What to do?

[AlanBruce]

Greetings! I am currently running a game where all pcs are ECL 11. This is the party make up:

human prestige paladin/cleric/inquisitor, focused on DMM Persist

drow lolth touched paladin of freedom/wizard/Abj, Champion

grey elf conjurer

grey elf beguiler

human dragon shaman (white dragon)/marshal

The party has finished a big arc in the woods, fighting a lot of tough enemies and are currently traveling with a goddess to heal the woods. The goddess is merely an npc and does her RP things, nothing mechanical. She is by no means a DMPC. If the party has had fights with her present, they protect her and they use their own abilities to fight.

Now, before they met her and began traveling with her to heal the woods, the party had a nasty encounter with a mythical beast from the Old Wars in the woods- The Child Stealer. This creature is a Julajimus (MM2) with class levels and a few tweaked powers.

The party fought him, using solid fog, fireballs, and smites, but the beast got the better end, forcing the party to flee with a dead pc in tow (later raised via revivify from a special wand). This fight would also cause them to lose their woodland guide, a pixie to the Child Stealer, since his special ability is to take fey and fey children away and twist them into Meenlocks (MM2).

Fast forward many encounters later and a climactic boss fight and the party meets up with a dryad who sent them in this mission in the first place. The dryad asks about the pixie and the party tells her what happened.

The dryad explains what the creature is, how he was able to kidnap many children in the woods and take them away. It was made apparent that the creature was both strong and cunning. This is something the party knew both IC and OOC.

With a goddess by their side, they decide its time to kill the child stealer and rescue their pixie friend. I decided to give a player the dryad's sheet upon their request- druid10/bard1 (she was a balladeer of her Coven and recorded the stories, hence the bard level, plus some party buffs in combat never hurt anyone).

At several points in their travel to his lair, deep underground, it was asked IC if they really wanted to go hunt this guy, since his time on the material was close at hand and it would leave back to his home plane (in this campaign, he is from the Unseelie Court, although he isn't a fey).

The party agrees that they will go with the two npcs and kill the child stealer regardless.

During their trek underground, they meet an aranea and her brood of spiders. A peaceful encounter, since they had met her before, the aranea warns them about what lies ahead and that it is dangerous and that they should not endanger the goddess.

The party ignores the warning and treks on.

Eventually, they reach the ruins where the creature lives and are attacked from hiding by some sneaky meenlocks using their mind rend abilities. The party, having high will saves, are able to mitigate most of the wisdom damage. The paladin of freedom is completely unaffected, so this gives them the courage to press forward.

I give the party a time to buff and they do, choosing the best spells they could- not the most optimal, considering the player who had the dryad only had barkskin cast, and she had a few good powers, like wildshape.

Sure enough, they reach the inner sanctum where a portal to the Unseelie Court is opened and their pixie friend is encased in a black cyst, gradually transforming into a meenlock and the Child Stealer ready to take him and those children he had turned so many years ago into this realm.

Battle begins.

A few lucky crits, coupled with SA and power attack drop the shaman and beguiler in round 1. The conjurer calls forth a wall of gears on the portal to prevent the monster´s escape. Sadly, the wall was cast really close to the goddess and the drow, both who were smacked by it for average damage.

The Child Stealer, having a few rogue levels, saves and gets none. He uses a meenlock who is tucked on its back to use her DD SLA and move around as a free action by ordering her and he getting full attacks around the room and outside the room as well.

By round 3, the only one who has hurt it is the paladin, who used surge of strength and a few other buffs to go nova...but not enough to drop him.

The dryad, used by the player, casts deep slumber on the guy, although they knew IC that he was immune to enchantments- a wasted turn.

The party then resorts to use reflex save spells on him, despite the fact they knew he was a rogue type. The saves are passed as the carnage ensues.

At this point, I groan as I have the npc goddess, who was fixed on releasing the trapped pixie to use her SLA and cast Heal each round on the party, keeping them safe and sound. A cheap trick, I know, but being a goddess of healing, it is within her powers to do so. And I did not want for her to be used at full power, merely being a secondary character in this fight.

With the party dead or dying, the goddess pulls a MIB and asks the Child Stealer to eat her in exchange for their lives, a bluff the monster buys and absorbs her into his belly, not before her asking the party through telepathy to dispel the wall of gears, which was causing more harm than good and dispelling the pixie´s trap.

