Up to death 6 this week (counting the dead familiar).

The PCs were in the Cagewright lair, slowly working their way to the Tree of Shackled Souls. While searching the training room, one of them heard a clink of metal outside the door. Shortly thereafter, they heard the sound of someone(-thing) making a clatter of metallic noise (the giant moving up in full plate) and then stopping.
The swashbuckler, Lia, opened the door and tumbled out into the hall, ending up right next to a Flamewarder (there were 4 of them and Coalfire). Rather than move back away and into an area better covered by her companions, she stayed put to fight. Two flamewarders were enough to take her down as one of them hit three times, the second hit twice but critted on one attack with his greataxe. It wasn't a pretty sight.
This is, in fact, the second death Lia has suffered by getting into a dangerous situation and not retreating.

The party won, but even Bub the half-ogre barbarian needed a heal spell to go toe to toe with Ti'irok Coalfire for more than 1 round.

15 Deaths in the Shackled City....not sure if anyone can top that...and I had the misfortune of being a player...I only lost 2 characters...we had two players each on their 5th by the endgame....

Since December we've had three more deaths and a toading as the party has gone through Foundation of Flame and Thirteen Cages.

Our bard tried to hit the Fiendish Morkoth with a baleful polymorph, but didn't get through his spell reflection, so turned himself into a toad. That lasted most of the rest of that adventure, as he was the guy with Break Enchantment. Once Cauldron was evacuated, our evoker had time to rest and untoad him.

Our barbarian experienced something worse than death, a farastu disarmed him and held his magical greatsword in the cleric's blade barrier until it shattered. He complains more about that than all the times he's died.

Once in the Fiery Sanctum, our cleric of St. Cuthbert died when the minotaur Cagewright attacked the party from behind. He saved the wizards, but he paid the ultimate price.

And last week we had the Moltenwing fight. Chiklet, our bard's cohort (a Quetzalcoatl) was turned to ash when the pyrochlastic dragon breathed his disintegrate breath, and then the party barbarian died again while being grappled in molten lava by the wyrm.

I'm not even sure how many deaths that is now.

I have managed to run through this entire series with only two deaths so far. The first death was during a Huanted Village side trek in the middle of Demonskar Legacy where the party was facing off against the Necrocaunts. The 7th level gestalt dwarf barbarian/monk was cut down by the frost giant mummy (whom I reskinned as an ogre) from dlevedeep's alternate foreshadowing article. The second death was this Monday in Secrets of the Soul Pillars when the 11th level gestalt ogre barbarian/ranger got his head crushed by Zarik Dhor. The half dragon won initiative and critted on his first hit. max damage bumped it into massive damage range and the ogre botched his save. Splat, one dead ogre.

This came at a time when they were complaining that the encounters weren't challenging enough. I don't think I'll hear that complaint again for a while.

4E, a few close calls but no deaths so far (about to start Zenith Trajectory). Against Skaven, and then later against Triel, both times over half the party was making death saves (3.5 equivalent: in negative HP), which is to be expected I suppose.

The Triel encounter was purposefully rough (Triel, two ogre bodyguards, and two shadow-using, blinding skirmishers, and two automated crossbow turret traps, AND a bookshelf trap, AND a magical evil rune circle...) but the Skaven encounter was shocking, as it was just him (elite controller) and a minotaur statue bodyguard, taken from Thunderspire Labyrinth, and a few spiders. They just could not hit the statue to save their lives.

The only really surprising near-death experience was in Chapter 1, when the party somehow managed to aggro three separate encounters all at once:

- the animated mass of chains (easy difficulty)
- the ogre in the room (moderate difficulty)
- the room of hobgoblin archers/guards (moderate difficulty)

That was pretty hairy. However, I let one of the PC's charm/bluff the ogre into getting mad at the hobgoblins, so he spent about half the time attacking the party and half the time fighting the hobgoblins. Otherwise it would have definitely been a TPK. It did also make it one of the more memorable moments for that PC. :)

Well, i can now tally up two more deaths in my SCAP game, which brings me to a grand total of three deaths.

We just finished Thirteen Cages and there were many more deaths.

The Cleric died in the first fight in the Fiery Sanctum when, in the midst of a demondand fight, the minotaur Cagewright attacked the party from behind. He saved the wizards and sacrificed himself.

