Our first death came after the level 1 thief checked for traps on the first chest we found -- he checked! Found no traps. So (since it was his turn) the druid opened the chest, pricked his finger with a poison needle, save-or-die, fail.
Ours was a Bag of Devouring, they worked differently back then. After that it was a lot of ceiling and pit traps, hence the ten foot pole.
Some of the published adventures are pretty tough at level 1, characters are very fragile and DMs need to provide some "outs" for the characters but that can't accound fo that many deaths.
Did the trap cause instant death damage or did the druid fail his saving throws. I trap like that should be able to cause instant death but if the druid was the only person in the party with healing spells you would be in trouble. Even then there would be plenty of opportunities to stabalise the character (from which he will recover 1 HP in 1d4 hours).
This makes me wonder are you playing the "death" rules correctly going unconcious is pretty common in 5e but the mechanisms for getting back are fairly easy so deaths should be very rare.
Some of the published adventures are pretty tough at level 1, characters are very fragile and DMs need to provide some "outs" for the characters but that can't accound fo that many deaths.
Did the trap cause instant death damage or did the druid fail his saving throws. I trap like that should be able to cause instant death but if the druid was the only person in the party with healing spells you would be in trouble. Even then there would be plenty of opportunities to stabalise the character (from which he will recover 1 HP in 1d4 hours).
This makes me wonder are you playing the "death" rules correctly going unconcious is pretty common in 5e but the mechanisms for getting back are fairly easy so deaths should be very rare.
That Druid that you are talking about died in 1st edition. You’re not responding to the Original Poster with that one.
Yes, druid death was from 1st edition AD&D. The rule was "save vs. poison or die." Period. No stabilizing possible. You fail the save, character dies. In that edition, at 1st level, the saving throws on die 20 require you to beat a 17 or something, and I don't believe there were any stat bonuses. Save target numbers were exclusively based on class and level. They were up in the high teens at low level and then slowly came down to around 10 or 11 at higher levels. Why anyone thought this was a good design (to make the characters who are least likely to have a counter require a higher roll) is beyond me, but that's how it worked. There were no "DCs" -- it was 17 or higher vs. all poisons. And then there were saves vs things like disease, etc, with separate targets (might be 16 or 18 if poison was 17, depending on class).
However, the DM was inexperienced. It was our first AD&D adventure, having played Basic and Expert set before this for about a year. He had DMed one low level and one expert level adventure (Keep on the Borderlands and Castle Amber). He chose Secret of Bone Hill for our first AD&D, and that was a level 2-4 adventure but our characters were level 1. And then to make matters worse, he "buffed" it because he thought it was too easy. This is a large reason why there were so many deaths.
An experienced DM, unless he wanted it to be a killer dungeon (which this one did NOT want or he wouldn't have given level 1-2 characters a freaking Ring of Wishing to help us rez people), would know better than to put a "save vs. poison or die" needle trap on a level 1 chest. Again, even though the thief searched, he only had like a 15% chance of success (on %tile dice) in those days at level 1. An experienced DM knows, don't put something into the adventure that can outright kill a character in one shot, unless you want to outright kill characters. But although he fully understood the save-or-die mechanic, he did not have the experience to really "get" what was likely to happen when he bumped the difficulty of a dungeon that was already too high of a level for us.
On the flip side he was a Monty Hall kind of DM -- he gave us insane magic treasure. Level 3, the Paladin found a +5 Holy Avenger, and the Ranger a +5 defender sword. And as I say, we got a Ring of 3 Wishes. And that DM started our tradition of giving the party (at low level) a Portable Hole to store all our treasure in so we could ignore encumbrance.
He wasn't a jerk... Just inexperienced and did not realize how this approach warped the game. There is a reason why, after that adventure and 1 more that I DMed for that party, we stopped playing them. By then a year had passed, we'd grown from Junior High to High School, and we realized that this party was effed because they were OP and there was nowhere to go after level 5 or something with them. So we started a new party with more players and two characters per player, and that one went longer and was much more reasonable.
