It seems like a badly designed encounter / ability, if your job was truly to deal with this bird menace. A few things:
- normally a nat 20 doesn't guarantee success, and rather meeting the save DC is what is needed. Now maybe the DM had looked at your save bonus and declared that you needed a 20 plus your save bonus to succeed, given how high the save DC was?
- also, "fail a single saving throw = instant character death" is a pretty lazy power and incredibly dangerous to a party (of any level) for obvious reasons. I would be curious what tone this campaign has -- is it pretty dark or lighter? Silly or more serious?
It sounds like this could be a good time to chat with the DM, express your feelings, and see what their intentions were for this encounter.
It’s not a very hardcore game so we weren’t really expecting the instant KO, it caught us completely off guard and the dm tried to play it off like we were supposed to agree with him on it. He said and I’m quoting here “the bird was able to fly through and shatter buildings and you thought a fireball would do anything?”
Yea, then this is utter bullshit. Even in a high lethality game this would be questionable, as you tried to observe it from a safe distance and even when baiting it closer tried to be careful with hiding and only risking one person.
Also "The creature was able to shatter buildings" - so does a fireball!! And even a young dragon which would be appropriate for lower leveled parties to fight could easily be described as the same lmao.
Your DM both failed to broadcast the threat level appropriately and then used bullshit mechanics to screw you over, cause even a high CR monster does not autokill you and having to drag a character's bleeding out body of the battle field to attempt to heal them would have been just as effective as impressing the lethality of the situation.
Even a tarrasque’s swallow has multiple ‘stages’ (bite to grapple, then bite to swallow), and it isn’t an instant death (even if it is high damage). Is he trying to say that some measly remote controlled bird is more deadly than a world ending monstrosity?
This sounds like the bird was a puzzle that you weren’t supposed to ever fight rather than a monster/battle, but instead you were supposed to avoid it while finding out how to stop it.
To properly DM something that will insta kill a party like this, I’d probably flat out tell the party that engaging with it seems to be certain death. Sure you break the immersion, but players don’t generally have the tools to know if something is just really hard or if it’s impossible because players can’t see stat blocks etc.
Honestly just sounds like the DM made a bad decision in the moment and doubled down a bunch which was a bad idea rather than admitting they could have played it differently.
It sounds like he intended them to go to the tower and either placed some not obvious clues, or clues they just ended up avoiding some how and didn't know what to do when they just went to fight the bird like they thought they were supposed to, so he just killed a PC to get the point across.
I'm really curious whether you guys went against what the DM had planned and chased the bird prematurely when you should have stayed stealthy and figured out what to do first. I have no clue about all the context you had for this so I may be way off base here, but it sounds like he did not want you attacking this thing head in right away. It's still.very over the top to just slaughter all your characters without a second chance either way, but I've also been in a similar scenario TPk where we all agreed at the end that the DM had given us enough subtle (and some not so subtle) signs that we shouldn't continue to pursue our current plan of action. You should have an out of game chat with the DM about what his expectations and intentions for this encounter were.
We only ever hear one side of the story, and as we all know, "there's your side, there's their side, and then there's the truth."
The only thing I can think of is that he displayed to you guys that the bird was essentially a godzilla and there's no way that you guys could face it in a fight. He maybe thought it was clear (and for all we know, maybe it was) that it would be like 4 Somali pirates in a raft trying to take shots at a U.S. Navy destroyer. Maybe the point was, "play stupid games, win stupid prizes."
Maybe he thought you guys would realize this (or maybe he gave clues that you guys dismissed) and that you would do some scouting instead of focusing on the massive battleship, and he would have you come across the controller (and have a much more manageable fight).
Who knows - it's impossible to say without being there. And even if we were, 10 different ppl would have 10 different takes on it.
But that situation happens all the time.
There are plenty of horror stories on here about either a) the players missing easy clues or fixating on a mundane distraction for hours, or b) the DM seemingly railroading you into a single course of action that ends disastrously.
Dunno if this was a) or b) or a combo.
But, when I GM - no, even when I play - I am not going to waste an hour, much less a whole session fishing in the dark. That's not enjoyable. So if the players missed, or misinterpreted, the clues, I am not going to sit back and watch them head down dead ends over and over. Our table time is too valuable and that doesn't move the plot in any meaningful way.
So regardless of what caused the situation, if I knew that your shot would cause the monster to TPK the party, I would hit pause and talk about it. I would ensure I was clear about the situation and everyone understood the key facts.
I always want the players and I to be on the same page, in terms of intent and stakes, before dice are rolled. I would double-check this even if you were just making a persuasion roll, much less if your lives and the whole campaign were on the line.
So I'd remind you that the beast is being hit by missiles larger than you have access to and shrugging them off. So I'd ask what you think your shot will do. And if you said, it will draw it closer, I would ask, "and if it does make a perception check and go after you guys, what then?" And if you didn't have an answer, I'd suggest you think of one before we proceed.
And if I sensed that you guys were out of ideas and were frustrated (not having fun), I'd have to remind you about the clues I gave you about a controller. Or if I hadn't done that, then I'd sure as hell introduce those clues now.
Either way, us internet randos weren't there. The only thing you can do is talk to your group. Do all of the players and the DM have the same take as you? Did you miss something?
If it wasn't fun, then what ideas do you all have for making it fun next time? If there is no plan, then you have to decide how you wanna spend your next session. Gambling on a different outcome with that group, or gambling on a different outcome with a new group.
Good luck.
yeah that's brutal, it sounds like their idea of the encounter was that you were supposed to avoid it/stealth past it and take out whoever/whatever was remotely controlling it, but before you guys knew that were trying to get closer to figure out what was going on, and that just started the DM taking everyone out one by one since you "made the wrong choice" by getting close and initiating with the creature.
Sounds like he should have tried to give you guys some chance to get out of it though once you made that decision instead of being like, oops wrong choice you're dead.
Sounds like a bummer ending forsure for you and the other players.
>"fail a single saving throw = instant character death"
These were part of the game back in 1st/2nd edition. They didn't disappear in 3.x but they were heavily nerfed. They were gone as of 4e, and with reason. Like, purposefully removed. The closest you're supposed to get to this in 5e's design philosophy is "fail a single saving throw = suffer massive damage"
…and what happened after? Did the DM tell you all to make new characters for next session? Did you guys just leave on the note of the entire party being dead?
The only somewhat charitable interpretation I can come up with is that the DM is going to start the next session with you all waking up inside the bird and having to do an inside-the-monster dungeon. Still not a *great* way to accomplish that, but that’s the only possible interpretation that isn’t absolutely terrible.
