The situation:

At tonight's Pathfinder game, the party made some tactical errors, and at the "stopping point" for the night we had our two heavy hitters (a Dwarven Monk and a Human Barbarian) at half their hit points. I was playing the only healer (a human cleric) and had 2 heals left: one channel energy usage (of 3, took the feat for two additional uses) and one first level spell slot that could be turned into Cure Light Wounds.

I suggested that we stop, use my remaining heals, and then rest for the night so I could recharge my spell slots and channels. The rest of the party shook their heads, because people were dying of a plague at home and their relatives might be next. I asked "How much of home dies if we TPK?" and the response was a general "Bah."

We found a swarm of bats, ran from it, and encountered a party of 4 kobolds. One character ran into a different room, and these three darkness demons that swoop down from the ceiling and entangle their foes were in that room. We came VERY close to a TPK, but one particularly powerful Halfling Summoner (built using splat books) was able to finish off the monsters, after my character was dead and the rest of the party was incapacitated but stabilized. I'd say we were one round of poor rolls from having an entirely new party going out to try to find what happened to the first one.

So after my "new" Cleric (minor differences but another 1st-level human cleric) shows up, tells a story how he and his friends started the same quest but the wolves in the woods killed the rest of his party, and then heals up this party... we have another encounter. The party is weakened, but still in one piece, minus some heal slots. They decide to push on, and we hit a point where we aren't in danger, but I'm at 8 of 14 hit points, our Barbarian is at 8 Str due to poisoning, and I'm completely out of heal spells. Once again, I suggest we rest before finishing the area. Once again, I'm the only player who thinks this is a prudent choice.

Boss fight. Once again, only extreme luck prevents a TPK. Our monk gets killed in the battle, but only after getting most of the damage in. I'm scratching my head, wondering why the other players (it's my second night gaming with this group) are so unwilling to "reset" the party after challenging encounters. Am I the crazy one here, thinking it's better to prepare before kicking down the next door?

Considering the fact that your characters are at 1st level, and therefore by definition have about as few tactical options as you can give a character in Pathfinder without making them an NPC, you'd think they'd do just about everything they could to preserve what few options they have.

Now, you've said you're new to this group. So this could be one of several things.

1. The GM may be notorious for his timelines--this could be a situation where the players have become conditioned to respond to time-sensitive plots as though the GM has a list of NPCs behind the screen that he's slowly crossing names off of.

2. The group might just have heard the word "plague" and be taking the extreme reaction, pushing themselves out of the natural sense of urgency they feel their characters would have in this situation.

3. The group could just naturally not be inclined to rest despite having been presented with rather copious evidence that naps do, in fact, save lives--or at least that lack of naps can kill, a lesson I'm sure many of us wish were instinctive knowledge in all toddlers.

Best advice I can offer is to get some table talk going outside of the main game itself and try to figure out what's pushing them hell-bent for leather. If the answer is number 2, then this is just temporary--get them past this specific plot line and they should ease back a bit. If it's number 1, the problem is endemic to the table as long as that GM's running, but you might be able to convince them to start looking for smarter methods since it's a reaction to the external stimulus of the time pressure plots.

If it's number 3, you've got two options.

First, you can leave the game. It's extreme, but if this is their defined style, odds are good you won't be able to change them. Politely bowing out isn't a bad idea.

Second, you can adapt. Make your next character without healing, because it sounds like if you have healing, they'll expect it; if you haven't got heals to throw, there can't be any hard feelings when you don't make with the healings. Make your next character something simple that fulfills your own needs, and expect it to be disposable. I recommend rogue for versatility, but it's genuinely your choice. Use that character to really get a feel for how these guys operate.

I've not experienced this problem with other players, but I have with a GM when I was playing a 1st level cleric in a D&D3.5 game.

It was different in that I had no problem with getting the party to stop and rest when I deemed it necessary. But the GM had no apparent conception of the fact that we needed to rest and was thrown off his balance a bit by the party stopping unexpectedly.

I guess the point I'm making is twofold: first, anyone can have this lack of tactical awareness, and your best approach to that is calmly explaining why you think it's wise to stop and rest right now; and second, that as the party cleric you do have the 'authority' to call a halt if you deem it necessary, and use in-character RP to do some tub-thumping. After all, your character is supposed to be a preacher.

I'm with the rest of your players. I hate resting in an RPG. I've been with groups who will rest anytime they are hurt. It's ridiculous and takes you out of character.

People ARE dying in your village. Why wouldn't you move as quickly as possible?

Here's the key though. It's the job of your DM to adjust the encounters to accomodate the decisions of the PCs to press forward.

I would suggest a house rule for your group. Take a look at the Strain-Injury variant. http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz562u?Strain ... e-to-Hit#1 It lets you be completely healed up in most instances after combat.

The next time your character dies, I recommend making something that either has a lot of hit points, or regenerates. It seems kind of pointless to play a healer in this particular group. Maybe they just like playing completely expendable characters; I have indeed seen the occasional group where Fytor and Archie Magus get biffed on a semi-nightly basis.

This part I agree with, at least in spirit--it is reasonable and good RP to have your characters make less-than-tactical decisions for in-character reasons. I'd say the DM owes the party a bit of bonus XP, honestly.



I couldn't disagree more with this one. While the DM shouldn't be extra-vicious about it, he should not soft-soap the results of the players' decisions, because doing so removes all the impact of those decisions. If the attitude is that the PCs must survive (and triumph) no matter what they do, then what they do has no meaning, and you may as well dump the dice and pass the story-stick, where everyone just describes how their character contributed to the party's latest victory.

also who says your charcter is beholden to this particular group of adventurers, may be hires some merc to help him complete this quest, maybe instead of rushing through moster territory he takes a safer longer route. maybe instead of stand and fight each enemy you should concentrate on defend and flee.

all wonderful options.

I personally like the idea of let them wander off and get killed while you sit back and do exactly as you suggested and rest in order to actually be able to face off against the threats the DM is throwing around. If they think the cleric is something to not listen to and simply give them heals when they need it they deserve to die for their hubris

After having given it some more thought, I think I hit upon why they don't care about risking death.

After I died, the GM just let me use the exact same character sheet with the name changed, and re-inserted me into the game as soon as the melee that nearly killed everyone was over. I made some other changes too, to increase the character's Hit Points and AC, but that was because I wanted my cleric to be a bit more durable after seeing how the rest of the party just charges into everything.

I think this GM has made in-game death of such minor consequence that it's like getting fragged in a Team Fortress 2 game. You respawn shortly after and then go on to continue the play. This DM doesn't use EXP, he just tells the party "Ok, you finished the first level adventure, have your 2nd-level character sheets ready for the next session because that's a level 2 dungeon."

Also, the possessions of the fallen character are all still on the map, so if you die, you can loot your previous corpse and thereby effectively double your net worth.

Wait so you die and get richer? Whats stopping the players from axing each other till they have saved enough money to buy the best stuff in the game? That's how you can do it! just don't heal them and take their stuff cause they keep dying.