Kingmaker Obituaries


Kingmaker

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I did a search for a Kingmaker Obituaries thread after my last session only to be surprised that no one had started one yet.

What's up with that?

I guess it's time to see who was put to the sword!

Name:
Race:
Classes/levels:
Adventure:
Location:
Catalyst:
The Gory Details: (optional)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'll get the ball rolling.

Name: Koro
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Fighter 1

Name: Sibohn
Race: Elven
Classes/levels: Ranger 1

Adventure: Stolen Lands
Location: Random Encounter while searching for Bokkens Hut
Catalyst: Tricked by a Will-o'-Wisp into a den of hungry wolves

The Gory Details: After having spent a couple of weeks dealing with the bandits of the northern woods, including the Thorn River Camp, and suffering many pranks at the hands of the capricious fey, the party (which also included a Druid and Wizard), restocked at Olegs before deciding that they needed to seek out Bokken the hermit to purchase some of his delicious potions.

After the first day of travel (exploring the hex just southeast of Olegs), the PCs decided to settle down for the night among a sweep of low-rolling grassland, when they sighted a curiously bobbing light in the distance. A light fog was on the ground, and at first impression it appeared to be a lantern. Some of the party moved to investigate, only to find that the light seemed to be luring them into a small gully where it would enter a cave before blinking out.

Further investigation revealed that the cave was likely inhabited by wolves. However, despite many warnings on the part of the Wizard, the group entered the cave. It was thought that the glowing light they saw earlier was some kind of fey creature, and that perhaps it was leading them to an injured animal of some kind.

However, curiosity really did kill the cat, as the party delved deeper and was confronted by a pack of hungry wolves. As Sibohn attempted to fend off the wolves, she was dropped unconscious. Immediately the cavern was showered with radiance as the Will-o'-wisp revealed itself to feed on her "dying" aura.

In a heroic, but never the less ill-fated attempt to rescue the ranger before the wolves dragged her deeper into the cavern, Koro leapt to her defense only to roll a 1 on a climb check and fall prone near one of the wolves.

The wizard attempted to put the wolves to sleep, and yelled a final order of retreat before he and the druid abandoned their fallen comrades. Koro met his destiny the following round after he tried to escape the cavern, but provoked an AOO from the Will-o'-Wisp who rolled a nat 20 and nearly max damage on its electrical attack. As Koro's face melted away like the Nazi at the end of Raiders, the remaining two party members fled the scene.

The Will-o'-Wisp deepened to a brilliant red, and manifested the image of a laughing skull as the druid and the wizard escaped the cave, mounted their horses, and made an immediate forced march straight back to Olegs at top speed.

Needless to say that concluded the session.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Ouch! A CR 6+ encounter at level 1?

So close to Olegs? That's... ouch.


DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

Ouch! A CR 6+ encounter at level 1?

So close to Olegs? That's... ouch.

Hey, I just play it like it rolls out, and it is on the encounter chart.

I tried to keep the Will-o'-Wisp mostly out of the fight, and let the party contend mostly with the wolves, but in the end it wasn't going to let them just get away!
I mean COME ON, it's got fear to feed on!

Look at the bright side it was only half of a party wipe, and it could have been 1d4 Trolls.


Drawmij's_Heir wrote:
DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

Ouch! A CR 6+ encounter at level 1?

So close to Olegs? That's... ouch.

Hey, I just play it like it rolls out, and it is on the encounter chart.

I tried to keep the Will-o'-Wisp mostly out of the fight, and let the party contend mostly with the wolves, but in the end it wasn't going to let them just get away!
I mean COME ON, it's got fear to feed on!

Look at the bright side it was only half of a party wipe, and it could have been 1d4 Trolls.

^_^ Awesome.

"Welcome to the Stolen Lands. Now hurry up and die already - I want your stuff."

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 4

Kressle nearly killed three people in my group. then a random encounter at level 1 with 3 boars almost caused some deaths.... Knocked the paladin to like -10. I was wondering when we'd see this thread.

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

I'm actually running two iterations of Kingmaker. My regular gaming group is about halfway through the second adventure, and I think our first actual death happened because of an Assassination kingdom event. However, I should state that we do play with an action point system, so a few times PCs have pulled their fat out of their fire and survived where death would've been likely. There have been a few deaths, but they happened during the earlier adventures the PCs did prior to getting to the River Kingdoms and diving into Kingmaker (Crypt of the Everflame, a little bit of Masks of the Living God, and several homebrew adventures, including an adapted Keep on the Borderlands).