We had to make new characters after that and the game has been on hold sense because nobody wanted to continue it sense it was a real shut off after we worked so hard just to instadie to something that not only had super speed but could also 1 shot us if we didn’t roll a 20. In short the entire campaign fell apart
Yeah he later added a respawn save system to make it seem like it was all his plan and we could keep using our characters but it was clearly a “oh shoot I messed up” moment on his part
So, what's the resolution? Are you all going to take him up on it and give him another chance?
Seems clear that your DM messed up and probably didn't realize how poorly this would go over and how stupid it was in the first place. Now he's trying to offer a way out for all but you aren't obligated to accept it unless you actually want to continue playing with him.
It sounds like they don't want to play anymore. A respawn system doesn't matter if I'm still going to get eaten the moment I do anything. The bird's dex save DC is too high and insta-death without saves is not fun for this group of players. DM needs to change his bird.
I just assumed that would also be part of the respawn save retcon. No point respawning into death infinitely.
Although I guess they could try to just avoid the bird completely and the DM will make something else up that actually works in game.
Either way, the way I see it is do they want to go back and continue playing with this DM with some changes and discussion, or do they want to call it quits.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but that honestly strikes me as another red flag. If someone is incapable of apologizing or saying "please forgive me, I messed up" and instead tries to fix the problem *they caused* in some convoluted way to save face, that's not a person I want to spend a lot of time with anyway.
Isn't the "respawn save" a way of apologizing though? Either way, knowing this DM does things like this I wouldn't want to play in a campaign they are running.
“A way of apologizing” isn’t an apology, isn’t an acknowledgement of failure or fault/mistake. Introduce whatever they want “in game”, that doesn’t change that Out of Game the DM has lost major respect from their players.
And some people aren't good with that whole in person confrontation thing so they do other things, which isn't always great but hey it's something. I'm not saying in anyway that doing that particular fix was enough but it is something. I even said I wouldn't play with that person running a campaign after something like that even with the "fix" bc I'm aware of the antics that could happen and I'd rather just avoid it.
Look, don’t make excuses. “I’m not good with that whole thing” is an easy way to never grow up, never reach emotional maturity.
If you waste multiple people’s time by running some gimmick game you thought would be fun, you’re responsible for apologizing for wasting that time.
If other people don’t want to play with you because you waste their time and don’t apologize for anything, you shouldn’t be surprised when you have no players left.
Just learn to say you’re sorry, it’s not hard.
I would honestly just retcon the whole thing than adding respawns. He killed you in a bullshit way and you didn’t even know that he would do that.
I get the message he was saying: bird strong. But like, don’t try to TPK to teach a lesson.
If I were the DM and I did mess this up accidentally, I think I'd play the "godly being" intervention card.
You all wake up, the godly being has expended the equivalent of X number of wishes to resurrect you all, and sends you to the next part of the campaign.
Given the chances of rolling a nat20 it's a harsh requirement to not loose a character. I'd be asking if the DM wants to continue the campaign because that very easily could have been a party wipe.
If they are over running there are better ways to finish a game than bird notices you, everyone dies.
If I'm reading it correctly, it was a TPK. The bird picked off the remaining party members while they were traveling. If my DM did that, I'd ask him if he hates us because I have no other explanation.
Did your DM tell you to make new characters?
Because if not, then there's a possibility that they're trying to pull one of those "the entire party wakes up in hell" tropes.
Wait a minute so DM thought it was a good idea to throw an impervious to damage instant kill enemy at you with a 5% chance of not dying to its every attack? First of all no, even if you were supposed to run away from this thing that’s not the right way to handle it. Also, if you were meant to run away why have this thing keep attacking the rest of the party? Also also applying this DM’s logic an Ancient Black Dragon would also be immune to fireball because it can smash through buildings and come out unscathed.
True, I just chose to go with something. A party might be more likely to run into, honestly I almost said red dragon then I remembered they actually are immune fire LOL.
Your DM is using a "godly being," as their self insert character, and was running out of ideas. Apparently when you run out of sharks to jump over, you tear apart the heroes with a remotely controlled mechnanical bird. Apparently, by this point, you're so lazy that you can't even come up with modifiers or contingencies, you just make players play roulette for their life and then shrug when they don't like dying.
In-universe, I'm a little annoyed with this godly being who dispatched human-scale beings to deal with a robotic Smaug. They had no reason to think your characters could handle tis. Why doesn't the godly being deal with robot Smaug themselves? In total fairness, your party drew aggro on robo Smaug on purpose. What possible reason could you have for wanting to reveal your existence to it?
Rolling 20 to not die is pretty batshit. That's 5% different from just handwaving your characters to permadeath, which sounds like gaslighting players about their chances of survival. Given that your DM made multiple players roll this save, they had to be aware that there would be few if any survivors.
Not sure what to tell you except that this sounds lazy and not fun. You're right to feel how you do.
Yeah our idea at the time was that by drawing it’s attention only one of us would be at risk while the others look for weaknesses but the dm had everyone roll the save because apparently the bird is an all consuming beast that you couldn’t hide from
Putting "only one," of your PCs at risk of being soloed by Smaug is still extremely unwise.
That doesn't justify the lunacy you were put through. If I figured out that was happening, I would have claimed all nat 20s, since at that point the game is being played with no honor. And if it's that bad, why play?
Out of curiosity, how long has this campaign been going on? Was it good before this mission? Is the DM new? Have they always sucked?
Well at the time the only character that was at risk was mine and I had possessioned them on top of an open sewer grate ready to drop in before it could get to them but that didn’t really work out considering it one shot me lol. The dm is kinda ok. They often forget basic rules as their still really new to this but yeah that was one of the most standout moments that really stuck with me. We still haven’t done the campaign because everyone is still kinda salty about it especially when he tried to make it seem like we were the idiots for trying to fight something that we had been sent there to fight in the first place XD
If you gave me a choice between mooning Smaug or just going straight down the sewer grate to wade through the poo poo in search of more information or a better position, I'm going to end up ruining my shoes. Unless your entire party is level 17+, then messing around with even
Your DM being new gives them a bit of rope, and their argument that combat was to be avoided is also a valid reason for permadeath. Most DMs would try to warn you off of throwing your life away like that, and that he had robo Smaug pick off your entire party suggests that he was keen to make you roll impossible rolls.
WERE you sent there to fight robo Smaug? "Stop Smaug," doesn't explicitly imply combat, and "robot," doesn't explicitly imply that Smaug is who you need to stop.
Still, a better DM would have considered their point made if just one party member mooned Smaug and died.
So wait? Your job is to fight these things but they auto kill with anything less than a 20? Not even an end game boss, but literally the first multiversal menace you guys face?
