I had 3 PC deaths in Life's Bazaar, 2 deaths in Flood Season, 5 deaths in Zenith Trajectory, and 2 deaths in the Demonskar Legacy. Of all those deaths, I had 2 PC's die twice. I've only had 4 players up until now too. We're about 1/4 of the way into the Smoking Eye and nobody has died yet...
That doesn't count the time Ruphus was adventuring with them and died or the time the NPC rogue got bullrushed into the magical forge by the fire giant in the Demonskar.
One the of party has had the lone surviving character since the beginning...so far...
Man, you must be a mean DM! We've had 5 deaths so far, and the PC's just finished the election counsel following killing Vhalantru.
Only a few PC deaths, but a lot of close calls.
1 death in Flood Season
1 death in Zenith Trajectory
1 death in Foundation of Flame
and 1 death in a side quest
However, every PC has had to make at least one save or die (disintegrate, finger or death, etc.) and every PC (except the druid) has been down to -9 hp.
"Deaths", or "knocked out and dying"?
I've only been able to run through Life's Bazaar so far, and in that, with a party of only two adventurers (a bard and a rogue, so not even a very combat-oriented team), there were only two times where they really were at risk of actually dying. It's been interesting to see how a couple of non-combat characters (played by traditionally combat-oriented players) has done an exceptional job of switching gears and approaching each sceanrio as an exercise in problem solving rather than a hack n' slash fest. And, even when they have no choice other than to fight (or, perhaps I should say, "especially when they have no choice other than to fight") they've gotten creative with the use of better tactics than simply charging in and going toe-to-toe with the bad guys.
I've found that it was challenging as a DM to run Life's Bazaar for such a small group and keep them alive enough to finish the adventure, but do-able.
Now, let's see how they (and I) do as we move on to the other adventures... ;)
1 death in Life's Bazaar. Half-orc cleric of Kord got killed by a mimic, which was disguised as a door frame.
1 death in Flood Season. Human fighter/rogue killed by a critical hit from Triel's flail. Also another near death as the other rogue got impaled on Triel's door.
3 deaths in Zenith Trajectory. Half-orc cleric (again) and halfling ranger killed by the red dragon Gottrod. Human rogue (again) killed by Aushanna the erinyes as he was climbing the statue of Blibdoolpoolp to try to reach her.
0 deaths in Demonskar Legacy.
1 death in Smoking Eye. Elf druid kiled by Kaurophon during the final test.
1 death in Soul Pillars. Half-orc cleric (yes, again) killed by assassins in the Tipped Tankard.
0 deaths in Lords of Oblivion.
1 death in Foundations of Flame. Half-orc monk snatched by Hookface, breathed on, then eaten. The others wisely decided to flee.
1 death in Thirteen Cages. Half-orc cleric (fourth time for those of you keeping track) disintegrated by pyroclastic dragon's breath weapon.
3 deaths in Strike on Shatterhorn. Astral deva, human samurai, and dwarf paladin paralyzed and coup de graced by mohrgs.
2 deaths in Asylum so far. Human wizard and pixie sorcerer killed by resurrected Vhalantru's eye rays. The party is about to fight Dark Myrakul, so I'm anticipating another death or two against him and Adimarchus.
Gee, it wasn't until I started thinking about it that I realized the game has been pretty deadly.
Life's Bazaar- No kills, but the druid's wolf companion took down Prickles.
Flood Season- TPK!!! Tongueeater and his cronies were a little tough, even for the bugbear and werewolf in the group.
Zenith Trajectory- Two deaths. One death as the party's sorcerer acted as Crazy Jared's shield against Gottrod's breath . Another as the party's cleric investigated the three gricks hiding in an alcove on the way to Bhal-hamatugn.
Demonskar Legacy- Three deaths as Nabthatoron's attacks brought down an unarmed Alek and focused on the party's fighters. (Conrad "Dragonslayer" was so paranoid of the possibility of Alek attacking again, he took his sword.)
Test of the Smoking Eye- One real death. Conrad died from the lich's touch. The ninja believing the other three were dead after Kaurophon cast blasphemy, she dived into the gusher.
Secrets of the Soul Pillars- Vittriss Bale + paralyzing gaze = TPK.
It's been a pretty frustrating game for both me and the players. They for trying to survive, me for trying to actually keep them alive.
Life's Bazzaar: 1 death
Flood Season: Only half way through it, and nearly had a TPK against tongueater. The group had 2 of the 4 member already go into negatives twice, and as the only fighter type stood back up from being healed, Tongueater got an AoO swing. The dice said he hit with a critical which would have killed the last buff dude standing, I said "He missed". The next round the fighter got a critical and took down Tongueater.
It was one of those DM's perogative calls. I didn't want a TPK as they had been playing really well, and they never need to know. They will remember that battle for a long long time however.
Hmmm... give me a minute to think.
Life's Bazaar = 1 death at the final battle
Flood Season = 1 death when Skaven used an enervation ray on a half ogre monk and got 4 negative levels.
Test of the Smoking Eye = 2, including one sacrifice into the gusher. I ended up with 3 people gaining the Smoking Eye template!