The other group is for my high school daughter and some of her friends. They've explored most of the upper two rows of hexes on the map, and while they were horrifically savaged by bear traps, wandering elk, and worst of all a pair of wild boars, the only actual death... I actually went soft and allowed an out.

They discovered the Old Sycamore, but knew that mites were in the area (having recently encountered some as wandering monsters - amusing coincidence) and figuring the mites were inside, they decided to try burning the tree down. While they were doing it (splitting the party with one up in the tree and the other three at the base), they got ambushed by mites up in the tree, on the ground, and coming out of the hole. Since they were still mostly 1st level, I swapped out Tickleback for a CR 1 Large centipede, but still the group's rogue got whacked with a crit on an AoO and dropped to -11. It was the girl's first session of getting to play (she had made a char at a previous session but had to leave early), so I ruled that if the party could heal her before her turn came around again she'd survive. The paladin up in the tree, the only 2nd level char in the group, ran to rescue her, taking an AoO from the remaining monsters in the tree plus falling damage from hitting the ground, but got close enough to lay on hands and save her ally.

So, as far as actual obits:

Character: Ranner, dwarf fighter 6/ranger 1
Location: Inside the PCs' capital at the still-temporarily-named Stagville
Cause of Death: Assassination kingdom event*

* Ranner's player had slipped from semi-regular to "once in a rare while," but his character was still fulfilling the role of Marshal for the kingdom. When the event happened, a random die roll determined the target. If he had been an active PC, we probably would have rolled out the assassination in character, but as an inactive, it became a kingdom Stability check to survive. Bad time to roll a 3...


Name: Phillip Hemplut
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Paladin 1
Adventure: Stolen Lands
Location: mapping the hills to the south of Oleg's
Catalyst: Random Encounter and an overconfident PC
The Gory Details: Being out in the open (hills terrain), Shambling mounds know they can't run down any reasonably sized prey and so hope that prey will come to them. After the entire party failed their Knowledge (Nature) checks to identify the odd looking pile of rotting vegetation, the Paladin (on horseback) went in to explore. After losing initiative, one crit and 30 damage later, he and his horse were being digested by a very pleased plant. Needless to say, the rest of the party high-tailed it out of there.


good thread

with high CR random encounters all i have done is said stuff like "several large giants passed this way some hours ago"

had one player at -8, but no deaths thus far.....

Sczarni

Just goes to show you...there are scary monsters out there, some of which are not appropriate for low level dudes to tangle with.

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

psionichamster wrote:
Just goes to show you...there are scary monsters out there, some of which are not appropriate for low level dudes to tangle with.

Tru dat. My daughter's 1st-level group was exploring in the northern hexes and randomly encountered an owlbear. It was at long range, though, and they wisely hunkered down and hid until it left the area.


Drawmij's_Heir wrote:

I'll get the ball rolling.

However, despite many warnings on the part of the Wizard, the group entered the cave.

The wizard attempted to put the wolves to sleep, and yelled a final order of retreat before he and the druid abandoned their fallen comrades.

Need to respect the wizard more! ;)

Law #7 - Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Drawmij's_Heir wrote:
As Koro's face melted away like the Nazi at the end of Raiders...

But it was glorious!

-------
Law #12 - If at first you don’t succeed…find someone to blame!
Law #16 - Luck can’t last a lifetime unless you die young.
Law #31 - Just because it is always done that way doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly stupid.


psionichamster wrote:
Just goes to show you...there are scary monsters out there, some of which are not appropriate for low level dudes to tangle with.

I think the random encounters in Kingmaker are more dangerous than most of the scripted areas. It adds an element of danger to the game if the party has to actually choose their fights, and can't assume that the the DM won't allow them to fight something that might be out of their league.

Flight and discretion are always options, and it's like one of my players always says:
"I don't have to be the fastest runner, I just have to be faster than the slowest"!

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Drawmij's_Heir wrote:
psionichamster wrote:
Just goes to show you...there are scary monsters out there, some of which are not appropriate for low level dudes to tangle with.

I think the random encounters in Kingmaker are more dangerous than most of the scripted areas. It adds an element of danger to the game if the party has to actually choose their fights, and can't assume that the the DM won't allow them to fight something that might be out of their league.

