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TPK
Name: Stands With a Fist
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Barbarian 11
Adventure: Vaults of Madness
Location: Vault of Silence
Catalyst: energy drain & nausea
Name: Skank Williams Jr.
Race: Orc
Classes/levels: Rogue 11
Adventure: Vaults of Madness
Location: Vault of Silence
Catalyst: energy drain & nausea
Name: Nigredo
Race: Elf
Classes/levels: Alchemist 11
Adventure: Vaults of Madness
Location: Vault of Silence
Catalyst: energy drain & nausea
Name: Sloppy Joe
Race: Elf
Classes/levels: (Man)Witch 11
Adventure: Vaults of Madness
Location: Vault of Silence
Catalyst: energy drain & nausea
The Gory Details: While exploring yet another spore infested vault, the PC's run into Gbala the terkow vampire. When he sees the party, he hisses "skins" and orders his two rawbones to circle around another tunnel chamber and surround the party. The barbarian was able to hit Gbala, initially, but her low AC allowed Gbala's energy draining hits to score almost every time significantly reducing her combat effectiveness. The rogue was also frustrated by his inability to sneak attack Gbala, and his attacks were all but ineffective. Gbala's energy resistance further reduced the effectiveness of the witch and alchemist, and allowed him to hold out until the rawbones appeared in the rear.
The party almost had Gbala beaten, but they now saw the rawbones as the larger threat due to their auras which nauseated the witch and alchemist, also because they threw up the contents of their stomachs in thirty foot cones all over the rear echelon fighters. The rogue and barbarian broke off their attack with Gbala but were also nauseated by the rawbones stench.
The alchemist gave the order to retreat, but by then it was too late. Hemmed in and unable to fight back, the rawbones allowed Gbala to score the killing blow on each PC. Afterwards he used their skins for his own.
Name: Seraphina.
Race: Elf.
Classes/Levels: Alchemist 10/Rogue 3.
Adventure: The thousand fangs below.Cause of death: Spotting one Vagabond spider and not the other.
** spoiler omitted **
Second death for Seraphina, as the only one in the party approaching a Rogue she's always in the front.
DBH
I'm GM in this game, and now i have to write my own obituary...
Name: Okk.
Race: Half-Orc.
Classes/Levels: DMPC Barbarian 2/Fighter 12.
Adventure: The Thousand Fangs Below.
Cause of death: Charged by a 5th lvl serpentfolk fighter, fangs first.
Luckily, the cleric was right there, and a good roll for Breath of Life had him up again. Even though it was my own character, i'm still claiming it as a legit kill!
Name: Rynir Hynir (randomly generated name, and I rolled on two separate lists)
Race: Human of the Pathfinder Expedition
Classes / Levels: Wind Oracle 7 (cohort)
Adventure: Vaults of Madness
Cause of Death: An incredibly casual fighter.
Rynir had been annoying the group all night. He was refusing to come close to them, certain that the fighter was leading them all into a death trap. Yes, Rynir was the only character to fail his exposure to the spores. He had to be convinced to heal the part, often times refusing to come close to the fighter until the fighter had his weapon sheathed.
After making it through the first vault, the party comes to the portal room. Everyone enters and stays away from the walls. Everyone except the fighter, who is exhausted and hurt and just wants to lean up against something. Like that wall that looks like... itself. Trigger trap. My poor party is still not quite level 10, having jumped into the module early, and everyone either just barely makes the save, or has enough HPs to weather the 18d6 storm. Everyone but the low Con Oracle, who is two levels too low, and only has 40 total HPs. The second cohort death, which is pretty good considering that at this point in most campaigns I would have killed the entire party by now.
My players have shown an amazing ability to avoid death in my campaign, mostly due to heavy use of Hero Points. Not counting the cohort Sasha. She died four times. However, a bunch of player characters died at/near the very end. Here is the first one:
Name: Anaria
Race: Human (mwangi)
Classes / Levels: Barbarian 16
Adventure: Sanctum of the Serpent God
Cause of Death: Sent to Negative Energy Plane by a Mythic Prismatic Spray
Anaria had an unfortunate run in with a Serpentfolk wizard that I had buffed with mythic tiers. He and several other members of the party were were hit with a mythic Prismatic Spray (the kind you have to save twice against). I had the players roll to see what colors they were hit by, and he rolled both Blue (turn to stone) and Violet (send to another plane). He made the save vs Blue, but failed vs Violet.
I looked up a table to randomly determine what plane he was sent to and got the Negative Energy Plane, where he was disintegrated by the negative energy damage before the other players were able to track him down and save him. Seems like he would have fared better if he had also been turned to stone!
You may be amused to know that the party's paladin had to use a hero point to avoid going insane from the same Prismatic Spray.
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Name: Erza
Race: Human
Classes / Levels: Paladin 16
Adventure: Sanctum of the Serpent God
Cause of Death: Ripped apart by Avatar of the Serpent God
Name: Geovanni
Race: Human
Classes / Levels: Mobile Fighter 16
Adventure: Sanctum of the Serpent God
Cause of Death: Bitten to death by Avatar of the Serpent God
Name: Sasha (cohort to Shale, Sorcerer 17)
Race: Human
Classes / Levels: Ranger 2/Ninja 13
Adventure: Sanctum of the Serpent God
Cause of Death: Bitten to death by Avatar of the Serpent God
I buffed the heck out of the final boss to make sure that the fight was memorable... and that at least one player in my party of 5 died. I took the base CR 19 monster, and tacked on the advanced template and the agile and invincible mythic (playtest) templates. He also got the quickened spell like ability feat and three hero points. The end result was basically a CR 24.
The paladin quickly became the biggest threat due to the sword that she had: Eroeme (with upgrades). She used a paladin spell to move in while avoiding attacks of opportunity, and dealt huge amounts of damage. She managed to bring the boss down to double digit health before dying.
