Author Topic: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?  (Read 25588 times)

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veekie

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #160 on: March 10, 2011, 04:25:20 PM »
The trick as a DM is really to find ways to press harder when their luck is overperforming and to ease up in the reverse. Just remember to adjust rewards, or the game is up once someone notices.
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Sunic_Flames

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #161 on: March 10, 2011, 05:20:47 PM »
Just ignore RejaFail's flailing and foaming.

Also, veekie's suggestion is total fail.
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Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

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Rejakor

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #162 on: March 10, 2011, 05:43:50 PM »
If the dice go for the players excessively, I don't mind letting them stomp an encounter.  Although i'm much more likely to hurl another encounter at them straight away rather than giving them time to catalogue loot and/or remove status effects and rebuff/heal etc.  And said encounter is much more likely to be a 'floor falls away into lava, shit gets epic' encounter than otherwise, because the escalation principle is fun and it's a great opportunity to use it.

If the party is getting curbstomped because I fucked up eyeballing a monster and it's vastly inappropriate for their CR, I might alter it on the fly, introduce a new element favourable to the PCs, or give it a motivation not to murder the PCs, i.e. turn it from a fight into a plot-point.

If it's just the dice/poor tactics, I might find a reason to not kill off the PCs in a random pointless encounter, but then again, I might let them die to dice or some of them die to dice in order to preserve verisimilitude.  Also because pulling themselves out of a hole can be really memorable, and if there's no possibility of failing/dying, then it's not really pulling themselves out of a hole.

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #163 on: March 10, 2011, 07:51:56 PM »
I didn't say "godlike"; I said "perfectly eyeballing" things, which is precisely the option you gave aside from luck.
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Rejakor

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #164 on: March 11, 2011, 05:20:34 AM »
It does not take much eyeballing, whatsoever, to see that the PCs don't have those two things.  If you didn't realize how lethal that spell combination was, fair enough, but if you did, as is the impression I have, it would take very little to nearly no eyeballing skill to see that the players had absolutely no way of escaping it and had not prepared for it whatsoever.

At that point, throwing that encounter against them is 100% going to kill most of them and have a very good chance of killing all of them.  Which is a choice you then made.

So, the point is, they weren't doomed from the start, they were doomed when you threw an encounter against them knowing it would kill them.  And if that's your style of play, fair enough, but I don't particularly like it or think it is good.

InnaBinder

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #165 on: March 11, 2011, 09:21:21 AM »
It does not take much eyeballing, whatsoever, to see that the PCs don't have those two things.  If you didn't realize how lethal that spell combination was, fair enough, but if you did, as is the impression I have, it would take very little to nearly no eyeballing skill to see that the players had absolutely no way of escaping it and had not prepared for it whatsoever.

At that point, throwing that encounter against them is 100% going to kill most of them and have a very good chance of killing all of them.  Which is a choice you then made.

So, the point is, they weren't doomed from the start, they were doomed when you threw an encounter against them knowing it would kill them.  And if that's your style of play, fair enough, but I don't particularly like it or think it is good.
That's backing off your original statement of precisely eyeballing every detail by quite a bit.  Moving goalposts, much?
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Sunic_Flames

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #166 on: March 11, 2011, 09:42:03 AM »
It does not take much eyeballing, whatsoever, to see that the PCs don't have those two things.  If you didn't realize how lethal that spell combination was, fair enough, but if you did, as is the impression I have, it would take very little to nearly no eyeballing skill to see that the players had absolutely no way of escaping it and had not prepared for it whatsoever.

At that point, throwing that encounter against them is 100% going to kill most of them and have a very good chance of killing all of them.  Which is a choice you then made.

So, the point is, they weren't doomed from the start, they were doomed when you threw an encounter against them knowing it would kill them.  And if that's your style of play, fair enough, but I don't particularly like it or think it is good.
That's backing off your original statement of precisely eyeballing every detail by quite a bit.  Moving goalposts, much?

It's RejaFail. He doesn't have valid points, only much foam and flailing. Ignore him, or use him as your entertainment, but don't take him seriously.
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[spoiler]
Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

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[/spoiler]

veekie

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #167 on: March 12, 2011, 02:42:10 AM »
It does not take much eyeballing, whatsoever, to see that the PCs don't have those two things.  If you didn't realize how lethal that spell combination was, fair enough, but if you did, as is the impression I have, it would take very little to nearly no eyeballing skill to see that the players had absolutely no way of escaping it and had not prepared for it whatsoever.

At that point, throwing that encounter against them is 100% going to kill most of them and have a very good chance of killing all of them.  Which is a choice you then made.