Flight and discretion are always options, and it's like one of my players always says:
"I don't have to be the fastest runner, I just have to be faster than the slowest"!

It's true; I was just noting that none of the obits thus far seem to be from an actual scripted encounter area - it's the uber-deadly wandering monsters (or in the case of my daughter's group using tactics that drew out a bunch of monsters at once from their lairs to gang-rush them).

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

First bona-fide death in the "Tale of Two Cities" game.

Name: Benitaro
Race: Half-orc
Classes/levels: Barbarian 1
Adventure: Stolen Land
Location: The same hex as Oleg's Outpost
Catalyst: Wandering Monster
The Gory Details: The Green Hand band were following the bandit trail from Olegs to the Narlwood, when they got caught in a Thunderstorm. Rather than head back, they push on, and as they approach the woods, they spot two figures approaching in the rain. Thinking they might be more bandits, they try hiding in the open plain by falling prone & hiding under their cloaks, but several of them prove to be terrible at such impromptu attempts to hide in plain sight (badump-bump). The two figures manage to spot them in the rain, growl to each other and charge. Belatedly they realize these are Trolls (though one is only medium-sized), and the one character who understands Giant realizes one is the mama, and she's teaching "junior" to hunt! Despite peppering the mom with arrows (including two crits - go team!) they still close to within 60' of the party, when Benitaro rages, charges, and does them all proud... before big bad moma claws and rends him to little itty, bitty pieces. His sacrifice not to be in vain, the rest of the party flees back to Olegs while the Trolls feast.

Dark Archive

Name: Rogar
Race: Dwarf
Classes/levels: Fighter 1
Adventure: Stolen Land
Location: Forest Hex above the Bandit camp
Catalyst: Wandering Monster (shambling Mound)
The Gory Details: This was the groups first full Hex to explore, I roll for the random encounter, roll a 3, So i roll for teh Type, Shambling mount, CR 6.

So I set up the map, the group (halfing rogue 1, Human cleric 1, Elf sorc 1/fighter 1( npc going into arcane archer) and Dwarf Fighter 1) walk into a Clearing with some Skeletal corpes laying around. The Rogue goes to check out the bodies( he plans on keeping what gear he wants, then turning the rest over to the group). the dwarf adn his Guard dog goes over by a fallen log and starts sniffing around. a Few mins later after the group failed their perception check va teh Mounts stealth, they Hear the Dog yelp out in pain.

The dwarf goes to check it out, and sees a pile of leaves/vines/ etc, with the Dogs Tail sticking out. Fails check to tell its a Creature. He the STICKS HIS ARM INTO THE MOUND to get his dog out. Mound attacks, grapples, and slowly Constricts the Dwarf into nothingness. teh rest of the hits the trail.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Two more dead - these wandering monsters are murder...

Name: Zorask the Barbarian!
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Barbarian 1
and...
Name: Arixus Phae
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Fighter 1

Adventure: Stolen Land
Location: Near their base-camp in the Narlwood
Catalyst: Wandering Monster
The Gory Details: The Dragon's Eye Company had sent out their exploration team, leaving the rest of the troupe at camp. While doing a little extra hunting near camp to beef up supplies, the party Druid overhears some crying and brings Zorask & Arixus along to investigate. The cries get more urgent and Zorask charges off to get to whoever needs rescuing, only to fall into a spiked pit-trap. As he climbs out and the rest catch up with him, the Will-o-Wisp manifests behind him, and starts zapping each in turn until they drop. Only the Druid has time to grab on to his wolf and flee as fast as his companion can carry him. By the time he gets back with the rest of the base-camp forces, Zorask & Arixus are toast, and the Wisp is long gone.


The barbarians don't seem to be having much luck in your games, GT. :(

Dark Archive

My DM lesson learned so far: Will o' wisp wandering monster encounter is a killer.

What players can learn: if your party does meet up with one, it's good to be the druid. And it's good to run. Run away!


Golbez57 wrote:

My DM lesson learned so far: Will o' wisp wandering monster encounter is a killer.

What players can learn: if your party does meet up with one, it's good to be the druid. And it's good to run. Run away!

i must be a softie GM!!

no deaths thus far, and all the killer random encounters have been at a distance or evidence of the beastie passing and such

maybe in tommorrow nights session

Grand Lodge

I had an entire party TPK at the first encounter because they charged. Some of them didn´t even have names yet. That made me sad.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Cold Napalm wrote:
I had an entire party TPK at the first encounter because they charged. Some of them didn´t even have names yet. That made me sad.