From there, the rest of the party had to rush to finish the Avatar off before he regenerated the damage. Sasha sacrificed herself to distract the Avatar, and Geovani managed to get in the final blow with a very well timed crit. The boss used its last hero point to take the fighter down with him.
Since all the melee was dead, the party witch had been baleful polymorphed into a snake, and the ratfolk ranger was spending her actions keeping the boss's hp in the negatives, the party's sorcerer had run in to borrow Eroeme and behead the avatar. Very fun (and very deadly) final boss battle ;)
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Yar!
Name: Braximus (Braxen is the summoner, Chemedis is the Eidolon. Together they become Braximus Prime)
Race: Half Elf + Eidolon
Class/Level: Summoner (Synthesist) 12/Paladin 2
Adventure: The Thousand Fangs Below
Catalyst: Getting the fortress to full alert status really fast in a really bad way, underestimating Serpentfolk discipline, "nova"-ing resources, and being the only one able to create an effective choke point to stop a potential TPK-ing onrush of serpentfolk
Survivors: Leros-Kora Nassai (Human/Ulfen), T'sai Koga (Human/Tien), Esalia Co'helumus (Elf), Anky (Ankylosaurus Animal Companion), and Kallen (Half-Elf).
So, my group entered the Thousand Fangs in order to rescue Amivor Glaur. They entered quietly through the Postern Gate, bypassing the portcullis via Dimensional Hope and Dimension Doors. They encountered the first set of guards lounging about, though the battle itself took quite some time.
Alert Status Level 1.
After a few minutes of casual looting, they proceeded to systematically make their way up the body of the fortress, hitting every door on their way. At the second guard post, they got the jump on them and did something truly epic. Long ago T'sai had collected some of the Midnight Spores directly from Urschlar's Lab in the First Vault. He tosses the jar into the room, shattering it and closing the stone doors right away. Arrows clink against the inside of the closed stone door just before half of the Serpentfolk guards within succumb to the paranoia insanity of the spores. The eerie silence is suddenly replaced not with shouts or screams, but with telepathic screams sending to all nearby creatures instead of only other serpent folk. Fearful cries of "Pink skinned doom is upon us!" "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIEEEE!!!" "I'm going to kill you all!" and so on reverberate constantly in everyone's heads (and in every other serpentfolk and other creatures nearby). While thsoe not affected sent out a warning that the "pink skins have turned serpent against serpent, a powerful attack comes!"
Alert Status Level 2.
After the battle, the group left the ones who were too paranoid to fight rationally alone to continue fighting each other instead, while the telepathic insanity continued to ring out throughout Thousand Fangs.
They then go on to find Belkor and his guards, and proceed to kill them all, but not fast enough. The guards send out more telepathic warnings.
Alert Status Level 3. General Alert.
After a while of continued exploration, the telepathic screaming stopped. The group came back to the guard post to find only one serpentfolk left alive. They scream at it and close the door again, starting another several minutes of telepathic paranoid screaming insanity throughout the fortress.
Now things are getting serious (especially with the nature of these telepathic screams). Full Alert and more active mobilization of forces.
The group goes on about their merry way, spending resources, Hero Points, and Plot Twist cards on a brutal encounter with Tsskath in the Chamber of Sleepers, and nearly reawakening the ancient truefolk within (thankfully they didn't, but they do have a number of ioun stones flying about and they almost did activate some of the stasis chambers with them).
After barely getting through that and looting some more and getting electrocuted by the trapped secret door, the wandering Fiendish Spirit Nagas have made their way down to the first Gymnasium entrance, which is the area next on the PC's hit list. After leaving the Chamber of Sleepers, T'sai gets a feeling that something is about to happen, but perceives nothing around. He pulls out the Darkskull they just found, bathing the area in an invisibility purging unhallow. The Naga's become visible around them (huzzah) but also gain the general boons of the unhallow (horror!). Fireballs explode and another fight ensues. The serpent folk in the gymnasium easily hear this ruckus, and prepare for a careful counter-attack to both gauge the enemy and delay as a better force arrives. After 3 rounds of combat with the Naga's, the doors to the Gymnasium open again and armed and ready serpentfolk show their strength.
Braximus sees this and is the only one in a good position to do anything about it. Being a large creature that looks like Tyrael (Diablo 2 & 3 - energy wings are tentacle evolutions, and the Azureblade El'Druin is a heavily enchanted Bastard Sword), he charges the serpentfolk before they can exit and also completely blocks the doorway (I made all the double doors regular sized, so they create 10' entrances). The serpentfolk at the front proceed to disarm and bash Braximus while the ones further away pelt him with arrows.
Due to the only light being the bit of luminescence from the Serpentstone, everything is dim light. Esalia sends a Deeper Darkness into the Gymnasium, blinding the hoard of archers within as well as the fighters at the front with supernatural darkness. Unfortunately, the well disciplined serpentfolk soldiers act calmly. The archers closest the the back doors find them and leave, sending out telepathic info on the situation as they do so, while the flail warriors at the front continue to attack while slowly advancing, trusting their intuition and skill of arms to drive their foes back. They succeed, rolling lucky and not missing due to the miss chance the darkness grants, and manage to bring Braximus beyond his limit. Chemides fades away with a cry of despair and Braxen falls to the continued advance of whirling flails and serpentfolk.
The telepathic phone-line continues to travel as the archers leave the darkness from the other side, entering the Central Courtyard where Sskhavo and a lot of "on alert" serpentfolk are at the ready. The warning of the magic of these invaders combined withthe insane ravings of the paranoid guards from earlier leads and allows Sskhavo to convince Khavith to assist the defense against this incursion.
Khavith buffs, teleports into the dark gymnasium, dispels the darkness, and proceeds to dish out the arcane retribution against the still living PCs. Kallen and Esalia both call for a retreat. They barely manage to get out, as Esalia is the only one who can teleport effectively, yet the party is to large to get out in one casting. The result was a panicked shuffling of bags of holdings while sending Anky and other "bag of holding-less" players and Braxen's body into their portable hole to reduce the number of bodies Esalia needs to actually teleport, all while fighting back against the advancing serpentfolk guards now lead by the purecaste Khavith. Only thanks to a well played Plot Twist Card to distract Khavith at the right time were they able to escape.