So, the point is, they weren't doomed from the start, they were doomed when you threw an encounter against them knowing it would kill them.  And if that's your style of play, fair enough, but I don't particularly like it or think it is good.
That's backing off your original statement of precisely eyeballing every detail by quite a bit.  Moving goalposts, much?
Doesn't change the point made though.

Key thing is that encounters don't exist per se until the players encounter them, and that particular one would have been a foregone conclusion from the moment the first spell is cast.

So the sequence is:
1) Party learns of wizard and his love of hentai - Not Doomed
2) Party makes no preparation - Not Doomed
3) Party arrives - Not Doomed
4) Party fails to detect Wizard - Not Doomed
5) Wizard starts spellcombo - Doomed.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2011, 02:44:51 AM by veekie »
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"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
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Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

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skydragonknight

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #168 on: March 12, 2011, 03:47:36 AM »
It does not take much eyeballing, whatsoever, to see that the PCs don't have those two things.  If you didn't realize how lethal that spell combination was, fair enough, but if you did, as is the impression I have, it would take very little to nearly no eyeballing skill to see that the players had absolutely no way of escaping it and had not prepared for it whatsoever.

At that point, throwing that encounter against them is 100% going to kill most of them and have a very good chance of killing all of them.  Which is a choice you then made.

So, the point is, they weren't doomed from the start, they were doomed when you threw an encounter against them knowing it would kill them.  And if that's your style of play, fair enough, but I don't particularly like it or think it is good.
That's backing off your original statement of precisely eyeballing every detail by quite a bit.  Moving goalposts, much?
Doesn't change the point made though.

Key thing is that encounters don't exist per se until the players encounter them, and that particular one would have been a foregone conclusion from the moment the first spell is cast.

So the sequence is:
1) Party learns of wizard and his love of hentai - Not Doomed
2) Party makes no preparation - Not Doomed
3) Party arrives - Not Doomed
4) Party fails to detect Wizard - Not Doomed
5) Wizard starts spellcombo - Doomed.

I disagree. Either the Ranger that was gone was their scout of they lacked decent scouting altogether. Not surprised Wizard won the Hide, but I AM surprised he won the Move Silently. Noticing the Wizard would at least give them some probability of success, determined by Initiative.
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Epimetheus

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #169 on: March 12, 2011, 04:45:52 AM »
Recall that Passive checks were used to determine how well the wizard was hiding/moving silently.

We can only assume that he rolled well on both, thus causing everyone in the party to auto-fail their passive checks.

Gods_Trick

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #170 on: March 12, 2011, 05:00:24 AM »

  Taking it in another direction, should NPCs/monsters be adjusted versus poor players? I don't like it my games, but thats a big IMO. If I recall correctly, it has been a few months, this group is a newbie/casual group.

  I'd have kid-gloved myself, or as a learning experience, have Evards followed by some gloating, followed up by a surrender of die fools. Gives more rounds for the party to figure out, still isn't a TPK unless the party chooses it and hopefully the learning curve in situ is obvious. Not totally unrealistic, a lot of nerds tend to suffer hubris and gloating is par the course.

veekie

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #171 on: March 12, 2011, 05:19:49 AM »
So the sequence is:
1) Party learns of wizard and his love of hentai - Not Doomed
2) Party makes no preparation - Not Doomed
3) Party arrives - Not Doomed
4) Party fails to detect Wizard - Not Doomed
5) Wizard starts spellcombo - Doomed.

I disagree. Either the Ranger that was gone was their scout of they lacked decent scouting altogether. Not surprised Wizard won the Hide, but I AM surprised he won the Move Silently. Noticing the Wizard would at least give them some probability of success, determined by Initiative.
Remember, if they didn't spot the wizard, and he opened by summoning a Giant Octopus, they aren't Doomed.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

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Sunic_Flames

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #172 on: March 12, 2011, 09:24:10 AM »
It does not take much eyeballing, whatsoever, to see that the PCs don't have those two things.  If you didn't realize how lethal that spell combination was, fair enough, but if you did, as is the impression I have, it would take very little to nearly no eyeballing skill to see that the players had absolutely no way of escaping it and had not prepared for it whatsoever.

At that point, throwing that encounter against them is 100% going to kill most of them and have a very good chance of killing all of them.  Which is a choice you then made.

So, the point is, they weren't doomed from the start, they were doomed when you threw an encounter against them knowing it would kill them.  And if that's your style of play, fair enough, but I don't particularly like it or think it is good.
That's backing off your original statement of precisely eyeballing every detail by quite a bit.  Moving goalposts, much?
Doesn't change the point made though.