Have the next party they make come across the corpses, as a grim warning of the dangers of exploring the Green Belt.

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Name: Fijitor
Race: Gnome
Classes/levels: Druid 7

Name: Duaval
Race: Elf
Classes/levels: Fighter 5 (Fijitor's cohort)

Adventure: Rivers Run Red
Location: Lair of the Lizard King
Catalyst: A diplomatic solution gone horribly wrong leads to a two-for-one crocodile chomp.

The Gory Details: Exploring the southern greenbelt in midwinter (12 Abadius 4711), and also in company of a new party member, an inquisitor searching for a missing little boy, the PCs eventually arrived at the Lair of the Lizard King, a small island village at the outflow of the Murque River into Candlemere.

Diplomacy turned out to be surprisingly difficult, as the only people in the party who spoke Draconic, Fijitor and his cohort Duaval, also happened to have crummy Charisma and no real social skills. The party eventually decided to mostly turn invisible and sneak across the mostly frozen river to the palisaded island, leaving Fijitor's tiger companion on the shore so he could fly across in dire bat form with his cohort. That part actually worked fine. The party appeared, scaled the palisade invisibly, and reappeared and intimidated the lizardfolk sentries/guards to take them to the chief's lodge. However, while one of the lizardfolk was sent through the lodge to the king's harem, the inquisitor, a hobgoblin named Doga, son of Doga, tried to force his way into the lodge to make sure no shenanigans were forthcoming.

Meanwhile, Piere, the party's barbarian/sorcerer had gone invisibly to scout the village for the lost boy while the Lilly, the bard/rogue, tried to coordinate the two halves of the party.

When Doga's pushing and shoving erupted into a fray, all heck broke loose. Piere found the boy but also found a will o'wisp; fortunately, he was an elemental air sorcerer and resistant to electricity (or he likely would've been toasted); Lilly went to help rescue him and the boy (whom the will o'wisp had AoO'ed when the invisible sorcerer tried to get him out of the hut where he was kept). Meanwhile, a half-dozen lizardfolk surrounding the PCs near the chief's lodge had attacked, and Doga and Duaval ended up inside the lodge when the King Vesket appeared from the harem, followed a round later by two of his wives and a pair of blood caiman crocodiles, which hit and grappled both of them, knocking Duaval negative.

In dire straits, Fijitor laid down an ice storm which killed a lot of the mooks and helped Doga to escape (Travel domain power helped him through the ice storm, though he likely would have been killed by an AoO when failing an Acrobatics roll to escape but for a fortuitous bit of action point usage), but one death roll later and Duaval was at -15. The other hungry croc, seeing the tasty morsel, went over for a bite as well, and the wishboning of the cohort was complete.

Fijitor and Doga retreated, but unbeknownst to them King Vesket and his surviving pets escaped through a tunnel and several rounds later emerged and circled behind the two of them as they were engaged with lizardfolk reinforcements with a pair of monitor lizards. Fijitor had been calling for his tiger across the river but failed every check until the last, but by the time his cat actually made it across the ice to the island... well...

After a vital striking power attack from King Vesket and several cuts and blows, Fijitor was dying but used action points to stay in the fight, but a defensively cast spell fizzled, and the same blood caiman that had chomped his cohort did the same for him to -19.

The cherry on top, however, was when Piere the sorcerer, having teamed with Lilly to drive off the will o'wisp and rescue the boy, hit the king with electric (scorching) ray, and then the king and most of his gaggle of minions with a fireball, blasting them to smithereens.

Of course, Fijitor's body and all of his equipment were unattended objects at the time within the AoE. Ouch.

In true druidical fashion, Fijitor chose to get reincarnated and came back as a hobgoblin, and then brought back Duaval as a halfling. Good luck converting both character and cohort before next session!


Name: Duvad
Race: Halfling
Classes/levels: Lvl 1 Assassin
Adventure: Stolen Lands (4E Conversion)
Location: Old Sycamore
Catalyst: Trying to retrieve statue for kobolds
The Gory Details:
Player who normally plays fighter/tank/whathaveyou class decided to try out an Assassin this time. Was poisoned and eaten by centipedes in the mite lair because he decided to run to the front line, rather than be sneaky.