It wasn't a complete loss though. They have Belkor's gear as proof of their deed, so now have the backing of Izon and the Urdefhans. Resources are being pooled to raise and restore Braxen, and a significantly more sound plan is being worked on to try again., including using their now small army of Ilmurian allies (Morlocks and Urdefhans) to create a more effective diversion, and spending the time it will take to organize them to do a more thorough recon of the fortress, including Greater Scrying on Amivor, multiple Divination and Commune spells, and more!
Name: Egzimora
Race: Green Hag
Class/Level: Sorcerer 7
Adventure: The City Of Seven Spears
Catalyst: A party member found her secret room full of corpses.
Unfortunately, another party member stumbled across her basement-corpse-room and loudly alerted the rest of the party.
Egzimora changed into her natural form and refused to listen to reason, and shrugged off all attempts at incapacitating her with magic.
After narrowly avoiding being clawed, and a second failed spell (and quite a neat little back tuck off the chair he was reclining in) the Sorcerer was forced to bash her skull in with a mace.
It was all very sad. I had hoped we could make friends.
I thought about doing one for "Daddy" Arakundo as well but eh.
Yar!
Name: Esalia Co'helumus
Race: Elf
Class/Level: Cleric 15
Adventure: Sanctum of the Serpent God
Catalyst: Being the only obvious spellcaster in the presence of an Astradaemon
Survivors: Leros-Kora Nassai (Human/Ulfen), T'sai Koga (Human/Tien), Braximus (Half-Elf/Eidolon combo), Anky (Ankylosaurus Animal Companion), and Kallen (Half-Elf).
They recognized what Valglaunt was, but failed their checks horribly to identify the Astradaemon. The whole group charged and proceeded to curb-stomp Valglaunt while Esalia stayed back with readied actions to prevent any enemy spellcasters from unleashing any counter-storms of their own. (Both T'Sai and Leros are high mobility melee, while Braximus is a synth-summoner that looks like Tyreal from Diablo (so also melee with mostly buffing capabilities via spells). Kallen is a Magus, so mixes spells with melee (and his player was MIA tonight, so the character fell victim to an unstable teleportation field and was transported away for this session). Anky is an ankylosaurus. 'nough said). Esalia was obviously (to it) the spellcaster of the group, having stayed back while everyone else melee'ed, having a holy symbol visible, and readying actions to disrupt spellcasting form a distance
Unfortunately, a base speed of 90 and the ability to fly combined with Esalia now being alone and an obvious caster made her the target of the Astradaemon's rage. It's charge led to damage, level drain, and a grapple. The rest of the group realized the err of their tactic (though did enjoy taking out Valglaunt very quickly) turned to rescue their favorite female/elf/cleric. Alas, the Astradaemon's constant Displacement made it barely notice the other party members. Esalia could not break the grapple. It then proceeded to Devour her Soul. Eslaia failed the save and was killed. A translucent version of herself separated from her body and got sucked into the Astradaemon's mouth, then her body turned to ash in it's claws.
We use both Hero Points and Plot Twist cards. "An action has unexpected results" was played so that if the Astradaemon was killed soon enough after devouring her soul, Esalia would be reborn from the dissipating energies of the dead Astradaemon (as in, her soul needed to be digested before being completely destroyed, which takes time. A small window of hope), much like how all of Shang Tsung's stolen souls (Mortal Kombat) get released when he got killed, save that in this case it would restore her body as well. The group was able to pull it off - just barely - and Esalia was reborn! ... yet drained (1 hp and more negative levels ala Raise Dead).
Aside: heh, man, my group has burned trough most of their Hero Points and Plot Twist cards these last few sessions. I wonder if they'll be able to survive to the end now? dun-Dun-DUNN!!! *dramatic music*
~P
Yar!
Name: Kallen
Race: Half-Elf
Class/Level: Magus 10 / Duelist 5
Adventure: Sanctum of the Serpent God
Catalyst: Trusting NPCs
Survivors: Leros-Kora Nassai (Human/Ulfen), T'sai Koga (Human/Tien), Braximus (Half-Elf/Eidolon combo), Anky (Ankylosaurus Animal Companion), and Esalia Co'Helumus (Elf).
It will obviously take some time for them all to gather, and some more time still for General Aveshai to orginize and train the gathering troops for the upcoming battle... so we go to the "in the meantime" events. The Coils of Ydersius strike! Jask comes up to the group and tells them that Ishorou has found something worth checking out... something that may be of aid in the upcoming battle. An Azlanti artifact that is holding the spirit of an ancient who knows of some hidden cashes of arms and magic within the city. Aveshai can confirm that the Azlanti he knew were not ones to simply sit around as if all were fine, even after a resounding vistory, and would likely have been preparing such cashes (heck, the whole city is a giant "things may go sour again, we should be prepared for it), so the group happily bounds off the investigate while The General continues to do his thing in preparation.
The rest is pretty much by the book. The group speaks with the "spirit" with both Jask and Ishorou nearby. As always, Kallen puts up Detect Magic. Esalia believes the spirit to be benevolent, trapped, and honest, and ensures it that they will seek a way to send him to his proper reward/afterlife while using his knowledge to defend his beloved city. Detect Magic takes 3 rounds to get all the info... funny how Death Attack also takes 3 rounds of observation to work. Kallen discovers multiple schools of magic coming from the artifact (expected), but also from both Jask and Ishorou! Alas, the revaluation was too little too late. Initiative was rolled, and the Coil disguised as Jask and her greater invisible familiar flank, poison, and death attack Kallen. He fails his save and dies on the spot.
T'sai unleashes a full attack upon the traitor / fake-Jask, and takes him down (188 damage), and Esalia works her magic to being Kallen back. She mad her caster level check to overcome the Death Attack raise DC, and Kallen is back amongst the living!
