What tactics does your party employ to get through encounters without dying?

what tactics does your party employ to get through encounters without dying?

We kill the other guys before they kill us.

>what tactics does your party employ

Stopped reading there. Literally every session someone has died and I've kept a list of names now that was at first an attempt to make them realize their own mortality, but that didn't work (42 so far). So then I tried to make resurrection near impossible with major new restrictions on the spells and whatnot to try and encourage a modicum of thought into their future actions, but that didn't work either.

Now I make bets with them on who will die this session and if I win then that person will then become the new DM so I can have a break. I'm 4 incorrect choices in but statistically speaking my chances grow higher every time.

I believe in the general application of firebombs to every problem.

Anyone who dies to the firebombs is an acceptable casualty

Sounds like Lemmings the RPG

Do they have problems with how often they die? Maybe they are more for quick and brutal hack 'n slash style play. Are they newer to the game or at least how you run it? If so there is a chance that you initially set the tactical bar too high for them to feel like they could reasonably avoid death so they accepted extreme mortality rates was just part of your games. How well do your players get along? How much team work is required to survive? How much do you encourage them to be invested in them; do you reward such behavior enough to make them want to put the extra effort in to avoid death? How flexible are you in letting the ideas the players come up work to their advantage; do you design encounter with a specific or set of specific winning tactics in mind that they players might not realize exist? Have you tried discussing expectations and play styles of the game with your players; both yours and theirs?

>Do they have problems with how often they die?
At first, then they got used to it.

>Maybe they are more for quick and brutal hack 'n slash style play.
They absolutely are, but I've told them that if I'm going to be the forever DM that I'm going to run shit how I want. And that isn't hack-and-slash murderhobo extravaganza like they want.

> Are they newer to the game or at least how you run it?
Five years for most, and we're all over 25. No excuse for being an idiot.

>How well do your players get along?
Incredibly.

>How much team work is required to survive?
An amount they are seemingly incapable of reaching.

>How much do you encourage them to be invested in them
The single campaign has been going for years so the rewards for immersion is the gathering of all your loot and fortunes into whatever you can with it. Not like it matters when the average lifespan seems to be a month or so in-game time.

>do you reward such behavior enough to make them want to put the extra effort in to avoid death?
Higher than average currency usually, but lower chance for actual items since the length of the campaign is for only as long as it potentially goes so too many items would make them far too overpowered.

>How flexible are you in letting the ideas the players come up work to their advantage
Incredibly.

>do you design encounter with a specific or set of specific winning tactics in mind that they players might not realize exist?
I always try to have at least three ways of doing it that I can think of, and describe the environment to the best of my ability to highlight those possible choices.

Some people just can't be helped.

>DnD group
In ship vs ship combat we do a lot of ramming. It's worked well so far, but we have yet to come up against anything with greater tonnage.

In man vs man combat, it's the pretty standard arrangement. I'm a pretty by the book defender, I usually end up locking down a choke point while the casters and cleric relax behind me and rain death on everything in front of me - or in a more open area, I end up boxing a couple mooks in a corner and keeping them there. The squishy DPS and healing are ranged enough to stay away from most melee baddies and between them the paladin and the swordmage are usually enough to keep the rest tied up... although the swordmage is reckless and likes to teleport into bad spots.

And then the rogue just runs around exploiting combat advantage as necessary to sneak attack nuke things to pieces.

>The dieselpunk Only War homebrew hack
Point your frontal armor at the enemy and pray, mostly. We've not had much chance to trick our rides out or get interesting gubbins for them yet.

The guy in the scout car has enough of a jink roll that he can avoid tank shells that get sent his way, and by going fast he puts himself behind the enemy vehicles to autocannon their rear armor. I'm an assault gun so I tend to hang back, nominally supporting the infantry but more often than not shooting at armor because I've got the biggest and penetratiest gun in the platoon.

The command tank usually goes full balls to the wall and gets into tank dogfights, he almost always takes damage but he's got the front armor to handle it and he hasn't been blown up yet.

Our attached motorized infantry squad typically dismounts and keeps the enemy infantry from boarding us and shoving grenades down our hatches. In turn, we present bigger targets for all the enemy HE slingers and they don't get blown to kingdom come.