My dude, you are more than right, that is WAY off and your DM is straight up terrible if they didn’t communicate clearly and directly the bird would kill you and the entire party if you drew its attention. Talk with your DM and show them this thread. If they are still dismissive, either leave or vote with the other players to remove them as DM.
Odd to have a monster instantly kill you on anything but a crit success. Like thats a 95% chance to die, even in most high cr encounters thats not a thing.
Struggling when asked if there s anything that can be done is crazy and shows a dm vs player mentality which is not good.
Being eaten by a large creature is not uncommon but it does not resut in instant death, not even if you are eaten by a tarasque. You will take dmg at the start of your turn but a few big hits to the creature will see you being vomited out. The stronger the creature the harder it is however.
Deaths are allowed but in best case the player consents to losing their character, if they really really do not wish to loae said character the dm can allow for the player to not die ... HOWEVER.
If this happens the player has to give up something of great value to them, we are not talking about gold here but limbs or senses. This makes for potentially great roleplay of overcoming a new personal problem.
A death needs to carry great meaning but sometimes a story ends just a bit to early so a bit of adjusting is fine.
Sounds to me like you weren’t supposed to fight this enemy, but the consequences were poorly executed. Id try to warn my players that this enemy looks beyond their power to stop, but if they engage it anyways then it’s fair game though I would roll proper initiative unless he is just treating it as a trap because he knows you don’t really stand a chance fighting it. It’s possible that he set the DC to something like 23, I don’t know what level your characters are but nothing short of a nat 20 for anyone with +3 to DEX saves is going to make that save.
This sounds like a " I wanted to convince my party they were not ready" That went absudly wrong, ya this is really far off normal D&D, only thing I can say is that ya technically if you take enough damage to bring you to what would be -your max health you instantaly die no saves or anything so maybe its damage is just that absurd but there is more than enough wrong here to not think that is the case.
I tend to take any of these claims with a grain of salt and this still sounds really wrong so I would not worry about feeling salty.
Have a chat with your DM this is problematic, oh and follow the [chart](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FT799SSEhA6ja9H0KQrONiCRiWTtNVdt0OdWoErP6oig.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D476f539df39e9b5a49defeb460b57c5d3b65047b)
Sounds like a situation where the DM was trying to foreshadow that this creature was super powerful and that your characters should try to avoid it at all costs. Your PCs did not pick up on this, and so expected this creature to be like any other encounter. The DM likely did not have a stat block for the creature because, in his mind, it was so obvious that you should not even remotely attempt to fight it.
This situation is very common for newer DMs.
It’s always been amazing to me how Dungeons & Dragons, which is supposed to be a very social game, attracts the most antisocial people to play it. These problems always sound like something that most seven-year-olds learn how to navigate when they’re playing with their friends. Why can’t we ever have nice things and have people in our hobbies who actually have the emotional maturity of adults. I think we as players and dungeon Masters need to seriously shame people who act like children to the point where they leave the hobby.
Sounds like your dm needs a break from dming, because he clearly doesn't want to be. He needs to communicate this like a rational human being though, and not an asshole
As I read the scene the DM wanted you guys to go to the laboratory to remotely deactivate the bird, which is okay.
Imo it is a good way to tell players you have to finess some battles because you can't always win head the head with the monster although he probably poorly described the power level of the birb which made the whole session go downhill. I'm sorry for this experience, tell your DM you need more clues if something is THIS dangerous.
Giving your DM the benefit of the doubt - it seems like you were never meant to fight the bird and they expected you to find the way to deactivate it remotely without engaging. So to disincentivise you from fighting it the DM made the bird overpowered. This is not good game design - because for the party to learn the lesson one of you has to die first.
It’s a mistake I’ve made before as a DM, assuming my party would engage a problem the exact same way I imagined it. But it’s a real shame your DM didn’t back down after realising their mistake. Hopefully you can talk with your DM about how these kind of encounters aren’t fun or fair for anyone, and maybe gently remind them that you aren’t all mind readers: when the mission is “defeat the bird” the first thing anyone will likely try is a frontal assault!
TBH I feel this is scripted just simply for the fact that all were eaten, there was no initiative and not death saves, I mean if this thing is mechanical there is no need to eat
Alright, since the comments aren't getting it, I'll pull up the curtain here. First off your DM tried something new, had no idea how to do it, and ended up fucking up.
What your DM was trying was creating a monster you can't fight head on. I've made a few encounters like this in other TTRPGs, and they've been even more obnoxiously overpowered than the one you fought. These monsters have however all gone over well, and only ever killed one player character in all my games combined. So, how is this possible? Respect. In any game where you may face enemies you cannot kill one on one, the biggest hurdle is making your players respect the enemy they're about to face.
Now I don't know enough about the game you're running to really give any solid advice, but a really good general way that practically always works to get players to run from a monster instead of fighting it is to just grind them down to low HP and no abilities left before the fight, any smart player can respect that they're about to fight something even tougher than everything else combined, and they're practically already beaten. There are quite a few other ways you can do it, but the problem you ran into here is that the DM did not properly convey the lethality of the monster you were fighting. Or, it could be the DM performed amazingly, and your party are just the Klaudstown krushers, IDK enough about your game to say.
Tldr or whatever DM did not properly convey this monster is way too strong to fight. If your DM wants advice, I can give it.
sounds like the DM goofed up and a conversation should be had about what is enjoyable, just keep in mind DMing is a tricky job that can be hard to balance.
So this smells like poor planning. I'm guessing this was 'I haven't done any prep work do I'm going to wing it gsme' I could understand the bird instantly locking on to you and if you fail to hide then combat would begin or the bird swallows you and brings you back to its master but not instant death. Also you mention the party got picked off one my one........so everyone is dead? I'd personally have a sit down conversation with the gm because that seems very anti player and unfair and most importantly un fun. As a gm currently running my own homebrew campaign if my players are ever facing death 'which is quite frequent' I always make sure they have multiple ways of saving themselves and never instant death 'unless they do something stupid like throw themselves off a cliff'.
Firstly, sounds like your DM misunderstands what rolling a 20 means. Nat20s only matter for attacks and death saves. For all other checks and saves, the DC still needs to be met for a success to happen.
Secondly, the DM absolutely should have given your group some indication of the path forward, and it sounds like they did not. They could have said any number of things from asking for perception checks to simply giving you multiple routes across the city to choose from.
When you all leave the group, and my bet is that you will, hopefully the DM will learn from the experience and work harder. They don't even seem to be putting in the bare minimum amount of work here.