Secrets of the Soul Pillars = 2 deaths, including one crit enervation ray from a trap on a PC with 8 levels.
Foundation of Flame = 1 death
Thirteen Cages = 4 deaths, including one character who died 3 times.
Strike on Shatterhorn = 1 death, due to teleport trap into the Egg. The person in question managed to destroy the Egg from the inside, (adamantium gauntlets + high level fighter) but fell prey to the remainder of the Cagewrights who were making their last stand in that room. (1 unarmed, mostly, fighter with 50 hp vs. 10 or so full up villains = Ouchie.)
Asylum = hasn't been run yet.
I'm sure I've left out several deaths here and there. There is one PC who has the power to come back from the dead, pretty much at will, who has died several times over. I'm pretty sure some of her deaths are missing from my list.
Squid
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1st death of NPC rogue in Flood Season.
1st death of character was in Zenith Trajectory.
2nd death of character was in Demonskar Legacy.
So far though, my players have just reached the Starry Mirror. I imagine there might be some deaths when it comes to fighting the glabrezu in the end of this adventure.
Though I don't know about the player characters sometimes... one of them died while fighting the Forest Sloth. For some reason he decided to just walk up and try talking it down with his long sword. Instead it took him down.
Oops! Ran Foundation of Flame this weekend and had another PC death - total of 6 for the AP1, now. Druid killed himself when his Finger of Death was reflected by the morkoth. Laughs all around!
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Right, that settles it. I am only running for three players and had a feeling it might be a bit much. I am defenitely running a 1st level party bonder in Sasserine beforehand to get them to 2nd level. The party intend to be as follows:
LN Human Male Ftr/Clr (Saint Cuthbert) who wants to become a Pious Templar with Cauldron's Temple of Saint Cuthbert as his chosen temple. The Path will be great for him, he'll flip his lid when he founds out how deep the rot goes.
LG Human Male Pal (Pelor) who wants to help restore the profile of Pelor's shrine given the recent death of it's senior priests in an "accident". Again great fun for him and another one unlikely to be happy when he rumbles as to what is really going on.
LN Human Male Wiz/Clr (Wee Jas) who wants to be come a Mytsic Theurge and get involved in Cathedral politcs. Probably not so much fun for him but the opportunities for Machivaellian role-playing and, of course, dying messily, should be endless.
I can't wait to run it. No rogue either and everyone religious and lawful. This is really going to be fun (for me at least).
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Let's see, can I remember all of the party members I killed?...
Life's Bazaar - One died to the Grell, getting dropped about 30'. That same guy died again, when he went solo, and chased the two hobgoblins guards down the elevator. He got to the bottom, where Kazmojen, Prickles, and a bunch more Hob's were waiting. He refused to surrender when Kazmo said to. Two died in the final fight with Kazomojen, and he told them to flee with their lives. I also got one guy to the Vanishing, and had another character contract it five times before he finally got rid of all of the magical items.
Flood Season - One died vs. Tongue Eater, One died to the lake demon, one died to Triel, one died to the party when he was dominated by the Kopru, one died to the dwarven undead dudes, one died to the undead gnoll cleric, one died to the ettercaps, and one died to the gnome sorcerer (Phantasmal Killer, the fighter was fully juiced when he went). The party also lost most of the treasure trying to get back across the lake, since the other dominated character (Kopru again), cut the rope while the elevator was out over the lake.
Zenith Trajectory - Surprisingly, no one died to the Umberhulk, and it played out just like a movie, and no one died to the dragon. The only death in this adventure was to the dwarven defender. He butchered one of the main fighters in one round with 2 criticals. The other fighter almost died jumping off of the top balcony in the temple to escape the Invisible Stalker.
Demonskar Legacy - One character died to the Fire Giant, one died to the hag's and their noxious drink, but no one died to the Glabrezu at the end.
Test of the Smoking Eye - One died trying to save a party member cut off from the party by the sucubus/salamander lord encounter. He ran through a wall of fire, got hit with a fireball, got hit twice by the huge fire elemental that got summoned, and then died when the party ordered Karaphon to drop the wall of fire with a cone of cold. He never got one swing in. Two party members got turned to stone by the Abyssal Baslisk. Two party members died in the final encounter to Karaphon, and at one point 2/3's of the party got banished from the plane by a Hezrou.
Secret of the Soul Pillars - One died in the assassin ambush, two died in the Church of Weejas (Kelemvor in my campaign, which is actually a church to Velsharoon), one died in an ambush involving the bone naga and the wizard (they made the mistake of letting the naga get away when they first fought it). Finally, two died in the draco-lich fight. Oh yeah, and a cohort got EATEN by the first encounter with the horned devil (I upgraded, as per the leveling guide).
Interlude - The party tried to track down Kazmojen again, and I killed two party members. He became one mean SOB with a prestige class from the Book of Vile Darkness added to him. He's become their arch nemesis.
