Name: Willie Robinson
Race: Ifrit
Classes/Levels: Gestalt Oracle/Bloodrager 1
Adventure: The Snows of Summer
Location: High Sentinel Lodge
Catalyst: Melee with freezing skeletons when already low on health
Gory details: So I'm running this as a two-player gestalt campaign, and the PCs took the Talking Stag at his word, so the bandits were ready for the players and beat them thanks to their action economy advantage. I decided to give them an out: Ten-Penny Tacey found out about Rohkar being an evil cleric and decided to free the PCs and Lady Argentea while making her escape, and the chillbane shakes had spread to every bandit apart from Tacey and Rohkar. Willie failed his stealth check, alerting Rohkar that something was up. Rohkar came out with his skeletons and unleashed Channel Negative Energy, killing all the sick bandits and hurting his opponents. Willie killed Rohkar in melee while Tacey fought the skeletons and the other PC, a Divine Hunter paladin/Archaeologist bard named Alara, unleashed a volley of arrows. Willie ran in to help Tacey, but one of the freezing skeletons hit him twice and rolled high on damage both times, killing him instantly; as we ran the numbers, I said, "Well, it seems that I've killed my first PC." Tacey went down soon afterwards, and Alara and Lady Argentea ran for it, luring the skeletons into an ambush. It's been a couple months since then, and the campaign is going strong despite the early death.
Name: Gilt Uld Stenk
Race: Goblin
Class: Alchemist 4
Location: the white tower
Catalyst: opening the wrong door.
The gory details: The party had not been quiet in the tower, causing loud fights, throwing bombs, and basically just murdering their way through everything. this tipped off Hestrig who gathered a group of guards and npcs into one big fight. When the alchemist upended the door to the room 4 guards used their readied crossbows and Hestrig to a readied swing at him.
3 high rolls on the crossbows deal him a fair bit of damage, leaving him at only 3 HP. Hestrig was sure to knock him out if she connected. But I rolled a 20, then a 19. He took 14 damage from the critical, enough to kill him outright.
The player then took over Nadya from there until they finished the book.
Next session we convert to 2E so this just gives that player an excuse to try out a snow goblin barbarian which he has been hankering to try.
I'd like to think the party will at least attempt stealth in the future but it's quite unlikely.
Name: Ciri
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Bard 4, Unchained Rogue 1
Adventure: The Shackled Hut
Location: The wilderness on the way to Whitethrone
Catalyst: Not knowing the password to bluff guards
The Gory Details: After rolling a 30 on a Bluff check, Ciri failed to know the password and had a level 5 Falconer have his falcon attack her and then attacked her with the bow. The falcon brought her to 0 hit points. The two arrows he fired at her brought her to -26. I forgot about how Hero Points could save someone from death and so... my character died. We'll see if she can be brought back... and at what cost.
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Name: Aster, Gaelin, Kudair, Tavian
Race: Elf, Elf, Dwarf, Human
Classes/levels: Sorcerer 1, Ranger 1, Kineticist 1, Oracle 1
Adventure: The Snows of Summer
Location: High Sentinel Lodge
Catalyst: Too many zombies
At the same time Ten-Penny Tacey appeared from further into the lodge, surveyed what had happened so far, and threw her lot in with the PCs. They were thankful for the help as the sheer number of bandits was starting to wear the PCs down and they were quite concerned about the skeletons, especially once they realized that the necromancer they had heard about was somehow healing them even though they couldn't see him.
While the group was dealing with the remaining threats, Rohkar invisibly made his way over to a group of three dead bandits which he then raised as zombies. The remaining bandits and frost skeletons were taken care of but, in the end, the zombies overwhelmed the group. One zombie was left when the final PC went down but Tacey was able to dispatch it before she succumbed to the clubbing blows of the zombie.
Everyone managed to stabilize, and Tacey tucked each of them into beds so that they could heal, but I'm still counting it as a TPK because if I hadn't had Tacey instantly side with the party they all would've died.
It was a thrilling fight and everyone liked it, but it would've been incredibly disappointing if everyone had died. They were also glad to see that the last zombie only had a couple of hit points left when the final PC went down.
That's part of the reason I made sure my group was level 2 by the time they faced Rokhar. They also lucked out because first, the Druid had tossed an Entangle out after the invisible Rokhar when he fled outdoors (he rolled a 1 for Stealth so I had him trip over a chair and reveal his presence) and second, the group realized he was going for the dead bodies outdoors and had someone get to them JUST before Rokhar reached the corpses. They parleyed at that point.
Glad your group survived! :)
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Nasty fight for certain. There was a group on the boards here that TPK'd and just ended the game because they just weren't up for running a new group doing everything all over again
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Yeah, I knew it would be difficult but they were doing fairly well against the raiders, which is why I introduced the frost skeletons and Rohkar into the fight after 3 rounds (so that he did his pre-casting) but had Tacey as an ace-in-the-hole just in case. (And oh-boy, am I glad I did that!)
As it turns out, I slightly over-estimated how well the party was doing as it's an odd party composition. (They're all very experienced players so I thought the fight would be a challenge but didn't think it would be a TPK.)