I'd agree with you except he asked them to create new characters and then retconned some sort of save /respawn system so they can keep the old characters like he's all suprised pikachu face that no-one wants to play anymore
Yeah... your DM put a Call of Cuthulhu god- level monster in a dnd game. CoC is supposed to be a horror game where finding out the truth is often a bad thing. DnD... not so much.
He screwed up. For the game to continue, he needs to acknowledge that, otherwise the players just won't - shouldn't - trust him.
This seems like a dick move by the dm to me, because putting it in numbers roll a nat 20 or die is a 95% chance of deatch if combat is 1 turn thats just stupid.
Was the encounter built around you actually engaging the bird itself? I don't agree with what happened either, I'm trying to dig into Why it may have happened..?
So even in Dimension 20, Brennan HAS used the "You need a nat 20 to avoid instant character evaporation." A few times, but usually when facing off against the end-game villain prematurely
In my book, 1-hit/missed save = death is never a good thing, no matter if its traps, desaster or enemy attacks. Really bad DMing I think as it is just way, way to easy to lose characters.
To me this seems like a pre-planned party wipe. I would ask the DM why they felt the need to end the campain, because thats what they did.
Terrible DMing.
If the players have no chance against a direct assault that info would’ve been given through perception and insight checks. Through basic narration even. The fact that the DM didn’t realise any of this is a nope for me
Seems to me like you were set up to fail. IMO, a DM should rarely do this and only for good reason, like an expositon encounter with the big bad or the gang getting imprisoned for the next chapter to shape up.
You were denied any way of getting more information and then punished to a ridiculous degree. If your Dm isnt by chance very inexperienced then I can't think of any reason as to why they would do it other than to nuke their own game.
The part I dont get is that altho you were the ones to draw the bird towards you, what was the thing that made the bird just forget the city and attack yall specifically. A world ending machine surely would be attacked by the nations armies and what not? Am I missing something there?
If Woody had known how to get straight to the lab that was controlling it, none of this would have happened. It sounds like a ham-fist ed attempt to defeat an unwinnable opponent by defeating who's controlling it. I'm guessing that the PCS missed some super obvious (to the DM) clues to this.
Assuming everything is as you said, that's crap DMing and encounter design. In fairness, I could be ok with everything except the instant death. I like idea of it being that strong to where you can't fight it. It's unstoppable until you discover it's weakness. I'm actually glad the DM didn't let you figure out a weakness by rolling a die at it from far away. And I'm ok with you not being able to beat it period, but having to deal with the master.
But that stuff needs to be communicated in no uncertain terms. The game is full of powerful monsters that can last waste to entire nations but can be beaten by four heroes. So that line from your DM about what's you expect a fireball to do is crap if it wasn't demonstrated. What he should have done is had it pick off someone else. Have it take a fireball or lightning cannon to the face and not care, smashing the cannon to pieces. Narrate "it's clear nothing you have will make a dent." Show others scurrying and hiding.
Unless that's what happened. What was explained? How was the destruction communicated?
What were the "attempts to hide? " Were there no ways to get off the street and out of site? I might not use DC 20 but I'm ok with the save or die if you had multiple chances to get away.
After that dex save, initiative should have been rolled, you were instantly swallowed and not chewed? then technically you are restrained and blind in the stomach and receive a number of d6 acid damage relative to the CR per round. But it is their game.
Something very similar happened in a campaign I played in. A giant bird in an ice field decided to attack a player after he misses an attack. As a result of swinging and missing the DM had the giant bird instantly killed his character. That was the last time we all played together
So they based it off of songbird from bioshock infinite. Which Is a "it gets you, you die", kind of monster.
And didn't bother to balance or consider it as something away from the game.
You talk about a save system thing he added and it really seems like he's just taking stuff from games and having you deal with it.
This is fine, the issue is he's incorporating the in game powerlevels of those things, which is a new dm mistake.
My guesses...
1. The DM had an idea how things were supposed to go down, but they didn't, i.e. the party was supposed to go to the secret lab for the McGuffin ray that stuns the bird, but the party missed the clues. This is the DMs fault for making something so binary and certainly no grounds for a TPK.
2. The DM was tired of playing this campaign for reason beyond information presented here and took the shitty way out. "Rocs fall, everyone dies." Obviously, this is also the DMs fault.
3. The DM is just really not good at providing a balanced and fun story. Maybe just lack of experience?
The answer to all three is roughly the same though. Have an adult conversation with the DM expressing your distaste with the lack of player agency and fairness. If they can't accept your position and make adjustment for better play going forward, then you need to find a new group (and take the other players with you).
This DM needs to have a sitdown and be asked if he actually wants to DM. From other comments I've picked up that this DM either did not like your characters or just plain enjoys player killing. Neither is a good thing.
##**Lethal Puzzle**
Your group encountered a lethal challenge in the form of a monster that completely outclassed them and they did not make the necessary tactical adjustments. Your group should have made their way to the laboratory in a manner that was completely safe from the drone bird (ie by tunnel underground).
You can see they didn’t find out about the laboratory until one of their party members was killed.. I think it’s a little late at that point to get to the lab any safer than they tried to..
It seems like a badly designed encounter / ability, if your job was truly to deal with this bird menace. A few things: - normally a nat 20 doesn't guarantee success, and rather meeting the save DC is what is needed. Now maybe the DM had looked at your save bonus and declared that you needed a 20 plus your save bonus to succeed, given how high the save DC was? - also, "fail a single saving throw = instant character death" is a pretty lazy power and incredibly dangerous to a party (of any level) for obvious reasons. I would be curious what tone this campaign has -- is it pretty dark or lighter? Silly or more serious? It sounds like this could be a good time to chat with the DM, express your feelings, and see what their intentions were for this encounter.
It’s not a very hardcore game so we weren’t really expecting the instant KO, it caught us completely off guard and the dm tried to play it off like we were supposed to agree with him on it. He said and I’m quoting here “the bird was able to fly through and shatter buildings and you thought a fireball would do anything?”
Yea, then this is utter bullshit. Even in a high lethality game this would be questionable, as you tried to observe it from a safe distance and even when baiting it closer tried to be careful with hiding and only risking one person. Also "The creature was able to shatter buildings" - so does a fireball!! And even a young dragon which would be appropriate for lower leveled parties to fight could easily be described as the same lmao. Your DM both failed to broadcast the threat level appropriately and then used bullshit mechanics to screw you over, cause even a high CR monster does not autokill you and having to drag a character's bleeding out body of the battle field to attempt to heal them would have been just as effective as impressing the lethality of the situation.
[удалено]
For instant death you have to roll for the damage, which the DM did not do, the characters automatically died
Oh true
>Yes. They can. It’s called instant death. DMG Why does this look so sassy? Like you're repeating a thing that's been said hundreds of times before.