Lords of Oblivion - No one died in the House Riavadi fight, but I did manage to kill one in House Vhalantru. The best was when the party tried to bring a dead Jil back through the streets. They couldn't understand why the "evil" town guard would stop them for carrying a beheaded, bloody corpse through town, in plain sight, no less.
City of Fire (the evacuation of Cauldron) - No deaths. Ran this one in one night, and I really gotta say that I was VERY happy to see it end. For those of you who have yet to run this one, it's a REAL challange, and in my opinion, a real headache.
The Thirteen - No loss of life here, but the party almost blew it. They were told not to rest, and almost did, twice. If they had, it would have been over. I was trying to figure out how to do an invasion of the Realms scenario.
Assault on Shatterhorn - WOW! What more can I say. They've only gotten through a short part so far... let's see...
Hill Giant Fight - One guy was dropped to just a few HP (6, I think), by the two wisps. The fight with the snake wizard was okay, but it was the medusa's that killed them. I turned four out of 6 members to stone at one point, plus a summoned fire elemental and a summoned earth elemental. One character failed the Fort save to come back to flesh, and then the party thief got hit by the trap on the altar because he didn't think to check for traps, and rolled a 2 on his Will save. The look on his face as I told him that he was melting and drowning, all at the same time, with no clue where he was... precious. Almost got the wizard with that same trap too, when he decided to disintigrate the altar. And they're not even close to through with that one yet.
I know that I've been very lethal to the party, but they're all very veteran players (at least 5 years of experience each, most with 10+), and after the first few adventures, I took no pity on stupidity. For instance, the party was given ample warning about the demon in the lake in Flood Season. Yet, when the barbarian was yanked off of the entry cliff by the harpoon spider (the party had left to recover, so the bad guys made some preps), and fell into the water, he had the option to climb back up the wall. Instead, he decided to swim for the far shore, and got killed for it. At one point, in this game, I had 10 players. It's shrunk down to 5 (and two cohorts, plus one planar ally), so I've been forced to use the leveling rules to increase the challange, and therefore, increase the experience. In this last adventure, I changed to adding more low level cannon-fodder instead. Also, we've been using the Mana Point system out of Unearthed Aracan, and we've found it makes spell casters EXTREMELY deadly. I advise caution with the system, and I recommend removing Time Stop as an allowable spell.
I'd be willing to share my notes/edit's with anybody who wants to take a look at them.
Grand Total - 31 deaths, and about 6 turned to stone.
My players did amazing with Life's Bazaar, so far the only character in the party who died was Fellian when Kazmojen scored a critical. Every single of my PCs was however knocked unconscious, either by Prickles, Kazmojen, or the Pulverizer Automatons, the only reason the lived was because they visited Skie's Treasury and bought a wand of cure moderate wounds, along with a wand of cure light wounds after clearing out Jzadirune. They just killed Kazmojen and now have to transverse the main corridor with 10 hobgoblins waiting for them. I'm not concerned.
Not even half way through Life's Bazaar, and three characters have died, the stepped into the room to rescue starbrow, Ghelve's familiar, as the rogue stepped in front of the mimic, it smiled at him and then the elven barbarian shot at it with an arrow, and it preceded to kill them all but the cleric who fled the room. I am running the game with four players, who hopefully will know better next time.
We're playing the Test of Smoking Eye installment and so far we had the following results:
Life's Bazaar - No deaths, though many times characters were close to die (I had to add some extra arms, Fario Ellegoth and Fellian Shard, to give players a decent chance of surviving). Pyllrak fled to Underdark.
Flood Season - One dying (Tongueater and the baboons were a bit tough for the party). One death at the hands (better to say flail) of Tarkilar. Skaven, Triel and Tongueater fled to safety.
Zenith's Trajectory - One death fighting the cryohydra. One death during the crossing of the lake: character drowned thanks to Aabach that rolled the boat upside-down and to the heavy armor. Also the treasure was lost. One almost death during the combat in Blibdoolpoolp grat hall. Aushanna survived.
Demonskar Legacy - One character almost smashed flat by Dugobras' warhammer. Great defeat battling the hags (understimated): one character was devoured by the hags (we had to roll a new character), the remaining two were thrown into the Starry Mirror without the hegemonic plate. However, sheer luck was on their side while fighting Nabthathoron the Glabrezu (they emerged about five days later).
Test of the Smoking Eye - Just finished the first Test. Without Kaurophon and his Cone of Cold, they would have been doomed against the summoned Fire Elemental and the Salamander. One level lost to the Succubus. They are on their way to the Plain of Cysts, next sunday we play...
Since my post got a lot of response, I should expand some so here's the breakdown of my character deaths so far...
My group started with 5 PC's- 2 human druids, a human fighter, an elven fighter, and a half-elf sorcerer. Ruphus later joined them in the undercity, just before the 3 deaths. The grell killed both fighters by grappling and paralyzing them, and then dropping them from the ceiling. It killed one of the druids and his wolf companion. The rest of the group ran away after the 3rd death. They were totally unprepared for something like the grell, and both of the fighters rolled a 1 for either the grapple check or the saving throw for the paralyzation. They encountered it toward the end of the day's exploring and the sorcerer only had one magic missle left. It was a classic case of 1st level adventurers overestimating themselves- "We'll just break down this wall and see what's on the other side before we go back up for the night."
