The reason I'm here is that I have a bit of a conundrum. During my Homebrew campaign (many shenanigans have happened beforehand and reshaped reality and timelines but that is another story for another time) my players found a place to camp in the Fey Wild now I have come up with a table of random encounters and had the two players on watch roll a d12 and d8 respectively.
What they rolled turned out to be 1d6 Helmed Horrors a CR4 monster. Bearing in mind my party is level 5 at this point. I then asked a third player who was not involved in the night-time watch to roll this d6. They proceeded to roll a 5.
As the encounter progressed with my Fey Wild being covered in Wild Magic surges (using an external table) on every spell they managed to get two HH into single digit health but this was after LOTS of running away (Slight meta game but I informed the party of CR and the mechanics of CR to give them the best options).
As it got to the end of the session, as the Café where I run was close to closing the combat was left with our Satyr Bard dead, Half-Elf Fighter Dying, Elven Fighter/Barbarian, Changling Rogue and Elven Rogue Hiding (Changeling and Fighter/Barb essentially out of the fight) and finally a Warforged Artificer stuck up a tree with 3 HH underneath about to hack it down.
I felt so bad for killing one of my players but it is inevitable as part of the game. What I am asking is, is there anything I can/should do to help my party out?
Also - you don't *need* to run 5 Helmed Horrors, especially if you have a feeling beforehand that it's too difficult. You're the DM in a homebrew game. This is more for the next time you find yourself against the wall, but still. The last d6 roll you did could always be 1d6 - 1 or something to give the party a better chance when they're lower level.
But as for the current situation - the Feywild is weird. What part are they in? Would it make sense for a Hag to be nearby? Maybe there's some kind of darker caster willing to save the group, for a devious price etc etc. That way you keep it from being a TPK but also advance the story. You could run it as one of the players hearing whispers and seeing visions of a spooky hut, and then running into it as they flee the fight. Or something.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Thank you both for the input. I'll be honest that I'm not a prototypical DM where I have most aspects of my campaign in ledgers and binders. I usually have it all in my head (i.e. the main story beats) and each session, which is always fun and a good time, even when the fights are hard, is kind of "whatever happens, happens" in between those beats.
So this part of the Feywild is something of my own concoction, hence the wild magic with every spell. In my mind the "operator" of these HH's is the current big bad for the group who has sent out a roving party of them to eliminate any threats or dissenters (long story that involved some errant wishes) to his power who is currently in a manor estate (formerly owned by one of the players in a different reality, again errant wishes) about a days travel away.
Thinking about it now there is a scenario I could craft that could end the fight to limit the damage but still have consequences and get them to where they need to go.
I’d suggest going forward to dump those magic surges, and anything else like them. The game math is stacked in the favor of the PCs, but not by much. Adding in randomness just hurts them. If you really do want stuff like that, I’d save it for out of combat, so you can get the wierdness with much less risk.
Also, I’m not a fan of random encounters. You run the risk (as here) of a character dying to some pointless, meaningless fight. I’m very much pro- character death, it’s just that hero’s deaths should mean something. It should be a sacrifice for the cause, not a bit of bad luck in the woods. So if your bad guy is sending out patrols, great, have him do that, but do it thoughtfully, with enemies that make sense.
Ideally, those enemies represent level-appropriate challenges for the PCs. Personally, I like to throw encounters at them sometimes that are a bit over their heads. But I’ve talked with my players about how sometimes retreating is going to be their best option. That’s a hard pill to swallow, since most players will never have their characters run. So that’s more of a know your group situation.
One of the problems with random encounter is they tend to be treated as always immediately going in to combat but they really shouldn't. Unless there is some reason for the characters to be hunted on mass random creatures should really be doing something and not instantly attack the players. You do also need to use your judgment and alter things if necessary.
As for a rescue, in the fey wild, quite allot can happen in terms of mixing it up. Its a magical plane of dreams, fairy tails and emotion ruled by fickle demigods . The environment can change drastically on a whim and respond to strong emotions like fear and grief. Fey like red caps can appear from the blood of the fallen and the arch fey of the plane can intervene with anything without even appearing. For example some arch fey do things like teleport children away form danger when they are attacked any where in their domain. Travel also doesn't really need to make sense the players could have ended up any where by running.
