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GMing my players through a classic fantasy dungeon, two Mercenaries, a Thief, a Priest of Light with three hired swords for help.

The local relgious head hired the group to cleanse a crypt of evil, providing each P.C. with a healing potion in advance. After two difficult battles everyone but the thief had taken damage, they only used two of their four potions, reasoning they should save the other potions for an "emergency" and that the Priest could provide plenty of healing still. With the priest at half H.P. they open a door and are ambushed. A minotaur takes the Priest of Light out first shot, a hireling N.P.C. also goes down. The group ends up retreating, instead of a dungeon crawl we end up with a rebuilding session the rest of the evening.

I randomly assigned targets in the ambush via die roll, so it was bad luck not me as G.M. that had the priest targeted. If he had been near full H.P. he would have survived the attack that downed him and the adventure would have proceeded normally since the party would have still had a healer. I had also reminded the players at the begining of the session that they were in a dungeon, low on H.P. and still had potions available.

Only one of the four players is new to RPGs, the other three are seasoned. In addition to this campaign we also have a DND 5E game; I think the players have developed bad habits during those sessions as a "short rest" fixes most aliments as opposed to Palladium and other 1980s RPGs where a party needs to keep a good grasp on when they are nearing their limitations.

I'm not sure it has anything directly to do with age of the game. Any game where healing is not trivial will give people trouble that are used to the D&D 5E version of durability/resiliency.

It really requires a different frame of mind. If your character's health/vitality/whatever truly matters and is non-trivial to recover, conflict reduction or avoidance becomes important. Sometimes it isn't just important, but vital for the survival of the character/group. I always go over the experience chart in "session 0" to remind people that combat and simply defeating adversaries isn't (or shouldn't be) the main source of experience gain. If your players are coming up with ways to draw the enemy out of place into ambushes (or whatever), those ideas are likely to end up progressing the character faster than simply running in and swinging whatever weapon is at hand. Another side of that shift in thinking is that you aren't limited to exactly what is on your character sheet. A lot of players have been trained by D&D 3, 3.5, 4, 5, and Pathfinder 1 & 2E that your character inhabits a grid square on a map. If you are using a map, they tend to think they can't see around a corner without moving their characters around the corner. This makes sense if the entire game is built around grid movement for combat, but if the game is not built around grid movement then this is incredibly limiting. Players need to be aware that they can lean forward to a corner to peek around or maybe get out a small mirror to look around a corner without putting a body part in a potential field of fire. The more recent versions of D&D and closely related games are (in some ways) incredibly limiting on what characters can actually do outside of the specific actions that are on the character sheet in some way. (Yes, I realize that can certainly be tempered by DM/GM action, but the actual "rules as written" can be quite limiting.)

It can certainly be a struggle for players to break out of that conditioning.

*chuckles*
Me reasoning it out, I would of kept the priest at full health with the potions because he is the 'medic' and can't use his powers on himself. and then have the priest use his powers on everyone else to keep them at full health. (or better yet two priests )

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:*chuckles*
Me reasoning it out, I would of kept the priest at full health with the potions because he is the 'medic' and can't use his powers on himself. and then have the priest use his powers on everyone else to keep them at full health. (or better yet two priests )

Seems like a no brainer with three seasoned gamers in the party right? But nope, they wanted to save the healing potions "for an emergency" and the healer got one-shotted because he was at half H.P. In this case it was a monster attack, but it could have just as easily been an area attack from a spell or trap the party failed to find. Keep the healer standing at all costs!

Kraynic wrote:I'm not sure it has anything directly to do with age of the game. Any game where healing is not trivial will give people trouble that are used to the D&D 5E version of durability/resiliency.

It really requires a different frame of mind. If your character's health/vitality/whatever truly matters and is non-trivial to recover, conflict reduction or avoidance becomes important. Sometimes it isn't just important, but vital for the survival of the character/group. I always go over the experience chart in "session 0" to remind people that combat and simply defeating adversaries isn't (or shouldn't be) the main source of experience gain. If your players are coming up with ways to draw the enemy out of place into ambushes (or whatever), those ideas are likely to end up progressing the character faster than simply running in and swinging whatever weapon is at hand. Another side of that shift in thinking is that you aren't limited to exactly what is on your character sheet. A lot of players have been trained by D&D 3, 3.5, 4, 5, and Pathfinder 1 & 2E that your character inhabits a grid square on a map. If you are using a map, they tend to think they can't see around a corner without moving their characters around the corner. This makes sense if the entire game is built around grid movement for combat, but if the game is not built around grid movement then this is incredibly limiting. Players need to be aware that they can lean forward to a corner to peek around or maybe get out a small mirror to look around a corner without putting a body part in a potential field of fire. The more recent versions of D&D and closely related games are (in some ways) incredibly limiting on what characters can actually do outside of the specific actions that are on the character sheet in some way. (Yes, I realize that can certainly be tempered by DM/GM action, but the actual "rules as written" can be quite limiting.)

It can certainly be a struggle for players to break out of that conditioning.

No grid in this encounter.
1) Thief checked the door for traps, merc opened it
2) I describe the room and contents, party does not detect the enemy
3) players declare they enter the room and start "looking for treasure"
4) Ambush

I actually run my 5E sessions in a similar fashion. I find a combat grid and minis/tokens are not essential to tactics in our games (unlike DnD 3x or Pathfinder) and I only use them in some encounters.

Plus in this specific case the Priest's body hit the ground before they got to declare actions due to being ambushed.

In that case, it simply sounds like a learning experience. While healing the priest would have been a good idea, having the whole group enter a room all at once is often not that great either.

Honestly, I've always hated "healing potions" as presented in both RPGs and especially video games (and I've been an active RPGer since the mid 80s). They're so hokey and render actual healing abilities all but meaningless, especially when they're commonplace. Now rare ones that can bring you back to life or heal mortal wounds? Sure, that's totally different. But the "here's 2D6 hit points back for 50 credits!" ones just make me roll my eyes. As such I usually don't bother with them, even if I remember that I have them. Doesn't really matter if it's D&D or not. I just hate the whole idea of them.

The real question in that scenario is why didn't the priest heal themselves to fool? That's the number one rule for any healer; help yourself first, your party seconds, because if you're dead everyone else is likely to die, too. There's also the question of why they went into a room first; that's the "tank's" role, or at least the more hearty/disposable members of the team. Nevermind that they all seemed to barrel in without a care in the world.

That's what needs to be addressed more than them not using those stupid, stupid healing potions.

Crimson Dynamo wrote:The real question in that scenario is why didn't the priest heal themselves to fool? That's the number one rule for any healer; help yourself first, your party seconds, because if you're dead everyone else is likely to die, too. There's also the question of why they went into a room first; that's the "tank's" role, or at least the more hearty/disposable members of the team. Nevermind that they all seemed to barrel in without a care in the world.

That's what needs to be addressed more than them not using those stupid, stupid healing potions.

Healing Touch is the Priest of Light healing ability, Rules-As-Written (Palladium Fantasy RPG 1st edition) prevent the priest from healing themselves. So the healing potions were necessary for the priest to recover H.P.

And yes, once I read the room description and one player declared he was searching for treasure the rest followed suit like lemmings off a cliff....

foilfodder wrote:they only used two of their four potions, reasoning they should save the other potions for an "emergency" and that the Priest could provide plenty of healing still..

That's the trap of potions; there's never a good time to use them.
If you use them too early, you get screwed when you really NEED them,
and if you hold onto them until the right time, you end up holding them too long and die.

There IS a middle-ground, but it's often hard to find, at least for me and for many other people.
Any one-time-use magic item like that is something I tend to just sell at the soonest opportunity, then save up my money for something more long-term.

Although this makes sense if the entire game is based on grid movement for combat, this is severely restricting if it isn't. There are ways to peek around corners without putting a body part in harm's way, such as leaning forward into a corner or bringing out an old mirror. Some of the more recent editions of D&D and related games severely restrict what characters can do beyond what is specified on their character sheet. "The rules as written" are often quite restrictive, even if they're tempered by DM/GM action."