Key thing is that encounters don't exist per se until the players encounter them, and that particular one would have been a foregone conclusion from the moment the first spell is cast.

So the sequence is:
1) Party learns of wizard and his love of hentai - Not Doomed
2) Party makes no preparation - Not Doomed
3) Party arrives - Not Doomed
4) Party fails to detect Wizard - Not Doomed
5) Wizard starts spellcombo - Doomed.

This way lies 4.Fail. The Den needs more 4.Fails to smite.

« Last Edit: March 12, 2011, 09:26:20 AM by Sunic_Flames »
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[spoiler]
Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

Here's a fun fact: You aren't. By a few leagues.
[/spoiler]

InnaBinder

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #173 on: March 12, 2011, 09:47:32 AM »


I disagree. Either the Ranger that was gone was their scout of they lacked decent scouting altogether. Not surprised Wizard won the Hide, but I AM surprised he won the Move Silently. Noticing the Wizard would at least give them some probability of success, determined by Initiative.
That's the way of it.  Ranger in absentia would have had something like a 95% chance of spotting/hearing the Wizard, assuming he used no buffs to improve his powers of perception.
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skydragonknight

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #174 on: March 12, 2011, 10:11:38 AM »
So as a straight up fight, they probably could have managed. As an ambush with their scout gone, the odds were heavily stacked against them. Sounds about right.
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Sunic_Flames

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #175 on: March 12, 2011, 10:32:08 AM »
Except for that part about scouts getting automatically annihilated. :devil
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[spoiler]
Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

Here's a fun fact: You aren't. By a few leagues.
[/spoiler]

Bloody Initiate

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #176 on: March 12, 2011, 10:40:30 AM »

So the sequence is:
1) Party learns of wizard and his love of hentai - Not Doomed
2) Party makes no preparation - Not Doomed
3) Party arrives - Not Doomed
4) Party fails to detect Wizard - Not Doomed
5) Wizard starts spellcombo - Doomed.

I disagree. Either the Ranger that was gone was their scout of they lacked decent scouting altogether. Not surprised Wizard won the Hide, but I AM surprised he won the Move Silently. Noticing the Wizard would at least give them some probability of success, determined by Initiative.

Definitely agree that they were dead at the perception check.

There were three ways that could go:

They roll and perceive wizard. Most things I know about stuff suggests they're dead. PCs don't always just assault humanoid NPCs they meet, so even if they'd spotted the wizard there is no reason to believe they wouldn't just call out. Since he's hostile, spell combo gets unleashed. They're dead.

They roll and fail to perceive wizard. They're dead.

DM fudges rolls so they can't perceive wizard. They're dead.

Either they were capable of perceiving the wizard or they weren't. Since they didn't have "perceiving guy" they were dead because the DM fudged their rolls OR because the DC was implausible/impossible for all present. The spell combo wasn't going to change, and their ability to get out of it wasn't going to change because as has been explained, they failed to prepare themselves.

Even if they HAD perceived the guy, there is nothing to suggest they could or would have attacked him first in enough time to stop him from obliterating them. Just so we're clear, most DMs I've played with don't appreciate it when you just immediately attack every NPC you meet, so you're stuck holding or delaying actions while you try to see if NPCs are hostile. If the assumption is that your party is competent enough to destroy a level-appropriate encounter very quickly, then the trick to killing them is presenting them with a fight that they won't start. Make it so they aren't a party that can destroy a level-appropriate encounter and they're that much easier to kill.

They were Doomed the moment the session started. The wizard was almost guaranteed the freedom of surprise round, and he was guaranteed to be hostile and open with that nasty spell combo. The only break the players got after combat started was that he wasted an action going invisible.

Should they have prepared better? Of course. They didn't though, and so they were dead as soon as they got off the boat (Or landed from their fly spell, but we've already established they aren't prepped for things).
« Last Edit: March 12, 2011, 10:43:53 AM by Bloody Initiate »
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Kajhera

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #177 on: March 12, 2011, 10:44:31 AM »

  Taking it in another direction, should NPCs/monsters be adjusted versus poor players? I don't like it my games, but thats a big IMO. If I recall correctly, it has been a few months, this group is a newbie/casual group.

  I'd have kid-gloved myself, or as a learning experience, have Evards followed by some gloating, followed up by a surrender of die fools. Gives more rounds for the party to figure out, still isn't a TPK unless the party chooses it and hopefully the learning curve in situ is obvious. Not totally unrealistic, a lot of nerds tend to suffer hubris and gloating is par the course.