The Bard's cohort, the Quetzalcoautl (affectionately named Chicklet when they couldn't pronounce his real name) died to the pyroclastic dragon's disintegration breath weapon, leaving the rogue who was riding him suspended in mid-air over a pool of magma like Wile E. Coyote. The rogue survived.

The Barbarian expired when the pyroclastic dragon held him under the lava for too long.

The Cleric died again when Alakast (now fully awakened and in control because the Cleric failed his will save) had him fight the haraknin. Mooks ganged up on him and killed him.

The Barbarian died again while shackling the Tree of Shackled Souls when Dyr'ryd turned his full attack towards stopping him.

The Cleric died again because he was wielding Alakast (again) and was the only one with a prayer of fending off Dyr'ryd once the Barbarian was dead.

I haven't been keeping count of how many deaths, but at this point both the Cleric and the Barbarian are thinking about rolling new characters simply because they'd be higher level (APL-1) than getting Raised yet again and losing a level (APL-2). They've already gone off to the big city and used their "absolutely one and only" True Res scroll, and I threw in another True Res scroll in the dragon's hoard just so they could continue.

BTW, the only character who hasn't died is the party Evoker. He's come close a number of times, actually dying once but popping right back up with a Revivify spell the next round. He's had his share of save or die moments, but always made the save.

I've found that my group hasn't had anywhere near the amount of deaths I expected in the SCAP so far. We've played 40 sessions are currently in Occipitus. There has been 1 death to date - the Hexblade who died in the Kopru Ruins fighting the Ogre Zombies of all things.

There have been 42 times that players have been unconscious though so the party is definitely being challenged. I give my players 3 Action Points per level to use. On a number of occasions now a player has used his action points to either stabilise himself or to give himself the Improved Toughness feat for a round (this keeping his hit points above the magic -10 figure and allowing someone to rush over and administer some healing).

I did expect a much higher number of deaths though.

Olaf the Stout

I've found that my group hasn't had anywhere near the amount of deaths I expected in the SCAP so far.

You'll notice my deaths are all two characters dying over and over again. Those players are the newest to D&D and don't seem to have the survival skills the others have.

Also, my players insist that I be actively trying to kill them at all times. I asked them. I always thought it was much more fun to almost die, but not quite. They say that is correct, but it's only fun if they know they pulled it out through their own efforts and not me pulling punches.

I've rolled all my dice out in the open this campaign (which is a first for me) so the players know that I'm not pulling any punches. The Rogue in the party has rolled horribly for hit points so far. That, combined with his average Con score means he is the one I am expecting to take a dirt nap next.

Olaf the Stout

I've found that my group hasn't had anywhere near the amount of deaths I expected in the SCAP so far. We've played 40 sessions are currently in Occipitus. There has been 1 death to date - the Hexblade who died in the Kopru Ruins fighting the Ogre Zombies of all things.

There have been 42 times that players have been unconscious though so the party is definitely being challenged. I give my players 3 Action Points per level to use. On a number of occasions now a player has used his action points to either stabilise himself or to give himself the Improved Toughness feat for a round (this keeping his hit points above the magic -10 figure and allowing someone to rush over and administer some healing).

I did expect a much higher number of deaths though.

Olaf the Stout

We're one session into Foundation of Flame now, and I've had ten kills so far.

1.) Life's Bazaar - No fatalities.
2.) Drakthar's Way - Desmond, Half-Orc Cleric of St. Cuthbert 3 - Stabbed to death by Silent Wolf goblin during an ambush.
3.) Flood Season - Pyron Pendragon, Human Fighter 2/Warmage 1/Wizard 1 - Killed by Triel Eldurast.
4.) Zenith Trajectory - Ferret, Human Warlock 5 - Killed by Gottrod's breath weapon.
-Ferret - Human Warlock 6 - Shot to death by Aushanna.
5.) Demonskar Legacy - No fatalities.
6.) Test of the Smoking Eye - Atraiyu, Human Paladin of St. Cuthbert 10 - Sacrificed himself during the Test of the Smoking Eye (I'm not counting this as a kill).
7.) Siege of Redgorge - Atraiyu, Human Paladin of St. Cuthbert 10 - Killed by Nabthatoron.
8.) Secrets of the Soul Pillars - Rand Hollow, Elf Ranger 10 - Killed by cone of cold cast by assassin Kennock Brage.
-Cordak the Conjuror, Dwarf Wizard 10 - Drained to death by dread wraith during the battle with Ike Iverson.
-Atraiyu, Human Paladin of St. Cuthbert 11 - Paralyzed and killed by Vittriss Bale.
9.) Lord of Oblivion - Ferret, reincarnated Halfling Warlock 14 - Drained to death by dread wraith during the battle at House Rhiavadi.
-Ferret, reincarnated Human Warlock 15 - Killed by Vhalantru's finger of death eye ray.
10.) Foundation of Flame – No fatalities yet.