The sorcerer, the druid, and Ruphus went back up and recruited a pair of dwarven brothers- a fighter and a paladin, and an orc barbarian. The grell was killed in less than 1 full round because they planned ahead. The battle with Kazmojen was an intense affair that ended with only the sorcerer still conscious, but nobody died in the battle. The dwarf fighter retired from adventuring when his player left us.
The 2 deaths in Flood Season happened when the orc barbarin was killed by Tongueater and the dwarf paladin was turned into a Spawn of Kyuss. They were both replaced with elven wizards. The orc was raised just before the beginning of Zenith.
In Zenith, the half-elf sorcerer was killed by Gottrod's fiery breath. He rolled a 1 on his Reflex save. His long lost half brother, a half-drow fighter sorcerer, who had been following him from Cauldron caught up with the group the nesxt day. He was killed a little later by the breath of the cryohydra. Ironic how both brothers were killed by breath attacks isn't it? He was raised. The orc died again fighting the kuo-toa. One of the elf wizards was killed fighting the kuo-toa whips. The half-drow died again fighting Aushanna. The rest of the group- human druid, elf wizard, elf rogue (NPC), fled the shrine and returned to Cauldron for reinforcements. The returned with a dwarf fighter. The other elf wizard was killed by Saagogi, the kuo-toa assassin, after they returned to the shrine. He was raised. The elf rogue was killed by a fireball from the wizard who inadvertantly hit him with it while the rogue was invisible. The rouge had just been reduced to 0 hp by the invisible stalker when he was hit with the fireball. He rolled a 1 on his save and died. This adventure was hard for my group. I thought it was well written; I particularly like the way it used the environment to the fullest in order to strengthen the defenders of the shrine against the PC's.
After the adventure, the elf rogue was raised and a human weretiger was recruited to take the pace of the orc barbarian and elf wizard. Now the group had a human druid/sorcerer (the sole survivor of the original group), an elf wizard, a dwarf fighter, a human weretiger, and an elf rogue.
During the Demonskar Legacy, the weretiger was killed fighting the hill giants and ettins. He was raised. The elf rogue was killed by being bullrushed into the fire giant's forge. I thought I had another death in this one but I was wrong. Only 1 PC death, as the rouge was my NPC.
Now, for the Test of the Smoking Eye, we have the human druid/sorcerer/geomancer, the human weretiger/ranger, the dwarf fighter/weapon master, and a gnome rogue/bard. No deaths in this one yet...
The human druid/sorcerer/geomancer is the only survivor of the original party. He's acquired a bit of a nasty reputation among some people, fueled by mud-slinging from the Stormblades.
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Three more deaths to add to my group, and one to subtract. No death in the Church of Kelemvor (Wee Jas), but I just add three deaths in Strike on Shatterhorn. One died to the Medusa's, 3 stoned, one died to the trap on the altar, and one died as a sacrifice to the Thirteen when he got stunned and then plane shifted to Carceri.
That makes 33 deaths and 9 stonings.
I've been playing this as an ongoing campaign for so long, I do not think I can remember everything...but here goes:
First death I think came during Zenith Trajectory: Human cleric fell to Zenith's Axe...Party dragged Zenith back to Cauldron and handed him over on the provision that he was to be punished for slaying their companion. (Which Celeste agreed to wholeheartedly). Plus, as an added bonus, the player did not want the character resurrected, but didnt say anything until AFTER the spell was cast--with no effect. Kiss all that gold goodbye!
Adventure continues, party hires new cleric...
No deaths in the Demonskar, though one player did go on hiatus...
Smoking Eye...one character died sacrificing herself to the fire column...only to be healed by the powers that be. (kudos to her for thinking of it). She did technically die, so that counts.
NO DEATHS in Soul Pillars. Damn.
Come to think of it, the only other deaths have been from Hookface. The dragon took out the Fighter/Sorcerer/Spellsword in one breath. Then, afterwards...one party member tried to become the new Lord Mayor. (That action, combined with others, made his alignmet switch to lawful evil. The paladin and the exhalted monk noticed his aura change, too). He was assassinated shortly after. Party has made no desire to try to resurrect, either. (bad blood, unfortunately)
Add to that the rogue getting smashed into a pulp in the ruins of Shatterhorn and the second mage in the party being "soul-napped"....it has been exciting. But wait until they get to Carceri...hehehe.
Hello again,
I have to record a new death during the Test of the Smoking Eye (Plain of Cysts): one of the character has been petrified by the Greater Abyssal Basilisk. As the party has no means to change him back to the fleshy form, I had to introduce a new character: a half-celestial (for Kaurophon's joy) roaming the plane in search of Saureya and almost fallen to a fibrous tendricolous in the forest. Now the party is just at the beginning of the peristaltic tube and since the h-c arrival, Kaurophon fell strangely silent...
