RotRL Obituaries


Rise of the Runelords

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Liberty's Edge

I culled some data from the most recent pages of this thread and this thread, and some threads in the Serpent's Skull subforum. Methodology described here.

This is a nicer presentation of data than the graphs posted there - basically, it's showing how common death is for a certain class, scaled to the number of people who appear to have played that class. Poor fighters!

Total sample sizes:
58 dead and 147 created in RotR
49 dead and 187 created in SS
Disclaimer: since at most 15% of the sample was any given class, the actual sample sizes for statistical purposes would be much smaller (like, 9). So the error is pretty huge. But still - poor fighters!

Shadow Lodge

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Wow. Not a single Bard has died in RotRL; not a single Paladin has died in Serpent's Skull (that has been reported). Good for them, statistically.


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Holy Casualties, Batman! No pc deaths in the first 4 books, now in Sins there have been three. This time the wizard got it. Again.

Name: Aldamir
Class/Level: Male Elf Wizard (Conjuration) 14
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Azaven

The pc's were bunched up in the narrow approach to the Assembly room, so the Wizard disintegrated sections of the wall at the end of the urn corridor so his summoned celestial dire tigers could get into the fray. The pc's had previously, without knowing the benefit, taken out the gate in the Infusion Chamber so they were safe there. And it worked, the celestial tigers got into the room. But it also made Prismatic Spray even more effective (as in it could hit even more targets.) That can be a sneakily devastating spell - having the players roll their own d8 to determine the effect is very satisfying. Aldamir failed his save vs poison and died. The bard threw in a Saving Finale spell and the wizard punted the second save as well. For a brief moment, total disaster loomed as the cleric had yet to make his save. Fortunately, he made it and was not turned to stone. The bard and the fighter might have been completely hosed if both spellcasters had been permanently down. The cleric subsequently used a Resurrection scroll to revive the wizard. Azaven still functions but I suspect he won't last long when we resume play.

Silver Crusade

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Yeah, Sins of the Savior does seem to turn up the level of deadliness in this AP.

Our group only had two deaths in the first four books, though it easily could have been two more if I wasn't such a nice GM. Since we started book 5, we've had one real death, two that were brought back with Breathe of Life, and one turned to stone.

I'll be curious to see how much worse it is for my group when they hit book 6.


Name: Feng
Race/lvl: Half-orc sorcerer3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: PC pride and underestimating goblins

Feng and his player gets tired of the party gathering info and strategizeing (arguing) about Thistletop. He and the party's Monk decide to raid the fort alone from the sea. Sneaking in, they find three goblins tormenting a sea gull and burning hands them. The goblins survive the initial attack and shout for reinforcements. Fast forward a few rounds, a few goblins have fallen and most the goblin dogs, but Thisletop unpeashed all the goblins upon the party. Overwhealmed, they leap off the side of the island and on to their boat. They try to escape, but goblin arrows reduce them to the negatives. They drift unconscious for hours, eventually dying when the boat is tossed over in a storm.


Yesterday was a bad day for my group... I'm still kinda dumbfounded and stumped...

Name: Titus the Wanderer
Class/Level: Oracle (Heavens)/7
Adventure: HMM
Catalyst: bad GMing, being bored/half asleep (not me),... no idea + one player missing

Spoiler:
We called it a night last time after a merry adventure aboard the Paradise sank to the bottom of Claybottom Lake and the PCs and a group of survivors arriving at Turtleback Ferry.
The PCs rested, were greeted by the mayor, bought new supplies, got an update on the situation around TBF and headed off into the wilderness of Ashwood to claim copses of darkwood within the forest (sidequest in my campaign on behalf of Titus Scarnetti).
They've heard about the dam at the end of Skull River and want to take a look at it.
Having no interest in taking a second look at the destroyed rope across the Skull River where there used to be another ferry and failing their perception check to notice the corpse of the ferryman and the tracks/signs of a fight they headed off North-North East.
OK, I thought: no progressing the main plot line tonight.
They spent about a week in the woods and laid claim to about 12 copses and were done with that quest, getting bored it seemed.
They pushed onwards into Wyvern Mountains, and I pulled out B1 and had three wyverns screech overhead and then attack.
The next rounds I was devastated how badly my group reacted to this thread.
The first round I described them that the wyverns came into clear view. My group opted for pulling out their ranged weapons and... waited. Next round the wyverns used flyby and attacked each of them using their sting attack.
Titus player noticed/declared that he had not actived his Coat of Many Stars revelation which made me go: oooookaaaayy. Each of the attacks hit (+10 attack bonus+d20 is not to be laughed at).
Titus didn't manage a single save and died of CON damage. Just before the final round our missing player joined us via Skype. Being more than 2 1/2 hours late to the party nobody (if people join late I leave that to the players) really felt obliged to give him more details then: we're in a fight; so he attacked.

