Wow, That Was a Slog 0.o

[the_gneech]

Every once in a while, a game session grinds like a car that can't get into gear, which is alas what we had tonight in jamesbarrett's game. A baddy that's been floating around since the game began forced a confrontation, which baddies are prone to do occasionally, but it was done in such a way that it took us the better part of the night just to get to him, and then the actual fight started.

"We" being nine 10th level characters, "he" being a 15th level fighter/rogue, his lackey who I'm guessing is probably another rogue or possibly fighter/rogue around 6th-10th level, an ally who is at least a 7th level druid ... and a summoned vrock (CR 9). Yeeks. We broke up at midnight because, y'know, camstone goes to church in the morning, and the fight was still going on. At least the main baddie (with his ring of invisibility and cloak of displacement and so on) got taken out.

I knew things were going to be trouble when the baddie started the fight by coming this close to one-punching camstone's paladin ... whereas none of us could land a significant hit on him. It's frustrating enough to hear "Your hit does no damage, his evasion negates your spell," but combined with somebody doing insane huge amounts of damage, you have a recipe for players going "WTF?"

There was also dispute about a heal / cure potion, marked on our records as a "potion of healing." My theory is that when we found it, we were told, "You don't know exactly what it is, but it looks like some kind of healing potion," which covers anything from cure light wounds to resurrection. But later, we had "healing potion" written down, and didn't get it identified because we all just assuming it was heal. In this particular case, since he'd just been almost-one-punched, camstone was really relieved to have a heal, only to find out that it was actually a cure critical wounds, which when you're down to 14 hit points from 75, is considerably less useful. I think this was about the point where the session really turned sour ... it was sorta like one negation right after another for several turns in a row.

Oh well, shit happens. I had a session that I thought would be a cool and exciting combat turn into a slog because the characters did precisely the opposite of what I thought they would. Ya just roll with it and try to do better next time.

The good news is, we've taken out one of the major baddies; we're also staring with serious intent at a minor-but-significant baddie, and things are coming to a head with another of the group's NPCs. As handy as it's been to have nine characters, I suspect that at least one and maybe two NPCs will be leaving soon, which will be a relief. With three PCs, three player-controlled-NPCs (if that makes sense), and four full-blown NPCs -- with several characters doing two or three attacks per round -- doing a single round of combat takes about an hour and a half. -.-

-The Gneech

Comments

[frostdemn.livejournal.com]

Wow, wish I could join... Too bad I'm states away.. XP

[stilghar.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I miss RPing.

If you think that was bad, you should've seen the White Wolf session I witnessed, with no fewer than 12 PCs, theoretically capable of an average of 3-6 actions per round. @,@

I'm still annoyed that I broke my Fang Dagger. :/

[russ-arulo.livejournal.com]

See, I'm sure this string of negations and evasions and powerful baddies with lackeys isn't a common occurrence, but I'm curious: for you, what is the interest in RPing like this and how do you maintain it?

The time involved and the frustration of evasions or missed hits or healing would irritate me to the point where I might actually go berserk on the other players.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Well, for me RPing is all about meeting cool NPCs and exploring fantastical places. And tweaking the villains! I love tweaking the villains. ;)

-The Gneech

[stilghar.livejournal.com]

Hee. You've just reminded me of a peculiarity of my first Star Wars campaign (the old D6 West End system):

Any character or NPC, Rebel, Imperial or Other, making a speech of any kind, was immediately shot by the entire party, including Jedi and Droids. ;)

[camstone.livejournal.com]

The time involved and the frustration of evasions or missed hits or healing would irritate me to the point where I might actually go berserk on the other players.

One almost did... and left wondering... "Is this actually fun anymore?"

[purrzah.livejournal.com]

RPG players are like cats. You can't herd 'em. I've discovered this. I plan, chortle over my plans, look eager... and they go wandering elsewhere.

As for the baddie... my own group that I'm a player in faced one the other day. Beautiful armor that pretty much gave him a resistance to everything, included displacement, and he was packed to the gills with wands and rods and bracers/gauntlets etc etc etc. I have no idea how powerful he was otherwise. Our group consists of eight characters averaging about 15th level by now.

We took one look at him and decided to go look for the key he mentioned was the only other way past the portal he was guarding.

Our GM was a bit surprised.

I told him our characters were stupid, not suicidal. ;)

[alex-bushtail64.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I am running a RIFTS campagin right now, and the PC's are completely going off anything I could even remotely think up........Doesn't help that 2 are diabolic and 2 are lawful (Obviously, extreme ends of the spectrum here). They try to kill each other, since playing in character gets you experience. *sighs* They're about to go up against a creature that has 1,100 or so MDC (Mega Damage.....lasers and stuff to MDC.) They're going to most likely kill themselves before they even do anything to the creature! Sometimes, I think these characters are stupid and suicidal!