I think Reed the Revenant has a much brighter - or darker - future than Reed the halfling wizard-thief did. The Chaos Scar does not forgive such gross lapses of judgement as hitting enemies a few squares away with a fireball while one's defender is under the spell of a beholder's petrify ray, and the healer is out of range across dozens of squares of difficult terrain, and the striker is tied up with said beholder, especially when said enemies are in the process of attacking said beholder and drawing the attention away from said Reed the late halfling wizard thief.
However, I also expect that Reed the Revenant has an unholy duty to give that DM sheer hell at every turn from hereon in. It's what I would do.
I have to agree with you regarding the GMs role. A coup de grace isn't that much fun and does remove some of the tension. However I think the adventure Dan is running is probably supposed to be hard and death and revenantness is a twist in the story. In that regard killing you via coup de grace to being you back as a revenant is an interesting turn. As roleplaying is cooperative I always like to discuss this before taking the action but I can see how in the heat of the moment that can be overlooked.
I don't think the role of the DM in 4e is completely adversarial though. I actually think encounter wise they are trying to create a moving puzzle for the players to solve. Ultimately you want to make it hard but that also depends on the skill level of your players to solve the puzzle and ideally you want to create a situation where the players run 3-4 encounters in a row so that they start losing resources so the puzzle needs to be weighted carefully. Part of this the adventure design and part of it is the DM playing it out. If you play
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Yeah, in hindsight it was probably a bit much - story at a the expense of entertainment in this case.
Reed had been looking for trouble from the start, though, and trouble certainly found him. It wasn't the first time these particular NPCs had started a fight on the same side as the PCs and then had the halfling pound them with a fireball from behind. Fool the Ogre decided that it would definitely be the last time, but little does he know that the Raven Queen is not done with Reed in this world yet. Or with Fool.
What it did do was turn the tables of the encounter, which had been up until that point a fairly bland matter of 6 dudes wailing on a beholder, into 2 PCs struggling to deal with a beholder and an enraged ogre, and for a couple of rounds there it could've gone either way.
But nothing bites quite like having to sit out half the night because someone put a morning star through your skull. And for that I have already apologised. Bad DM.
Don't sweat it :-) these things happen and Reed wasn't exactly being constructive... He should have delayed the fireball about two more turns and then danced away ;p
It certainly meant there was a LOT more tension for the rest of the party after that... And as for sitting out poor Lance had seven failed rolls to save being petrified? So that brought it down to 2 pcs vs 3 monsters...
That being said I actually like the story arc we are building with bringing him back as Wreade the Revenant.. He might be a little more circumspect in his actions (making sure he is safe first) but he is likely to be more aggressive in his disregard for others..
I like the power I have found which drops a pile of acid spilling maggots on a foe! Mwhahahahaha
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I think Reed the Revenant has a much brighter - or darker - future than Reed the halfling wizard-thief did. The Chaos Scar does not forgive such gross lapses of judgement as hitting enemies a few squares away with a fireball while one's defender is under the spell of a beholder's petrify ray, and the healer is out of range across dozens of squares of difficult terrain, and the striker is tied up with said beholder, especially when said enemies are in the process of attacking said beholder and drawing the attention away from said Reed the late halfling wizard thief.
However, I also expect that Reed the Revenant has an unholy duty to give that DM sheer hell at every turn from hereon in. It's what I would do.
Reply
I don't think the role of the DM in 4e is completely adversarial though. I actually think encounter wise they are trying to create a moving puzzle for the players to solve. Ultimately you want to make it hard but that also depends on the skill level of your players to solve the puzzle and ideally you want to create a situation where the players run 3-4 encounters in a row so that they start losing resources so the puzzle needs to be weighted carefully. Part of this the adventure design and part of it is the DM playing it out. If you play ( ... )
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Reed had been looking for trouble from the start, though, and trouble certainly found him. It wasn't the first time these particular NPCs had started a fight on the same side as the PCs and then had the halfling pound them with a fireball from behind. Fool the Ogre decided that it would definitely be the last time, but little does he know that the Raven Queen is not done with Reed in this world yet. Or with Fool.
What it did do was turn the tables of the encounter, which had been up until that point a fairly bland matter of 6 dudes wailing on a beholder, into 2 PCs struggling to deal with a beholder and an enraged ogre, and for a couple of rounds there it could've gone either way.
But nothing bites quite like having to sit out half the night because someone put a morning star through your skull. And for that I have already apologised. Bad DM.
Reply
It certainly meant there was a LOT more tension for the rest of the party after that... And as for sitting out poor Lance had seven failed rolls to save being petrified? So that brought it down to 2 pcs vs 3 monsters...
That being said I actually like the story arc we are building with bringing him back as Wreade the Revenant.. He might be a little more circumspect in his actions (making sure he is safe first) but he is likely to be more aggressive in his disregard for others..
I like the power I have found which drops a pile of acid spilling maggots on a foe! Mwhahahahaha
Reply
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