Trying to somehow remedy my misjudgement (three wyverns at CR 6 meaning CR 9 so an epic encounter for my group of 3 players at APL7) and to foreshadow what's to come I had a fey drop by which offered a deal: it'll revive Titus if the group removed the stakes they used to mark the claims. Nobody wanted to enter the deal... next up: an email to my group of players to discuss the situation.

Sczarni

Name: Grax'uur
Class/Level: Bladebound Magus/8
Adventure: HMM
Catalyst: Skull Ripper and a resource depleted party

Story: After recapturing Ft. Ranick, the party returned to TF to find it half submerged. They rescued the school kids and dealt with Black Maga. this did a pretty good job of chewing up speels, ki points, and arcane points. It was suggested by some of the towns people that there must be something wrong with the damn, so they set off right away.

The party dealt with Gorger and Chaw, the demolition crew, the battle grounds and Grazul before encountering Skull Ripper. They were low on healing, out of buffs and nearly everything else they needed to deal with a beastie like that. Poor Grax'uur was down to 17 hp and took a critical power attack from a claw. The 35 points of damage were more than enough to take care of those remaining hp and put him negative more than his CON. Fortunately, he had been a good hero up to this point and had earned the 2 hero points needed to not be gone for good.

Seeing his plight, the witch ran up grabbed him and dimension doored them both out of there. The rest of the party then beat a hasty retreat. It was a totally different fight when they came back the next day healed and fully buffed. Poor Skull Ripper didn't stand a chance.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Olaf Thunderstep: dwarf fighter 12
Mad Haggle: goblin alchemist/gunslinger 12

These characters died while under Jorgenfist. Fighting to get thier friend Shalelu back. Unfortunately for them, she still died.


Twofer in the last session. Plus NPCs. It was a mess.

Name: Vinder
Class/Level: Male Halfling Mutagenic Mauler 8
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Bringing all the Ogres to the yard + hubris

Name: Thierren
Class/Level: Male Half-Elf Cleric/Mage/Mystic Theurge 2/5/1
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Bringing all the Ogres to the yard + hubris

The party snuck around the shocker lizard tunnels, foregoing the invitation to go down into the warrens where they bred, and found the secret door into the courtyard. The stealthier members, plus Shalelu, snuck out to see if there was more recon to do than they already had. They found the loose stone on Karly-lop's residence in the guardhouse. Vinder did the exact amount of damage to bring it down, which brought all the ogres the AP called for to come over to investigate. The collapse killed the non-advanced ogres inside and trapped Karly-lop for 5 rounds. I also ruled that the rubble field was difficult terrain. Vinder had time to hide, and Thierren and Shalelu were already hidden. The rest of the party, watching from the secret door, meta'd that since every encounter was supposed to be something they could handle, they should come out and attack the score of ogres. There were so many squeezing through the door of the barracks that they were still emerging in round 3, and the party still didnt' understand that they were outmatched. My poor dice rolling didn't help that misconception. Long story short on the battle, the party remained divided, with Karly-lop bursting from the rubble just in time to make Thierren's retreat impossible, and Vinder refused to just leave Theirren and Shalelu. Shalelu didn't have that problem, ran, and dies after unsuccessfully hiding. Theirren fell to two AoO from movement, trying to run, and Vinder just got overrun by the press. The rest of the party made it back to the secret door, minus Vale and Jakadros' AC.


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Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: The Graul Family all at once

Name of PC: Aphram Guardson; Race/Class/Level: Half-Drow Magus 7
Name of PC: Iacobus; Race/Class/Level: Varisian Cleric of Calistria 7
Name of PC: Maximus; Race/Class/Level: Half-Ogre Barbarian 7

The party had reached the Graul Homestead and quickly grew annoyed with the place. First off was a game of hit-and-run with Crowfood in the cornfields; second were the traps set at every entrance to the house, which blocked their attempt to follow Crowfood's retreat inside. Thirdly, once they decided to check the barn instead (at Kibb's incessant suggestions), they were by a huge ogre spider that managed to deliver his venom to the party magus.

At that point, he'd had enough, and threw three fireballs into the main house to end it all. Unfortunately, Mammy Graul had dimension door while Crowfood, Lucky, and Maulgro had windows to climb out of. Hucker came burning out through the kitchen some minutes later.

The battle that ensued was pretty devastating to the party, especially since they spent a lot of their resources on the encounters leading up to this one. Aphram, as the arsonist in this tale, became the main target of Mammy's rage; at first, she threw suffocation at him from above, but when it became clear that that was not going to take him down quickly enough, she supplied him with blood boil, bestow curse, and vampiric touch as well. Aphram did not last much longer, and soon hung dead and upside-down in the air by the mercy of his fly spell.

On the ground, Crowfood appeared from behind the porch some rounds later than Mammy, and charged the largest and tastiest target available. This would be Iacobus, the full-plated cleric. Crowfood's charge gave him sneak attack, while his ogre hook scored a critical hit, for a total of 87 damage. Too much. Much too much. Iacobus went out like a light, and the last thing he saw was his kidney and entrails clinging to Crowfood's ogre hook.

