"Your brutal greatsword slices cleanly through the bandit leader's tattered leather armour killing him."

Plot hook acquired.

Seriously, that's an awesome idea. Who're the old men working for, where do he drugs come from, why do they want the locals to attack adventuring parties? Is it only multi-racial parties or also parties where everyone happens to be the same race? There are so many ways this could go.
user, you came up with a great idea.

What's the drugs name backwards?

>Who're the old men working for,
Disgruntled liches who had their dungeon shit kicked in by adventurers.

>where do he drugs come from,

Aboleth in caverns beneath the villages.

>why do they want the locals to attack adventuring parties?
Too many cocky adventurers have made dungeon-building too risky and reduced real estate prices. If adventurers get killed or even wounded by local bandits it'll reduce the incentive structure, make adventuring more dangerous again and raise real estate prices in safe area that the liches own.

haha players are so unreasonable, why do they act like discrete human beings with their own thoughts feelings and beleifs???
they should be able to psychicly gestalt their hive mind before the game so that they are on the same page as the DM

so it's harder to tell how it's made

Should have given the party the opportunity to cut or shoot down some more while they're turning to run instead of just narrating a successful escape.

Many GMs are just dumb, there is nothing in the rules saying they must be used that way.

>as if they had defeated all of the bandits
They DID defeat all the bandits. They're running away, defeated.

DnD is NOT 'skills for kills'. It is XP for overcoming challenges.

Lich tits, really?

You're making shit up because the GM is just saying they're in the process of running away, rather than going "They ran away".

I've had players slaughter their way through a bandit stronghouse, kill everyone up to the chiefs bedroom, then went to an inn for a long rest.
Then come back in the morning and get pissed off that he ran away.

It sounds like there have been multiple encounters where one bandit dies and they all flee. Bandits have low health and can be killed by one player on the first round. Are all your players getting chances to shine in combat. It's your job as DM to make sure everyone has fun.

No way.
user you lie surely

Well if it's that then the players really have no right to bitch.

lichloved is best feat

Adventurers basically carry everything a bandit could want, since the jobs are similar in their goals and methods, just not targets. Adventurers have a lot of hard cash and good weapons and armor, which the bandits can either sell or use themselves to bring down bigger targets. Bringing down an adventuring party is a great prize for any group of bandits with ambition.

Remember, we only see the bandits who fail because they attacked the player characters and not less important adventurers.

Kek

to be fair this was still single digit # of sessions for most of them but don't write off how ridiculous people can be

>brutal greatsword slices cleanly
What the fuck kind of narration is this? Shameful.

NEVER SHOULD HAVE COME HERE

Bandits were scarier back in older TTRPGs when the players and PCs weren't ridiculously overpowered compared to enemies.

For example, back in oldschool DND it was serious business if a group of bandits double your number stopped you on the road. You would probably try to negotiate, or win them over with some smooth talking or a bribe. You could still opt to fight but there was very significant risk involved.

In modern games, you just roll initiative and kill them all with no lasting harm like the flawless demigods all PCs are now a days almost regardless of system (there are exceptions but generally this holds true).

>Am I doing something wrong here?
You're posting on Veeky Forums

Can you please kill yourself already?

Newbs tend to expect every enemy to have no self-preservation and to always fight to the last man like in most vidya.

In the real world, thugs try to mug people even though concealed carry is a thing.
Destitution and/or substance abuse make people do stupid shit, same would go for fantasy.

>fighting dragon
>almost TPK's us but we bounce back and get it down to very low health
>dragon flies away
>we start shooting everything we can at it
>still escapes
>only get the exp for meeting a dragon which isn't very much
>guy playing our wizard is visibly pissed off
>asks DM why we had to sit through a 2 hour fight if Dragon was just going to leave
>DM: ''The dragon isn't stupid, he knew his life was in danger so he retreated, it's that simple''
>can't speak for everyone but almost certain 3 people went home with a sour taste in their mouth including me

A single concealed carrier is a far cry from a party of openly-armed malcontents.

>defeat a dragon by forcing it to flee
>don't get experience

That's the only flaw with the story. Dragons can be cowards, too.

Earning experience through enemies defeated is shit-tier, anyways, though.

But I supported OP.

I absolutely believe that his greentext accurately reflects a statement made by a real person, and not that he just made it up because he needs some human interaction.

>Have "bandits" on the road fight to the death, with fanatical devotion. One even goes so far as to try and hold the fighter's sword in his gut, so another "bandit" can try and kill him.
>Players just assume that's normal bandit behavior.

>what makes them so bold?
Desperation

Dragons are (generally) highly intelligent, they're going to be smarter than to stick around when they know they're in danger. But hey maybe now you can make it your goal to hunt down that dragon and kill it in a cave it's resting in, a place where it can't just fly away.