The major lesson here should be "don't use encounter tables with 1d6 monsters, because six monsters is around 15x more dangerous than one monster, so either a low roll is a pointless waste of time, a high roll is a tpk, or both".
next time maybe pick the number of foes based on the dmg's encounter advice. you'd look it up on the chart ahead of time to know that a level 5 party of five members would find a combined group of monsters worth <1,250/2,500/3,750/5,500 xp to be easy/medium/hard/deadly. if they run into helmed horrors (1,100xp) then you'd add the monsters one at a time to match the desired difficultly. or if you need dice to pick the difficulty, then d3 will get you there. remember, even an easy encounter maintains some pressure and momentum in the story.
as for what to do now? well, since it's the feywild: something strange. have an overly large moon circle into the sky (and twilight fall instantly, if it was day before). the artificer's tree is bathed in moonbeams. the three HH shudder and change as if they were shapeshifters being forced into their true form. they become deer and are startled if the artificer makes loud noises. you can work it into your story as the doings of a new ally, the whims of a fey lord/lady strolling by and unwilling to glance upon gauche metal armor, or just call it as a whim of wild magic. concurrently, the dead player can be found unconscious and surrounded by shimmering, delicate flowers. what part does the mysterious flower play? players like to speculate so let them and then pick the explanation you like best. the players can regroup, heal, and take this as a lesson to be incredibly careful in the future (although you'll secretly be avoiding deadly encounters in the future). just let them know that anything they've encountered in the feywild, aside from patrolling henchmen obviously, is likely unique to that moment and unlikely to be repeated.
oh! and maybe alternate combat and non-combat encounters. there was a pretty great post here about feywild encounters not too long ago... some fey lord strolling by your helmed horrors seems less strange if you saturate the area with strange things: technicolor trees with [spell]slow[/slow] time under the branches, glowing berries that just make noise, mushroom rings that teleport a careless walker 15ft away, friendly local rangers who give directions into hazards, a rainbow snatching birds out of the sky, etc...
Going forward, the above advice is amazing. What I'd recommend is that [x]d[y] encounters are introduced in phases: the first and second Helmed Horror could be a forward group, scouting ahead; the third and fourth could be the middle ranks that will join later; the fifth and sixth, depending on how the party's doing, might only chase the players rather than focus on fighting, they might be distracted by other entities in the Feywild, or they might simply be removed from existence (as far as the party's aware, there's only 4 Helmed Horrors).
But right now, as you said it's inevitable. I'm not at your table but I'd be pretty PO'd if there was some rescue or other deus ex machina to pull the party's arse out of the fire, even if I was the dead character. Your players might disagree however, and would appreciate any help they can get. Read the room, see how folks feel. And there's nothing wrong with saying out-of-character you feel you made a mistake, and what to know what should be done about it among your players. It'll cause ripples within the immersion temporarily, but it's better to do that than for some people at the table to have resentment for the game and/or each other.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
i made a recommendation of deus ex bacon savin' but Hex is right that not everyone will want that. others might come to expect it, which i find to be worse. so, yes: ask! be honest. next session come prepared to either tell a cautionary tale of how they got away or, should they desire it, hunt them down like dogs. something in between is still picking the miracle, so just commit to one.
i also wanted to comment again to say don't be so overly afraid of "hand of god" saves that you miss out entirely on strange non sequitur encounters that can define feywild ...like the Wild Hunt, riddle gates, doppelgangers, extreme hatred of cold iron (what are those HH made of?), etc. otherwise, why pick the feywild instead of mundane elf/gnome lands? when in rome...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
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Hey All!
Long time reader 1st time poster here.
The reason I'm here is that I have a bit of a conundrum. During my Homebrew campaign (many shenanigans have happened beforehand and reshaped reality and timelines but that is another story for another time) my players found a place to camp in the Fey Wild now I have come up with a table of random encounters and had the two players on watch roll a d12 and d8 respectively.