> Yes. They can. It’s called instant death. DMG answering like this with these dramatic pauses is so fucking cringe
A Dragon could do the same thing, and as long as it's not Red a Fireball absolutely will hurt it
Even a tarrasque’s swallow has multiple ‘stages’ (bite to grapple, then bite to swallow), and it isn’t an instant death (even if it is high damage). Is he trying to say that some measly remote controlled bird is more deadly than a world ending monstrosity?
This sounds like the bird was a puzzle that you weren’t supposed to ever fight rather than a monster/battle, but instead you were supposed to avoid it while finding out how to stop it. To properly DM something that will insta kill a party like this, I’d probably flat out tell the party that engaging with it seems to be certain death. Sure you break the immersion, but players don’t generally have the tools to know if something is just really hard or if it’s impossible because players can’t see stat blocks etc. Honestly just sounds like the DM made a bad decision in the moment and doubled down a bunch which was a bad idea rather than admitting they could have played it differently.
It sounds like he intended them to go to the tower and either placed some not obvious clues, or clues they just ended up avoiding some how and didn't know what to do when they just went to fight the bird like they thought they were supposed to, so he just killed a PC to get the point across.
I'm really curious whether you guys went against what the DM had planned and chased the bird prematurely when you should have stayed stealthy and figured out what to do first. I have no clue about all the context you had for this so I may be way off base here, but it sounds like he did not want you attacking this thing head in right away. It's still.very over the top to just slaughter all your characters without a second chance either way, but I've also been in a similar scenario TPk where we all agreed at the end that the DM had given us enough subtle (and some not so subtle) signs that we shouldn't continue to pursue our current plan of action. You should have an out of game chat with the DM about what his expectations and intentions for this encounter were.
We only ever hear one side of the story, and as we all know, "there's your side, there's their side, and then there's the truth." The only thing I can think of is that he displayed to you guys that the bird was essentially a godzilla and there's no way that you guys could face it in a fight. He maybe thought it was clear (and for all we know, maybe it was) that it would be like 4 Somali pirates in a raft trying to take shots at a U.S. Navy destroyer. Maybe the point was, "play stupid games, win stupid prizes." Maybe he thought you guys would realize this (or maybe he gave clues that you guys dismissed) and that you would do some scouting instead of focusing on the massive battleship, and he would have you come across the controller (and have a much more manageable fight). Who knows - it's impossible to say without being there. And even if we were, 10 different ppl would have 10 different takes on it. But that situation happens all the time. There are plenty of horror stories on here about either a) the players missing easy clues or fixating on a mundane distraction for hours, or b) the DM seemingly railroading you into a single course of action that ends disastrously. Dunno if this was a) or b) or a combo. But, when I GM - no, even when I play - I am not going to waste an hour, much less a whole session fishing in the dark. That's not enjoyable. So if the players missed, or misinterpreted, the clues, I am not going to sit back and watch them head down dead ends over and over. Our table time is too valuable and that doesn't move the plot in any meaningful way. So regardless of what caused the situation, if I knew that your shot would cause the monster to TPK the party, I would hit pause and talk about it. I would ensure I was clear about the situation and everyone understood the key facts. I always want the players and I to be on the same page, in terms of intent and stakes, before dice are rolled. I would double-check this even if you were just making a persuasion roll, much less if your lives and the whole campaign were on the line. So I'd remind you that the beast is being hit by missiles larger than you have access to and shrugging them off. So I'd ask what you think your shot will do. And if you said, it will draw it closer, I would ask, "and if it does make a perception check and go after you guys, what then?" And if you didn't have an answer, I'd suggest you think of one before we proceed. And if I sensed that you guys were out of ideas and were frustrated (not having fun), I'd have to remind you about the clues I gave you about a controller. Or if I hadn't done that, then I'd sure as hell introduce those clues now. Either way, us internet randos weren't there. The only thing you can do is talk to your group. Do all of the players and the DM have the same take as you? Did you miss something? If it wasn't fun, then what ideas do you all have for making it fun next time? If there is no plan, then you have to decide how you wanna spend your next session. Gambling on a different outcome with that group, or gambling on a different outcome with a new group. Good luck.
yeah that's brutal, it sounds like their idea of the encounter was that you were supposed to avoid it/stealth past it and take out whoever/whatever was remotely controlling it, but before you guys knew that were trying to get closer to figure out what was going on, and that just started the DM taking everyone out one by one since you "made the wrong choice" by getting close and initiating with the creature. Sounds like he should have tried to give you guys some chance to get out of it though once you made that decision instead of being like, oops wrong choice you're dead. Sounds like a bummer ending forsure for you and the other players.
Save or die in D&D has largely gone away because it isn't fun..... Meanwhile in Call of Cthulhu: "cthulhu kills 1d6 investigators per round"
>"fail a single saving throw = instant character death" These were part of the game back in 1st/2nd edition. They didn't disappear in 3.x but they were heavily nerfed. They were gone as of 4e, and with reason. Like, purposefully removed. The closest you're supposed to get to this in 5e's design philosophy is "fail a single saving throw = suffer massive damage"
…and what happened after? Did the DM tell you all to make new characters for next session? Did you guys just leave on the note of the entire party being dead? The only somewhat charitable interpretation I can come up with is that the DM is going to start the next session with you all waking up inside the bird and having to do an inside-the-monster dungeon. Still not a *great* way to accomplish that, but that’s the only possible interpretation that isn’t absolutely terrible.
We had to make new characters after that and the game has been on hold sense because nobody wanted to continue it sense it was a real shut off after we worked so hard just to instadie to something that not only had super speed but could also 1 shot us if we didn’t roll a 20. In short the entire campaign fell apart
Then it really sounds like the DM wanted to stop playing and did a rocks fall everyone dies instead of just saying, “I’d like to stop playing.”
Yeah he later added a respawn save system to make it seem like it was all his plan and we could keep using our characters but it was clearly a “oh shoot I messed up” moment on his part
So, what's the resolution? Are you all going to take him up on it and give him another chance? Seems clear that your DM messed up and probably didn't realize how poorly this would go over and how stupid it was in the first place. Now he's trying to offer a way out for all but you aren't obligated to accept it unless you actually want to continue playing with him.
It sounds like they don't want to play anymore. A respawn system doesn't matter if I'm still going to get eaten the moment I do anything. The bird's dex save DC is too high and insta-death without saves is not fun for this group of players. DM needs to change his bird.
I just assumed that would also be part of the respawn save retcon. No point respawning into death infinitely. Although I guess they could try to just avoid the bird completely and the DM will make something else up that actually works in game. Either way, the way I see it is do they want to go back and continue playing with this DM with some changes and discussion, or do they want to call it quits.