Though dragons are tricky to use right, because people have turned dragons from "things that should be a terrifying enemy that requires a ton of planning to fight well" to "giant bag of loot and exp" and get really made if they actually fight smart and use their advantages, I'm sure one player would cry like a baby and leave if you actually made a blue dragon fight like they're supposed to in the MM (Make fights extend for days at a time, blasting the party with breath attacks from max range and flying away to let it recharge)

Granted I would've given them exp for defeating the dragon since you did make it route

I definitely would have given xp for defeating it, since you did. Or the system equivalent, because fuck dnd.

You just have a bad gm.

DM is a metagaming fag if he waits until the dragon is at numerically low health just to fuck with the party but then has it fly away just fine while its wings are barely attached by flaps of skin.

>Make fights extend for days at a time, blasting the party with breath attacks from max range and flying away to let it recharge)
[It Ain't Me intensifies]

Pretty much this.

That's why I like low level grittiness.
You can't have heroism without risk.
Superman catching bank robbers isn't heroic. I'm in more danger picking up garbage in a park.

It would make for an interesting encounter, everyone having to go from cover to cover while lightning crashes into the terrain around them.

Way more cool of a scenario than "the dragon lands and swipes at you with his claws, then tries to bite you"

>most bandits only turned to banditry because they lacked the skills or resources to make it legitimately
>being uneducated thugs, they follow the leadership of one even stronger than them
>he gets his ass destroyed by a team of dangerous killers
>LOL, LETS HANG AROUND AND DIE TOO GUYS

Holy fuck this, they're bandits not cultists

...

Should have rolled for each remaining bandit for reaction. Some could flee, other guy could have stabbed nearby comrade in the back before doing the same, few would have surrendered and started begging for mercy, some might outright charge killer in hope to avenge thier dead leader.

>be in weird dimension
>a minotaur shows up and he wants fight
>I know I can't take him, so I just tackle him into a cliff
>didn't get exp because "technically I didn't kill him"
Sometimes I just want to punch you in the face

That's not how HP works in D&D.

Care to elaborate?

Losing hp has no effect on your combat performance, or abilities in general.

There is nothing to elaborate on.

A person at 1 hp is as combat effective (in terms of movement, abilities, and so on) as a person at 30 hp

If you want you can fluff it so that you're wounded and bleeding heavily, but it's just fluff

That's actually the core reason I never liked Superman.

He's just god-mode most of the time, with criminals just flailing harmlessly as he easily defeats them and their plans with his array of super powers.

It isn't compelling.

I run Original DND and ACKS campaigns a lot because I like to recapture the magic of gritty dungeon crawls, tense negotiations with an ogre, careful resource usage, and above all else: real risk to the player characters based on their decisions and the whims of the dice.

>based on their decisions
>the whims of the dice
Pick one, grognard.

I had a fight with a young green dragon that had druid levels.
It cast obscuring fog then started strafing the party's wagon train. Pissed the fuck off out of everybody, but they had some fun trying to figure out ways to fight back.

After most of the NPCs had died or scattered and the fog was getting cleared up, the dragon landed to "mop up", but even wounded the PCs were still actually a real threat.
It took off after two rounds in melee with the whole party, but they shot it down.

It crashed into the woods, but rolled to remain conscious at 0hp (yes really).

The barbarian ran after it ahead of everyone else, and confronted the beast. It breathed on him, and both dropped into the negatives.

Good times.

Luck and chance effect outcomes in real life too.

You need at least a small random element, or you've got a pick you own adventure book, and not an RPG.

I'm not sure what prompted this reaction?

The players decide what their characters are doing and then they often roll in various challenges. I don't choose what they do, but I also don't fudge the dice because I sincerely believe that detracts from the game. In particular, I roll all dice in combat right in front of the players. If I roll like dogshit and they kick the shit out of something they had no business beating, well that's an exciting story development. If a kobold steps up and becomes a hero to his people by rolling like a demon and eviscerating all the frontline fighters and forcing the players to retreat, then I give the fellow a name, buff his stats for his heroic experience and have the story develop from there.

Do you think everything in the whole game is controlled by the dice or something?

I thought the tension with supes was doing the right thing even if it isn't the easy thing. Like he could throw a meteor at half his problems but then civilians would die. The stuff that doesn't die to meteor tossing are actually in his weight class.

I would have given 90% xp, since you did 90% of it's hp. As other anons have said, causing him to flee is defeating him, try saying that to your gm.

What if they face him again?

It's not thoug, unfortunately. Because superheroes get posed problems like:
>Save your girlfriend, or this bus load of children
>Lol, whatever, I just try really hard and save both.

I don't understand the question.
A character/villain being reoccurring doesn't have any effect on whether you defeated them in a previous encounter.

Doesn't 'defeat' depend on the context though?

