User blog:Hashimashadoo/Man, my guys suck

My campain for my PnP group is quite large; potentially epic in scope. The players however, will not reach that kind of power level if they continue to DIE at this rate. This week they lost another player character, making it the second death in 4 sessions.

This is especially upsetting as the PC who died had a personal quest available to her that I was particularly proud of.

The campaign that they are on is of a challenge level roughly 2 ECLs below their average but apparently 3 monstrous ECL 10 characters can't take on a Behir.

To recap: There is a moon elf vampire spawn archer (Ranger 2 with a +1 composite shortbow [+4 Str] and AC 22), a human warrior (Fallen Paladin 8/Blackguard 2 with a bastard sword Legacy Weapon (and the least legacy feat with it) and AC 21) as well as some arcane support (moon elf natural wererat Dread Necromancer 5 with AC 17)

The vampire sees the Behir in the fog, warns the party and opens fire, moving to 30 feet to use Point Blank Shot. The Blackguard has some minor hitpoint loss from previous battles that hasn't fully healed yet but she charges straight into melee. The Dread Necromancer, in hybrid form, who has his full spell compliment available also opens fire with his bow, shooting into a melee with his already low attack bonus vs an AC 20 creature meaning that he doesn't hit squat. The Blackguard starts taking a beating. She is quickly grappled, constricted and helpless while her fellows just keep shooting. Running low on hitpoints within a few rounds while the Behir still has 2/3s of its hp, the blackguard screams for her party to do something. The wererat casts Ray of Enfeeblement and does 4 strength damage before continuing to not hit anything with his bow. It helps, but the blackguard is disabled in 2 rounds and dead in 3. The others have now managed to bring the Behir down below 30hp, which I have scripted as the trigger for it to flee the combat. Now the Necromancer decides to cast Summon Undead II to bring in an owlbear skeleton directly in the Behir's avenue of retreat and the vampire uses the time that buys to kill it.

The necromancer's player (who is a bit of a sociopath) cackles at Blackguard's player's distress as he asks for the experience reward, commenting that now the Blackguard is dead the XP will only be divided by 2.

I am starting to think that this 'evil' campaign was not such a good idea in the first place.

Saying that though, I don't think it was Necromancer's intention for Blackguard to die. He just sees the up-side of the situation. Maybe he will change his tune when he's inevitably surrounded by orcs next week. In the mean-time I have written up a couple of NPCs (one of which I've given to Blackguard's player, the other I've kept to play myself)

And who knows, maybe someone will resurrect Blackguard when (or if) the party returns to town.