...so many resources to negate death at this level of play. So that was more of a temporary obit, but he technically did die... if only for a round.
~P
Dead is still dead!
Yar!
Name: Kallen
Race: Half-Elf
Class/Level: Magus 10 / Duelist 5
Adventure: Sanctum of the Serpent God
Catalyst: Trusting NPCsSurvivors: Leros-Kora Nassai (Human/Ulfen), T'sai Koga (Human/Tien), Braximus (Half-Elf/Eidolon combo), Anky (Ankylosaurus Animal Companion), and Esalia Co'Helumus (Elf).
** spoiler omitted **...
Seraphina, who has died twice in SS already actually managed to survive that ambush, by herself as well.
Our GM waited til the party was split up doing things and spending their gold, then he sprung the Coils on us individually.
A nicely nasty little ploy, as a GM myself I thought it was great.
DBH
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Name: Obafemi
Race: Aasimar
Class/Level: Monk 3
Adventure: Souls for Smugglers' Shiv
Catalyst: In the caverns below the cannibal camp the party got split up and poor Obafemi ran into Mother Thrunefang and 2 of the ghouls. After a spirited defence which saw the rest of his party come to his aid but get themselves stuck in a narrow corridor and paralysed poor Obafemi succumbed to his wounds. Fortunately the party had the scroll of raise dead so all was not lost.
Name : Tahnie Drakeline
Class : Sorcerer Lv. 2
Race : Gnome
Killed in : Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
How : When trying to find out what was causing the purple fungus for the dryad, she was killed (along with the remaining NPCs) by a group of vegipygmys when they were about to cross a rope bridge over to a boat.
Also...
Namzig Valsera (Halfling Rogue Lv2), Weeler (Half-orc Barbarian Lv.2), Luli (Halfling Ranger Lv.2), Boris (Human Cleric Lv2), & Kalina (Human Sorcerer Lv2) were all done in by imprisonment by the island's cannibals and bad DM'ing :p Thats about the time where the players decided that it was time to stop playing with that DM....
I died. It sucked. Oh well, time to be reincarnated in another campaign! ^_^
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Name: Rhodri Thunderstone
Class: Cleric Lv3, Mage Lv1
Race: Dwarf
Killed in: Racing to Ruin
Catalyst: In the Screaming Jungle the party encountered the possessed Dire Ape. After the Monk and Magus were feared into fleeing the area the Dire ape charged forward to attack Rhodri. The Kitsune bard seized an attack of opportunity and decapitated the dire ape with a critical hit. On the next round the Shadow Demon proceeded to score a critical on the dwarf and proceeded to crit him in turn, decapitating him as well. (Side note, I use the 3.5 critical/fumble table from the Dragon Compendium Vol 1).
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Name: Yssith-Atil
Race: purecast serpentfolk
Classes/levels: monstrous humanoid 5/conjurer 9
Adventure: Snactum of the Serpent God
Location: the eponymous sanctum
Catalyst: Raviaza
The Gory Details: Raviaza was doing a number on the archer, so the conjurer cast antimagic field and walked up to her. He lasted one round against her then she finished him off. After that an intellect devourer who had been lurking nearby hopped into his skull.
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My group's been playing for about six months now and I have a few obits' to report.
Name: Perenelle
Race: Elf
Class/Level: Alchemist 5
Adventure: Racing to Ruin
Location: A Riverside in the Screaming Jungle
Catalyst: A Shadow Demon, and Bad Luck
Name: Zan Xill
Race: Human
Class/Level: Oracle (Juju) 5
Adventure: Racing to Ruin
Location: See Above…
Catalyst: Likewise…, and Badly Timed Heroics
The Gory Details: The group came across a dire ape. Unbeknownst to them, it was possessed by a shadow demon, who escaped the ape after the adventurers had killed its host. Being incorporeal, the group wasn’t able to do much damage. Perenelle and the fighter Binwin were caught in a shadow evocation spell-a shadowy fireball- which took the alchemist from full hp to DEATH! (she had horribly low hp and failed both saves vs. the spell) While the team began to back away from the demon, Zan Xill charge forward to ram the creature astride his magnificent hippo zombie mount. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize it was incorporeal, and immune to the hippo’s attack. Without any abilities to harm or hinder it, he was subjected to the demons magic jar and Possessed. Serious freaked out, Xannon the druid-wild shaped as a dimorphodon- attacked, killing Zan Xill. After the demon emerged, the group finally remembered a magic item they possessed that succeeded in banishing the demon… Barely…
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Name: Binwin
Race: Dwarf
Class/Level: Fighter (Foehammer) 6
Adventure: Racing to Ruin
Location: Tazion, Abandoned Aqueduct
Catalyst: A Water Elemental, and Stupidity
The Gory Details: After discovering a tunnel, Binwin impatiently explored it alone. While the rest of the group prepared a base camp, he pressed on, determined to find something worthwhile. Instead, he activated a summoning trap, facing a Huge Water Elemental, alone. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to defeat the elemental. What’s worse, Binwin flat out refused to retreat, didn’t take any advantage offered in the melee, and left himself completely open from the start.
Unfortunately, the Stupidity continues… Binwin was revived by his allies using a Raise Dead scroll.
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Name: Ken
Race: Android
Class/Level: Ninja (Scout)/Sorcerer 6/1
Adventure: City of the Seven Spears
Location: Den of the Rakshasa
Catalyst: Akarundo
The Gory Details: Slipping around the Government District, the group boldly strolled into Akarundo’s den… No, really… and they…
-No, I’m sorry, this was like the second area they visited in Saventh-Yhi. Excuse me, I need a few mintues…
(Sigh) Anyway…
Coming across Akarundo, the group was able to resist his Charm and Suggestion attempts. After some early success damaging him, thanks mainly to Ken’s charging attacks, Akarundo was able to buff his AC and hit back with Lightning bolt and Magic Missile. After chipping away at Ken’s health, Akarundo was able to catch him with a lightning bolt at 0hp-Nat 1 save.