>Five years for most, and we're all over 25. No excuse for being an idiot.
Well if they learned things wrong to start with unlearning those habits and building new ones can be extremely hard and time alone isn't likely to fix it.

>An amount they are seemingly incapable of reaching.
Have you considered retuning the way you make fights slightly to be more challenging on an individual level but require less coordination? You can coordinate their enemies far better than they can their PCs since you aren't likely to come up with a different plan for each individual.

>The single campaign has been going for years so the rewards for immersion is the gathering of all your loot and fortunes into whatever you can with it. Not like it matters when the average lifespan seems to be a month or so in-game time.
>Higher than average currency usually, but lower chance for actual items since the length of the campaign is for only as long as it potentially goes so too many items would make them far too overpowered.
Sounds like they still might not know about those incentives since people don't live long enough to find out about them. Also maybe you should try something other than just money to hook them; maybe since you make items rare you could try tailoring them to be more engaging to the Player/PC than simply "this +2 sword is better than your +1 sword", or try getting them to come up with goals and personal objectives and giving them a good path to reaching those.

>I always try to have at least three ways of doing it that I can think of, and describe the environment to the best of my ability to highlight those possible choices.
Cognitive dissonance is a bitch so what might seem obvious to you might just not click with your players. Try testing out different ways to draw their attention to things and keep in mind that even if you find something that works for one person might not for another.

And a final thing you could try is dumbing things down a bit for a while to give them a chance to get attached to their characters, work out ways they can function as a team and make those alternate solutions painfully and completely impossible to miss even for a blind and deaf person before you start SLOWLY ramping things back up.

You autistic user? No bully. Just you seem autistically invested in other anons game.

Not to my knowledge. And you might want to familiarize your self with what being autistic actually means. Obsession to detail is a sign of it but far from the only one. A much more intrinsic and problematic one is lack of ability to understand other peoples point-of-view, motives and the meaning behind what others say typically because of not being able to "read between the lines".

>building new ones can be extremely hard and time alone isn't likely to fix it
Good thing they have four other morons they can die together with and attempt to learn from their mistakes as a functioning adult should have the capacity to do.

>Have you considered retuning the way you make fights slightly to be more challenging on an individual level but require less coordination?
I used to lessen the AC of enemies, lower max HP, and still make them retreat if they are even semi-intelligent. None have worked.

>You can coordinate their enemies far better than they can their PCs since you aren't likely to come up with a different plan for each individual.
They died to a group of goblins when they all tried to restart at level 1 user, seven in total. Outside their lair. With only three of them being armed. After the lessening of AC/HP from before. Stop defending idiocy. Stop it.

>Cognitive dissonance is a bitch so what might seem obvious to you might just not click with your players.
I don't care what doesnt seem obvious I care about what they can creatively think up in the situation that they have been placed in, and when you consistently get run-up-and-attack without a care in the world I couldnt care less about what "clicks" with them. Seven. Fucking. Goblins. user.

>Try testing out different ways to draw their attention to things and keep in mind that even if you find something that works for one person might not for another.
What works for them is hack-and-slash. I've told them to not expect that kind of situation from me very often. Yet they still treat most encounter as such. I know what they want, I know what they are going to do, and I have told them I am almost certainly never going to do it. Yet they keep doing the same. I don't even care at this point, I just want to get passed 50 character deaths.

>And a final thing you could try is dumbing things down a bit...
Never going to happen. They are adults, and I'm not running a daycare

They don't, they just complain when they die

Ok, ok. Was just trying to help. Though if you could humor me, HOW did they die in a 5v7 fight with goblins with only 3 of the goblins being armed? That seems.... statistically improbable even if only using "run-up-and-attack" as the only course of action.

Two casters with Healing Word.

I mispoke, they dont have four other morons to die with it's four morons in total but here it is.