She also used that round to Heal the entire group again.

So now I feel conflicted. Was this even played right? They knew the stakes and were warned IC many times that they were not ready. Now, with a high level npc, it has become a DMPC, something I did not want at all.

The creature is CR 16, but how much XP should be awarded for this encounter? was it my fault for sending them there? if so, should I award more XP than usual?

Sorry for the rant, I just feel like I played this part poorly.

[Callin]

I honestly would only give a very small negligible amount. Probably closer to nil. They screwed up bad and I felt real sorry for em while reading that lol. Just alot of bad choices were mad and some bad luck as well. Which can not be helped.

You had to save em twice. Great for the campaign. Dont fault that and dont hate yourself for it. Have the goddess fade away saying something along the lines of "I have chosen my champions poorly, I shall await for the time when they are ready." Then have em level up and maybe try to get back into her good graces?

[Smorgonoffz]

I give the party a time to buff and they do, choosing the best spells they could- not the most optimal, considering the player who had the dryad only had barkskin cast, and she had a few good powers, like wildshape.

Did you explain to the player the dryads druidic abilities or not?

[AlanBruce]

I was thinking about that. The goddess plans to weaken him from inside while they buy time to dispel both the wall of gears and the pixie´s trap- something I thought they would come up on their own.

I don´t plan on them killing it, but perhaps having it flee through the portal and maybe, later, when the PCs are higher level, go and fight him in the Unseelie Court? Who knows. I have taken the opportunity of the holidays to give pause to the game so the players may come up with a strategy of their own.

[AlanBruce]

Did you explain to the player the dryads druidic abilities or not?

I gave the player her sheet which explained everything in full detail, including wildshape and a page reference for them to look it up if it wasn't clear.

[Red Fel]

I'm conflicted.

On the one hand, when the DM goes to great pains to tell the players, "This guy is really strong, don't fight him, also he's leaving soon, so you don't have to," the players kind of deserve what they get for fighting the guy anyway.

On the other hand, I'm going to put some of the blame on you. You had them fight the Child Stealer. (I don't know the EL on that encounter, so I don't know if it was too high for the players.) You took their pixie friend. You gave them a goddess as backup. So, all common sense and metagame knowledge aside, what did you think would happen?

Look at it from a narrative perspective. The heroes have just succeeded on some mission. Suddenly, a big bad emerges from nowhere, kills one of their number and abducts another. Of course they're going to go after him. And they have a goddess with them! And everyone telling them to turn back? That means they have an epic battle to win! So they confront the bad guy in his lair and... Well, they probably expected you would fiat something that would, at the very least, give them the edge. That's what the narrative says, at least.

The reality is that they messed up. They faced an enemy they could not beat, and you had to bail them out. Shame on them. But you kind of set up that expectation. Unless you're running a particularly gritty "Everyone you love will die or be abducted" campaign, they had reason to expect that they were on a rescue mission that had some chance of success.

[AlanBruce]

I'm conflicted.

On the one hand, when the DM goes to great pains to tell the players, "This guy is really strong, don't fight him, also he's leaving soon, so you don't have to," the players kind of deserve what they get for fighting the guy anyway.

On the other hand, I'm going to put some of the blame on you. You had them fight the Child Stealer. (I don't know the EL on that encounter, so I don't know if it was too high for the players.) You took their pixie friend. You gave them a goddess as backup. So, all common sense and metagame knowledge aside, what did you think would happen?

Look at it from a narrative perspective. The heroes have just succeeded on some mission. Suddenly, a big bad emerges from nowhere, kills one of their number and abducts another. Of course they're going to go after him. And they have a goddess with them! And everyone telling them to turn back? That means they have an epic battle to win! So they confront the bad guy in his lair and... Well, they probably expected you would fiat something that would, at the very least, give them the edge. That's what the narrative says, at least.

The reality is that they messed up. They faced an enemy they could not beat, and you had to bail them out. Shame on them. But you kind of set up that expectation. Unless you're running a particularly gritty "Everyone you love will die or be abducted" campaign, they had reason to expect that they were on a rescue mission that had some chance of success.

I definitely am to blame for setting the conditions you mentioned. The mission was initially of a rescue type, which can be done- the pixie can be saved.