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Name: Elspeth
Race: Human
Class/Level: Inquisitor of Desna 10
Adventure: Vaults of Madness
Location: The vault of silence
Catalyst: The skinned blood vampire rogue 12 guy
The gory details: The party managed to kill two out of four spectres. They then moved on while the spectres moved along in the walls. They triggered the trap in the trapped room and the spectres struck at that moment.
Elspeth chose to run deeper into the dungeon towards the three sarcoffoci in the back. They then fought the two spectres that came out. After they won, the vampire dude had his rawbones move around and flank them. He then attacked.
Over the course of a very epic battle Elspeth ended up with 0 HD and died due to energy drain. The rest of the party barely escaped with their lives.
Elspeth will be turned into a vampire thing as well and the party is determined to end her existence.
Technically not a PC but one of the PCs' "goons", but I'm counting it. I'm a nurturing DM so this is a big deal:
Name: Sores (One of Rickett's thugs. Our bard managed to convince Rickett's that giving him his goons was the only way to pay back the massive amount of money he owed him.)
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Warrior 3
Adventure: Racing to Ruins
Location: Amghawe's Tomb
Catalyst: The troll Guardian
The Gory Details: After a failed diplomacy attempt, the Exile attacked our party full force. He called upon the three guardians of the tomb (antelope shaped medium air elemental, Aranea reflavored as tarantula focusing on evocation spells, zombie troll). The Mwangi shaman Tendai (witch 6) was quickly knocked out cold due to a failed save against a lightning bolt spell and an unexpected flyby attack from the elemental. Ballandra (aasimar monk 6) attempted to hold back the others, taking care of the aranea with subsequent stunning fists and crane style, but failing to hold back the troll guardian. Arella (half-elf gunslinger 6) attempted to take out the guardian at close range with her dragon pistol (her primary weapon had misfired), but damage resistance made this a difficult goal. Iacobus (human bard 6) sees the danger, but being incapable of effectively attacking personally, sends his two thugs in. One of them, Sores, has been damaged by a spell from the Exile already, and is injured, but he rushes in on his boss' command.
Sores charges, hoping to avoid the troll's Attack of Opportunity. He fails, and the troll slams into him head on. It deals 17 damage, knocking him clean out. The healer was the shaman. There's no one left who can help, least of all someone willing to walk into the troll's range. By the end of the battle, Sores wounds have killed him. They bury him on the sight. For the group, it's perhaps the first of their own they've been unable to rescue. It was a sobering affair for everyone.
So much so, in fact, that the other goon has been set free. Sort of. He's still with them; the Mwangi expanse can't be traveled alone. But he's not a servant anymore (and really, he was more a slave than anything.)
Name: Private
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Warrior 1
Adventure: Racing to Ruin
Location: "Village under Siege"
Catalyst: Chemosit
The Gory Details: Known simply as "Private," this Sargavan Guardsman was assigned to one colonial militiaman named Amaru. While helping Amaru take on a Chemosit, he was knocked unconscious by a blow from the beats claw. Approximately six seconds later his skull was broken open and his brain devoured.
Name:
Race:gnome
Classes/levels: oracle of life 5
Adventure: racing to ruin
Location:
Catalyst: the shadow demon
The Gory Details: (optional)
We killed the dire ape easily but the shadow demon not so much. Could barely hurt it, and the oracle was tossing spears of purity but they kept missing. First a shadow croc did 20 damage on a crit then a shadow fireball killed our gnome healer when he biffed his will save again. Used the raise dead and restoration scroll
Name: can't ever keep all the names straight
Race:gnome oracle, human ranger, human gunslinger, halfling twf rogue
Classes/levels: oracle of life 6, shapeshifter ranger 6, pistol widing slinger 6, rogue 6
Adventure: racing to ruin
Location:
Catalyst: the spirit dancers
The Gory Details: (optional)
[/spoiler]
First round of combat ranger dominated and both the slinger and rogue put under with poison. Oracle happened to be next to the slinger so I allowed him to kick her awake. Oracle kept tossing spears of purity but kept rolling 1's on either sr or the to hit roll. The dominated ranger killed the rogue, then the slinger failed a save vs suggestion then the ranger killed the slinger. The oracle had one last chance even rolling a crit on spear of purity but once again failed the sr. [/spoiler]
Not sure how to recover from the tpk in a way that makes sense. Might just have the new party be part of the faction when it arrives a few days later
That makes sense. Don't sweat it if the new group 'somehow' ignores the fact the dancers are under the thrall of the succubus and kill them all. A little cathartic payback.
yea just came in with a new group
3/5 of my party members died last session due to a string of horrible rolls. (and a little bit due to impatience on the summoners part :P)
The party was swimming towards one of the wrecks. The druid,summoner and bard had swim speeds thanks to touch of the sea spells. Our friends the ranger and barbarian lagged a considerable distance behind.
The summoner arrived first and started exploring the ship solo, only to get jumped by 2 lacedons. I know not a normal encounter for these things but I upscaled things a bit for my party to account for the 5 members, 20-point buy and decent amount of optimisation happening.
Name: ?? (forgot this one)
Race: Human Classes/levels: Synthesist summoner 1/heretic inquisitor 1
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: One of the many wrecks surrounding the shiv.
Catalyst: Arriving on the ship first and exploring solo. Woke up 2 lacedons.
The Gory Details: While singlehandedly Exploring the wreck this guy woke up the lacedons and procedeed to take a beating before before his friends arrived. Managed to take down down a lacedon with the help of the bard. looked fine untill a ghoul got a nice streak of hits in coupled with a failed save.
Name: Mug Ruith
Race: Human Class/Levels: Druid 2
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The same ship
Catalyst: The same lacedons
The Gory Details: Arriving on the ship just in time to wath the lacedons attack his friend he prepped his spells and went to town. One failed Fort save later he got knocked down.