What they rolled turned out to be 1d6 Helmed Horrors a CR4 monster. Bearing in mind my party is level 5 at this point. I then asked a third player who was not involved in the night-time watch to roll this d6. They proceeded to roll a 5.
As the encounter progressed with my Fey Wild being covered in Wild Magic surges (using an external table) on every spell they managed to get two HH into single digit health but this was after LOTS of running away (Slight meta game but I informed the party of CR and the mechanics of CR to give them the best options).
As it got to the end of the session, as the Café where I run was close to closing the combat was left with our Satyr Bard dead, Half-Elf Fighter Dying, Elven Fighter/Barbarian, Changling Rogue and Elven Rogue Hiding (Changeling and Fighter/Barb essentially out of the fight) and finally a Warforged Artificer stuck up a tree with 3 HH underneath about to hack it down.
I felt so bad for killing one of my players but it is inevitable as part of the game. What I am asking is, is there anything I can/should do to help my party out?
Thanks in advance.
Who is behind this group of Helmed Horrors?
Could their operator turn up and talk to the party (accept their surrender)?
The encounter builder says that 4 HH would be a deadly encounter for 5 x level 5 characters.
It does look like your party is lacking in healing ability. Have they been finding enough healing potions to help them out?
Also - you don't *need* to run 5 Helmed Horrors, especially if you have a feeling beforehand that it's too difficult. You're the DM in a homebrew game. This is more for the next time you find yourself against the wall, but still. The last d6 roll you did could always be 1d6 - 1 or something to give the party a better chance when they're lower level.
But as for the current situation - the Feywild is weird. What part are they in? Would it make sense for a Hag to be nearby? Maybe there's some kind of darker caster willing to save the group, for a devious price etc etc. That way you keep it from being a TPK but also advance the story. You could run it as one of the players hearing whispers and seeing visions of a spooky hut, and then running into it as they flee the fight. Or something.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Thank you both for the input. I'll be honest that I'm not a prototypical DM where I have most aspects of my campaign in ledgers and binders. I usually have it all in my head (i.e. the main story beats) and each session, which is always fun and a good time, even when the fights are hard, is kind of "whatever happens, happens" in between those beats.
So this part of the Feywild is something of my own concoction, hence the wild magic with every spell. In my mind the "operator" of these HH's is the current big bad for the group who has sent out a roving party of them to eliminate any threats or dissenters (long story that involved some errant wishes) to his power who is currently in a manor estate (formerly owned by one of the players in a different reality, again errant wishes) about a days travel away.
Thinking about it now there is a scenario I could craft that could end the fight to limit the damage but still have consequences and get them to where they need to go.
Thank you both again for the advice :)
I’d suggest going forward to dump those magic surges, and anything else like them. The game math is stacked in the favor of the PCs, but not by much. Adding in randomness just hurts them. If you really do want stuff like that, I’d save it for out of combat, so you can get the wierdness with much less risk.
Also, I’m not a fan of random encounters. You run the risk (as here) of a character dying to some pointless, meaningless fight. I’m very much pro- character death, it’s just that hero’s deaths should mean something. It should be a sacrifice for the cause, not a bit of bad luck in the woods. So if your bad guy is sending out patrols, great, have him do that, but do it thoughtfully, with enemies that make sense.
Ideally, those enemies represent level-appropriate challenges for the PCs. Personally, I like to throw encounters at them sometimes that are a bit over their heads. But I’ve talked with my players about how sometimes retreating is going to be their best option. That’s a hard pill to swallow, since most players will never have their characters run. So that’s more of a know your group situation.
One of the problems with random encounter is they tend to be treated as always immediately going in to combat but they really shouldn't. Unless there is some reason for the characters to be hunted on mass random creatures should really be doing something and not instantly attack the players. You do also need to use your judgment and alter things if necessary.