All it needed was a few rounds to break the seal around him.

However, when the place where he is springs a wall of gears and starts smacking people around, concentration becomes difficult.

The party was aware that this goddess was of a healing nature, not battle, and they know that she is very fragile (she gets exhausted very fast after performing various miracles, like healing large swaths of land at once). So they knew that going in there and fighting the guy with her could be a liability by losing her.

I do have some gritty aspects to my campaign- some npcs are beyond redemption/salvation. This wasn't the case here.

Thank you for your input.

[Feint's End]

Well I agree with Red Fel for some parts but there is still some things that bother me. Sure it was tempting for them to go after the Child Stealer but they just played it out very poorly (casting deep slumber on an enemy with more than 10 HD and immune to enchantment? not knowing wildshape?).

So I wouldn't put the fault on you. As a PC in this group I'd say "ok guys ... we messed it up pretty badly. Lets thank our Dm for not groupwhiping us and make it better next time."

Two more things:
The Godess and Dryad are still not DMPCs. The difference between a DMPC and a necessary NPC for the story are more than just in what extend you use them. It's mainly a mental thing ... do you play the NPC because you want to play and can't because you DM? That's a DMPC. Did you play the NPC the way the NPC would and how it progresses the story? That's still a NPC ... even if it overshadowed the other players or helped them massively. Still a NPC. (even though it's probably not such a smart idea to begin with).

As for the exp reward? I personally would give them a good amount of exp ... not because they defeated the enemy but because I'm not a big fan of awarding exp for killing if you didn't learn anything from it. In this case the group actually learned a lot (at least I hope so ... if they still haven't understood what they did wrong then go ahead and don't give them any) and should be rewarded.
As an example: Imagine the group would have completely stomped the encounter ... did their Characters actually learn a lot? I don't think so. Next fight they probably gonna do the same thing since it worked so well in the past even with an enemy who was supposedly really strong. They didn't learn .... or well ... at least nothing smart ("just hitting it till it's dead always works").

Conclussive:
-Don't be so hard at yourself. You played your part as a DM very well and it sounds like it would be a pleasure to play in your games. If you ever start a PbP game here let me know.
-Reward them exp as usual if you feel like they actually learned something from this encounter. After all exp should come from experience and a wise man once said that you often learn the most from the most painful ones.
-I'd also talk to them OOC about this encounter and about smart gameplay. Let them know that if they repeatadly fail to play their characters that eventually there won't be a godess to save their *heads*. I would give them this talk anyways since they are entering teens now and it's getting more and more important to do this since the encounters get more and more unforgiving.

edit:
also about the enemy being too strong: as a general formula the CR a normal op group of 4 can expect to beat using all their daily ressources is average Cl of the group (in your case 11) + 4 = 15 --> now your enemy is CR 16 BUT the group does have 5 characters + 1 Druide NPC (fully playable) + a support (healbot)

basically your group should be able to beat this enemy even if it has subordinates. I still stand at the point that it was just played badly.

[Feint's End]

double post sry ...

[lytokk]

Also, I would say she wasn't a DMPC because you did with her what DMPCs don't typically do. Stand in the back, heal the group, keep the group on their feet, and sacrifice themselves in order to save the group.

[Maginomicon]

Every time I see one of these "my players did something mindbogglingly stupid" threads, I have to wonder whether judicious use of Passive Wisdom and Passive Knowledge (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=310882) might have averted it or be useful in preventing stuff like it in the future. Passive Wisdom is a free excuse for a GM to say "OOC you think this is awesome and totally worth the risk, but IN character your background growing up and personal history with this kind of thing are screaming at you that this is a TERRIBLE idea that WILL result in all of you getting killed." (although not necessarily in those words). Passive Knowledge (even without ranks) lets you as GM say "IN character you know enough about the fey to recognize that this thing is way too powerful for you all to take on and you should probably run like hell."

Furthermore, you should talk to your players about the importance of the "flight" part of "fight or flight response". Players too often seem to assume that "if it's there, we are meant to kill it". It's not the "fear of god" that you need to instill in them, it's the "fear of nasty creatures four times your size with nasty pointy teeth".

[AlanBruce]

Thank you all for your responses and input.

I am also of the idea that not everything met is something killed and looted.