I mean, if you need the dragon dead because it's being a dick and eating farmers, making it run away isn't really a victory. If the goal was simply to survive it, then sure.

The tension with Supes is the control of godlike power and finding the maximum utility of said power without being corrupted by it, I feel. That World of Cardboard speech in the cartoon is what I always think of when I think Supes.

Also, anyone who says that modern TTRPG characters are untouchable gods at level 1 are either baiting or don't understand tactics more advanced than basic MMO aggro. Which is funny, because it's usually the people first up to complain about things being too much like MMOs.

then however much % hp he loses, they get in % xp for that creature.

If he's still at 10% and they just walk up and power attack once, they get the final 10% of xp they didn't get earlier.

If he's healed and recovered, they have to do that much damage, but they would get that much % hp.

Ig he's fully recovered, and at 100% again, then they would have to deal 100% damage, and would get 100% xp. (in addition to the 90% damage and 90% xp they got earlier). This could potentially make them do 190% of the dragon's starting health total, but would also potentially give them 190% of the dragon's normal xp.

Basically I would just tailor the reward to the task, and they would get rewarded for how much they have to do, rather than "lolnope he didn't die" like that gm sounds like he did.

I really enjoy the idea that HP is mental, and represents will to fight or consciousness. Only the last several HP points are your actual body taking damage, and the first largest portion of your hp bar is you saying "holy shit" as you deflect blows and lose wind and get tired and stuff like that.

The quest xp would be rewarded only after killing it, so the next leg of the quest is to find its lair where he's healing. But the encounter xp I would give the %

It is, that guy is talking out his ass and has probably never read a page of superman.
Most actual stories of superman are either written to showcase how even godlike powers can fail to deal with complex situations, either because they are stretched too thin or because the proper application of them is a hard question.
A lot of Lex Luthor stories are like this. Luthor is just a very smart man most of the time. Superman "should" be able to just pulp Lex with a backhand and walk away, but moral and practical reasons stop that from happening (not wanting to kill BECAUSE all that power means there should be another way, or because it's a timeline where lex is a respected businessman and the fallout would be bad).

And that's not even mentioning all of the old and new superman villains who equal or significantly outclass superman in strength, which forces superman to plan and investigate to defeat them using his human reporter side.

not saying there aren't shit stories where it's just hurr durr I win, but bad writing isn't limited to a single character.

>at level 1
I don't think the complaint is about level 1.
It's that after enough time, you're literally godlike compared to level 1 npcs that are supposed to make up the world.

I feel like if I get my shit kicked in I'll reassess my situation and there's a fair chance I'll stop eating farmers or at least fuck off to lick my wounds/plan revenge. Something has changed, the narrative has progressed and we all had an experience represented in points.

Characters don't just get better by winning sometimes they almost win or even lose. Getting exp for the session is going through experiences no? They are called experience points not kill points.

>but bad writing isn't limited to a single character.
It's fairly endemic unfortunately.

>A character/villain being reoccurring doesn't have any effect on whether you defeated them in a previous encounter.
maybe the villain... learned and adapted?
a shocking thought I know, it's almost like characters in a TTRPG aren't mindless robots.

Haven't read much Superman, have you?

I like the drug concept, but I kinda went the way the game Lisa did where it disfigures them horribly after taking them long enough.

I've known exactly 1 guy like this who was korean and was a "roll" player and not a "role" player: he had absolutely no concept of the game as an experience and saw it as a series of objectives, destinations, etc.. He only cared about stats, loot, and saw everything in the game as less of an adventure and more of an obstacle to be overcame on his war-path to level 20. He didn't understand plot hooks, he treated the npcs as npcs, and wasn't afraid of dying or killing his fellow party members. You can already imagine, this person got vocally upset (not embarrassingly so, but still) whenever things didn't behave, "like a video game".
He also played league of legends regularly, but that's just me attacking low hanging fruit.

My point is that it DOES happen.

Leather armour existed only in weird niche transitional techs.

So yeah, swords very rarely got a chance to cut through them.

>"Fuck sake DM why do bandits always flee, they should fight to the death!"

Exactly how honorable do you expect bandits to be?

>"Well, I mean-"

Hell, how much do you think they just want to die?

>"Probably not a lot."

And what's the easiest way to not get killed?

>"Not be in a fight, but-"

No, there are no buts.You killed their boss, a guy that got to where he was by being the biggest, baddest ass in his bandit clan, and you made child's play of him. The guy that no one wanted to step to, because they knew he'd kill the living fuck out of anyone. And you just fucking killed him, with little or no trouble, at all. And you expect a bunch of cowardly little fuckers who think they're hot shit for robbing people that can't defend themselves to stand and fight to the death? To not run away the second their job gets hard?

>"... No."

Then shut up and take your XP reward.

>this weird percentage shit
Stop. If they made it run away or surrender, they have defeated it and are entitled to full XP. What if the creature flees before they hurt it, due to a failed morale check? What if they talk their way past the encounter, without ever drawing a weapon?