I knew that the AP was going to be tough going in and the party only consists of 2 PC's. There is an Aasimar Paladin of Pelor(Sentinel, NG Paladin from Dragon) and a Lizardfolk Ranger. They teamed up with an NPC rogue with a knack for the arcane and have done pretty well so far. But there has been a death or two. We're just into part 1 of the big fight in Bal Hamatughn (Zenith Trajectory) and they're having a time of it with the whips, their high AC's, lightning bolts and puddles of water. I can't wait for Aushanna and Mingh.
Death One, Life's Bazaar:
The Aasimar Sentinel, hot in pursuit of a fleeing skulk not 2 minutes into Jzadirune runs into the dual invisibility zones, with his companions bogged down behind him in the tunnel. He emerges and bursts into the chamber as the Pulverizer is commanded to attack and takes a nasty hit bringing him down to 3 or 4 HP's. He's slow on the draw for initiative and the Pulverizer crits him for 20 pts or something like that. The Lizardfolk and the rogue scramble to deal with the automaton and the dark creeper, but it shuts down and they manage to escape with the body of their fallen comrade.
Death Two, Flood Season:
Tongue Eater got smoked by a big crit from the Lizardfolk ranger and his new masterwork greataxe. The poor Lycanthrope didn't have a chance to get started in this one. The group smartly went around the back way and forced their way to the kitchen before the rest of the goons at the Lucky Monkey were alerted to their presence. Mopping up the rest of the mob was easily done, although more than a handful of Alleybashers escaped. Upon reaching the interior of the Korpru Lair they dealt with the Slaad but didn't finish it as they were confident that it had been dealt a final blow. The slaad feigned death and recovered. While it was doing that they set the webs alight in the spider portion of the caves and Skaven had to deal with that with the help of the wands and his Air Elemental. Forced out of the area by smoke, the group went on to deal with Triel and Tarkilar, whom they handled fairly well, only to return to an ambush by Skaven, some wounded Ettercaps, the Harpoon Spider and the recovered Slaad. This was an eyelash away from a TPK. The Lizardfolk ranger dealt with the Slaad and an Ettercap fairly handily, while the Sentinel took the fight to the Harpoon Spider (not by choice, but because he get 'hooked'). The rogue was scrambling to deal with the second Ettercap when Skaven had to come out of hiding to Lightning bolt the Lizardfolk ranger. After seeing the diminutive wizard, the ranger opened fire and was making Skaven rethink his tactics. The sentinel had to duck away to quaff a potion as Skaven had him all lined up for Phantasmal Killer, so Skaven redirected this towards the ranger who badly failed the saves. The sentinel managed to heal up just enough hit points for a critical hit by a vampiric touch by Skaven taking him into the low negatives, leaving only the rogue and the ranger's animal companion, a monitor lizard to combat the halfling. Using a flank they finally got the upperhand and Skaven was finally dealt with in time to save the dying sentinel. The rogue was down to a minimum of hp's and only the monitor lizard was remotely healthy.
Death Three, Zenith Trajectory: It hasn't happened yet, but my hunch is that the Kuo-Toan high priest will get them with the control water trick if he manages to lock one in the chamber. Hopefully, it will be the lizard folk ranger and not the paladin.
Hehe sounds as the Cauldron adventure path is quite the PC killer.
Funny how my group constantly complains about low hit points and the lack of magic items (I must admit that I kinda remove a lot of the smaller magic items, they tend to unbalance things). My group is struggling to get back from Occipitus, taking a detour around Sigil and the Outerplanes. The body count though is quite low, possible because they run a tight operation. Much like a swat-team, planning for hours, but no plan survives the first seconds of action (and I take care of that).
It’s very rare that they die in action mostly they screw up by them selves.
For example when they explored the Demonskar, in the cold, dark and wet ruins they met three lovely maidens which offered them the Nectar of Gods. Three succumb to poison offered by the Hag sisters, oh my go… drink the nectar of gods… how stupid can you be? Well half of the party fell for the textbook ploy, the last three with the help of Yem One-Strike (a hired blademaster, witch of course was a spy for some other sinister group) won the day.
One of the players survived the poison even though he failed all saves, thinking himself lucky; he thought no more of it. Even though two of his friends just died of the hideous poison. He failed to notice the strange felling in his head, a presences, he was without knowing it possessed by an evil entity brought to him by Yem (great stuff in the Book of vile Darkness) the entity saw potential in the young rogue and saved his life.
The second player character was replaced by a zealous deamonhunter stalking Occipitus and the third was reincarnated by the groups Druid (no raise dead spells in my campaign).
So all in all only three deaths in my campaign but a lot of close calls and a lot of running, screaming through darkness.
:D
Jakob NN
My players made it through Jzadirune and killed Kazmojen, but set off the alarm and had to fight their way out through 10 hobgoblins, 5 goblins, and the pit traps in the corridor. Sadly, in the first round of combat, the party's cleric was killed, so they had to go on without a wand of cure moderate or light wounds. The cleric was quickly replaced by a brother who is evil.
They are about to enter the Kopru Ruins.
Most of the way through Flood Season, the count stands at 3...