There are beings out there, in out of the way places, that are bigger and badder than the pcs. These creatures are dangerous and can be taken on later with some leveling up or smart tactics.

A little background on the Child Stealer and the party.

Due to in game events, the Child Stealer was awakened from its slumber by the inadvertent actions of a party member. Every night in the woods, the wizard would cast rope trick and they would notice a large hulking shadow not too far away, stalking, but never attacking.

It was the day the mage did not prepare rope trick and that night fell that the beast made its move, which killed a pc and caused their pixie guide to be snatched away.

I understand the reason the party has for going after the Child Stealer. I portrayed him as truly evil and sadistic, taking much joy from twisting fey children into servile meenlocks. I did not expect the tactics used to be used, considering that they knew much about his attack pattern as he knew about theirs.

[Zubrowka74]

Ok, a group of mostly tier 1 PCs goes after a much more powerfull enemy despite you warning them? It can't be ebtirely your fault. Like you said, you have several options. The BBEG could flee to the unseelie court with all the captured / corrupted feys. The godess could buy the PC time so they can go research and find a way to defeat him. They sidequest to go get a McGuffin or they research a spell that will affect it. The heroes don't always succeed at the first try. Now you have some story possibilities opened up.

Someone mentioned passive knowledge checks. That could have been an option.

[AlanBruce]

Ok, a group of mostly tier 1 PCs goes after a much more powerfull enemy despite you warning them? It can't be ebtirely your fault. Like you said, you have several options. The BBEG could flee to the unseelie court with all the captured / corrupted feys. The godess could buy the PC time so they can go research and find a way to defeat him. They sidequest to go get a McGuffin or they research a spell that will affect it. The heroes don't always succeed at the first try. Now you have some story possibilities opened up.

Someone mentioned passive knowledge checks. That could have been an option.

I asked for Dungeoneering checks to find out what this guy could do.

The rolls were very low, so many abilities were learned the hard way- in the field of battle, or through some exposition given to them later by the dryad that traveled with them.

[Maginomicon]

I asked for Dungeoneering checks to find out what this guy could do.

The rolls were very low, so many abilities were learned the hard way- in the field of battle, or through some exposition given to them later by the dryad that traveled with them.
That's why it's important that they're passive. Passive Wisdom so that they can interpret from what they learn from others about the danger, Passive Knowledge so that it doesn't matter if they miss the DC 10+HD for the creature on an active roll, they at least automatically learn the "really easy" stuff that their passive skill would give them about the situation (for example, that if the fey are scared of it you should be scared of it too). I'm not saying that you should have done this (you didn't think of X or Y, so it'd be unreasonable to say you should have done X or Y), just that it would be a useful tool going forward to try to keep in mind that in-character knowledge goes beyond what they pick up in spoken words that the players hear directly and can stretch far back into instincts picked up by the characters long before the campaign started.

[Zubrowka74]

They can always take 10 for things that are common knowledge.

[AlanBruce]

They can always take 10 for things that are common knowledge.

I was not aware of that. Thank you for pointing that out. Either that and/or give them Collector of Stories.

[dantiesilva]

I am one of the players and this game, and as all of you have stated, I feel some major mistakes were made in the battle. However one thing that was not made clear was that our enemy was a duel wielding chain wielder that can hit anyone within 25ft. Something he did not do in our last battle.

Besides that however the party made some very fatal flaws, first off we knew he had some good measure of stealth to be named the child stealer, as well as other sources informing us of such and so round 1 we should have glitterdusted him to counteract that. It never happened. Hell its round 3 and the only one who can see him is my inquisitor. (DMM has gotten a cap on it meaning at this time I only have 2 persists a day if anyone was thinking it was a persist every spell build) Our Dragon shaman also has a special ability that allows her to freeze an opponent though it takes 3 rounds to use, our enemy can not move them three rounds as well. Saying each and every time I close in to Full attack him, he DD out of my reach which is very frustrating, but is a very good role play and use of sources for the character we are facing.

We then learned threw the effects of a breath weapon he had evasion, and instead of using spells that would be useful half our party got harmed as Alan said, by a wall of gears. The problem is not the group learning how to stratigive in battle, but for individuals to learn how to adapt I have seen. Myself and the other paladin try to cut of both escape routes and charging smite rhino rush our enemies, this battle has not been able to happen yet, but that has been fine. As we have at least kept him on his toes and made it hard for him to go anywhere without being in a line of a charge from one of three melee characters. The problem is our mages using spells that are naturally good, but so often the enemy adapts.