Within minutes the player rolled up a new character and we had a new party member - the kobold prisoner the mites were holding was rescued and joined the team. As a kobold fighter, of course.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Two Grogs & a pet down - so many to go...

Name: Heek the Cartographer
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Expert 1

Name: Pavel
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Worker 1

and...
Name: Puddles
Creature Type: Guard Dog

Adventure: Stolen Land
Location: Repatriated Narlwood Bandit Camp
Catalyst: Wandering Monster

The Gory Details: The Dragon's Eye Company had sent out their exploration team, leaving the rest of the troupe at camp, again. Late at night the camp is beset by a pack of 5 wolves (nasty, nasty wolves!), which manage to charge in and attack several sleeping characters before a warning cry can be shouted out. With the majority of Hero-classed characters away at the time, the remainder are hard pressed. Heek was killed in his sleep by two before he could wake or help could arrive, while Puddles was killed on the stoop of the wagon he watches over. Pavel fought nobly to same his mistress' pet, but was tripped and gnawed on by three of the pack, and between a crit (love those cards - Bleed 8!) and a coup-de-grace from all three, he ended up being dragged off for dog-chow by the surviving pack-mates to the horror of the party survivors.

Liberty's Edge

Name: Speck
Race: Hobgoblin
Classes/levels: Warrior 2
Adventure: Stolen Lands
Location: Grasslands near spider territory
Catalyst: Bad perception rolls on guard duty
The Gory Details:
Random encounter turned up a thylacine on second watch. Some good stealth rolls from the beastie followed by a critical hit spelled the end for poor Speck. The rest of the party woke just in time to find his jugular scattered around the camp.

Speck was a hireling of a player who wasn't there that night. In fact, he had decided to roll up Speck's stats and hire him without any permission or input from me as the GM. It was pure chance that put Speck in the thylacine's path on the night his employer was absent, and it provided me with a very elegant (if gory) solution to my problem.


Name: Kerr
Race: Orc
Classes/levels: Barbarian
Adventure: Stolen Lands
Location: Kobold Shaman's cavern
Catalyst: Assault on Tartuk, after successfully retrieving the statue and handing it to Chief Sootscale
The Gory Details: I'm running a 4E conversion of Kingmaker, and playing it "Brutal Style" (monsters have lower hp, but do more damage). Consequently the fights are short, but deadly. Due to the design differences between the editions, I end up having to alter the encounters as written in the Kingmaker books, usually adding several more underling-type monsters to lone encounters like Tartuk. In his case, I had him accompanied by several small demons.

In poor Kerr's case, he was a victim of Tartuk himself. He was hit with an area attack while already at negative hp, and that was enough to move him from the "mostly dead" stage to the "go through his pockets and look for loose change" stage. However, his sacrifice wasn't in vain - their defeat of Tartuk has ensured peace between the "Big Peoples" and the kobolds of the Sootscale tribe.

This is our second PC death in three nights of play. My players are quickly realizing that their conquest of the Stolen Lands will be a grim and perilous affair...which will make their victories all that much sweeter.


Wow...it seems like there's a lot of dying going on in Kingmaker games. I'm running a group through a Pathfinderized Second Darkness and so far nobody has died. Come close...but no deaths yet.

Sczarni

Low level adventures tend to be deadly, much like very high level ones.

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 4

I think that the Stolen Lands at least is really only so deadly as the GM or PCs make it. Especially when the majority of deaths so far has been from random encounters. I think Jason is the only person who's had a PC die to a scripted encounter really.

Rivers Run Red looks like it's going to have some bone rattlers in it though...

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

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The Deceased (well, see below): Piere, halfling barbarian 1/sorcerer 7

Location: Eastern Kamelands

Cause of "Death": Manticore Machine Gun

Because my action point system provides a fair bit of opportunity for PCs to avoid death, I almost wonder if I should include a "but for action points" section of the obituary. I suppose not, though today's action likely would have been a TPK... except for the wizard who could have gone invisible and flown away. Still, I just wanted to include it anyway.

The party was hunting a lone worg that had survived an attack on their camp, hoping it would lead them back to its pack that was harassing their eastern border (presumably under the leadership of the barghest that had eluded them months ago in the Sootscale Caverns). They figured out after tracking it for a day or so that the worg knew they were following it and was intentionally leading them on, and since they WANTED to find its presumptive boss, they figured they'd go ahead and follow it.