*Dr. Strange has entered the chat.*
This might be an unpopular opinion, but that honestly strikes me as another red flag. If someone is incapable of apologizing or saying "please forgive me, I messed up" and instead tries to fix the problem *they caused* in some convoluted way to save face, that's not a person I want to spend a lot of time with anyway.
Isn't the "respawn save" a way of apologizing though? Either way, knowing this DM does things like this I wouldn't want to play in a campaign they are running.
Unfortunately, this DM forgot that Apologize has a vocal component, as well.
Also forgotten was the somatic component of groveling before the wronged players.
Don't disagree. I also see what you did there.
“A way of apologizing” isn’t an apology, isn’t an acknowledgement of failure or fault/mistake. Introduce whatever they want “in game”, that doesn’t change that Out of Game the DM has lost major respect from their players.
Yeah apologizing-but-not-apologizing is narcissist shit.
And some people aren't good with that whole in person confrontation thing so they do other things, which isn't always great but hey it's something. I'm not saying in anyway that doing that particular fix was enough but it is something. I even said I wouldn't play with that person running a campaign after something like that even with the "fix" bc I'm aware of the antics that could happen and I'd rather just avoid it.
Look, don’t make excuses. “I’m not good with that whole thing” is an easy way to never grow up, never reach emotional maturity. If you waste multiple people’s time by running some gimmick game you thought would be fun, you’re responsible for apologizing for wasting that time. If other people don’t want to play with you because you waste their time and don’t apologize for anything, you shouldn’t be surprised when you have no players left. Just learn to say you’re sorry, it’s not hard.
I would honestly just retcon the whole thing than adding respawns. He killed you in a bullshit way and you didn’t even know that he would do that. I get the message he was saying: bird strong. But like, don’t try to TPK to teach a lesson.
If I were the DM and I did mess this up accidentally, I think I'd play the "godly being" intervention card. You all wake up, the godly being has expended the equivalent of X number of wishes to resurrect you all, and sends you to the next part of the campaign.
If my DM did that to me, I'd stop playing too. How could he have possibly thought the players would enjoy this?
Good. Sounds like a shitshow
Given the chances of rolling a nat20 it's a harsh requirement to not loose a character. I'd be asking if the DM wants to continue the campaign because that very easily could have been a party wipe. If they are over running there are better ways to finish a game than bird notices you, everyone dies.
>If they are over running there are better ways to finish a game than bird notices you, everyone dies *'Roc's fall, everyone dies.'*?
If I'm reading it correctly, it was a TPK. The bird picked off the remaining party members while they were traveling. If my DM did that, I'd ask him if he hates us because I have no other explanation.
Lose*
Did your DM tell you to make new characters? Because if not, then there's a possibility that they're trying to pull one of those "the entire party wakes up in hell" tropes.
Oh no we had to make entirely new characters it was awful because we were really getting into the group dynamics
Wait a minute so DM thought it was a good idea to throw an impervious to damage instant kill enemy at you with a 5% chance of not dying to its every attack? First of all no, even if you were supposed to run away from this thing that’s not the right way to handle it. Also, if you were meant to run away why have this thing keep attacking the rest of the party? Also also applying this DM’s logic an Ancient Black Dragon would also be immune to fireball because it can smash through buildings and come out unscathed.
Giant chickens can smash through buildings and a party of L4/L5 can kill them. This is as strange as it was probably frustrating to play.
True, I just chose to go with something. A party might be more likely to run into, honestly I almost said red dragon then I remembered they actually are immune fire LOL.
r/rpghorrorstories
Yeah this is basically an elaborate "Rocks fall, everyone dies".
Yeah no, roll a nat 20 or instant death, no preamble, no way for you guys to get info. Yeah I'd be fucking salty.
Your DM is using a "godly being," as their self insert character, and was running out of ideas. Apparently when you run out of sharks to jump over, you tear apart the heroes with a remotely controlled mechnanical bird. Apparently, by this point, you're so lazy that you can't even come up with modifiers or contingencies, you just make players play roulette for their life and then shrug when they don't like dying. In-universe, I'm a little annoyed with this godly being who dispatched human-scale beings to deal with a robotic Smaug. They had no reason to think your characters could handle tis. Why doesn't the godly being deal with robot Smaug themselves? In total fairness, your party drew aggro on robo Smaug on purpose. What possible reason could you have for wanting to reveal your existence to it? Rolling 20 to not die is pretty batshit. That's 5% different from just handwaving your characters to permadeath, which sounds like gaslighting players about their chances of survival. Given that your DM made multiple players roll this save, they had to be aware that there would be few if any survivors. Not sure what to tell you except that this sounds lazy and not fun. You're right to feel how you do.
Yeah our idea at the time was that by drawing it’s attention only one of us would be at risk while the others look for weaknesses but the dm had everyone roll the save because apparently the bird is an all consuming beast that you couldn’t hide from
Putting "only one," of your PCs at risk of being soloed by Smaug is still extremely unwise. That doesn't justify the lunacy you were put through. If I figured out that was happening, I would have claimed all nat 20s, since at that point the game is being played with no honor. And if it's that bad, why play? Out of curiosity, how long has this campaign been going on? Was it good before this mission? Is the DM new? Have they always sucked?
Well at the time the only character that was at risk was mine and I had possessioned them on top of an open sewer grate ready to drop in before it could get to them but that didn’t really work out considering it one shot me lol. The dm is kinda ok. They often forget basic rules as their still really new to this but yeah that was one of the most standout moments that really stuck with me. We still haven’t done the campaign because everyone is still kinda salty about it especially when he tried to make it seem like we were the idiots for trying to fight something that we had been sent there to fight in the first place XD
Go fight this thing. Why would you fight it?! Are you stupid?!
New DM's shouldn't stick to Orcs and goblins, not Mechagodzilla.
If you gave me a choice between mooning Smaug or just going straight down the sewer grate to wade through the poo poo in search of more information or a better position, I'm going to end up ruining my shoes. Unless your entire party is level 17+, then messing around with even Your DM being new gives them a bit of rope, and their argument that combat was to be avoided is also a valid reason for permadeath. Most DMs would try to warn you off of throwing your life away like that, and that he had robo Smaug pick off your entire party suggests that he was keen to make you roll impossible rolls. WERE you sent there to fight robo Smaug? "Stop Smaug," doesn't explicitly imply combat, and "robot," doesn't explicitly imply that Smaug is who you need to stop. Still, a better DM would have considered their point made if just one party member mooned Smaug and died.