As Lucky and Maulgro appeared from the other side of the house, Mammy kept control of the battlefield by the use of black tentacles and solid fog. Along the way, I decided to give them the help of a half-naked Vale Temros (he picked up Aphram's katana), who somehow had reclaimed his strength as the battle seemed to go bad.

To summarize, the party barely won through in the end, with only the fighter and the wizard still standing. Hucker was the one to bring down Maximus, while Vale managed to take down Hucker. All in all, I may have made the Grauls too powerful, but it was the decision to draw the entire family out together that truly tipped the scales against the party.


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Totally reminds me of when I was trying to convince the party that they'd totally messed up big-time, and said, "You can tell that there are at least a couple hundred enemies approaching. They're still a few rounds away, so you have time to run."

Yep. The party decided to stay and fight. It was amazing that they only lost one party member before realizing that when a GM says, "You still have time to run," you might want to listen...


Gwenevier Thatcher,
Oradin of Falayna (3 Oracle, 4 Paladin)

During the battle for Fort Rannick Gwenevier charged an Ogre, the Ogre was flat footed so it didn't get an attack of opportunity. Gwenevier critically struck the target, dealing a massive 42 damage to it. It went next and scored a natural 19 with an improved crit Ogre Hook, and then a natural 20 on the iterative. Both confirmed. 53 damage followed by 72 damage. Gwenevier only had 64 HP.


Just found this post, incredible.

Anyways, party is now level 11 and at Jorgenfist.

Death 1
Name: Akandle
Class/level: Fetchling Unchained Knifemaster Rogue 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Stupidity

Story;
The first death of the adventure and I actually had no hand in it, Akandle wanted to do a blood sacrifice to Lamashtu so asked another PC (Tibit) to stab him a few times in the shrine underneath Thistetop, he heard a ragged female voice whisper in his head "Make me monsters", so he decided to keep the stabbing going. Akandle falls unconscious and Tibit does a heal check to see if he can take one more stab, blunders the heal check, nails the stab = dead Akandle.

Death 2
Name: Tibit
Class/level: Oracle 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Akandle's Stupidity

Story;
So after they realised Akandle was dead Tibit threw himself to his knees at the statue to Lamashtu and says he will give his Snake God powers (long story) to Lamashtu if she brings Akandle back. He hears "Will you be my monsters?" and nods. Tibit is instantly slain, they both rolled on monstrous humanoid tables, Akandle got a Kobold, Tibit got an Orc. Upon waking, Tibit's snake familiar bit into him, Tibit realised he had made a horrible mistake and told the party to stay back as he let his familiar kill him. Akandle however, was pleased as f&~$ with being back and being a kobold.

Death 3
Name: Thogon
Class: Dwaf Barbarian 5ish
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Skaveling

Story;
Not much to tell here, the Skaveling Paralyzed most of the party and then two rounds of coup de grace on the barb left him headless. He was then reincarnated by the shaman, to his and his dwarven wife's distain, as a gnome.

Death 4
Name: Elvis
Class: Bard
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Mammy Graul

Story;
Sonic scream bust his head open, a sad day, but once again reincarnated by the Shaman as a gnome.

Death 5
Name: Thogon
Class: Barbarian
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Lots and lots of Ogres

Story; took one too many javelin's to the face as he attempted to climb the walls up to a bunch of ogres. Reincarnated this time as an Elf.

Death 6
Name: Thogon
Class: Barbarian
Adventure: Stones over Sandpoint
Catalyst: Teraktinus

Story;
As the party scattered across the city during the raid, Thogon spots a few stone giants running the opposite way to him on a parallel street. He about turns and chases Teraktinus, two stone giants and two dire bears.. solo. He takes out a stone giant on his own as two other PC's come swooping in to assist with the dire bears and other stone giant as Teraktinus picks at the stone of the Old Light. After only Terak is left, the other party members fly off to assist another party member, leaving the Barb and the bard. Terak one shots him, the bard flies off.

Death 7
Name: Senpai Bernardo
Class: Unchained Monk 11
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Staring at the wall

Story;
After sneaking underneath Jorgenfist, they encountered Enga the kobold barbarian, she unleashes her necklace of fireballs doing significant damage to Senpai before she dies. The sound of the explosion reverberates throughout the tunnels and the shouts and footsteps of approaching ogres and stone giants are heard. They then decide to spend some time inspecting her loot and Senpai searches the walls for interesting stone. So ogres come in and hit them, killing Senpai. He was then resurrected as Senpai Bernadette, the Human female.

I may I've missed a few, but there ye go.


For "Death 6", was Thogon raised/resurrected, or did the shaman reincarnate him again (and as what)?


Time to put here the (so far) deaths on my campaign.

Name: Valandil
Class/Level: Elven Wizard 6
Adventure: The Skinsaw Murders/The Misgivings
Catalyst: Ghouls like to touch stuff!