The next day, while crossing a frozen stream in the eastern hills of the Kamelands, AMBUSH. The party assumed it was coming, and the paladin and his oracle/paladin cohort were down in the valley with their five combat-trained river elk mounts, while the wizard and the barbarian/sorcerer flew invisibly overhead.

The paladin and cohort were ambushed at the stream crossing by worgs and worg-mounted spriggans, both tripped and dismounted. The bad guys had been covered in invisibility spheres by the barghest.

The invisible sorcerer opened up on the bad guys below with a fireball.

The barghest, prepared for adventurers, had an invisible manticore waiting for a target to reveal itself from invisibility. Four tail spike hits (one a crit) later, and the sorcerer had 50 points of damage.

The wizard tried to help his buddy with a phantsmal killer on the manticore (failed).

The barghest's SECOND invisible reserve, an invisible spriggan with poisoned crossbow bolts, opened up on this new formerly invisible target!

The SHOULDA-DEATH happened on the next round, when the manticore again strafed the wizard for enough damage to drop him to -14; I allow a PC to ignore the onset of a temporary condition for 1 round for 1 AP, a permanent condition (like, say, DEATH) for 1 round for 2 AP. He had enough action points left to get over near the paladin who got off a channel energy healing burst to get him up to 3 hp.

Meanwhile, the wizard, who had taken his own manticore volley PLUS Con damage from the poison, plus a sneak attack from the spriggan who had moved through underbrush and re-hidden, also had to spend action points to stay active at negative hp.

In the end, the party was victorious, through judicious application of color spray by the oracle/paladin cohort that stunned the barghest just long enough to avoid it being able to dimension door away and escape again. The WOLF MENACE is ended!

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

First death of an Iconic in the "Tale of Two Cities" game.

Name: Kyra
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Cleric (Sarenrae) 1
Adventure: Stolen Land
Location: While camped out at the Frog Pond
Catalyst: Wandering Monster
The Gory Details: Ezren & Kyra joined the Dragon's Eyes band when I had two friend drop by unexpectedly and were curious about PRPG, so I gave them their pick of Iconics, and thats who they picked. Mid-session, while the party was pinned down by bad weather for several days, a hungry Troll dropped by for a midnight snack. While the camp was still waking and getting organized she ran up to heal another PC whom the Troll had hit, but caught his attention in the process and got nailed for 30 damage with the claw/claw/rend combo. Still, the 7 remaining (of which only two were 2nd level - all others still scraping 1st) managed to avenge her and drop it.

Liberty's Edge

Ouch, a troll ambush on a 1st level group. The highest level random encounters I've rolled so far against my level 1 groups were a will-o-wisp and a werewolf.

The will-o-wisp has become a recurring nuisance - it's determined to scare the druid, if it's the last thing it does!

The werewolf was set up in a way that the party easily could have ridden away and escaped, but they insisted on attempting to kill it. They eventually did kill it, as well as starting a brush fire that more or less wiped out several thousand acres of the Kamelands.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Yah, Will-o-Wisps are evil. Funny thing is, the following day the party was STILL bogged down by bad weather and - yes - got jumped by a WILL-O-WISP! Luckily they'd gotten all healed up by then and luckier still they managed to dogpile and drop it before it managed to drop anyone to dying (the 2nd level Cavalier did a very good job playing ablative meat-shield while every other healer in the party hid behind him and pumped him full of CLWs every round. Unable to heal because he wouldn't drop, the Wisp went invisible at 1 hp, but was still dropped by a lucky shot before it could properly withdraw).

It's these kinds of crazy shenanigans that have kept me from worrying about puffing up the regular encounters for my otherwise bloated party-size. The xp from these random encounters have more than made up for things.

And kept them afraid.

Very afraid.

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 4

"Oh wait...he's not dead after all."
Name: Zaziel
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Ranger 3
Adventure: The Stolen Lands
Location: Outside the Stag Lord's fort
Catalyst: Occasional doses of zombie + Stag Lord arrow

The Gory Details:
The party has finally finished mapping out the Greenbelt and decided to venture towards the Stag Lord's keep in order to deal with him once and for all. Night had just fallen and they decided to sneak up to the fort from the southern side. The fighter/rogue and Zaziel went halfway up the hill before it erupted with zombies. After a few rounds of fighting zombies the rest of the party reached them and the guards had since taken notice. Four more zombies showed up, guards have raised an alarm and continued shooting despite taking losses from the rangers bow. Another four zombies rise from the earth. At this time the Stag Lord has finally decided to make an appearance and see what all the fuss is about. Especially since several bandits have died loudly on his roof.