I was thinking of making the suggestion to the one who for example casts mass fire shield to take energy substitution Acid or something that way he now had 3 options of types of damage to deal. I as a player in this game do not even feel like we deserve the experience as it has been a lot of mistakes that have been done before. The mages use up their high level spells on things they like instead of on things that will help the battle go more smoothly. Do you think that I as a fellow player should instead try talking to them? I know I have tried in the past to help them and have meet resistance most of the time but at this point it becomes me buffing everyone including myself that deals melee damage and then trying to smack the thing down before our mages kill us in friendly fire or bad use of spells.

[Callin]

Do you guys use a battle map?

[AlanBruce]

Do you guys use a battle map?

Yes we do. Every single battle uses a battlemap created through pyromancers, since we do PbP.

[rexx1888]

my view on this is solidly against the players. Fact is, i play a character in my campaign that follows the line of "if it bleeds, we can kill it" to the letter, but i dont act like a frigging moron relying on dm fiat to keep me and my party alive. They walked into a big ole cave with no thought for stealth or precautions or bringing the thing out to them, just wandered into its home turf.. and worse yet, they knew its weakness.

The damn thing STEALS CHILDREN AND FEY, if that isn't a recipe for a solid trap then nothing is(its even leaving soon, so a quick easy meal should have made it a bit sloppy an blind to the risks). Hell, they had a dryad with them, they could have used it for bait for crying out loud(whether by making it look younger or using illusion or getting it to summon a fey buddy that fits the meal ticket better etc). An, i get that sometimes the dm isnt quick to catch a player's plan, so players should always take the time to discuss it yata yata yata, but with careful planning many difficult encounters are doable an it seems to me the OP would have been open to a clever plan and run it well(as in not just giving it to the players but not just fiating that it didnt work).

As such, you cant say the dm made a poor decision giving the players the means to make meaningful choices. You can blame the players for expecting him to take them away with fiat. Honestly, you should murder the PC's for being so daft. Using abilities that hurt your own party is always stupid(the exception being that initially it harms the enemy, but they do something to turn it around, you cant predict everything). Not planning to just grab their friend an get out after being told the thing is tough is just dumb. players are there to play to win, and they played poorly. It's not always the DM's job to keep a party alive. Hell when they do that they make the game less fun, because it cheapens the challenge so players are always wondering whether they actually won or if they were just allowed to. next session, kill them. Bring spare sheets, maybe have a one shot prepped in advance so everyone can keep playing and its not a wasted sessions(because the goal here isnt to be an arse, its just to play the scenario, an i see no reason why this thief would let the pc's live. He has them on the ropes, he caught the goddess an the pc's are nearly dead while he's practically fine) kill them, an next session make them a forum where they can talk about what they learn in a fight so they can do that after each session

[Krobar]

Sometimes players just make really bad decisions that leave you sitting there wondering what the he'll they could possibly be thinking.

When the DM asks you... "are you sure you wanna do that?" He's telling you that laying down & pretending you're dead is a bad idea when you're fighting a pack of dire wolves.

[Abaddona]

I can see that they underestimated their foe - it happens even to the best players. But seriously - what they did after coming into creature's hideout is just plain stupid. First - casting spell in such a way that two your comrades are getting caught in it along with enemy, did they thought that this goddes will heal them immediately or what? Seriously - you don't have to be some sort of genius to deduce that in boss fight your enemy will be tougher in some way than the rest of players, so AoEing him along with your party members seems like a bad idea. Then casting spells he is outright immune to and after that targetting his strong save.
Furthermore they are casters or gishess - those classes aren't crippled by life like fighters etc. so they need DM protection. And really "liking to cast this spell" isn't an excuse when this spell is inapropriate for situation or endangers life of other characters. Every reasonable person would feed the wizard his own spellbook if he didn't aim carefully his AoE spells. Things like that should really be solved either OoC or IC. As for results of the encounter - they should get some experience (they survived an encounter even if this was thanks to DM fiat) but they should also feel consequences of their failure (lost reputation, maybe some sort of curse as the parting gift from their nemesis etc.) till they redeem themself.