Spoiler:
So while down on the tunnels the party suffered a ambush by ghouls and poor Valandil with some lousy hit points found himself under atack by two of the creatures, one of them got a crit and down it went the wizard! Luckt for him he used 2 hero points to escape, but still counts as a death!

Name: Variel
Class/Level: Elven Unchained Rogue 8
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Got Hooked BAD!

Spoiler:
So while the brave heroes of Sandpoint were in the Middle of a awesome fight with a bunch of Ogres in the courtyard of Fort Rannick, one of them got lucky with his Ogre Hook and pamb! There goes the Rogue down as a sack of potatoes or potatos, pick one! Guess what? He had 2 hero points to spend!!! Lucky for them the wizard was hot with his fireballs or it would be more hooking to be made for sure!

Name: Grokar
Class/Level: Half-Orc Barbarian 10
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Barl get's mad!!!

Spoiler:
So after a huge fight with a certain wight, some hags, a stone giant (and in the Middle of it they manage to put Lucretia as a stone statue do the Medusa Mask the party barbarian was wearing), then arrived Barl and his thrusty earth breaker! Grokar hits Barl, Barl hits back with a critical hit and down went Grokar! Lucky for him he had 2 hero points to spend!

So far due to good party tactics they are doing well, altought i see problems far ahead.

They are in the 4th chapter now and

Spoiler:
managed to stop the atack on Sandpoint due to Haste and Dimension Door, and killing the dragon and Teratkinus! Damn, they were on the fire! but i think the fortress is going to be hard!

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Name of PC: Assoc
Class/Level: Human Saurial Druid 14
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: The Ghost of Karivek Vekker
Story: The party weathered the haunts in the Vekker cabin with few problems, and were alerted by Silas on how to lay the spirits to rest - return with his brother's bones and he will attempt to reconcile with his brother's spirit. They knew that there was an angry wendigo about, and they knew his brother wasn't resting peacefully. So I really have no idea why they thought that sending the druid up to the top of the 2,000' cliff in dire bat form by himself was a good idea.

You can probably guess how the fight went. The dire bat druid lands, and uses his echolocation to find the dwarf's bones. As he approaches, Karivek shows up, and proceeds to attack him. The party hears the howling atop the cliff, and spend some time casting some spells to get them up there quickly. By the time they get up there, though, Karivek has dropped the druid in an AoO, and uses his round to feast on the druid's body.

Since they were filled with bad ideas that evening, they decided to use a limited wish to cast reincarnate on the druid. He was OK with this, so he was returned to life. The dice had a sense of humor, though. Assoc came back as a dwarf, undoubtedly because of the dwarven burial ground the spell was cast in.

Name: Warriors of Wrath
Class/Level: Human NPC Meat Shields
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Being an NPC in a horror story
Story: So, my party managed to kill Highlady Athroxis before encountering the nine Warriors of Wrath, and they swore their allegiance to the new Highlord. They are eager to serve as their new leader's strike force behind enemy lines and strike against Karzoug. Never mind the fact that these guys aren't that cool - they're zealots, and they're ready to help prevent the Claimer's return to the world. After all, he can't be allowed to take control of the world; that's Alaznist's job!

So, they brought the Warriors of Wrath out of Runeforge, and into the Kodars to search for Xin-Shalast. I wasn't too keen on having nine evokers in the party, since that tends to skew things towards the party more than I'd like. However, I suddenly realized the story potential of bringing nine characters into the haunted cabin filled with dwarven cannibal spirits that weren't the PCs. I didn't have to play by things like "fairness" and "impartiality." I could kill these characters. Harshly.

And so I did. The first I killed when the arsenic-tainted gold dust haunt hit the party. I rolled some dice, but didn't really pay attention to the results all that much - one survived, but coughed up blood, and the other vomited a river of blood and died. One down, eight to go.

The second happened shortly after the first. One of the players moved several of the Warriors around the exterior of the workhouse section of the cabin, and one of those Warriors was close enough to the undead treant that I decided it would attack. By the time they got outside, that Warrior was also dead, his midsection torn open by the plant monstrosity's talons, and a foul-smelling black fungus was rapidly growing in the wound. Two down, seven to go.

I didn't actually get the next kill on them, but that's mostly because they figured out how doomed the Warriors were if they continued to explore the cabin with them, so they kept them in the workhouse while the PCs explored the upstairs. That all changed once the major multi-round haunt started. They all raced outside into the snowstorm, and the cannibal ghosts possessed four of the remaining six Warriors. Rather than attempt to save them, the elf fighter decided to take out her aggressions on them and effortlessly killed one. Three down, six to go.

Annoyingly, the inquisitor Highlord forced the remaining three possessed Warriors to remake that save. Two of them made it, but the third failed, so he remained possessed and cast a fireball on the group. That pissed off the remaining five Warriors, and they all cast magic missile on him, killing him instantly. Four down, five to go.