Having noticed the fierce ranger the Stag Lord returns fire activating his helmet to cut through the gloom of night. Rolled up about 10 more damage then needed to kill the ranger. We began to mourn his death before someone was like....hey wait a second....you can't sneak attack from greater then thirty feet! (They notice it was a sneak attack since I roll my dice in the open) As I had indeed forgotten this detail I apologized for giving the ranger a heart attack and explained he was not as dead as he seemed to be.

However, let that be a warning for when the group encounters him face to face.

Liberty's Edge

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I can't not share this one...

Name: Dave the Warrior; Alonso the Tengu
Race: Human; Kenku
Classes/levels: Warrior 2; Rogue 2
Adventure: The Stolen Lands
Location: The mite lair
Catalyst: Incredible series of karmic critical hits
Gory Details:
The party had just narrowly defeated the giant centipede in the chasm when they entered into combat with the mites and their leader. The party's sorcerer was badly wounded in the fight with the centipede, and had gone to the surface to rest, sending her bodyguard Dave in her stead.

Most of the party enjoyed picking off mites (with low AC and 3 HP, they were "popping them like pimples" (their words not mine)), but with no mites within range, Dave charged the giant tick, Tickleback (whose rider, the chief mite, was felled in the first shot of combat). Dave was quickly snatched up into the tick's mandibles.

The next round, Dave failed in his attempt to escape the clutches of Tickleback. On Tickleback's turn, he made a grapple check to bite Dave, and rolled a natural 20. He confirmed the critical, and Dave's head was chomped off and his body exsanguinated.

Dave's player, already frustrated that he was playing a hireling instead of his main PC, was understandably bummed when Dave snuffed it. To keep him involved in the game, I let him start rolling for Tickleback.

His first roll came up when Tickleback chomped onto Alonso, the tengu rogue. He rolled well, and Alonso failed his Escape Artist check to slip free. The next round, Tickleback's new player rolled to bite the grappled rogue. He rolled a natural 20, followed by a 17 - more than enough to confirm the critical. The whole table watched as he rolled the d6's for Tickleback's bite, one by one. The first one came up 6. If the critical hit wasn't bad enough, now he was rolling high. Breaths were held around the table as the second d6 clattered across maps and character sheets, finally coming to rest...on a 6.

A critical hit for max damage, rolled by the player whose character had just been killed by a critical hit from the same beast. The tengu was deader than dead, but it was an incredible moment, and happened right at the end of the session. Dave/Tickleback's player kept apologizing to Alonso's player, but he couldn't keep the smile from his face.

This will be one of those gaming stories that gets told many times. :)


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Jagyr Ebonwood wrote:

A critical hit for max damage, rolled by the player whose character had just been killed by a critical hit from the same beast. The tengu was deader than dead, but it was an incredible moment, and happened right at the end of the session. Dave/Tickleback's player kept apologizing to Alonso's player, but he couldn't keep the smile from his face.

This will be one of those gaming stories that gets told many times. :)

...And that's what it's all about.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I seem to be managing at least one death a week...

Name: Natasha Surtova
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Temptress 1
Adventure: Stolen Land
Location: While traveling in the Narlwood
Catalyst: Wandering Monster
The Gory Details: While looking for a good spot to make camp, the party spots a flickering light in the gloom they take for a possible camp, though some mutter darkly it might be yet another Will-o-Wisp. Turns out the suspicious ones were right, as the light disappears and shortly thereafter the advance scouts are attacked. Before they can get back to form a circle (having faced enough of these things, they've developed some rudimentary tactics), Natasha is dropped to one point shy of dead, and fails to be stabilized (or healed) before she expires.


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Jesus, people need to give players a break when they roll high on the random encounter chart!

The Exchange

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vagrant-poet wrote:
Jesus, people need to give players a break when they roll high on the random encounter chart!

Nah, I'm really enjoying this thread, keep the body counts coming!

Liberty's Edge

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vagrant-poet wrote:
Jesus, people need to give players a break when they roll high on the random encounter chart!

Coming from a GM's perspective, I'd say the player's need to give us a break when we roll high on the encounter charts!