...though this is largely due to 3 other incapacitated PCs taken prisoner by Kasmojan for resale, and later rescued by the Stormblades.
Well, I had to stop run through AP I unfortunatly (grumble, grumble) Bascially my PC's ran away with the campaign and I was unable to reign them in without A LOT of fighting. I had to call it quits in the middle of Bhal-hamatugn a few months ago.
I really liked AP I too... Next time dammit! Next time!
Anyway, I lost one PC to Tartilkar (the gnoll cleric in Flood Season) and his spike chain. And another to Aushanna in Bhal-hamatugn right before I had to drop the campaign
The group I am running for consists of 3 players, one has 10+ years experience and the rest of us have 20+ years experience. I have killed 3 characters. Kor, the 1/2 orc Paladin died at the elevator due to a hobgoblin's critical hit, the dwarven cleric died in his sleep as the skulk inflicted with the vanishing Coup de Graced him. (they did not check the room next to them before resting, I regret this death as I could have attacked the person on watch) and the human bard bit it at the spear trap. The party now has only one of the original characters, an elven rogue/wizard, plus the other 2 players have added another cleric and a fighter. They just decended the elevator in Life's Bazaar to the malachite fortress and all of them were dropped below zero in the fight with the stone spike and the Xakasus (sp?). All amazingly stablized before dying so I let them live.
All told, 3 deaths and LOTS of close calls. I have developed a "Killer DM" reputation. Hey, works for me. I expect many more character deaths before we are even halfway done.
Neomorte
I have had only two charachter deaths so far.
My dwarven barbarian fell to Skavens phanthasmal killer spell.
The party rogue missed his ref save by one and fell to the cryo hydras breath weapon (56 pts dmg).
My pc`s have just bested Aushanna, but they still have a lot of tough fighting to do in Bhal Hamatugn so there may be more.
The party consists of 1 dweomerkeeper, 1 Half orc fighter, 1 gnome sorcerer and 1 halfling rogue.
I almost had a TPK when they encountered the choked in the theater in Life's Bazaar. I totally didn't see it coming. They had just come from another battle and were a little banged up. The rogue checked out the state, found the trap door, opened it, and jumped in with no one else around. Oops.
The party did come to his rescue but I could have taken down half the party easily. I don't like killing 1st level characters though (and they are somewhat new to 3ed) so I pulled some punches and gave them a free pass. I let them know the gloves are off now. ;>)
I am about half way through Zenith trajectory, and have had 4 deaths so far. One to the wizard in Flood season, and two to the Undead gnoll thing there also. I had one die to the cyrohydra in Zenith.
My group is almost done with the top level of Life's Bazaar and someone has been in negative every session.
Last night, Rufus (a PC) attacked the grell by himself. It then proceeded to do a full attack on him, hitting with 5 tentacles. He would have died if the other didn't dish out enough damage to make the grell let go. Of course in doing so, he fell about 20 feet. If I rolled a 6 on the falling damage, he would have died.
Another guy got hit with 2 sneak attacks from a hiding dark creeper. He did Spot him hiding and then lost Init.
So far, most of the near-deaths have been due to the party splitting up. The battle with the dark stalker leader (plus a creeper and a skulk) went very well for the PC's. Of course a crit and a Cleave by an enlarged dwarven fighter didn't hurt either.
Last time I wrote, I had a death in the Occipitus layer thanks to the Abyssal Basilisk. Now we're playing the Soul Pillars and the party had very hard times against the assassins. Only a lucky stunning fist scored by the monk prevented the party death. The cleric cohort, however died in the attack.
During the party counterattack on the Wee Jas Temple (Grand Hall), they had very harsh moments. The monk went -6 (and stabilized) and saved against the Death Knell from Calmus Vel. This time the cleric multiple flame strikes and a Heal spell on the monk saved the three from death before they were able to flee.
After the retreat, they contacted Meerthan that happily (coins, coins, coins) allowed Fario and Fellian to join the party. Tonight they want to storm the temple again...
Well, I am here to report that all of my original five (5) party members are still around as they just finished dealing with the cryo-hydra. In Flood Season, due to Triel's nasty critting of our (admittedly Dominated) dwarven fighter, we had one (1) official death, but he was raised.
And before you go thinking I'm letting this be a cake-walk, the party is poor (from the healing they have to continually purchase) and hurting almost all the time. But from the weirdest things...
The animated chain in The Malachite Fortress was almost a TPK, as was the second (mean) mimic, but Kazmojen, the Howler, and all the rest were taken out by Crits-R-Us. (I have a fighter with a scythe which is just silly when she crits with it...X4.)
Tongueater and his baboons were a piece of cake (due to the Crits again), but the nutty kopru on the far side of the lake never was killed.
The Umber Hulk was a fun encounter, and the party dealt with the Umber Hulk OK, but when the dwarven fighter/paladin (see above) gets Confused and attacks (and nearly kills) Beppo in front of the approaching town guard, well, that nearly ended the adventure right there...