From there, the party went to deal with Karivek, and the wackiness above occurred. During their haste in order to get up to the top to save Assoc, they left the remaining Warriors at the base of the cliff, so they had to find a way to get them up to the top. As high-level PCs, they had the solutions, it was just a matter of how they did it. The wendigo briefly attacked them as they separated, but it wasn't interested in killing the party, only harassing them. So, when they decided to wind walk down to the bottom of the cliff, the wendigo attacked again. In its snowstorm wind walk form, it flew by the descending party, grabbed one of the Warriors, and flew off into the storm. The Warrior's screams eventually stopped. Five down, four to go.

When they returned to the cabin, the wendigo attacked, and its first action was to howl, causing all the Warriors to cower in fear, along with much of the party. If the cleric/paladin of Ragathiel had not prepared remove fear, it could have all ended there. Instead, they recovered, and the elf fighter claimed the life of the sixth Warrior. She missed the wendigo with one of her attacks, and asked if it could hit the Warrior instead. I agreed, and removed the miniature from the map. Six down, three to go.

I'm sure I'll kill the other three soon enough.


Name:Lai Fong
Class/Level: Human Monk 3
Adventure: Thistletop
Catalyst: Nualia

Story: He died trying to save the cleric and the rogue of being sacrificed to Lamashtu.


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Name of PC: J.D
Class/Level: Human Sorcerer 7
Adventure: Shadows of Time
Catalyst: "Lovely" Xanesha
Story: We ascended to the top of the Shadow Clock, ready to confront the leader. Of course, Xanesha was waiting for us, invisible. Surprise round, crit with the spear, dealt enough damage to kill J.D outright. The rest of the fight was... brutal. Incredibly brutal.


Time to make an update on the obituaries count:
1st adventure (Burnt Offerings): 385 (+17 animal companion/NPC)
2nd adventure (Skinsaw Murders): 219 (+9 animal companion/NPC)
3rd adventure (Hook Mt): 188 (+20 animal companion/NPC)
4th adventure(FotSG): 152 (+6 animal companion/NPC)
5th adventure (Sins): 102 (+5 animal companion/NPC)
6th adventure (SoX-S): 94 (+12 animal companion/NPC)
Side Quests: 29
Totals: 1169 (+69 animal companion/NPC)

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

That's all well and good, Demonknight, but has Runelords leveled up yet? I mean, it's got to have done so after murdering so many murderhobos!


Name of PC: Udyr
Class/Level: Monk 10
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Ogre Hook piercing his Skull
Story:
This is a party that fought through Fort Rannick without losing a single hit point (and I already used Joey Virtue's Challenging encounters), they know what to do, how to do it and they do it extremley well. And they know that. And of course those six marvelous adventurers didn't think twice and attacked those six Ogres standing guard in front of the Kreeg Clanhold on Hook Mountain.

What they didn't expect was that the snowy, icy terrain they fought at combined with the Ogre's reach made their usual tactics useless. When you can't 5-foot-step out of reach that easily, you're basically glued to the spot once you're in hand-to-hand combat. Especially the main damage dealer of the group, our monk, who took double moves to get a good head start in the fight, then suddenly saw him surrounded by the Ogres while the rest of the party, especially the healers, needed a couple of rounds to catch up.

Not a wise decision.

What the party also didn't expect was their GM rolling 19s and 20s for the Ogres almost every round (although he failed to crit every time), so Udyr, even with spending Ki points to boost his AC to ridiculous his levels, suffered injuries and losses of 25 HP on average.

As the fight went on, my dice rolled even better. Our cleric had her chance to channel once or twice, but the Ogres did more damage than she could heal. A couple of Ogres fell in battle, the cavalier managed to draw some of the damage away from the monk, but then the first of the Ogres crit.

And Udyr fell to -25 HP.

Both the shaman and the cleric had breath of life in their repertoir, but neither of them could make it to the monk in time. In fact, the shaman, while trying to get there, the second Ogre rolled a crit, bringing him down to exactly 0 HP.

The wizard buffed our cavalier to finish the rest of the living Ogres (there were only two of them left at that point), while the cleric channeled once more to get the shaman fit to fight for another round.
And then came crit number 3.

69 points damage against the cavalier, who luckily still had 19 HP left to kill the critting Ogre in the same round, while the rogue finished Last Ogre Standing with a successful sneak attack.

The fight was over, Udyr was dead. The party spent one of the few remaining charges of Ressurection left in Grabthar's Hammer (see here for further information) on Udyr, as they realized that the clanhold will be more challenging than they thought.

We ended the session there. the group spent a lot of ressources in that fight. and that was just the prelude to what lies ahead. the clanhold will be tough.


Name of PC: Kyrus
Class/Level: Elf Wizard (enchanter) 5
Adveture: Misgivings
Catalyst: Shattering Glass
Story:

:
In the observatory he failed in the perception test and in the will save against Cyralie's haunt, the group tried to catch him, but everyone lost to him in initiative (Kyrus had improved initiative). He died by the glass damage and do not fell.


