk it out with a process to reanimate or inhibit another body (and possibly give them a chance to respec as some have absolutely horrible stats. I'm looking specifically at the "tank" that somehow ended up with 8 base HP). Unfortunately, even to me this sounds a bit waaaaaaay off base for what is essentially supposed to be a cmapaign about 5 level 1s tracking and fighting a dragon and levelling on the way. Can anyone think of a better situation to encapsulate this whole thing in?
3) once a character is revived, i was thinking about rewarding the party with a homebrew item that will allow communication with the deceased, as long as the deceased died within the presence of the object. This is obviously to try and stop the item becoming immediately stupidly powerful, but if another character dies they can gleam information at least from them (and maybe give them a chance to ask if they want to be revived or not to remake anew). Can anyone think of any other problems this may cause? cos who knows what random shit they're gonna try in the future and i don't want to ruin the game thanks to a dumb item i created, nor do i want to reward them with some useless mcguffin which makes everything think it wasnt worth the effort of the quest except to the person that died.
4) any other ideas? at all? im open to everything
While this idea might be fairly basic compared to some of your other concepts, one route that I've used in some of my own campaigns (especially for newer players) is to give them a magic item that helps keep them alive a little longer. The item that I've used the most often is a homebrewed magical ring that basically allows the wearer to cast the revivify spell once per day without needing a spell slot of the required 300gp worth of diamonds.
The could come across more senior/higher level adventurers who is traversing the location on their way someone else, but able to help reviving a downed player. It gives the opportunity to pass on sage advice, but also signal it as a one-off event once the group moves on.
I do like this idea. I like simple especially because as a new DM id prefer things to be easy to remember and traverse rather than some insanely complicated thing i came up with on the spot. Who would be the best member to award it to? Or would it be best to just let them fight it out amongst themselves (there have already been threats towards their own bard for pocketing something and not telling anyone about it)
Difficult to say who would be the best party member, since each group of characters (and players) could make the choice different. Speaking anecdotally, most of my groups have given the ring to their main "healer" in the group. The idea being you want to ensure that you protect the primary character, who keeps everybody else healed and on their feet. However, it doesn't necessarily have to be the cleric or bard.
Ultimately, I'd probably provide the treasure and see how the players decide to use it. If there's concerns about a party member pocketing the treasure, then maybe make it more of a "gift" from an NPC that wants to help ensure the party succeeds. This approach would help ensure that every party member is aware of the ring and what it can potentially do.
What you have been teaching them is not that they shouldn't kill everything they see, you're teaching them that there are no consequences for killing everything they see.
Adding in a resurrection if a PC actually dies despite this will really hammer home that they cannot be killed no matter how recklessly they attack things.
On the other hand... how are they getting into this situation repeatedly? Most players are quite risk averse, to get this number of characters killed off (even if you've juked things a bit to help them survive), something else is going wrong.
By allowing them to resurrect at low level you're telling them that this is how the game will work, and death isn't really possible. The next time a different character dies, the player will feel cheated if they aren't allowed to resurrect in a similar fashion. What is the point of these combats if the characters cannot be killed?
I'd advise, instead of assuming another one of them will die, just telling them outright that there are no outs if they die and that character death is permanent unless they already have magic to reverse it. Tell them that you've fudged the TPKs if you have to, in order to get the message across, but I think your approach will give you the opposite impact of what you want.
I agree with Sanvael, don't give them a way to bring their dead back to life.
This will make them more cautious.
That does make sense. I feel a bit bad for them letting them lemming themselves straight into consequences but my thought was that as they are new, they will not get a chance to bond with their characters a bit and the opposite will happen, where they don't really care whether they live or die as they can just keep remaking. I of course don't want to tell them they can't participate anymore and not allow them to remake. Obviously, shoot me down if this is not the case, im just speculating as a brand new DM. Additionally to this, i suppose i could always come up with some arbitrary penalty for having to remake, but that almost feels vindictive.
*minor icespire peak spoilers ahead*
As for how they keep getting into these situations, they're just barging into places without doing checks of any sort, even after doing the subtle "are you sure?" prompting. they've done the dwarven excavation and nearly got wiped out my the ochre jelly as they ignored and legged it past the npcs that were supposed to warn them about it (i had to get the NPCs to drag them out against their will) and they would have gotten wiped at the end of the location despite ample warnings that taking the gem would result in heavy damage. There was a couple of other times as well, but i dont really count them as they were just unlucky (they rolled the dragon appearing above the excavation on literally the first time the left the starting town, and seeing as they had a dragonborn i figured id give him the opportunity to talk his way out of it. he nat 1'd, of course) and another homebrew encounter i give them to start the campaign with and get used to how the dice work etc. it was just the usual barfight against commoners but it took them a little while to get the hang of it.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
By all means tell me I dm'd bad. It was my first and currently only session and I expected no less. I even recorded it so I could watch it back from a player perspective and it's god awful. I just need to get used to it more. I don't have enough base knowledge to come up with random stuff on the spotz or enough ideas of how to react to PCs being PCs. I welcome every idea that I can keep in my arsenal.