In Zenith Trajectory, we almost lost a character (the Scythe-$%$*(*^, as I now affectionately call her) to a random wyvern on the way to Crazy Jared's, then Gottrod almost took them out because he wouldn't land, and they don't do ranged weapons so well. And the cryo-hydra was almost a TPK, but that's what you get when you enter "The Pit of the Seven Jaws" and decide to group yourselves all together on each landing before proceeding...<sigh>.
Anywho, totals...
1 kill (complete with Raising)
Numerous visits to "Death's Door"
No money because "the hospital bills are killers."
I think this trip to the Underdark might be a little more than they can handle (without someone dying anyway). I will keep you posted...
Hello again,
during the last session I played with my group, the party experienced their first total defeat against Fetor Abradius. They failed most of the Saving Throws against the double lightning bolt thrown at them. The only survived party member was peppered almost to death by the double Magic Missile just before he was able to cast a Word of Recall spell.
We finished the Test of the Smoking Eye a few weeks ago and everyone is still alive! One PC, the human druid/sorcerer/geomancer was turned to stone by the retriver but he was restored after a quick side trip back to the Lucky Monkey to ask the Striders fo help. The gnome rogue/bard sacrificed herself to the plasmas, but she's back so I guess that counts as a death but it's the first non-violent death in the game. I might have had a few more deaths if I had used Kaurophon in the final encounter but I didn't. He was killed by the Wee Jas assassins when most of the rest of the group was shifted back to the beginning of the path during the Test of Resolve. I had planned for his ghost to return in the skull encounter, but after fighting the lich, the group was at about half-strength and the ghost of Kaurophon would have had no trouble at all with a TPK. No party cleric means undead are a little tougher to defeat, and a ghost who can possess you is even more deadly. This is the first time in the AP that all the same characters will start two consecutive adventures.
You are all the devil in disguise!
Well, I played lifes bazaar and flood season. No deaths so far.
But the group has the right mix of classes. 2 fighters, 1 sorceress and a cleric. And they are very disciplined and tactical combatants. They have a lot of healing power, since I gave a healer trait from the midnight campaign to the sorceress. It´s been no piece of cake for the players. They had no problems in lifes bazaar, but in flood season they are always short on hit points and quick on negatives.
And the dwarven fighter lost 5 Intelligence due to the Spawns worm. Hehe.
Since I last reported each of the two PC's (I also run a third NPC's) had only experienced an untimely death once, but had been returned to life. We've finished playing through the Test of the Smoking Eye and are onto the Secrets of the Soul Pillars. There is one (or 3) more deaths to report. The Paladin got lit up good by the lich at the end of the Test of the Smoking Eye. Seeing that the heroes would not be able to defeat the lich while he stood in the negative energy, he bravely bull-rushed him out of it and "plugged" the hole, so to speak, to prevent the lich from healing himself up. They had the lich and his summons on the ropes but his harm spell healed him up to full as the paladin once again stepped free of the negative energy flames. He was probably at about half of his hit points when he got lit up by Unholy Blight spells in the next two consecutive rounds. He got pasted good and died.
The ranger and the arcane trickster continued on to the final part of the test and obliterated Kaurophon as they beat him to the punch on initiative. Kaurophon didn't make it out of the first round. Once they destroyed him, the remaining player, distraught with the death of his comrade at arms, along with the arcane trickster NPC entered the plasma chute with their expired comrade and they all sacraficed themselves.
I gave them a break and brought them all back with the smoking eye template, as it seemed an appropriate reward for thinking of it.
I now have a two-headed monster on my hands as either don't fear death at all due to the "lie in state" ability, but that should make for some daring play in the future. Having a blast with this one. Kudos to Dungeon!
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3 in Life's Bazaar
1 to a Tilt-a-Pit Trap
1 in the theater, just bad luck on the player's part
1 to a gear door trap, the player couldn't take a hint
2 in Flood Season
1 to Tongue-Eater
1 to the Morkoth, wild shaped druid decided to go exploring
In Zenith Trajectory, so far, not quite finished with the shrine
1 to the Erinyes, the devil hit with 4 attacks from the flaming bow
Oh, how could I have missed this thread!
Heh, I had two groups go through this to varying levels.
One in Los Angeles:
One death to Tarkilar in Flood Season
One Death to the Fire Giant in Demonskar Legacy (The Paladin thought he'd be fine until he found out the amount, 75 damage)
The new group, in Seattle, just had their first death, to the combined Dark Creeper/Stalker community of Jzadirune. They alerted the city, then left...so what else could the bad guys do but try to abscond with the loot? They met them all at the bottom of the stairs in the giggling mask room, and had a big fight. They didn't realize that the Stalkers had +3d6 sneak attack.
Right now the parties split up, two of them taking the body of their rogue to Sasserine to get raised, and the other three trying to find a cure for the Wizard's Vanishing curse.
Good times.
The party rogue died once again last night.
He got slammed a couple of times by one of the Huge fire elementals in The demonscar legacy. He caught fire as well.
The new total is 3 deaths so far.