Name of PC: Thorgar (Cohort)
Class/Level: dwarf ranger 1, cleric (Forgemaster) 5, Skyseeker 4
Adventure: Stones over Sandpoint
Catalyst: Stone Giant
Story: Thorgar charges the hated stone-throwing giants furiously. After intimidating them with his 'Giant Chopper' he is assaulted by two stone giants. Two crits later, he died after being pummeled a few feet underground. To the party's dismay, the giant collected Thorgar as a trophy and retreated.


Re-running this one with some newbs and one vet.
I could have killed them all in the Catacombs of Wrath. They went in all jolly and horsing around. They managed to head straight to Erylium who tuned them up. They had no answer for invisibility and the returning dagger. Managed to finally get lucky when one of them (who was still acting goofy) managed to accidentally reveal Erylium's location by opening a door into her from the other side. At that point they managed to mob her and kill her. The party was sooo messed up that they were debating retreating back to town or if they should go onward. Either way I didn't like the options ....if they went on Korovus would've toasted them along with the remaining sinspawn. If they left and went back to town I wasn't sure how to play it. What would Korovus do if Erylium was dead? so I took pity on them and had the Sheriff show up with some backup.

The good news is that they learned and were much more careful in Thistletop.

They are about to go to The Misgivings however and I'm not optimistic of their chances. They are quickly becoming devestating death dealers in straight up fights, but they are not a thinking party and the haunts will frustrate them into acting stupid. I may be writing some names here soon.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

That, or they'll discover that there are threats in the world that can't be solved by hitting them really hard with a sword, and rise to the occasion.

Stop laughing, it could happen!

Silver Crusade

The Misgivings was fun. Probably my favorite part of the adventure path.


Just don't do what the party I am running fir did, and split up in the haunted house...

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

My players did just that, Elca - I feel like the spirit of Fred Jones took over them for a moment, right up until they encountered the first haunt. Then they stuck together like glue.


New players learn to never split the party sooner or later. Usually that lesson is learned the difficult and entertaining way.


Kaliel Windstorm wrote:

Re-running this one with some newbs and one vet.

I could have killed them all in the Catacombs of Wrath. They went in all jolly and horsing around. They managed to head straight to Erylium who tuned them up. They had no answer for invisibility and the returning dagger. Managed to finally get lucky when one of them (who was still acting goofy) managed to accidentally reveal Erylium's location by opening a door into her from the other side.

How did she kept invisble while atacking the party with the returning dagger...?


Mis, my guys did basically the opposite, stuck together, had experienced most of the house, killed the BBEG, then decided to explore the parts they had skipped, by splitting up.


Demonknight wrote:
Kaliel Windstorm wrote:

Re-running this one with some newbs and one vet.

I could have killed them all in the Catacombs of Wrath. They went in all jolly and horsing around. They managed to head straight to Erylium who tuned them up. They had no answer for invisibility and the returning dagger. Managed to finally get lucky when one of them (who was still acting goofy) managed to accidentally reveal Erylium's location by opening a door into her from the other side.

How did she kept invisble while atacking the party with the returning dagger...?

She didn't, but invisibility at will meant she could keep turning invisble after hit and run.

Whole thing was really a total mess. They spent the first few rounds dealing with the Sinspawn. Erylium got off a cause fear and split the party up (half ran out of the room). She got off a summon monster spell and a shatter spell that ruined the barbarian's great club.
She eventually was able to play hit and run on two seperate groups in 2 seperate rooms. Her going in and out of the room was how eventually one of the characters hit her with the door.


Kaliel Windstorm wrote:
Demonknight wrote:
Kaliel Windstorm wrote:

Re-running this one with some newbs and one vet.

I could have killed them all in the Catacombs of Wrath. They went in all jolly and horsing around. They managed to head straight to Erylium who tuned them up. They had no answer for invisibility and the returning dagger. Managed to finally get lucky when one of them (who was still acting goofy) managed to accidentally reveal Erylium's location by opening a door into her from the other side.

How did she kept invisble while atacking the party with the returning dagger...?

She didn't, but invisibility at will meant she could keep turning invisble after hit and run.

Whole thing was really a total mess. They spent the first few rounds dealing with the Sinspawn. Erylium got off a cause fear and split the party up (half ran out of the room). She got off a summon monster spell and a shatter spell that ruined the barbarian's great club.
She eventually was able to play hit and run on two seperate groups in 2 seperate rooms. Her going in and out of the room was how eventually one of the characters hit her with the door.

She couldn't atack (a standard) and turn invisible (another standard), so they should have some chance to try and hit her (with ranged atacks), but if they fail to do even that, well, a hard lesson was learned!


For now this are the deaths for my group (me as GM)

#1
Name: Yaba Cha
Class/Level: Human Witch 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Shadows
Story: In the lowest level of Thistletop he got swarmed by shadows and...strenght score dropped to zero.

#2
Name: Maul Talzin
Class/Level: Half-Orc Ranger 15
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Karzoug's Statue
Story: Not totally his fault since the group was out of resources but anyway shit happens.