Just don't do it too much. My DM nerfed Mindrape once to casting-time 3 rounds to spare me, which seems reasonable, because there is another 9th-level spell that does the same thing with a casting time of 10 minutes...but if he then had the enemy spellcaster employ Mindrape to the exclusion of more useful spells, it would feel ... not sensible? Mind you, I pissed off that spellcaster personally while we were rather underlevel, so it was reasonable for his annoyance with me to override his sense there. (Also we weren't anywhere near 17th level ourselves so ... yea.) :eh And I would have killed him too if it - wait I did kill him. Twice. And it would have been three times if he hadn't been retconned into speaking with a Projected Image.

Freakin' enchanters. I will stab you dead, and then stab you with deathstrike bracers, and then stab your phylactery after a bard helps me find it. Also I will take a level in warblade and dump everything I can into concentration and you will not control me again.

Erm, sorry. Got distracted. Incidentally, I fail vs. dominate a reasonable amount and it's always amusing or amusingly tragic.  :)

Kajhera

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #178 on: March 12, 2011, 10:51:20 AM »

So the sequence is:
1) Party learns of wizard and his love of hentai - Not Doomed
2) Party makes no preparation - Not Doomed
3) Party arrives - Not Doomed
4) Party fails to detect Wizard - Not Doomed
5) Wizard starts spellcombo - Doomed.

I disagree. Either the Ranger that was gone was their scout of they lacked decent scouting altogether. Not surprised Wizard won the Hide, but I AM surprised he won the Move Silently. Noticing the Wizard would at least give them some probability of success, determined by Initiative.

Definitely agree that they were dead at the perception check.

There were three ways that could go:

They roll and perceive wizard. Most things I know about stuff suggests they're dead. PCs don't always just assault humanoid NPCs they meet, so even if they'd spotted the wizard there is no reason to believe they wouldn't just call out. Since he's hostile, spell combo gets unleashed. They're dead.

They roll and fail to perceive wizard. They're dead.

DM fudges rolls so they can't perceive wizard. They're dead.

Either they were capable of perceiving the wizard or they weren't. Since they didn't have "perceiving guy" they were dead because the DM fudged their rolls OR because the DC was implausible/impossible for all present. The spell combo wasn't going to change, and their ability to get out of it wasn't going to change because as has been explained, they failed to prepare themselves.

Even if they HAD perceived the guy, there is nothing to suggest they could or would have attacked him first in enough time to stop him from obliterating them. Just so we're clear, most DMs I've played with don't appreciate it when you just immediately attack every NPC you meet, so you're stuck holding or delaying actions while you try to see if NPCs are hostile. If the assumption is that your party is competent enough to destroy a level-appropriate encounter very quickly, then the trick to killing them is presenting them with a fight that they won't start. Make it so they aren't a party that can destroy a level-appropriate encounter and they're that much easier to kill.

They were Doomed the moment the session started. The wizard was almost guaranteed the freedom of surprise round, and he was guaranteed to be hostile and open with that nasty spell combo. The only break the players got after combat started was that he wasted an action going invisible.

Should they have prepared better? Of course. They didn't though, and so they were dead as soon as they got off the boat (Or landed from their fly spell, but we've already established they aren't prepped for things).

Generally I go with rolling initiative as soon as someone attempts a hostile action - and if players roll higher they can interfere. That way, players aren't punished too much for trying to chat with someone who wants to kill them (and neither are NPCs). If they're using hidden psionic powers or whatnot this changes accordingly.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2011, 11:03:50 AM by Kajhera »

Rejakor

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Re: Was The Party Doomed From The Start?
« Reply #179 on: March 14, 2011, 12:18:24 PM »
If the PCs expect him to attack them, explicitly, he does not get a surprise round.

That said, most wizards get nerveskitter etc.  That said, if they killed him before he got a spell off at all, that's a fairly crappy encounter.

@ Innabinder:  My basic point was that they were screwed at the moment you decided to kill them all.  Which was when you unleashed the encounter knowing that they had no way of living through it.

My earlier point was that the GM in that example perfectly eyeballed the whole situation.

My middle point was that you didn't need to perfectly eyeball the situation, you only needed to eyeball it a LITTLE bit, in order to know that your encounter would kill them all or at least some of them.

So, being able to eyeball is a good thing.  Being able to eyeball really well is a better thing.  And overall, you probably shouldn't rocks-fall murder your players.  When players die, it should be because of stupidity, heroism, or dice.