During the course of the campaign, we've had several close calls with TPKs as well, including a few where I went easy on them in order to prevent a premature end to the game:

1.) Life's Bazaar - Kazmojen had three PCs into the negatives before he was finally brought down.
2.) Drakthar's Way - The PCs had fought Drakthar twice and hadn't done very well against him, so they refused to retreat the third time. Had I used Drakthar's bat swarms to their fullest, I could easily have killed everyone.
3.) Flood Season - Triel killed one PC and battered everyone else, but a lucky crit by the ranger took her down before she could do any further damage.
4.) Zenith Trajectory - Gottrod killed one PC with his breath weapon and put two more into the negatives before he was killed by a desperation searing light from the cleric.
-Aushanna killed a PC with her first arrow by critting, then knocked two more out before the rest could escape. I forgot that she could teleport through the doors leading into her chamber, otherwise she would surely have finished them off.
5.) Lord of Oblivion - After the PCs burst in on the cabal of villains at House Rhiavadi, I had to scale back a bit to keep them all from being killed. At the end of that battle, one PC was dead, another had been petrified, and a third had been banished to another plane.

Up to three now:
1. A fey sorcerer against the two skulks waiting to ambush the pc's at the start of J-rune (and yes, the player is still trying to live it down).
2. Warmage against Drathkar.
3. Soulknife against a spawn of kyuss.

We just finished our several years SCAP campaign a couple weeks ago. It's been a lot of fun to finally be able to read all the posts in these forums. My own character in the campaign, a bard, was the one to gain the Smoke Eye template. He died 4 times during the campaign. Of the other 5 players, as I recall, only one (our wizard), survived the campaign without dying at least once.

We're still going through Life's Bazaar but so far there have been two PC deaths in addition to Fellian. Both deaths came from Kazmojen and/or Prickles.

My players just finished Zenith trajectory. 3 deaths so far :

Two against Triel

One against Dhorlot (First of three encounter before they kill the dragon)

Blog in french

My campaign has just started (two sessions in), and so far there have been two deaths. Lini was flanked by two dark stalkers and Fario was mutilated by the grell. No PC deaths (but it's early yet).

Two dark stalkers? I thought there was only one in that dungeon.

Dark folk are always a family where the stalker views the creepers as his children. Great article in Dragon #32x (3 is my guess)

Two dark stalkers? I thought there was only one in that dungeon.

Dark folk are always a family where the stalker views the creepers as his children. Great article in Dragon #32x (3 is my guess)

15 Deaths in the Shackled City....not sure if anyone can top that...and I had the misfortune of being a player...I only lost 2 characters...we had two players each on their 5th by the endgame....

Or was it 63...

My favorites were when the barbarian jump off the cliff in that underground cave (don't recall which adventure it was), and gotten eaten by the water demon, because he didn't trust the elevator cage. Then, in that same adventure, the party was heading back up in the elevator, when one of them got mind sucked by the kopru, and cut the rope, drowning all three characters inside the cage.

I've still just had the 1 death. PC's are in Occipitus at the moment. I'm averaging just under 1 KO a session (41 KO's in 42 sessions, only 1 in the last 6 sessions though).

I thought that there would have been more deaths but they just haven't happened. A TPK has looked like a possibility on several occasions but the PC's managed to survive.

I did have to bring back an ex-PC Favoured Soul as an NPC about 6 sessions ago though after the Cleric left the party. It quickly became apparent that, without anyone able to cast healing spells, the party was a few bad rolls in combat away from everyone dying.

Olaf the Stout