And that's it...for now.
Group is composed by: Investigator, Paladin, Magus and Ranger...all at 15th level and they started chapter 6 last week.


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Name:Harim
Race/Class:Human, Wizard 6
Adventure:Seven's Sawmill
Catalyst:Skinsaw Cultists
Story:

:
The group started exploring the upper levels of the sawmill. The fight against Ironbriar was so long co's he magically ordered the warrior to kill the rogue, who spent the rest of the fight fleeing. Harim stayed away from combat, near the stairs and when the cultists of the lower levels arrivied they flanked and stabed the wizard until the death. The druid and the rougue felt to the drow poison and at the end Cocho, the boar animal companion, all alone, epically defeated the judge.

Liberty's Edge

Lost two during the giant assault on Sandpoint.

#1
Name:Simol
Race/Class:Gnomish druid 10th
Adventure: Stones over sandpoint
Catalyst: Stone giant
Story:
Our druid had gotten in the habit of using wild shape with a bird form as an escape mechanism. Her, her brother Tiggger (aka tiger animal companion), and our Rouge/Ranger and splintered off from the main group to challenge one giant while the rest of the party took on the group heading for the old light. The fight was going poorly and she thought she would be safer and better able to support the fight from the air.
Sadly a stone giant nailed her with a rock and knocked her unconscious. Falling damage killed her.

#2
Name: Joil
Race/Class:Elf Rouge 5 / Ranger 5
Adventure: Stones over sandpoint
Catalyst: Stone giant
Story:
After the druids death (see above) I allowed the druid to continue fighting as her brother for the duration of the fight. Jiol sees the druids body and attempts to loot it... in the middle of combat. Tiggger sees this and attempts to protect his sister from this fiendish member of her own party. They end up fighting each other. until a stone giant shows up and criticals the rouge and easily smashes the tiger.

As DM I really have mixed feelings on how the whole thing played out...


NPC Name: Sven
Race/Class: Human Fighter 1
Adventure: Pre-Burnt Offerings Side Quest
Catalyst: Sewer Skull

Spoiler:

My group and I have been playing RotRL since the AE was released back in 2012. We meet once a month, maybe or we'd likely be a lot further. Anyway, no PC deaths at this point but we suffered a beloved NPC death in an side quest our GM was running us through before we started the AP proper.

We'd picked up Sven in The Rusty Dragon since we were a 3 person party and didn't really have a melee type in our ranks. My cleric of Asmodeus picked Sven because he was dumb enough to sign a contract without reading it, and consequently not realizing that Sven's share would go to my character if anything were to happen to Sven, and he only had one arm and was likely to die.

Sven had made it through a few encounters with us before, while exploring the sewers, we were attacked by a Wererat with a surprise. Round 1, the Wererat wins initiative and proceeds to fling a skull full of sewer filth right into Sven's stupid face. Sven crit failed his save to not become nauseated and the GM ruled that it had gotten all up in poor Sven's helmet.

Sven spent the next two rounds of his life attempting to remove his helmet while bravely standing between the party and the Wererat while the party attempted to rescue him. On the upside my cleric got his inheritance.

That's the only death we've suffered in our 4 years of play in this AP. We were only able to hire one more NPC before word got out that working for us was a risky endeavor. We start Sins of the Saviors next time we meet up.


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calvsie wrote:


#2
Name: Joil
Race/Class:Elf Rouge 5 / Ranger 5
Adventure: Stones over sandpoint
Catalyst: Stone giant
Story:
After the druids death (see above) I allowed the druid to continue fighting as her brother for the duration of the fight. Jiol sees the druids body and attempts to loot it... in the middle of combat. Tiggger sees this and attempts to protect his sister from this fiendish member of her own party. They end up fighting each other. until a stone giant shows up and criticals the rouge and easily smashes the tiger.

As DM I really have mixed feelings on how the whole thing played out...

Looting a party member body during a fight? He´s evil or what??

Liberty's Edge

Demonknight wrote:
Looting a party member body during a fight? He´s evil or what??

Chaotic Neutral.

This is a game with my nephews. the younger lost one character because he murdered a towns person in broad daylight and was taken by the town guard. He sometimes makes dumb mistakes and tries to play his charcters the way he plays Skyrim. I'm slowly getting through to think through the consequences of his actions.


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Name of PC: Huroz
Class/Level: Half-Orc Inquisitor of Desna 9
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Charging the Skull Ripper
Story: Huroz, reacting before anyone else, boldly charged into the room containing the Skull Ripper. It took just a few seconds for the creature to grab her with it's claws and begin crushing the life out of her. Her friends tried anything they could to free her before she perished but came up short (by 1 on multiple rolls) and before long, true to it's name, the Skull Ripper tore Huroz's head from her body.