Name: Colt Harrison
Race: Human Class/Levels: Archivist bard 1
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The same ship
Catalyst: The same lacedons
The Gory Details: Arriving last he joined the fray and helped the summoner kill a lacedon. Extremely bad luck for the summoner and the druid made him abandon ship. Whip wielding bard VS Lacedon in aquatic combat. Need I say more?
I truly dread the mother thrunefang encounter now.
This all happened during a pretty severe storm aswell. So probably going to have some more people wash up in the following days.
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I'll be posting quite a few NPC deaths, I think, but they're hilarious enough to include here, so here we go:
NPC Name: Gelik AberWhinge
Race: Gnome
Classes/levels: bard 2
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The wreck of the Jenivere, among others
Catalyst: Being a pompous jerk to a group of pre-teens
The Gory Details:
I'm running Serpent's Skull for my 2 sons (9 and 12) and their friend (9). They were far more offended by the NPCs' refusal to cooperate than adults would have been, and Gelik suffered the bulk of their wrath by both refusing to work and by putting them down at every turn.
So on Day 1 the grippli barbarian single-handedly built a camp for the group using nothing but rocks and vines (a 19 Survival), the half-elf ranger and Sasha (one of the only two helpful NPCs) gathered plenty of food, and the rest of the PCs and NPCs sat around doing nothing.
Cue a hopeless morale role in the morning, which Gelik fumbled, so I dropped him directly to Panicked.
Cue the encounter roll for 1 venemous snake whose target was (roll 1d8)... Gelik.
I winced as the one party member who made his Perception roll to see the snake said, "Oh, it's going for Gelik? I watch it to see how bad its attack is."
Once it didn't kill Gelik in one blow, the group assailed the snake. Gelik, being panicked, ran. Since the snake was between him and the jungle, I had him run to the wreck of the Jenivere, believing he would view that as "safety". It was early morning, so low tide, so he got there and met the waiting eurypterid and quickly perished.
Perhaps most disturbing was the grippli barbarian's joy at coming on the boat, one-shotting the eurypterid, finding Gelik's gear, and declaring, "Wow! We should have let him die ages ago!"
Name: Gary Ale
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Monk 2
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The valley in the center of the island where a cannibal has set up shop in a blind.
Catalyst: Cliffs.
The Gory Details: Gary managed to get his sneak on for once. "I'll approach the blind."
"From which side, the cliff, or the jungle?"
"The cliff."
A failed bull rush (Gary) and a successful bull rush (cannibal) later and you have a monk with a broken neck and a party without dps.
Name: Gelik Aberwind
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The beaches of the main bay.
Catalyst: Crabs.
The Gory Details: Man I hated that guy. Turns out crabs love eating gnomes. Who knew?
Name: Thoril Serpenthelm
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Fighter 1
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: North part of island; river running through a ravine.
Catalyst: Invading spider territory.
The Gory Details:27th day on the island. Party had just battled and defeated a giant spider in its lair. They follow the river and are disappointed to find that it ends abruptly and they will have to turn back and find another exit from the ravine.
Random encounter generated a spider swarm which the party was unprepared to deal with. 5 characters manage to escape but poor Thoril rolled poor initiative and surprise and got swarmed. Party's best fighter killed by a bunch of tiny spiders. So sad.
Upon return to camp, party discovers all NPCs gone, camp destroyed, supplies stolen. Cannibal surprise attack while PCs absent. 2nd one in two days. Not going well.
That exact spot and those exact spiders almost got Gary Ale before he succumbed to acute falling sickness.
Name: Ixava
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Swashbuckler 2
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The Cannibal Camp
Catalyst: Klorak the Red
Name: Saurkos
Race: Half-Orc
Classes/levels: Saurian Shaman 2
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The Cannibal Camp
Catalyst: Klorak the Red
Name: Gunther
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Internal Alchemist 2
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The Cannibal Camp
Catalyst: Klorak the Red
The Gory Details:
The remainder of the fight was like something out of a slasher film with each player dealing as much damage as they could to the cannibals while simultaneously getting murderized by Klorak's scimitar and bite. Dufrane rolled a 1 on his firearm attack and misfired breaking his gun. In the end he was the one to deal the killing blow to Klorak after the rest of the party went unconscious.
Luckily for Ixava they were finally able to open the chest found in the treasure pit and Jask used the scroll of raise dead to bring him back.
The deaths are going to fly fast and furious as I dump quite a few out at once. Let's start with the most hilarious death of all:
Name: Hero
Race: Pygmy Goat
Classes/Levels: None
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The shore of the river north of the cannibal camp
Catalyst: Inviting a chupacabra to dinner
The Gory Details:
The players were convinced they weren't powerful enough to take on a camp full of cannibals, so they decided to try to lure them out by lighting a bonfire a good 2 miles away from the camp. I dutifully rolled an encounter and got... a goat.
Cue the ranger's player deciding that he needed this pygmy goat as an animal companion and rolling a massive Handle Animal roll.
No barbarians came, so we fast forward to that night. The party figures a bonfire at night would be a much better way to attract the cannibals.
What's a GM supposed to do? There's the chupacabra, flying above the island, and it sees a huge bonfire. On investigating, one of the stupid humans is holding its dinner in its hands! So it flies down to try to eat the goat.
Hero went to negative hit points but didn't die, and the ranger successfully out-grappled the chupacabra to maintain possession. As they played tug-of-war with the unfortunate Hero, the barbarian introduced the chupacabra to the wonders of getting power attacked with an earthbreaker.
The next round, it finished tearing poor Hero in half and tried to fly away with its piece, only to be hit again by the now-very-annoying barbarian.
It fled, but they tracked its bloody trail (stupid barbarians with Darkvision and huge Survival rolls) and killed it in its lair, avenging Hero.
All of them agreed: If the chupacabra had attacked one of them instead of Hero, a PC would have died instead of a pygmy goat. All hail Hero the goat!
