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Lord Tyger
2011-11-03, 05:10 PM
Background:

So, the other night, I was running a session for some friends. Part of the campaign world is this morally bankrupt but financially quite well off company that dominates a small city built on millennia of ancient ruins. (The company controls the recovery of artifacts from these ruins, and the later sale of those artifacts).

As the characters arrived at a temple, they found a faceoff between excavators, wanting a higher wage for digging into temples frequently full of traps and horrible, horrible guardians, and the company's paid thugs. This is something I like to do, where I give players a choice which side they want to put themselves on.

As players are wont to do, they chose option 3- make an appointment with the local head of the company (one of the co-owners) under the pretext of offering to help settle the labor dispute, and then stab him in the face. And take over the company. Somehow.

Anyways, they got into a fight with the owner and his bodyguard. Since he's rich and they're fairly low level, it was a tough fight, (second level party vs fifth level monk+aristocrat with a Bag of Tricks and Healing Wand). As it should have been.

Unfortunately, one of my players ended up on the wrong side of an enraged wolverine's attack, and dropped from full health to exactly zero in one round. The fight continued for quite a while after that, but there was little she could do, since the any strenuous activity would knock her to negative one and dying. Meanwhile, all of the other enemy combatants were involved, so she wasn't in any active danger, either.

I know from experience that having to sit out a large section of a fight like that can be irritating, and I feel especially bad since this player had previously expressed dissatisfaction with the speed of the campaign (less the campaign itself, and more our ability to get together and play regularly/the amount of OOC joking/conversation that goes on at the table).

Anyone have any suggestions to help prevent or mitigate this? The problem was partly exacerbated by the fact that no one had healing magic, so I'm hoping that the wand will come in useful in preventing this (assuming they make it out of the current situation alive- they're still trapped in a building full of the owner's employees and guards, including (though they don't know about it yet) another monk).

NekoJoker
2011-11-03, 07:21 PM
Being disabled is -as any other thing- a part of the game.
I have had to sit out a few combats because I found myself on the bussiness end of a sword and had to grit my teeth and take it.

people in the party should have at the very least a few healing items. if no cleric is available, the potions or the like.

yes. it is very irritating, but still fair game. let this be a small lesson for them

and... btw... throw a few more recovery items at them... just in case

Belril Duskwalk
2011-11-03, 09:47 PM
Being disabled is -as any other thing- a part of the game.
I have had to sit out a few combats because I found myself on the bussiness end of a sword and had to grit my teeth and take it.

people in the party should have at the very least a few healing items. if no cleric is available, the potions or the like.

yes. it is very irritating, but still fair game. let this be a small lesson for them

I think this is the best answer there can be. If the party has chosen to not have somebody with healing magic handy things like this will happen sometimes. Lacking a cleric, it is each player's job to carry healing potions and such to avoid this sort of thing happening very often. Also consider this, it could have been worse. She could have been knocked into the negatives and bled out while everybody else fought for their lives.

Foxwarrior
2011-11-04, 01:32 AM
I'm not sure that would be worse, actually. At least the d% adds a tiny bit of suspense to your turn.

NekoJoker
2011-11-04, 07:38 PM
Wow... this seems to have died a little, but i feel like posting again.

Just an opinion, but maybe if your party does not have or does not want to have healing items with them maybe you can homebrew something about it.

For example, how about something like healing surges? Whenever someone drops into 0 or negative have them spend a surge to get back just enough HP to get up and hit an enemy (depends on level, but about 10hp to get back on your feet should be enough).

To prevent this from being used time and time again, have it be a once per encounter kind of thing.

you may also give some thought on maybe giving them the Diehard feat for a moderate price (a quest, some money or anything that comes to mind) to have them still act during their disabled state

finally chose a name for the mechanic... I am an anime fan, so Saint Seiya comes to mind, i would call this BURN COSMOS.

give it some thought