Name: Sybbl Morningstar
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Fighter 1
Adventure: Snows of Summer
Location: Border Woods
Catalyst: Vengance
The Gory Details: (optional)
After the party Alchemist managed to catch and put her dagger through one of the sprite Trio, Vox blew into a rage and repeatedly stabbed the (colour sprayed) stunned and unconscious fighter, who then failed her 12 Fort save vs Coup de Grace.
Been a while since I've been able to post on one of these, here is to many more posts in the future.
Name: Alistair Worthington
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Warpriest 2
Adventure: Snows of Summer
Location: High Sentinel Lodge
Catalyst: Failed Will
The Gory Details: (optional)
Alistair had been recently knocked out by an exploding skeleton. When the party Cleric rushed over to stabilize him, she was hit with a Murderous Command and instead impaled Alistair on the ground with her trident.
Name: Issong "Brokenbrow" of Heldren
Race: Human (Erutaki)
Classes/levels: Slayer (4)
Adventure: The Snows of Summer
Location: Pale Tower
Catalyst: A burning hatred for mages, single-person teleporters, and Radosek escaping.
The Gory Details:
Issong has harboured a hatred for mages ever since he returned home to find his family murdered and arcane sigils written in blood throughout his abode. He was more than eager to join the party and track down the witches responsible for bringing the eternal winter to his hometown.
The party did a great job of making allies and bluffing their way into the Pale Tower. They cleared the first level, then realized that the teleporters would result in some issues as they made their way up. They did fine until they got Jairess' key and Issong insisted on being the first into the ritual chamber. He quickly found himself surrounded by a guard and 4 ice elementals, while Radosek began peppering him with ice spears. Luckily, the party managed to make it up to the chamber slowly, but Issong was rendered unconscious, and Radosek escaped out the teleporter in Nazhena's bed chamber, clogging the hallway with another ice spear. Issong chugged a couple potions, which didn't provide as much healing as he hoped (and the shaman was out of healing spells and the party had depleted all their other healing resources - which I have been a bit more generous about giving). The other characters tried to provide wise council and insist that they should take a moment to regroup and make their way down different teleporters or out windows to follow after Radosek. However, Issong would rather die than let a mage escape, so he jumped in the teleporter first, immediately becoming pummeled into unconsciousness by the ice sculpture upon his appearance in the courtyard. Unfortunately, his companions could not make it down in time to save him, and he ended up bleeding out on the dais.
And so ended the tale of Issong "Brokenbrow".
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I'm looking forward to many tales of low-level adventurers freezing to death. ^^
Name: Isaer Melhalla
Race: HumanClasses/levels: Paladin (Hunting Paladin) 2
Adventure: The Snows of Summer
Location: Sentinel Lodge
Catalyst: Frost Skeleton / Rohkar Cindren
The Gory Details: After absorbing one too many Freezing Death blasts from the destruction of frost skeletons, Isaer fell unconscious, dying. Rohkar cast Death Knell and slew her. In the chaos of combat (a burning lodge, panicked bandits and unpredictable PC behaviour) he was able to use his Scroll of Animate Dead to bring her back in horrific fashion as a Fast Zombie. In turn, it almost slew the PC Oracle (Spirit Guide) before it was felled and left to burn to ash in the pyre that was the Lodge.
Name: Shortie
Race: Syrinx
Classes/levels: Paladin (Grey) 4/Bard 4
Adventure: Maiden Mother Crone
Location: Maiden Statue, The Garden Feeder room
Catalyst: Andrazkuz
The Gory Details: The group noticed a Frost Giant slowly making its way up the tunnel toward them (though it had not yet seen them). Rather than attack it where it was vulnerable, they decided to "lure it into a trap" without thinking things through. They picked the door to the tunnel leading to the Garden Feeder room and the Druid cast Stone Spikes along the tunnel... but they failed to consider that the Giant wouldn't just keep moving through spiked stones and didn't cast it to surround the Giant. So when it hit the trap, the giant decided to turn back. It got the Andrazkuz working with it to check out the tunnel.
Meantime, the group decided to rely on the spikes behind them to deter anything coming up behind them, and moved up the tunnel, only to get attacked by the Tendriculos and Poryphanes. When the Andrazkuz made their way to the door (ignoring the spikes) they rolled a Nat. 20 for Perception and opened the door and started toward the rear of the group (who had just finished off the other two foes). They then teleported into the main chamber, used their Righteous Might ability to grow... and became a real threat. (They also managed to summon one additional Andrazkuz.)
That said, the fight was going well for the group until Shortie managed to badly hurt one of the Andrazkus with Smite Evil. The majority of the demons turned on Shortie and brought them down to -2 hit points, and the GMPC Hunter to 5 hp. The group was talking about a possible Total Party Wipe until one of their Oracles badly hurt the demons with a Healing Flames spell while simultaneously bringing the Paladin and Hunter to double-digit hit points.
While there was no "true" death, I'm counting it as the group was seriously thinking they were going to go down. And honestly, I have no idea how the group will prevail against Kirisjana, to the point I've a new GMPC planned to help out - a heal-bot cleric with a vow against killing who could cure their blindness, as I can foresee most of them failing a DC 21 save vs. Blinding Beauty... and no one has any spells to cure blindness. (In this situation the Hunter will die against the debased nymph.)