The low-level party's first encounter is against bandits

>the low-level party's first encounter is against bandits
>TPK
>the GM has to deus ex machina the party to safety, but also penalizes the party

>the party's next two fights go by just fine

>the party's fourth encounter is against bandits... at sea (i.e. pirates)
>the ship looks nothing special
>negotiations break down
>the enemy crew immediately boards by teleportation, but they still look beatable
>everyone rolls initiative and deploys on the battle grid
>it turns out that the enemies are in no way beatable, because they are an elite crack team of super-pirates with ridiculous stats
>the party has to surrender
>apparently, this was a random encounter from the GM's setting table

Is there a point wherein it becomes overbearing for a low-level party to be put in their place by bandits/pirates half of the time?

If the GM has to show off a crew of super-pirates to establish a wider world, could the GM not let the party spot this crew boarding and crushing a first-rate ship of the line with ease, while the party watches from afar? I mean, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin's Creed: Rogue understood this for enemy ships. In the early game areas, you would often see man-o'-wars crushing puny brigs, but they were perfectly avoidable.

Does every random encounter above the PCs' pay grade have to involve the enemy bum rushing the party?

Thats why you should play Rifts; level only matters for spell casting and psi

Sounds like either the GM overestimated the party's abilities or he has problems scaling encounters. Otherwise the GM just likes to torment players with this stuff.

Is the GM a new one or a veteran?

Plot twist: Both times it's same bandits

fuck off, retard

Sounds like a DM who is obssesed with plausibility as in "it doesnt makes sense that the PCs onlt encounter people they can beat" which is alright in a hardcore campaign but in a regular one players expect to somewhat have fortune on their side.

Have you tried talking to him? If he's new to GMing and accidentally putting you against fights you can't win that's sort of understandable, but if he's doing it on purpose you should just abandon ship.

Veteran.

Oh, no, the teleporting pirates really were supposed to be unbeatable. The reason why the GM went out of their way to have the pirates rush the PCs' ship, then have everyone roll initiative just to show the party how outclassed they were, was apparently to show the PCs that they live in a wider world... or something like that.

>show the PCs that they live in a wider world
Oh, so youre playing One Piece

There are better ways to show your party this than to have them unavoidably get their asses handed to them. You've got a shit DM.

At most I think you can throw hardballs and have encounters that are a step or two above their paygrade, but still surmountable, and preferably avoidable. Save the "you get completely trounced" for when your low-level party insists on dragon hunting or something.

Maybe the party should have run away/surrendered beforehand.

thanks captain hindsight

DM should have had the crew recognize the pirate's flag, ship or captain since a crack team of elite pirates should have some notoriety. Maybe the pirates are mentioned while on land. Maybe they have a ridiculously high bounty. Maybe if the ship is a new addition tot he pirates fleet it should be mentioned that that particular ship went missing recently.

Now if the players went up to the pirates after some warnings from rumors and the crew, then it's their mistake.

>Now if the players went up to the pirates after some warnings from rumors and the crew, then it's their mistake.

This never happened. The pirates opened communications already in range, and at some point after negotiations broke down, the pirates teleported in.

The GM couldn't do that because it was a random encounter.

>The GM couldn't do that because it was a random encounter.

Random Encounter only means "you're face to face" in dark dank dungeon settings or if everyone in the party is actually blind.


Maybe if you saw the ship far off and tried to escape and failed some boating rolls or some shit then they'd catch and fuck you but like


On the sea you can see really fucking far, too far for medieval boats to teleport into you

>On the sea you can see really fucking far, too far for medieval boats to teleport into you
And maybe you can't recognize that it's a pirate ship.

Beat me to it!

Fuck off again

That bitch doesn't even give a shit that the ship is being blown apart by a damn kraken

It's anime, the kraken is probably her boyfriend

>was apparently to show the PCs that they live in a wider world

wtf

what a shitty master
you were on a fucking boat so no way of running away

if you want to do that you should at least leave open the option of escape

How did negotiations break down?

>on a boat
>no way of running away
Sail the boat away.

One of the demands was sending over one of the male PCs to be bedded.

>Bandits walk away, successful, richer and leveled up.
>Someone speaks up
>"What are we going to do with this money?"
>"Let's buy a boat!"
And from there, old habits just die hard.

plot twist: the story is actually about the bandits not the PCs

So wait, did they take that PC after the Battle?

For me, teleporting pirates that beat you up just tells me that I'm at the whims of the DM's story. Which is generally true regardless but now the message is driven in.