We have had 3 nights of gaming threw life's bizzar (and we should have finnished all they have left to do is finish off the throne room) One PC died in Jzarden it was a Gnome Cleric of garl glittergold and he died of the vanishing (go figure) however they were all almost killed by the chocker in jzarden and they all almost died in the room with the pit traps i the forturs and they were almost killed by the two hammer atoumotons near the jail sells... so they have been close but only one death... we will have to see we have one charater that i think is dumb enough to attack the beholder when it arrives (3rd level party against a room full of bad guys and a beholder... not a good idea.
A few more to add... Lord Vhlantru disintegrated an arcane trickster. Freija Doorgan then killed said arcane trickster with her prismatic spray (poison). Ti'irok Coalfire claimed the life of a battle weary aasimar paladin and his lizard-folk ranger comrade, near exhaustion at the time, fell to a charge of a pair of flamewarders whom he called on to aid the paladin.
My favorite quote from last session (ended in a pseudo-TPK):
"I didn't think they would both hit me." <player of the lizard-folk ranger>
Having a blast.
First death last night: my feralized Tongue-Eater took out the rogue. You can read about it in my TE thread. ;>)
I've had a lot of people go into the negatives but this was the first actual death. Just when I think the party is getting more careful, the first thing they do when they got to the Lucky Monkey is split up. Go figure.
Near-TPK in a side adventure (Mad God's Key)
The 3rd-level party of five wiped out the ghouls and the corpse rat swarm. They decided to rest in the entry chamber and were attacked by Veltargo and an ogre zombie at night.
The dead:
Elrinan, female elf Brd2/Ftr1
Thaelin, female human Paladin of Freedom3
Lesabas, male human Clr3 of Wee Jas
Khaine, male human Rog1/Warlock2
The survivor:
Eskaan, male human Wiz3 (expeditiously retreated)
The players created an entirely new party who will be special agents of the church of Pelor, come to reinforce poor Kristof.
The replacements (no names yet):
Githzerai Mnk1
Aasimar Pal2
Human Mnk2 (with the first level of the half-celestial template progression)
Pixie2/Rog1
Human Bar3
I have mercifully fudged the dice to avoid dead in a few places (sort of my penance after a TPK in my last campaign). That said the two of five or so installments of the AP that I have grafted into my own game that have been played through WOULD HAVE featured the following deaths:
Life's Bizarre - Tiefling rogue 4, Dwarf fighter 3/dwarven paragon 1, and half-ogre fighter 3/barbarian 1, all would have bit the big one in the final encounter as they unwisely battled the big bads (in my game though the part of the large floating eye has been replaced by a cat-faced gent with backward hands and monk/mind spy levels. Fortunately it was all non-lethal). Our desert elf hexblade 4, ended up in the neighborhood of -8 hp having been magic missiled into submission by the transmuter. Which left the human battle sorcerer 4 and cleric 3/wizard 1 to stand and watch as the boy went with the nice cat man. Kasmojen escaped into the Underdark.
Zenith Trajectory - The desert elf and the dwarf became (or would have become) frozen food on the grated metal stair leading to the Underdark. One critical from Zenith (who the half-ogre could only hit on a natural 20 - otherwise a 31) took the tiefling from exactly full to exactly zero in under 60 seconds. I passed on the second attack.
The Encounter at the Lucky Monkey - The tiefling got wrestled down to nil by three hill baboons in the courtyard. You ever see angry monkeys with toys?
Bad monkey. Heheheh.
GGG
One the of party has had the lone surviving character since the beginning...so far...
Well, that lone survivor finally bit the dust. Or should I say he bit the acidic breath weapon of the dracolich. He was raised by his cohort the next day, but that's one more death in my game.
I had at least six deaths from most of my players, but I don't recall exactly when or where, since my game has progressed so slowly from the beginning in 2003 (due to the size of the group and our weeknight game schedule).
Fortunately, I've begun to post my chronicle of the campaign in installments:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dnd/campaignJournals/anAdventurePathEv ilVariant20042005#9708
Each death was colorful in its own way :-)
I'm sure some of you 'Adventure Path' veterans will enjoy a read...hopefully, my plot tweaks for the Evil-aligned group won't confuse anyone.
Marc
one more down... it was in the fight against the Dragon father in Zenith trajetory... the final blow was acctulay in the trap just before him. The problem was that that pary faught Malomicno (the kuo-toan cleric leader) ausunta (the demon that came from the statue) and then they go to adventure some more with out resting and soon the went after the dragon but one of my players went down even making his refecs save.
So that makes it
4 in lifes bizzar
1 in zenith trajetory
for a total of 5
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During the very first adventure, Lifes Bazaar, the whole party decided to go outside the Malachite Fortress and explore just a little bit of the Underdark passages.
Despite my warnings of incoming danger (corpses, warning signals posted by the slave merchants along their way to Kazmojen's, etc.) they went on.
Them they met a pair of carrion crawlers, who took the party by surprise, paralized 4 out of 5 characters (the monk survived and fled), and ate them!
Those unfortunates are now part of the tales adventuring mothers tell to their sons and daughters... "if you're not careful the big bad worm will strike your face with its tentacles, paralize you, and it will eat you right away!".