>see NPC tied to shamanistic post, likely to die in ritual of some sort
>they arrive first and I give them, fucking GIVE THEM, the perfect opportunity to have a surprise round and take out one or two to make the rest scatter in shock and surprise
>nope
>the half-orc walked up to them and said "I ask them what they are doing"
>me- "are you serious?"
>"Yes"
>this surprises the group and the warriors get their spears and hold them to the intruder
>the players cannot understand what is being said but as time goes by their shouts and yells grow louder and more angry
>orc just stands there trying to ask what they are doing in the different languages he knows
>the other players think this is a great time to, without stealth checks or anything, to just take down a goblin hut
>goblins see this and think they are being attacked
>get lucky on their attacks on orc (crit) and goes down making the four lose their barbarian
>others left are a wizard, fighter, and ranger
>the ranger decides this is a great time to substitute his ranged skills for melee and "hold them off" while the fighter gets to the orc and gets him to safety
>the fighter says fuck that and moves back to help guard the wizard, the ranger is then taken down right afterwards
>wizard can't cast burning hands because ranger is in the range of the cone
>ranger is taken down next turn
This is during the time I gave them all a potion of healing to start off with. I don't even know why I try.
>fighter says that "he can take it" to the wizard and to use his spells
>wizard decides to go against that and tries to go around to get a better angle and not get the fighter
>he was hit by two opportunity attacks from unarmed goblins however, one who crit and took him down before he could leave their space he had a -2 mod on CON
>fighter is then taken down as well

And that was deaths 32-35.

I hate it so much. As a DM I either have the monsters go in for the kill, or it's all like "whoops, all I achieved was wasting a bonus action and a lvl1 slot from a caster".

I want surges back.

kill it before it kills us

which leads to nothing but frustrated murderhobos when they come up against anything that isn't a straight up fight between them and a conventional opponent

if you don't use some kind of maim rule or ko penalty it's pretty dumb. healing word should have to be heard by the target

Wow... that... I'm not sure I can bring myself believe that a whole party that has been playing for more than a few sessions can truly be that inept. I mean sounds like luck played a part in that, but wow. At this point maybe treating the symptoms is the best you can do. And by that I mean get a better player or two who could take a shit show like that and take care of it by them self or atleast get out alive to highlight how dumb they were.

>At this point maybe treating the symptoms is the best you can do.
Weird way of saying "euthanization"

>forcing someone to be subject to a party like them
You truly are the worst kind of person.

Actually I'd kind of like to play with a group like that as a rogue or bard or similar and CONSTANTLY mock them as I run away when they make "and now every one dies" choices.

That reminds me of a player who thinks that just walking up to groups of enemies and casting charm person on one of them is good strategy. Stealth? Surprise? Nope. Not even regular diplomacy or trickery, just skip straight to using basic magic on one of them, and then acting surprised when he gets attacked.

The tactic usually employed is to decry anyone who had the misfortune of getting themselves killed as a Commie and therefore they were never really part of the team. The death of so-called-teammates is just another sign of how good our Troubleshooters are at their jobs.

Thats actually happened. More than once. By the same person.

Holy shit user, this is incredible. Please tell us more TPK-by-total-incompetence stories.

how can you even have -2 con

A -2 Con mod, not the score its self I assume, would be from have a Con score of 6-7 in 3.x or a score of 3 in 2e.

>players found themselves in belly of subterranean keep but separated
>first player doesn't attempt at stealth. At all. Even though he was proficient in it.
>simply walks around it's halls until he found a sign of life (not counting the lit torches but actual humanoids/movement)
>sees a hunched over and hooded figure mumbling to itself in a language he didn't know
>"Hey, where am I?"
>creature lifts it's hood in confusion and reveals itself to be a duergar
>it shouts in surprise at the language and presence of an above-ground dwarf in front of himself
>(welp here we fucking go) "roll initiative"
>"but I'm not trying to attack him"
>"you're pretty much the exact opposite to him though. they are the drow to the high elves. the merrow to the mer."
>"yeah but if I don't attack him, he won't attack me."
>"....."
>deurgar skitters passed him, eventually as player is walking around like he owns the place is ganged up on by a group of guards the other duergar went to alert
>"But I didn't attack him!"
>he didn't survive

The others managed to find each other but one still died to eating a poison mushroom after their dwarven ranger was unable to be there to identify it. The wizard had detect poison but no slots left and he was absolutely convinced that it had a healing property for reasons that escape me. Deaths 6 and 7.