Certainly not what I'd look for in a DM. A good DM might be able to get the message they wanted across without humiliating the party in a situation they could do nothing about.

The party surrendered without being beaten up after the pirates negated the party's best attacks like they were nothing.

you're not just making this up to hurt me are you?

No. One of the party's spellcasters had a spell countered by an enemy with an obnoxiously large modifier for the counter.

Did you leave the game?

No. The game has been very bumpy but everyone has been sticking together anyway.

For example, this?

>the low-level party's first encounter is against bandits
>TPK
>the GM has to deus ex machina the party to safety, but also penalizes the party

The "penalty" was that the GM transformed the party into various kinds of pseudo-evil undead, using homebrewed templates. The GM at least made it come along with free abilities based on the kind of undead the party turned into.

It really is weird that the first encounter of the game alone massively changed the whole premise of the campaign.

this is probably one of the shittiest master ever

Got to agree with That guy sounds like a bad GM desu senpai

about how many bandits was it and what level were you?

Just be careful, user. If player buy-in is strained too far, their behavior will warp and deform in ways that neither you nor they are prepared for.

How is your party built? Does it have glaring weaknesses that can be easily exploited by thieves/rogues/fighters? It sounds like your GM is giving them actual character classes, which is pretty hardcore.

>pirates who can teleport and counterspell
They have casters my good man.

What are you implying, user?

No idea.

>"NO, NOT BLACK LEAF!"

Don't worry, Black Leaf came back as a vampire or some shit like that.

>Pirate campaign
>Teleportation

Just tell me it was pathfinder so I can really lmao at your life.

Nobody says it was a pirate campaign.

>It really is weird that the first encounter of the game alone massively changed the whole premise of the campaign.

Have you considered that maybe you fell victim to a bait and switch?

>the low-level party's first encounter is against bandits
>TPK

Yeah, that shit happens all the time with new GMs or players, bandit stats all over various game systems ar...

>veteran GM
>makes the player characters evil undead
>pulls it off again
>in a random encounter
>that wanted to rape one of the PCs
I think you should bail.

Overpowered, unstoppable enemies, that want to rape PCs.

Ditch the bitch. You don't have to play in his magical realm

Who let Hoppu play dress up again?

Pseudo-evil, not evil.

Agreed with this user. Bail, or if you are going to stay, find ways to be magically non-detectable or invisible.

It's either that or travel with an escort.

Oh wow.

Okay. So, as the GM in question, this guy ignores... a lot of shit.

The first encounter, they were down their main DPR character/blaster because she was sick or something. I ask them if they wish to proceed, and warn them that the encounter was balanced to be challenging to the whole party. They decide to try their luck, and the dice gods end up screwing them over, badly. They wipe, I ask if they want to retcon the session, or if they would like to come back as undead (which had been a conversation thread throughout the battle as their luck kept going worse and worse).

They chose to continue onward.

In this next case, I had random encounters listed for a low visibility meteor storm their voidship was passing through. It was an 8, which was one of the Free Captains of Tortugh, in this case Wilhemina Audrey. She hijacks their comma several clicks off while hiding her own ship in the shadow of an asteroid, announces her presence and her name, and demands a tithe for passing through.

When the character with the explicit "is a prettyboy" trait came to the forefront, she made a proposition that he join her on her ship for "a meal, and perhaps something more fin ye'd like".

Now, I should have asked for the Knowledge Check that no one made to hammer home "This is one of the Free Captains. They're stronk." to provoke a chase, that's on me, but they had her name and no one rolled knowledge.

They decide to feign acceptance at first, and as their ship comes into better view they realize how fuckoff big the guns are and half of them decide to not put up a fight. They let the ship get close, and assumed they'd take a shuttle - but this is a high magic setting, the pirates had a spherecaster with the Portal talent.

Four pirates come on board, negotiations between their captain and the pretty boy seem to be going swimmingly, until one of them pulls a Leeroy Jenkins after cordial negotiations opened.

At which point, Wilhemina gets annoyed at negotiations turns sour, and turns to the prettyboy, who is effectively the party leader. He assesses the situation and moves for everyone to stand down (This is after another portal is opened and a three line formation of lasguns is trained on the party, but does not fire).

Negotiations then proceed uninterrupted. The random encounter - which, they could have fought ship to ship, as while they're ship was more lightly armed, it had a faster acceleration and top speed, and equal armor - thus became an opportunity to buy a "show this item to pirates to scare then off" mark.