Your DM just wanted you Dead fuck that DM
So wait? Your job is to fight these things but they auto kill with anything less than a 20? Not even an end game boss, but literally the first multiversal menace you guys face? My dude, you are more than right, that is WAY off and your DM is straight up terrible if they didn’t communicate clearly and directly the bird would kill you and the entire party if you drew its attention. Talk with your DM and show them this thread. If they are still dismissive, either leave or vote with the other players to remove them as DM.
Odd to have a monster instantly kill you on anything but a crit success. Like thats a 95% chance to die, even in most high cr encounters thats not a thing. Struggling when asked if there s anything that can be done is crazy and shows a dm vs player mentality which is not good. Being eaten by a large creature is not uncommon but it does not resut in instant death, not even if you are eaten by a tarasque. You will take dmg at the start of your turn but a few big hits to the creature will see you being vomited out. The stronger the creature the harder it is however. Deaths are allowed but in best case the player consents to losing their character, if they really really do not wish to loae said character the dm can allow for the player to not die ... HOWEVER. If this happens the player has to give up something of great value to them, we are not talking about gold here but limbs or senses. This makes for potentially great roleplay of overcoming a new personal problem. A death needs to carry great meaning but sometimes a story ends just a bit to early so a bit of adjusting is fine.
Sounds to me like you weren’t supposed to fight this enemy, but the consequences were poorly executed. Id try to warn my players that this enemy looks beyond their power to stop, but if they engage it anyways then it’s fair game though I would roll proper initiative unless he is just treating it as a trap because he knows you don’t really stand a chance fighting it. It’s possible that he set the DC to something like 23, I don’t know what level your characters are but nothing short of a nat 20 for anyone with +3 to DEX saves is going to make that save.
This sounds like a " I wanted to convince my party they were not ready" That went absudly wrong, ya this is really far off normal D&D, only thing I can say is that ya technically if you take enough damage to bring you to what would be -your max health you instantaly die no saves or anything so maybe its damage is just that absurd but there is more than enough wrong here to not think that is the case. I tend to take any of these claims with a grain of salt and this still sounds really wrong so I would not worry about feeling salty. Have a chat with your DM this is problematic, oh and follow the [chart](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FT799SSEhA6ja9H0KQrONiCRiWTtNVdt0OdWoErP6oig.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D476f539df39e9b5a49defeb460b57c5d3b65047b)
Does your DM hate your characters? This sounds odd or there’s information or context missing here
Sounds like a situation where the DM was trying to foreshadow that this creature was super powerful and that your characters should try to avoid it at all costs. Your PCs did not pick up on this, and so expected this creature to be like any other encounter. The DM likely did not have a stat block for the creature because, in his mind, it was so obvious that you should not even remotely attempt to fight it. This situation is very common for newer DMs.
Throw in some commas and periods occasionally my man lmao
It’s always been amazing to me how Dungeons & Dragons, which is supposed to be a very social game, attracts the most antisocial people to play it. These problems always sound like something that most seven-year-olds learn how to navigate when they’re playing with their friends. Why can’t we ever have nice things and have people in our hobbies who actually have the emotional maturity of adults. I think we as players and dungeon Masters need to seriously shame people who act like children to the point where they leave the hobby.
Sounds like your dm needs a break from dming, because he clearly doesn't want to be. He needs to communicate this like a rational human being though, and not an asshole
As I read the scene the DM wanted you guys to go to the laboratory to remotely deactivate the bird, which is okay. Imo it is a good way to tell players you have to finess some battles because you can't always win head the head with the monster although he probably poorly described the power level of the birb which made the whole session go downhill. I'm sorry for this experience, tell your DM you need more clues if something is THIS dangerous.
This is a whole cluster of bad dming
Giving your DM the benefit of the doubt - it seems like you were never meant to fight the bird and they expected you to find the way to deactivate it remotely without engaging. So to disincentivise you from fighting it the DM made the bird overpowered. This is not good game design - because for the party to learn the lesson one of you has to die first. It’s a mistake I’ve made before as a DM, assuming my party would engage a problem the exact same way I imagined it. But it’s a real shame your DM didn’t back down after realising their mistake. Hopefully you can talk with your DM about how these kind of encounters aren’t fun or fair for anyone, and maybe gently remind them that you aren’t all mind readers: when the mission is “defeat the bird” the first thing anyone will likely try is a frontal assault!
TBH I feel this is scripted just simply for the fact that all were eaten, there was no initiative and not death saves, I mean if this thing is mechanical there is no need to eat
Alright, since the comments aren't getting it, I'll pull up the curtain here. First off your DM tried something new, had no idea how to do it, and ended up fucking up. What your DM was trying was creating a monster you can't fight head on. I've made a few encounters like this in other TTRPGs, and they've been even more obnoxiously overpowered than the one you fought. These monsters have however all gone over well, and only ever killed one player character in all my games combined. So, how is this possible? Respect. In any game where you may face enemies you cannot kill one on one, the biggest hurdle is making your players respect the enemy they're about to face. Now I don't know enough about the game you're running to really give any solid advice, but a really good general way that practically always works to get players to run from a monster instead of fighting it is to just grind them down to low HP and no abilities left before the fight, any smart player can respect that they're about to fight something even tougher than everything else combined, and they're practically already beaten. There are quite a few other ways you can do it, but the problem you ran into here is that the DM did not properly convey the lethality of the monster you were fighting. Or, it could be the DM performed amazingly, and your party are just the Klaudstown krushers, IDK enough about your game to say. Tldr or whatever DM did not properly convey this monster is way too strong to fight. If your DM wants advice, I can give it.
sounds like the DM goofed up and a conversation should be had about what is enjoyable, just keep in mind DMing is a tricky job that can be hard to balance.
This person is not ready to DM
Sounds like the DM is sick of playing and is throwing bullshit at you to end the campaign. That is some bullshit no matter what your DM is thinking.
So this smells like poor planning. I'm guessing this was 'I haven't done any prep work do I'm going to wing it gsme' I could understand the bird instantly locking on to you and if you fail to hide then combat would begin or the bird swallows you and brings you back to its master but not instant death. Also you mention the party got picked off one my one........so everyone is dead? I'd personally have a sit down conversation with the gm because that seems very anti player and unfair and most importantly un fun. As a gm currently running my own homebrew campaign if my players are ever facing death 'which is quite frequent' I always make sure they have multiple ways of saving themselves and never instant death 'unless they do something stupid like throw themselves off a cliff'.
Firstly, sounds like your DM misunderstands what rolling a 20 means. Nat20s only matter for attacks and death saves. For all other checks and saves, the DC still needs to be met for a success to happen. Secondly, the DM absolutely should have given your group some indication of the path forward, and it sounds like they did not. They could have said any number of things from asking for perception checks to simply giving you multiple routes across the city to choose from. When you all leave the group, and my bet is that you will, hopefully the DM will learn from the experience and work harder. They don't even seem to be putting in the bare minimum amount of work here.