GM: There's a rustling in the grass to your right. As you look closer, you realize it's a werewolf ready to pounce. If you run away right now you can probably-
1st level PCs: CHARGE!!!
GM: *facepalm*

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Drawmij's_Heir wrote:
Jagyr Ebonwood wrote:

A critical hit for max damage, rolled by the player whose character had just been killed by a critical hit from the same beast. The tengu was deader than dead, but it was an incredible moment, and happened right at the end of the session. Dave/Tickleback's player kept apologizing to Alonso's player, but he couldn't keep the smile from his face.

This will be one of those gaming stories that gets told many times. :)

...And that's what it's all about.

Tru dat! Old war stories never die... they just get better with age!

Liberty's Edge

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Jagyr Ebonwood wrote:


Coming from a GM's perspective, I'd say the player's need to give us a break when we roll high on the encounter charts!

GM: There's a rustling in the grass to your right. As you look closer, you realize it's a werewolf ready to pounce. If you run away right now you can probably-
1st level PCs: CHARGE!!!
GM: *facepalm*

Been there. Many times. I feel your pain.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Jagyr Ebonwood wrote:
vagrant-poet wrote:
Jesus, people need to give players a break when they roll high on the random encounter chart!

Coming from a GM's perspective, I'd say the player's need to give us a break when we roll high on the encounter charts!

GM: There's a rustling in the grass to your right. As you look closer, you realize it's a werewolf ready to pounce. If you run away right now you can probably-
1st level PCs: CHARGE!!!
GM: *facepalm*

Good point! I think early Kingmaker will brutally squash that attitude.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Jagyr Ebonwood wrote:
vagrant-poet wrote:
Jesus, people need to give players a break when they roll high on the random encounter chart!

Coming from a GM's perspective, I'd say the player's need to give us a break when we roll high on the encounter charts!

GM: There's a rustling in the grass to your right. As you look closer, you realize it's a werewolf ready to pounce. If you run away right now you can probably-
1st level PCs: CHARGE!!!
GM: *facepalm*

Amen to that… amen to that.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32

Argh! I never thought I'd be bummed that I'm in the middle of DM-ing STAP but I so want to DM Kingmaker!

Especially as my players are also of that variety...

ME: Your phenomenal Knowledge roll tells you that the warnings on the crypt door are very frightening indeed. Some of those words for "Trouble" you've only seen once before, in a story about the First Beast... and since it's getting late and you're all out of healing and spells and have an Int of 26 I'll add a friendly DM-hint. You have a "come back tomorrow" vibe like nobody's business.

PLAYERS: CHARGE!!!!


carborundum wrote:

Argh! I never thought I'd be bummed that I'm in the middle of DM-ing STAP but I so want to DM Kingmaker!

Especially as my players are also of that variety...

ME: Your phenomenal Knowledge roll tells you that the warnings on the crypt door are very frightening indeed. Some of those words for "Trouble" you've only seen once before, in a story about the First Beast... and since it's getting late and you're all out of healing and spells and have an Int of 26 I'll add a friendly DM-hint. You have a "come back tomorrow" vibe like nobody's business.

PLAYERS: CHARGE!!!!

I had this happen at a with a certain

Spoiler:
Malfeshnekor the greater barghest
in Burnt Offerrings. They weren't taking the hint so much so that I had them make sense motive checks against the room to get a feeling of 'overwhelming evil and danger'. I feel cheapened as a person for resorting to that!
Liberty's Edge

Running with the threadjack, sorry! I'll spoiler it so as not to mess things up for the OT.

Spoiler:
I had the "enhanced" Dagon (the one published in Dragon magazine some years back) rise from the ocean and seize the PCs ship. He was there to make them a diabolical offer.

Now this version of Dagon is something like a CR 35. The PCs were level 13. Guess what they did?


Cuchulainn wrote:

Running with the threadjack, sorry! I'll spoiler it so as not to mess things up for the OT.

** spoiler omitted **

WOW! Whatever about a few Trolls, that's the dumbest thing I've heard!


Scipion del Ferro wrote:

"Oh wait...he's not dead after all."

Name: Zaziel
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Ranger 3
Adventure: The Stolen Lands
Location: Outside the Stag Lord's fort
Catalyst: Occasional doses of zombie + Stag Lord arrow
** spoiler omitted **

However, let that be a warning for when the group encounters him face to face.

He was only mostly dead?

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