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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.
Thanks to everyone who reply and yes I am a player my Dm has killed five of my characters off already with no reason behind it and it is making over people not want to play anymore. Also thanks for your help with this matter as I did enjoy D N D before the DM change the rules of the whole thing to what he wants. With no reason.
That's awful... I think you really need to talk to your DM, make it clear that you and him/her don't have a same expectation of the game. Maybe the DM, as some other said in this thread, just want to throw challenging stuff at players. It is a legit DMing style and it can also often be fun, but it's certainly not for everyone. If you don't want that kind of game, you and the DM should really communicate.
Yes, druid death was from 1st edition AD&D. The rule was "save vs. poison or die." Period. No stabilizing possible. You fail the save, character dies. In that edition, at 1st level, the saving throws on die 20 require you to beat a 17 or something, and I don't believe there were any stat bonuses. Save target numbers were exclusively based on class and level. They were up in the high teens at low level and then slowly came down to around 10 or 11 at higher levels. Why anyone thought this was a good design (to make the characters who are least likely to have a counter require a higher roll) is beyond me, but that's how it worked. There were no "DCs" -- it was 17 or higher vs. all poisons. And then there were saves vs things like disease, etc, with separate targets (might be 16 or 18 if poison was 17, depending on class).
It's because Gary Gygax was a textbook killer GM who thought that the GM's job should be to kill multiple PCs per session.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yes, druid death was from 1st edition AD&D. The rule was "save vs. poison or die." Period. No stabilizing possible. You fail the save, character dies. In that edition, at 1st level, the saving throws on die 20 require you to beat a 17 or something, and I don't believe there were any stat bonuses. Save target numbers were exclusively based on class and level. They were up in the high teens at low level and then slowly came down to around 10 or 11 at higher levels. Why anyone thought this was a good design (to make the characters who are least likely to have a counter require a higher roll) is beyond me, but that's how it worked. There were no "DCs" -- it was 17 or higher vs. all poisons. And then there were saves vs things like disease, etc, with separate targets (might be 16 or 18 if poison was 17, depending on class).
It's because Gary Gygax was a textbook killer GM who thought that the GM's job should be to kill multiple PCs per session.
It was a different game back then. Back then “Players vs the DM’s Dungeon” was actually the thing.
Thanks to everyone who reply and yes I am a player my Dm has killed five of my characters off already with no reason behind it and it is making over people not want to play anymore. Also thanks for your help with this matter as I did enjoy D N D before the DM change the rules of the whole thing to what he wants. With no reason.
There is still more to this story that you haven't told us, but with what you have told me I think you should just stop playing D&D with this DM. If there was a good reason for your five characters getting killed, I have to believe the DM would have talked to you about it. If there is a good reason and the DM hasn't talked to you about it, then I would conclude the DM doesn't know how to have this discussion with you. This is probably a result of the routine you have at the table. If the reason five of your characters died is not a good one, then he might just be a poor DM.
It is funny that I have nothing invested in this yet I feel bad that friendships are going to be damaged over it. Bad experiences at the table can carry over into real life. I recommend you clear the air with your DM in private. Even if you stop playing D&D together, I'd hate for you to damage your friendships with the DM and/or some of the other players.
I wish you the best of luck getting this resolved.
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Ours was a Bag of Devouring, they worked differently back then. After that it was a lot of ceiling and pit traps, hence the ten foot pole.
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So now I'm just curious. How did all five of those PCs die?
How experianced is the DM?
Is it a ppublished adventure?
Some of the published adventures are pretty tough at level 1, characters are very fragile and DMs need to provide some "outs" for the characters but that can't accound fo that many deaths.
Did the trap cause instant death damage or did the druid fail his saving throws. I trap like that should be able to cause instant death but if the druid was the only person in the party with healing spells you would be in trouble. Even then there would be plenty of opportunities to stabalise the character (from which he will recover 1 HP in 1d4 hours).