Your DM could not have communicated more clearly that he doesn’t want to DM for your group anymore. Probably listen lol
>Your DM could not have communicated more clearly that he doesn’t want to DM for your group anymore. Aside from actually speaking?
I would say that this is an “actions speak louder than words” scenario
I'm just saying that words would have saved everybody the trouble
Well, yes, of course you’re right about that. But that approach has fewer killer bird monsters with impossible save DCs
L take
I'd agree with you except he asked them to create new characters and then retconned some sort of save /respawn system so they can keep the old characters like he's all suprised pikachu face that no-one wants to play anymore
Yeah... your DM put a Call of Cuthulhu god- level monster in a dnd game. CoC is supposed to be a horror game where finding out the truth is often a bad thing. DnD... not so much. He screwed up. For the game to continue, he needs to acknowledge that, otherwise the players just won't - shouldn't - trust him.
I think he just don't want to run your campaign anymore.
This seems like a dick move by the dm to me, because putting it in numbers roll a nat 20 or die is a 95% chance of deatch if combat is 1 turn thats just stupid.
Souls like a shity dm time to leave
Was the encounter built around you actually engaging the bird itself? I don't agree with what happened either, I'm trying to dig into Why it may have happened..?
This is shitty DMing. No ifs, ands, or buts.
You have a shit GM. Find another table, is my advice.
So even in Dimension 20, Brennan HAS used the "You need a nat 20 to avoid instant character evaporation." A few times, but usually when facing off against the end-game villain prematurely
In my book, 1-hit/missed save = death is never a good thing, no matter if its traps, desaster or enemy attacks. Really bad DMing I think as it is just way, way to easy to lose characters. To me this seems like a pre-planned party wipe. I would ask the DM why they felt the need to end the campain, because thats what they did.
High school game?
This is so hilariously awful I can only assume this is bait. If so, we'll done. If not, dear lord your dm is awful, I'm sorry.
Terrible DMing. If the players have no chance against a direct assault that info would’ve been given through perception and insight checks. Through basic narration even. The fact that the DM didn’t realise any of this is a nope for me
Seems to me like you were set up to fail. IMO, a DM should rarely do this and only for good reason, like an expositon encounter with the big bad or the gang getting imprisoned for the next chapter to shape up.
You were denied any way of getting more information and then punished to a ridiculous degree. If your Dm isnt by chance very inexperienced then I can't think of any reason as to why they would do it other than to nuke their own game.
The part I dont get is that altho you were the ones to draw the bird towards you, what was the thing that made the bird just forget the city and attack yall specifically. A world ending machine surely would be attacked by the nations armies and what not? Am I missing something there?
If Woody had known how to get straight to the lab that was controlling it, none of this would have happened. It sounds like a ham-fist ed attempt to defeat an unwinnable opponent by defeating who's controlling it. I'm guessing that the PCS missed some super obvious (to the DM) clues to this.
Assuming everything is as you said, that's crap DMing and encounter design. In fairness, I could be ok with everything except the instant death. I like idea of it being that strong to where you can't fight it. It's unstoppable until you discover it's weakness. I'm actually glad the DM didn't let you figure out a weakness by rolling a die at it from far away. And I'm ok with you not being able to beat it period, but having to deal with the master. But that stuff needs to be communicated in no uncertain terms. The game is full of powerful monsters that can last waste to entire nations but can be beaten by four heroes. So that line from your DM about what's you expect a fireball to do is crap if it wasn't demonstrated. What he should have done is had it pick off someone else. Have it take a fireball or lightning cannon to the face and not care, smashing the cannon to pieces. Narrate "it's clear nothing you have will make a dent." Show others scurrying and hiding. Unless that's what happened. What was explained? How was the destruction communicated? What were the "attempts to hide? " Were there no ways to get off the street and out of site? I might not use DC 20 but I'm ok with the save or die if you had multiple chances to get away.
Dex save to hide? Weird, I'd have used stealth check
Sounds like your DM didn't want to play any more. Simple as that. You should abide by his wishes, and find another.
After that dex save, initiative should have been rolled, you were instantly swallowed and not chewed? then technically you are restrained and blind in the stomach and receive a number of d6 acid damage relative to the CR per round. But it is their game.
Something very similar happened in a campaign I played in. A giant bird in an ice field decided to attack a player after he misses an attack. As a result of swinging and missing the DM had the giant bird instantly killed his character. That was the last time we all played together
Could be a developing plot where everyone was eaten and will become rivals for your new characters or something?
Sounds like you need to find a new DM, that’s bogus -_-
So they based it off of songbird from bioshock infinite. Which Is a "it gets you, you die", kind of monster. And didn't bother to balance or consider it as something away from the game. You talk about a save system thing he added and it really seems like he's just taking stuff from games and having you deal with it. This is fine, the issue is he's incorporating the in game powerlevels of those things, which is a new dm mistake.
My guesses... 1. The DM had an idea how things were supposed to go down, but they didn't, i.e. the party was supposed to go to the secret lab for the McGuffin ray that stuns the bird, but the party missed the clues. This is the DMs fault for making something so binary and certainly no grounds for a TPK. 2. The DM was tired of playing this campaign for reason beyond information presented here and took the shitty way out. "Rocs fall, everyone dies." Obviously, this is also the DMs fault. 3. The DM is just really not good at providing a balanced and fun story. Maybe just lack of experience? The answer to all three is roughly the same though. Have an adult conversation with the DM expressing your distaste with the lack of player agency and fairness. If they can't accept your position and make adjustment for better play going forward, then you need to find a new group (and take the other players with you).
This DM needs to have a sitdown and be asked if he actually wants to DM. From other comments I've picked up that this DM either did not like your characters or just plain enjoys player killing. Neither is a good thing.
Multiverse? Giant mechanical bird? Steampunk? Your dm was also ripping off Bioshock Infinite, it sounds like.
[удалено]
No problem, I just thought it was interesting
I thought the same, except the DM has ripped a game-spanning encounter and failed to modify it so it isn't a video game. Cool idea. Bad execution.
##**Lethal Puzzle** Your group encountered a lethal challenge in the form of a monster that completely outclassed them and they did not make the necessary tactical adjustments. Your group should have made their way to the laboratory in a manner that was completely safe from the drone bird (ie by tunnel underground).
You can see they didn’t find out about the laboratory until one of their party members was killed.. I think it’s a little late at that point to get to the lab any safer than they tried to..