Next comes the saddest but most noble:
Name: Heron
Race: Wolf
Classes/Levels: Animal Companion 1
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The Cannibal Camp
Catalyst: Out-and-out heroism
The Gory Details:
In spite of their best efforts, the party stumbled into the cannibal camp in the middle of the night and started an all-out battle with (almost) all of the cannibals at once. (That 'almost' becomes very important, as it caused two more deaths.) While the heroic barbarian single-handedly held the line (have I mentioned he's a grippli? So there's a 3' tall frog blocking off half a dozen barbarians and sitting at AC 23 thanks to Shield of Faith and going total defense in a tight spot), the others used missile weapons and spells to excellent advantage to start mowing down the cannibal hordes. Unfortunately, both Klorak the Red and Malikadna arrived at the same time to assist, and Malikadna started cursing the PCs.
The ranger, knowing it was most likely a suicide mission, sent his new animal companion (remember Hero just died last session) through the bushes to eliminate the witch, in spite of her being surrounded by cannibals. He successfully bit and tripped the witch, distracting her long enough for the rest of the party to succeed, but ended up surrounded by cannibals and one of Malikadna's skeletons.
He was knocked to negative HP, and then came the decision a GM always dreads: To Coup de Grace or not to Coup de Grace? Unfortunately, they were so far behind enemy lines that the barbarians couldn't reach the fight. It would be unreasonable for all of them to stand there doing nothing. So the two who could at least throw javelins moved forward and did that, but the third, having no one else to attack, did away with poor Heron in only his second session.
Heron saved the party from a host of curses, and was quite possibly responsible for turning the tide of battle. Hooray for the animals!
And then we have two that were just out-and-out unnecessary:
Name: Jason
Race: Elf
Classes/Levels: Ninja 4
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The Cannibal Camp
Catalyst: Choosing a bizarre place to sleep
Name: Jask Derindi
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Cleric 2
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The Cannibal Camp
Catalyst: Saving a PC's life
The Gory Details:
So, the party fought the *entire* cannibal camp at once, and were thus completely out of resources, with some of them still at or below half health. They had been counting cannibals, and were convinced that five were missing. In spite of this miscount, and in spite of their grievous wounds, and over the grippli barbarian's objections, they decided to camp in the cannibal's sleeping hut, leaving a lone guard.
The first watch was the full-HP ranger. No problemo.
The second watch was the low-HP ninja, who had almost died in the first fight. Cue the FOUR remaining cannibals (Klorak's harem) charging in and attacking the sleeping party.
Being in the front lines against raging cannibals with less than 20 hit points is not recommended, especially when the GM is rolling hot. The sleeping bard took 19 of her 27 hit points. The ninja was dropped to 7. As the bard's player was away that night and I was running her as an NPC, I had the noble Jask step forward and protect her.
Hit-crit on the ninja for 23 points (did I mention my dice were on fire?) killed him outright, and hit-hit on Jask was more than his 8 hit points and 7 CON could handle.
The party lost their cleric and their ninja for sleeping in an unexplored camp. Pathfinder is educational!
And finally, the also-rans:
Name: Sasha Mevah
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Ranger 2
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The middle of nowhere
Catalyst: Failing her morale roll
Sasha's morale plummeted to Panicked and the camp was attacked by a snake, causing her to flee into the wilderness. Ironically, she met up with another snake and its poison was the end of her. The grippli barbarian mourns her most of all.
Name: Sole
Race: Half-Elf
Classes/Levels: Druid 2
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The blighted isle
Catalyst: Stupidcide
After nearly drowning twice, failing to take Knowledge: Nature in an outdoor campaign, and generally being useless, Sole intentionally ran across several of the kobold sorcerer's trap runes, killing himself and greatly irritating the sorcerer.
Name: Ishirou
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Rogue 2
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The Cannibal Camp
Catalyst: Eaten
Captured by cannibals very early in the game, the party took too long to find him. 'Nuf said.
Name: Aerys Mavato
Race: Half-Elf
Classes/Levels: Fighter 2
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The Cannibal Camp
Catalyst: Eaten
Ditto.
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I like hearing about your group, NobodysHome.
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I like hearing about your group, NobodysHome.
Thanks! I'm having enough trouble keeping up with my other campaign threads to write this one up, but the kids are *almost* getting into their groove.
I gave Aycenia "Reincarnate Animal" just for roleplaying purposes, and the ranger's player (all of 10 years old, but the most mature of all of them) promptly rolled on my hand-written table and got... wolf! He was rather ecstatic!
Unfortunately, the ninja's player (also 10, but the least mature) introduced his half-orc barboracle (headed for rage prophet) in the rudest possible, way, stealing camp food and refusing to speak to the PCs.
So I almost had to write yet another obit for that guy (Sole, Jason, and quite nearly Blaarg).
Ah, well, I'm sure I'll add more before the island is done...
Name: Nestarion
Race: Half-Elf
Classes/Levels Rogue 3/Wizard 3/Fighter 1/Arcane Trickster 2
Adventure: City of Seven Spears
Location: Pharasma's Throne
Catalyst: Insanity (Paranoia)
This was our first casualty! I've been running this AP for a year and half with no PC deaths, until now...
OK, technically this wasn't a death, but only because I've been killing so many PCs recently I worked very hard to keep him alive.
This is a combination of, "What the heck were you thinking?" on the part of the PCs, and "How hard am I going to have to work to not kill all of you?" on the part of the GM.
Name: Xethos
Race: Kobold
Classes/Levels: Sorcerer 4
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: Caves of the Mother, then the lighthouse
Catalyst: Sheer wtf-ery, combined with ghouls
The Bizarre Details:
The party was exploring the caves of the mother, and managed to have a ludicrously hard fight (at least 10 rounds and around 50 points of damage done to the PCs) against the two festrogs; they let themselves get bottlenecked and so had one PC flanked and fighting both at once, letting the festrogs dine away and constantly replenish their hit points. Most of the players kept yelling out, "5' step! 5' step!" every time the bottlenecked character's turn came up, but he kept saying, "Nah," and just fighting from where he was.