This makes me wonder are you playing the "death" rules correctly going unconcious is pretty common in 5e but the mechanisms for getting back are fairly easy so deaths should be very rare.
That Druid that you are talking about died in 1st edition. You’re not responding to the Original Poster with that one.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Yes, druid death was from 1st edition AD&D. The rule was "save vs. poison or die." Period. No stabilizing possible. You fail the save, character dies. In that edition, at 1st level, the saving throws on die 20 require you to beat a 17 or something, and I don't believe there were any stat bonuses. Save target numbers were exclusively based on class and level. They were up in the high teens at low level and then slowly came down to around 10 or 11 at higher levels. Why anyone thought this was a good design (to make the characters who are least likely to have a counter require a higher roll) is beyond me, but that's how it worked. There were no "DCs" -- it was 17 or higher vs. all poisons. And then there were saves vs things like disease, etc, with separate targets (might be 16 or 18 if poison was 17, depending on class).
However, the DM was inexperienced. It was our first AD&D adventure, having played Basic and Expert set before this for about a year. He had DMed one low level and one expert level adventure (Keep on the Borderlands and Castle Amber). He chose Secret of Bone Hill for our first AD&D, and that was a level 2-4 adventure but our characters were level 1. And then to make matters worse, he "buffed" it because he thought it was too easy. This is a large reason why there were so many deaths.
An experienced DM, unless he wanted it to be a killer dungeon (which this one did NOT want or he wouldn't have given level 1-2 characters a freaking Ring of Wishing to help us rez people), would know better than to put a "save vs. poison or die" needle trap on a level 1 chest. Again, even though the thief searched, he only had like a 15% chance of success (on %tile dice) in those days at level 1. An experienced DM knows, don't put something into the adventure that can outright kill a character in one shot, unless you want to outright kill characters. But although he fully understood the save-or-die mechanic, he did not have the experience to really "get" what was likely to happen when he bumped the difficulty of a dungeon that was already too high of a level for us.
On the flip side he was a Monty Hall kind of DM -- he gave us insane magic treasure. Level 3, the Paladin found a +5 Holy Avenger, and the Ranger a +5 defender sword. And as I say, we got a Ring of 3 Wishes. And that DM started our tradition of giving the party (at low level) a Portable Hole to store all our treasure in so we could ignore encumbrance.
He wasn't a jerk... Just inexperienced and did not realize how this approach warped the game. There is a reason why, after that adventure and 1 more that I DMed for that party, we stopped playing them. By then a year had passed, we'd grown from Junior High to High School, and we realized that this party was effed because they were OP and there was nowhere to go after level 5 or something with them. So we started a new party with more players and two characters per player, and that one went longer and was much more reasonable.
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.
That's awful... I think you really need to talk to your DM, make it clear that you and him/her don't have a same expectation of the game. Maybe the DM, as some other said in this thread, just want to throw challenging stuff at players. It is a legit DMing style and it can also often be fun, but it's certainly not for everyone. If you don't want that kind of game, you and the DM should really communicate.
It's because Gary Gygax was a textbook killer GM who thought that the GM's job should be to kill multiple PCs per session.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It was a different game back then. Back then “Players vs the DM’s Dungeon” was actually the thing.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
There is still more to this story that you haven't told us, but with what you have told me I think you should just stop playing D&D with this DM. If there was a good reason for your five characters getting killed, I have to believe the DM would have talked to you about it. If there is a good reason and the DM hasn't talked to you about it, then I would conclude the DM doesn't know how to have this discussion with you. This is probably a result of the routine you have at the table. If the reason five of your characters died is not a good one, then he might just be a poor DM.
It is funny that I have nothing invested in this yet I feel bad that friendships are going to be damaged over it. Bad experiences at the table can carry over into real life. I recommend you clear the air with your DM in private. Even if you stop playing D&D together, I'd hate for you to damage your friendships with the DM and/or some of the other players.
I wish you the best of luck getting this resolved.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt