I Threw em' a Bone.....

[wilowisp]

So, I was running a very famous and old T&T module (name withheld to avoid "spoilers"). The party had done pretty well in the first few sessions. They were searching for a set of scrolls an ancient undead wizardess didn't want to fall into the hands of a hated ancient enemy, deep within the dark confines of the earth. Then bad luck struck. Two of the four PCs were struck down, and they lost in those two unlucky breaks all of their magical abilities. One PC did something really dumb ("I sense powerful and evil magic? what happens if I touch it.........?" ) but the other fell to just a dumb-luck dice roll. It looked as though the quest was doomed. Then, they came upon a Sphinx.......... The Sphinx was SUPPOSED to give the party a bag of gold if they answered her riddle, if I went with how the module was written; but I decided to make it a wish instead. They guessed the riddle, used the wish, and raised their fallen comrades back to life (and sanity........ long story). The end result was that they succeeded at their quest, although on PC fell later anyway- she had been turned into a giant Cave Bear, and she died heroically wrestling with and distracting an enraged Chimera (284 hits taken in one combat round- ouch.........).

Has anyone else ever done something like this? Or was I too easy on them? What do y'all think?

[Hogscape]

That sounds like good thinking on the GM's part to me.

I've lost a few PC's in that fine little unnamed delving hole.

Your characters must be reaching level 3 by now?

[wilowisp]

Getting close. I think the highest axp. total is 2101 or so........ Its an Amazon female Human Warrior. She just paid through the nose to have a cursed concubine they freed set free from her transformation into a Giant Snake- her comment was "Darn! There went that Elf Hunt I was planning on sponsoring!"

(She's no longer allowed to read the "What to do When your Warrior Gets Rich" list taken from this web site at the gaming table.........)

[quoghmyre]

OMG, you sadistic GM

No, I'd never throw PC's straight into that dungeon. It's like most of the solo's, survival is random and not really achievable.

A few small 5 room dungeons are enough to get started.

[feldrik]

It can be a fine line between keeping the players involved and coddlong them but it souds like it was a good chance to bail them out while being internally consitant. After all they had to guess a riddle and could have flubbed it.
If the players are role playing I feel ok about being lienient. If they are being meta-gaming asses (i.e. the GM won' t let us fail because are playing a game and it is designed for me to 'win' so I can have my character do anything...) then they get to learn the hard way.