So, just to be truly bizarre, the next time they spotted creatures awaiting them in ambush in a cavern, they threw in a smokestick. Yes. They removed their own ranger and sorcerer from the fight, and forced their melee characters to move in for close combat. With ghouls. What the heck!?!?
Xethos ran in first, trusting in Mage Armor, Shield, and the 20% miss chance to save him. They didn't, he dropped, and the other characters refused to move in to help. Thus, the next round my ghouls had full-round actions and no one to hit but him. Since the description is very explicit that they want to create more ghouls, I had them gently bite him and give him Ghoul Fever rather than coup de grace him. The grippli barbarian came next and exactly the same thing happened: Ran in, took the attacks of opportunity, got paralyzed, and the rest of the party just stood around so I had full round actions for the ghouls. Once again, they chose to infect him. (Wonderfully bad Fortitude saves by my players to top off this travesty, by the way.)
Eventually the barboracle made enough saves to dispatch the ghouls, but amazingly terrible tactics. I'm hoping they improve.
On to the main event!
A random Heal check on the grippli revealed the bad news: Both he and Xethos had Ghoul Fever, and would likely die within a few days. The group holed up in the lighthouse for the evening, hoping to assist both PCs with their Fortitude saves using Heal checks.
Nylithali, impressed by the party's strength, brought her remaining ghouls to the base of the lighthouse that night, calling up to the PCs and promising them eternal life and eternal feasting if they would join her. Xethos, knowing he was dying of Ghoul Fever, jumped at this opportunity. He asked whether she was a god, and she appropriately answered, "Yes."
He asked to see her, but she refused, so he tried to climb out onto the balcony to get a better view. The grippli grappled him, so Nylithali tried a Cause Fear on the grippli, failing. Even then, Xethos would not be dissuaded.
He had the group lower him on a rope towards the waiting ghouls below. Nylithali put up an Obscuring Mist. Xethos asked why she had done so, and she replied, "For your protection."
So yes, after every warning I could possibly give, Xethos allowed himself to be lowered into an Obscuring Mist and the waiting arms of four ghouls.
He was paralyzed immediately, and bitten to get an even higher DC on the Ghoul Fever, and the party tried to haul him up. (I'd had the ghouls grapple him to prevent just such a contingency.)
One horrifically-failed Strength check later and I *should* have had the ghouls sever the rope and run off with him, requiring rescue from the other PCs before he turned.
Unfortunately, it had been a long day, and instead I allowed the PCs "one more chance" to pull him up, and this time they succeeded.
-
*SIGH*. Another wonderful RP opportunity lost, and only an also-ran in the obits column. (On the other hand, the whole group has been so cowardly in taking any actions at all that I most likely would have had either a TPK against the ghouls, or they would have all said, "Meh," and let the sorcerer turn.)
Is Xethos still going to try to join the zombies?
Is Xethos still going to try to join the zombies?
At the rate he's going, he's going to die of sheer depression.
It's the kid's first RPG (well, he's 13, so "kid" is probably too condescending), everyone's letting him make all the major decisions, and he's making all the classic beginner's mistakes -- splitting the party, sleeping in a dangerous area, boldly charging forward instead of using stealth to scout ahead, etc.
So he's a trooper; he's playing Xethos as horrifically depressed at his own incompetence, and welcoming the Ghoul Fever as a form of punishment for his own inadequacies. It's great RP, but I do love the little kobold, so I'm hoping he doesn't kill him off.
But it's not my PC; I just run the island. Call me Mr. Rourke!
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Ugh. This one defies description:
Name: Blarg Cracktooth
Race: Half-Orc
Classes/Levels: Barbarian 1/Battle Oracle 3
Adventure: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
Location: The rescue ship
Catalyst: Sheer wtf-ery, combined with ghouls
The Bizarre Details: (This one's fairly long, but context is important.)
So Xethos told her their plans: They were repairing a lighthouse to draw more people to the island.
Nylithati is not a stupid girl. She immediately volunteered all of her "people" to help, and the lighthouse was quickly finished. My first indication that there was trouble was that not a single party member wondered why a bunch of ghouls were helping them instead of eating them. OK. Not quite true. ONE party member said, "Uh, isn't this odd behavior for ghouls? Shouldn't we figure out what they're up to?", but the rest said,"Nah, let them help us! We'll figure it out later!"
The party lit the lighthouse, and Nylithati asked from which direction a rescue ship would most likely come. Xethos told her, and she and her ghouls vanished for a couple of days.
Along came the rescue ship, which was quickly engulfed in an Obscuring Mist and had half its crew dragged off by ghouls as the party watched helplessly from shore. The group then swam to the ship, and informed the devastated captain that the ghouls had been Xethos' plan.
So the captain decided then and there to behead Xethos.
I tried really hard. I went around the table. Twice. Asking, "Don't you think there's anything you can say that might appease the captain?"
(I was trying to get them back on the darned island, since they haven't finished either underground yet.)
Blarg's player responded, "I Intimidate the captain, telling him that if he cuts of Xethos' head, I'll cut off his head!"
The captain wasn't impressed, and strode forward to behead Xethos.
In perhaps the most bizarre series of events in this strangely-played AP so far, Blarg drew on the captain. Amid all the crew members. So they attacked him. And not a single party member defended him. In fact, the ranger's wolf tripped him so he was lying prone among 4 sailors pounding on him.
Round after round: "OK. This round you take... 11 damage. Do you surrender yet?"
"NO!"
So the party sat around as Blarg was beaten to death, THEN agreed to go rescue the captured sailors.
This marks the player's 3rd death on Smuggler's Shiv (suicide for Sole, nighttime cannibal attack for Jason). Even his dad asked, "Uh, are you sure you want to be playing this game?"
The story will continue next week, I'm sure...
I really should have killed Xethos as well (again), but killing 1/3 of the party for crappy roleplay seems mean, even to me.