Last week I ran Godsmouth Heresy and ended up with a TPK during the encounter with the Necrophidius. I've killed characters before, and chickened out of a TPK once before, but this one isn't quite sitting right for me. (The group isn't a bunch of randos, they were crafted as a PFS adventuring party with all the experience from level one through the end of eighteen accounted for.)
Anyway, the Necrophidius in the mod has slightly different stats from the one in the bestiary, but I ran as written.
He had his surprise round and won initiative. PCs failed their perception checks. After dancing and dazing, the snake took a little damage from the only person with a bludgeoning weapon but proceeded to fell him. This daze, bite a couple times, and daze again tactic went on until the whole party was unconscious. As that point, we (players and GM) declared a TPK.
As I was reflecting on the encounter and tactics (and remembering how some GMs will go through extraordinary means to avoid a TPK) I wonder if I did something wrong.
Since I'll be playing a few scenarios during our PFS AP, I let my character "step in" and soak up a few hits while he tried to force a potion into the fighter.
Most specifically, with "extraordinary means," the Necrophidius shouldn't dwell on unconscious characters, meaning that he'd move on to the next person until all people are down. At that point, he crawls back down the hole? Should I have allowed for the stabilization checks an hour later, hoping that one would wake up and possibly save the encounter? If the encounter had gone that route, would the Necrophidius have returned to finish everyone off again? I guess what I'm saying is, did I fail at tactics here or is this a particularly deadly encounter in a tier one-two mod?