PCs in Peril - Save Them or Screw Them?

[supersonic29]

I'm about to meet with my regular group I DM again (3.5) and I took a moment to remember where we left off:
The party is in a labyrinth with something they have no hope to kill, only to escape, however they spent most of last session trying to kill it anyways. As a result of this, everyone is wounded and the party's "tank" is unconscious. I really don't know if I see them escaping unless they really pull something out of the hat or I spare them somehow with a fudging of numbers.

I think I know about what I'll do myself, but I got to thinking about situations like this in general. If you were to be or have been caught in a situation like this, what do you do and why? Do you believe that they had their way out and said goodbye to it, or get them out somehow for sake of the campaign's enjoyment?

[FocusWolf413]

Did you give them any hints that the thing was practically unkillable? If not, that's your fault, and you should cut them a little slack. If you gave them ample warning, let them die.

You shouldn't necessarily spare all of them. You should only pull your punches a little bit. If they have no chance, give them a 50% chance.

[ComaVision]

I've always let my groups know up front that I play things straight and don't pull punches. If they screw up bad, they're dead.

[thorr-kan]

Screw them!

Nah, let them screw themselves. Make sure there's an escape route, make a few Int checks to allow them to realize they're over their heads, and let the dice fly as they may.

Even money says they pull something out of their hat and pull it off.

[Strigon]

Well, how much of this is their fault?
It's all about what the players expect; if you let them die, there's a decent chance they'll get upset because they prefer games where they're essentially unkillable. If you know they expect potentially lethal consequences for their actions, they might not be upset.
Also, have you been suggesting that they can't kill the monster? When they've fought it, have you been suggesting that their attacks were even remotely successful? If so, it's on you to fix the mistake. If you've been making it clear, then there's a good reason to let them die.


In any case, the safe thing to do is give them an out that doesn't look like DM fiat. No players will be upset because they beat a difficult challenge, but they might get upset if you screw with the narrative just to save them, or if you let them die.

[supersonic29]

The thing ate most of their damage from his DR, which I made constant effort to express, and was dishing out insane amounts of damage to them. Not one-shot insane, but they were warning shots. This was also not the first time in the campaign they encountered something they couldn't best and had to do something else, so it was nothing new to them.

In the end it went very well though, one player did die, but he consciously decided to try and ambush the beast (for xp) rather than leave the adjacent exit, so he 110% earned it in my opinion.

[Quertus]

As a rule, don't save them.

But... using this specific example... on the off chance you feel you needed to but may not have given them enough information to make an informed decision regarding the beast, you could have started the next session off with a strongly flavored recap: "So, having decided to attack the unkillable beast, you discovered your blows bounced off ineffectually. When we ended last session, <tank> was unconscious, and I was trying to figure out how you were going to escape this mess alive. Whose turn was it?"

[Crake]

I'd personally go with screw them. I have had a DM who's philosophy was "throw everything at the players, and if they start to drop like flies, have the enemies drop 100 points of IQ in 5 seconds flat and play them terribly" and it was incredibly obvious and painful to play against, and made every win totally unsatisfying. If you are going to fudge things, make sure it's subtle enough that the players don't notice at least.

[Curmudgeon]

The Dungeon Master's Guide table for encounter difficulty says 5% of encounters should be of "overpowering" difficulty, and another 15% "very difficult". If your players don't realize that about 1 time in 5 they're supposed to run away, they're going to get their characters killed.

[elonin]

I'd say let them deal with their consequences or you deserve whatever you get. Though I am curious, did you railroad them into this predicament? Or at least until they were supposed to run.

[thorr-kan]

I'd say let them deal with their consequences or you deserve whatever you get. Though I am curious, did you railroad them into this predicament? Or at least until they were supposed to run.
To quote a wiser women than I:
“It's not railroading if you offer the PCs tickets and they stampede to the box office, waving their money. Metaphorically speaking.”
--Elizabeth McCoy, In Nomine Line Editor

ETA: Or as my players say, "It's Friday night. We're beat. We have three hours. Railroad us; we want to kill something."

[prufock]

They should have at least 3 ways to escape. Running away might have already been eliminated as an option, but you should offer two more chances of getting away. You should not force them to do so.

[Tarlek Flamehai]

I only save the PCs if it was my fault they got into the mess. When I first started running GURPS I one-shotted the party tank with a Giant Butcher-bird...it was supposed to be a random encounter/minor dust-up.

Piercing damage to the head is nothing to sneeze at.

If the beasty is supposed to be that deadly, and the players chose to stand and fight, let the bodies hit the floor.

[Seward]

Let them die if they insist on fighting to the death.

If the critter might take prisoners/slaves, that's always an option even in a TPK. If it's just hungry, a dead PC can often distract it while the others run away, if they're willing to run.

Getting players to run away is really hard. I've been the player sometimes in those fights and somebody always tries to keep fighting. I always consider it a major victory if a party I'm with actually disengages without losing somebody.

If the critter really is capable of chasing down and killing everybody, that's the moment for someone to sacrifice themselves in a last stand to draw fire.

This is the kind of encounter which can be a good teaching experience for the players, if any of the party survives. Have an experienced ex-adventurer or other NPC they respect give advice - there are lots of fairly cheap one-off spells that can live on scrolls that really help these situations - I can't tell how many times obscuring mist or minor illusion spells allowed a withdraw, leaving aside more brute force approaches like wall of force, wall of stone or dimension door/teleport.

[Segev]

Consider options that do not result in their deaths, but which still cost. These may not be viable, but consider them. Think hard about your setting, what plot elements there are, who is interested in the PCs. Who is nearby and could be interested.

Play it out fairly. They should know they're down and need to get to safety. Let them plan how they'll do this. Run the game as you would in response to that; don't throw them a line. If they make it out, they'll feel all the more awesome for it. And PCs can be VERY good at figuring out how to make their own lifelines. Be willing to work with them on that; if they have an idea, let it have as fair a chance of working as possible without making it a "gimme."