As for a rescue, in the fey wild, quite allot can happen in terms of mixing it up. Its a magical plane of dreams, fairy tails and emotion ruled by fickle demigods . The environment can change drastically on a whim and respond to strong emotions like fear and grief. Fey like red caps can appear from the blood of the fallen and the arch fey of the plane can intervene with anything without even appearing. For example some arch fey do things like teleport children away form danger when they are attacked any where in their domain. Travel also doesn't really need to make sense the players could have ended up any where by running.
The major lesson here should be "don't use encounter tables with 1d6 monsters, because six monsters is around 15x more dangerous than one monster, so either a low roll is a pointless waste of time, a high roll is a tpk, or both".
next time maybe pick the number of foes based on the dmg's encounter advice. you'd look it up on the chart ahead of time to know that a level 5 party of five members would find a combined group of monsters worth <1,250/2,500/3,750/5,500 xp to be easy/medium/hard/deadly. if they run into helmed horrors (1,100xp) then you'd add the monsters one at a time to match the desired difficultly. or if you need dice to pick the difficulty, then d3 will get you there. remember, even an easy encounter maintains some pressure and momentum in the story.
as for what to do now? well, since it's the feywild: something strange. have an overly large moon circle into the sky (and twilight fall instantly, if it was day before). the artificer's tree is bathed in moonbeams. the three HH shudder and change as if they were shapeshifters being forced into their true form. they become deer and are startled if the artificer makes loud noises. you can work it into your story as the doings of a new ally, the whims of a fey lord/lady strolling by and unwilling to glance upon gauche metal armor, or just call it as a whim of wild magic. concurrently, the dead player can be found unconscious and surrounded by shimmering, delicate flowers. what part does the mysterious flower play? players like to speculate so let them and then pick the explanation you like best. the players can regroup, heal, and take this as a lesson to be incredibly careful in the future (although you'll secretly be avoiding deadly encounters in the future). just let them know that anything they've encountered in the feywild, aside from patrolling henchmen obviously, is likely unique to that moment and unlikely to be repeated.
oh! and maybe alternate combat and non-combat encounters. there was a pretty great post here about feywild encounters not too long ago... some fey lord strolling by your helmed horrors seems less strange if you saturate the area with strange things: technicolor trees with [spell]slow[/slow] time under the branches, glowing berries that just make noise, mushroom rings that teleport a careless walker 15ft away, friendly local rangers who give directions into hazards, a rainbow snatching birds out of the sky, etc...
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Going forward, the above advice is amazing. What I'd recommend is that [x]d[y] encounters are introduced in phases: the first and second Helmed Horror could be a forward group, scouting ahead; the third and fourth could be the middle ranks that will join later; the fifth and sixth, depending on how the party's doing, might only chase the players rather than focus on fighting, they might be distracted by other entities in the Feywild, or they might simply be removed from existence (as far as the party's aware, there's only 4 Helmed Horrors).
But right now, as you said it's inevitable. I'm not at your table but I'd be pretty PO'd if there was some rescue or other deus ex machina to pull the party's arse out of the fire, even if I was the dead character. Your players might disagree however, and would appreciate any help they can get. Read the room, see how folks feel. And there's nothing wrong with saying out-of-character you feel you made a mistake, and what to know what should be done about it among your players. It'll cause ripples within the immersion temporarily, but it's better to do that than for some people at the table to have resentment for the game and/or each other.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
- The Assemblage of Houses, World of Warcraft
i made a recommendation of deus ex bacon savin' but Hex is right that not everyone will want that. others might come to expect it, which i find to be worse. so, yes: ask! be honest. next session come prepared to either tell a cautionary tale of how they got away or, should they desire it, hunt them down like dogs. something in between is still picking the miracle, so just commit to one.
i also wanted to comment again to say don't be so overly afraid of "hand of god" saves that you miss out entirely on strange non sequitur encounters that can define feywild ...like the Wild Hunt, riddle gates, doppelgangers, extreme hatred of cold iron (what are those HH made of?), etc. otherwise, why pick the feywild instead of mundane elf/gnome lands? when in rome...
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!