Attempt to min-max matched with horrible rolls.

i assumed it was 5e since the players all sound new, pretty sure you cant take less than 8 as a stat in 5e
why would he roll initiative if it didnt attack him? either the duergar attacks first and gets a surprise attack on a defenseless dwarf or there is no combat

Because the duergar was assuming combat was about to happen and readied to defend itself. To save time I simply made him roll to let him know that he was perceived as an enemy and was being treated as such. This was not the equivalent of freaking out some begger/crazy person, having an awkward moment of silence, and getting away from each other. This was a meeting of two beings, one of which is ideologically and near genetically predisposed to the death of this other being in front of him. When it didnt seem like he was "hostile" he still kept his guard up, readying himself for """combat""", then escaped to warn the others. I made it well known for him based on his race (mountain dwarf) on what his character would know about their histories. I let him know that if the situation where reversed he'd be enslaved, or killed. I let him know that he is probably going to get more and warn the complex of intruders.

He didn't care.

Running or trying to talk through them.

All it takes is enough life support equipment.

>Dark Heresy
They send the guy with the Eviscerator and Carapace Armour in first.
>5e
They hide behind my character who has thus far proven incredibly durable, even in situations she shouldn't have survived.
>Rogue Trader
Bomb it from orbit.

>Literally every session someone has died
Somebody's playing Fairy Meat.

the fighters act like retards and complain a lot while the casters solve the problems

My Fighter, an ex pirate and slaver, will talk her way out of anything, usually getting drunk and/or high with her enemies, or fucking them.

It's got her out of plenty of shitty situations. (But also got the Rogues throat cut once)

Party member closest to death suicide bombs the encounter then burns a fatepoint. Although. when we did it, only the GM knew about fatepoints, we initially went with the plan expecting my cleric to sacrifice herself.

It's the only way to be sure. It's the only way to be sure.

My character once ended an encounter on the first round by football tackling the enemy necromancer and screaming in her ear until she dismissed her summons. Does that count?

None, to my endless frustration.

Keep shooting until the other guys are dead.

depends on which party I'm in at the time. my Inquisitor party is I get super judgmental and go find the biggest thing the enemy has paladin smites and tag teams. fighter picks off adds because high Dex switch hitter is amazing resident power gamer and his "awoken firepelt cougar Barbarian/ Druid" does pretty much whatever he pleases. oracle that wins at AC chilling in middle doing oracly things. so far works

my other party is tougher because there is a 10% chance we have to get real creative and even then all serious fights require planning ahead

>druid uses spike growth
>huge monster grabs two enemies and spins
>~20' (iirc) diameter, ~60' circumference
>2d4 per 5' of travel, 10d4 damage per rotation
>we figure 3 rotations for a full attack, mostly because we were fighting smaller enemies, most mediums we agreed on 2 rotations, which is still 20d4 (average 40 damage) on two enemies simultaneously

one time we booby trapped it with a ring of oil, set it on fire, then I smashed through the roof and spun two big ass guards

softened them right the fuck up, especially because they were both prone and on fire in a bed of spikes afterward

we did that shit at least once a session, it was so good

sorry, average 50 damage, I rechecked and updated my figures and didn't proofread the post after I edited it

tell me about it. a campaign I DM gnolls goblins and orcs don't just instantly murder everyone around them and my party absolutely does not know how to deal with that. so far their best plan has been push the DMs buttons hoping mob race goes back to stereotype. even when I play in a game where one of them DMs it's near impossible to use diplomacy or even just be great character who doesn't resort to violence at the drop of a hat

>actively cross-referencing with bible on subway
we might have finally got a picture of subway diogenes

wait, what system were you playing that allowed unarmed attackers to threaten spaces and make attacks of opportunity?

Carefully planned ambushes.

oh, he's actually a kinda shitty DM, but his players are so bad it's irrelevant

We alpha strike hard enough to give a decent sized nuclear weapon a run for it's money, and then if the enemy isn't dead when we've blown our offensive load, we run away like cowards and/or get slaughtered like wheat to a scythe.

We're not very good at what we do.

In the EotE I run:
Trandoshan bruiser runs face first into the toughest looking guy and starts hacking away.

Droid heavy screeches about tactics then starts mowing everything down with an LMG while trying to convince me to give him free situational buffs.

Chiss pilot manages to get seriously injured every time despite hiding in cover and blindfiring.

Human face does a surprising amount of damage with a holdout blaster from behind cover.

Wookiee mechanic tries to cludge together some sort of environmental advantage/weapon and failing that joins the trandoshan with his high powered electro wrench.

Astromech screeches angrily from the sidelines as no one will let him install a head mounted blaster rifle.