I am relatively new to GM-img and this was my first PC death. There had been a few close calls but as soon as she entered the room I knew she was in danger. Followed up by poor party rolls and awesome GM rolls I knew after the first round she would likely die. I know some GMs revel in slaughtering PCs but I can now say for sure that I am not one of those.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Don't feel too bad, Fried Goblin. You're entering the level of play where monsters have increasingly overpowering abilities, and some bad die rolls can mean your PC is dead. However, you're also at the level where raise dead is something PCs can cast, so death becomes a particularly nasty condition to be removed.


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Apply mending to sew the head back onto the corpse, raise dead should take care of the rest. And a restoration to remove that pesky permanent negative level. ;)

Scarab Sages

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Well, after four years and 86 sessions, my campaign finally came to a close last week. While there were lots of deaths, there was only one perma-death.
Name of PC: The Third Durriken
Class/Level: Fighter 13ish
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Death by snu-snu.
Story: He failed his save against all of the clones, was drawn into their bedroom where the door was locked, and drained, literally, over everything he had to give. He died with a smile on his face.


William Sinclair wrote:

Well, after four years and 86 sessions, my campaign finally came to a close last week. While there were lots of deaths, there was only one perma-death.

Name of PC: The Third Durriken
Class/Level: Fighter 13ish
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Death by snu-snu.
Story: He failed his save against all of the clones, was drawn into their bedroom where the door was locked, and drained, literally, over everything he had to give. He died with a smile on his face.

Death by Snu Snu is a good way to go!


Nice. Death by snu-snu is probably the best way a character can go out. ;)

As an update, my crew is currently about halfway through The Misgivings. They'll stay that way for a bit as it looks like it'll be a month before we manage to get it together again.

No ......final deaths yet, but as I predicted they are not dealing well with the haunts. Our rogue had two near death experiences, (one from the scarf) and the human-blender-of-a-fighter has lost 3 strength points from a haunt. They already attempted to flee the mansion but the carrionstorms had them running right back in.
They've reverted to a tactic where everyone hides in the hall while the Druid checks out each room.
If I had to guess I'd say they are about to disturb Iesha, which I don't think is going to turn out well as the party seems to have misinterpreted the clues to think they are looking for a Lich. (though maybe they'll find Iesha and be smart enough to leave her alone?.....somehow I doubt it).


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Kaliel Windstorm wrote:

Nice. Death by snu-snu is probably the best way a character can go out. ;)

As an update, my crew is currently about halfway through The Misgivings. They'll stay that way for a bit as it looks like it'll be a month before we manage to get it together again.

No ......final deaths yet, but as I predicted they are not dealing well with the haunts. Our rogue had two near death experiences, (one from the scarf) and the human-blender-of-a-fighter has lost 3 strength points from a haunt. They already attempted to flee the mansion but the carrionstorms had them running right back in.
They've reverted to a tactic where everyone hides in the hall while the Druid checks out each room.
If I had to guess I'd say they are about to disturb Iesha, which I don't think is going to turn out well as the party seems to have misinterpreted the clues to think they are looking for a Lich. (though maybe they'll find Iesha and be smart enough to leave her alone?.....somehow I doubt it).

This indicates that you're running it very, very well.

They just missed the word "failed"...


Kaliel Windstorm wrote:

l as the party seems to have misinterpreted the clues to think they are looking for a Lich.

which they are, basically

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder LO Special Edition, PF Special Edition Subscriber

Name of PC: Edward
Class/Level: Alchemist
Adventure: Book 1
Catalyst: Vargouille
Story: Got hit with the kiss of the vargouille when exploring the tunnels alone, fought it off then was embarrassed of the whole thing so he hid what actually happened from the party. Party finished the dungeon then went to sleep, he woke up the next day almost transformed and they rushed about trying to save him but ultimately failed. Edward's Head popped off and he was now a vargouille as well.


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Name of PC: Drakkar (Shoanti, Spire clan)
Class/level: Ranger 7 (TWF)
Adventure: The Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Xanesha
Story: Drakkar failed to ask for healing after the scarecrow and faceless stalker fight, leaving him at ~36 hp going into the Xanesha fight. The party broke a ton of stair and triggered the bell trap so Xanesha was well aware of their presence and had many mirror images while she masked herself with invisibility. Once the party realized that most of the enemies they saw were not real, they split up leaving Drakkar isolated for a sneak attack followed by a full round attack in the next turn. I am honestly surprised the birdcruncher goblin they befriended didn't die too (now a level two fighter) I did not expect this group to pull through that fight with only one death.

After the body was thoroughly looted, Muso(Taldan Conjurer 7) decided that Drakkar would prefer cremation and then group proceeded to throw his burning body off of the tower. Needless to say, Drakkar was not too well liked. Xanesha had actually added him to her list of greedy souls for harvest, but was unable to perform the ritual in combat.

I feel guilty because I had been repeatedly joking to the group that Drakkar was going to die for sure in SMs final encounter, I suppose it is to be expected when he was the party's only melee fighter and primary damager.

Liberty's Edge

How many PC deaths has Xanesha caused at this point?

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