Don't beat yourself up too much either! You stepped up and ran a session. We all make mistakes (I can't think of a single session i've ever run that went absolutely perfect in every angle - but they were still fun, and that's the most important)
I don't know if you ran a session zero with the group - but finding the style of how you run the game can be important. If you want to run a deep an emotional RP campaign, and half the table just want to murder-hobo, it will get tricky. It might be an idea to talk to the table about what they like and hope to get out of the campaign.
But specifically in terms of protecting the players from death - I would recommend congratulating them on surviving the first session with help from the DM, and perhaps borrow a video game analogy that the game gets harder from now on. This allow you to dial back the level of interference you need to run to prop them up if they go down. Other thing to discuss is whether they want to consider having backup characters rolled up in case they lose their current character (that should make them realise the possibility).
In terms of supporting the players versus leading them into a false sense of security, one option is to let them all go down, but be rescued/stabilised. I had a similar situation a while back where a group were starting to think themselves invincible and made a silly mistake in attack a group of creatures bigger and stronger than themselves. all but one went down (last one ran into the forest), and the characters found themselves waking up hours later, stabilised, but without all their gear, alone and soundly beaten. Technically, it is possible that one or two of them should have died permanently, but I think they learned their lesson. And if there was ever to be a repeat performance, it's likely that they won't make it at all.
So you are not in a situation that is unfixable, you just need to turn the danger dial up a bit for them over the next session or two :)
Well, the next session is this sunday im looking for a way to scare them a bit i think. I was kinda hoping to do that with their lucked (unlucked?) into encounter with cryovain, but i can't control their nat 1s. Thankfully, they are probably going to choose the Gnomengarde quest next (as they have been picking based on gold reward) and when they do that i might make the chances of them running into the mimic a bit higher than usual. Now that i think about it, im noticeably less hesitant to let them die horribly now they've survived at least one session (and that i have a mechanic in place to let them immediately rejoin with the temp character if they havent prepared for it). Plus if they go the other way they'll encounter a manticore thats intended to be reasoned with as opposed to attacked so i guess ill have my chance to rough them up a bit.
A question on new characters though...... im assuming they would be brought in at the same level as their original character was upon their death? I wouldnt mind knocking them back to level 1 (and make up a homebrew quest to do so they can get back on track in pace with the book) as this will give it more clout, but i don't want to set that as precedence for if they get genuinley TPKd later in the campaign when they're all put the work in.
Being a new DM and being a bad DM are not mutually inclusive, so I'd second what overchord said about not beating yourself up too much. Very few people are great DMs the first time they sit behind the proverbial screen, but many do get better the more practice and experience that they get. Honestly, as a longterm DM, I'd give you kudos for not only being willing to take on the task of being the DM for your group but for also taking the time to try to be better.
No, you cannot control the way a player's dice roll. Plus, the player's characters were all 1st-level, right? Low levels can be very swingy as far as a couple bad rolls by the players (or a couple good rolls by the DM) can make or break an encounter. Limited abilities and only a few hit points make a TPK a lot more likely at 1st-level. Hopefully, as the group progresses to higher levels, they will be less likely to die due to bad luck.
There's no right or wrong answer to this question per se, although whatever you're going to do should be discussed with your players so they'll know what to expect. It's fairly common to just have a player introduce a new character at the same level as their previous character that was killed/retired. However, there are some groups that impose a penalty where the new character is brought in at a lower level; such as one level lower than the previous character or at the level of the lowest leveled party member.
Personally, I tend to favor just having the player bring in a new character at the same level as the previous character. I figure that losing a character usually is punishment enough. However, using the "lower level" approach helps put a bit more fear into player's who tend to be overly reckless with their characters. Whatever works for you as a DM and is fair for your player group.
Thanks for all the pointers. As an update to the session, two of my players bailed anyway so i decided to just homebrew the session with the remaining 3, and give them a chance to get the sending stones they missed by yolo-ing the excavation, and giving them a chance to fight a reduced-threat ochre jelly. In the fight they learned the hard way that physical attacks dont work well against it, and they got a little concerned they were done for. Thankfully, the dragonborn decided to use his breath attack to eliminate all of the jellies theyd managed to create at once which let me hit the other players standing close for 10 damage each (they wren't going to die from it and i was ending the session there with a long rest) so i think at least 3 of them now realise they need to think about what they do first before doing a yolo.