I cringed.

You're not doing anything wrong, GM-user, your player is just That Guy.

>play a six hour long session
>multiple encounters, both social and combat
>get no XP because "you didn't reach the campaign goals"
>5 sessions later we're still level one.
I would complain to my gm but the game fizzled out anyways.

And I get angry when people are dumb on purpose. "I want enemies to stand and fight, even if it would be unrealistic given their motivations," is being dumb on purpose.

Then again, those bandits would probably regroup, keep tabs on that person, and set a trap for them, to take revenge. Because that guy wasn't just a gigantic bad-ass, he was the only thing keeping the other bandit clans from encroaching on their territory.

HP is just meat points, it literally doesn't matter if you're at 100/100 HP or 1/100 HP and as long as the dragon has at least 1 HP, he's still capable of flying away and shit.

That or just defend into infighting

I'm going to assume you mean descend and, yeah, that's the other option. They'd be drawn together by the potential of revenge for a while, then once they'd either gotten the revenge they wanted, decided that it was useless, or tried and failed to get it, they'd just start fighting each other to figure out who's in charge now.

That does make me wonder why for example in the Batman franchise, nameless henchmen keep attacking Batman. Like, you just saw the guy get ganged up on by ten dudes and he broke all of their jaws, what makes you think you'll be the one to put him down?

Batman would never expect AN 11TH HENCHMAN

also he's flesh and blood and CAN be taken down over time.
Heck, get enough 5year olds to run at him and he'll eventually tire.

Batman may seriously injure people, you may end up in a hospital for a few days/ a week or two, but thats still better than the villain you work for killing you and everyone you know I suppose

Depends on the media in question. Batman has trouble beating up like 2 guys in the animated series.

It's not weird percentage shit. It's actually really simple.

If they moral check and fail, there are already rules for that, and rewarding xp. If they talk their way out, there are already rules for that. Neither of these are relevant, and both already have their own rules and deal with situations not in question in this thread.

If the creature fights and flees and doesn't die, rather than say "lol nope" like the GM in question did, I would give them the amount of XP they managed to do in damage. Getting the rest would be incentive.

Just giving them all of it and saying causing it to flee is victory is fine too, but I'm assuming actually fully killing the dragon is a goal, so to further reinforce that, they want the rest of their xp!

But giving them none doesn't seem right to me. They worked hard.

The only people who matter in capeshit is people in costumes. Friends/Family can (and will) be used against the hero in varying levels of cruelty, new powers will crop up as the plot demands, and fanboyism in the board room can allow a dude whose only superpower is being rich and prepping for most situations into a one-man wrecking crew who can take out the JLA single-handedly.

It's what I think of whenever I think about what most THAT GUY/GM'S would create if they were given the means to publish their 3.PF campaign as a long running serial.

Why did the dragon wait until it was practically dead to flee? Surely it would struggle to fly with that many wounds?

A cool GM would have it crash somewhere in the distance, and you'd have to race to it before it escapes or a pack of orcs kill it and strip it to the bone.

If you stabbed him, would your sword level up?

That's quite funny user, I laughed.

Not how HP works.

Because doing so is disingenuous and gives a false image on the way HP works in D&D.

From personal experience, hearing the DM talk about how many cuts/scrapes/bruises you got from fighting a dude loses its impact once it's clear that a) the DM subscribes to a word-a-day calender for his vocabulary and b) it's all fluff with no mechanical context beyond taking X damage out of a total of Y HP.

If you want to do cool shit like that, use a system that actually treats health as health, rather than a nebulous concept whose conditions can only go from "top physical specimen" to "bleeding out on the cobblestone floor."

>nearly dead dragon attempts to flee
>flies a ways, blood pouring from its wounds as it goes
>hear a distant thud as you follow the fallen blood trail
>thud turns into flailing and loud, pitiful roars
>find where the dragon crashed
>a wyvern's attacking the downed dragon, trying to finish it off and claim its territory
>party member speaks draconic, hears it screeching about letting the dragon's corpse bloat in the sun
>risk vs reward; join the fray for a chance at the extra Xp of killing a wyvern as well, or let it finish the job knowing you're still getting all the Xp for fighting and killing the dragon
>the choice is yours

>Am I doing something wrong here?

No. Your players are just greedy for kills and loot.

Yeah, but the way HP actually works is pretty fucking gay, so it's better to houserule it for everyone but a select few, like the PCs who can John Mclane their way through injuries.

Stabbing a dragon until it reaches 1hp should injure it. The fact that doesn't happen is more bizarre than alignment being a physical thing. The concept of someone being completely fine as you stab them until they spontaneously die is dumb, at least roleplay around that.

>try playing another system
Good luck getting anyone to play another fantasy RPG.