Help Me Kill My Party!!


Advice


I'm planning on screwing with my players somewhat, thought a thread on it could be fun :)

IF YOU'RE CURRENTLY PLAYING IN AN IPSWICH (QLD) GAME SHOP RP READ NO FURTHER. Spoilers, darling.

Show RP spoilers:
Now, for the evil plan...

The players have been pretty complacent in terms of combat strategy, so the plan is to give them a kick in the pants by playing through a premonition of their own deaths. Not that they'll know that's what's happening at the time... The idea is that by the time they figure out the mystery and get to the real version of the fight, they'll feel like there really are high stakes involved in how they do (and they'll have a chance to do things differently from how they fight the first time).

Since our campaign plays a bit fast and loose with the bestiary, their opponents are a party of mercenaries composed of shapeshifting monsters and the like. This is so I can keep a bit of mystery (they'll meet these guys almost as soon as they're back in the true timeline, but in their human-looking forms). I'm planning on including a Pale Stranger (gunslinger), a Blood Hag (spellcaster), a Fetchling (ninja), a Wereboar (barbarian), a Weretiger (ranger), a Suli (?), and two Jackalweres (fighters). All are evil AF.

My players are all level six, all pretty min-maxed. There could be anywhere between 5 and 14 of them at the table, depending on who shows up, which is tricky, so I suppose I will ditch a couple of the merc characters if the party is too small to handle that many in the final fight.

The initial fight is a well-oiled ambush by the mercs (forest at dusk). I don't want to pull any punches, and everybody should be dead within a couple of rounds - but preferably nobody dead without getting to act at all! It should be short and bloody. (Mostly so I'm 'resurrecting' them again before they've had time to get over their shock and start b~%#%ing...)

Any tactics I should absolutely use? What level do you think is appropriate for the NPCs? (I like to have rough character sheets at hand.) Aware of any builds or NPC sheets out there for this?

Have you ever faked a TPK? How did it go?

Also looking for music recs if anyone has any!


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I tried that once, not a good idea. Never us faked TPK. I gave them chances to stop attacking so it didn't go completely ruined. But if you are going to TPK, give them chances to avoid it. Because when their choices doesn't matter, that is not a game.


They face a necromancer who absolutely picks them apart with ability score drains and a non-stop wave after wave after wave of undead minions. They die the most excruciating death, exhausting every single resource and connivery to survive possible. Make it an obvious "last stand" attempt in every possible capacity, the players should "know" they're screwed from the exact second they enter the scenario. After you TPK them with a bunch of trash mobs and their minuscule + to hit, and a necromancer who raises the dead party members to attack the survivors, the equation is complete. After the entire TPK, and after the party has exhausted every absolute thing to survive....

....the party awakes from a nightmare that they all shared.


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Once every decade is the most this kind of a thing should happen.

Instead, since tactical awareness is the desired objective, what's the group's average character level? I'd go all Tucker's Kobolds on 'em.


About the idea overall:

:

DoubleBubble, the whole point of the TPK playthrough is that it IS a chance to avoid it. It's a brief experience at the start of the adventure that is full of clues and warnings for later choices. They then have extra information to figure out what they will do in the real timeline, and there are many ways to alter or even avoid this fight irl.

I'm happy to let a couple of players go at the beginning if they fight well, tbh. "Almost everybody dies, only X character is left standing" is still a disastrous outcome worthy of being given a premonition to avoid. I can then just have them black out and wake up with everybody else to return to the real timeline.

I suppose this also addresses The Mad Comrade's point about foreshadowing - since it's not the real deal, this IS the foreshadowing.

My players are currently a little inflated on "we are the chosen ones of the universe" stuff from the meta-storyline (which I think is also contributing to lazy strategy), so I'm hoping they won't reeally believe they're dead, or won't for long, before they're back.

Is this a good idea overall? I don't really know... we usually run looong sessions though, so hopefully enough time to forgive me... :P

(There will also be hints something seriously weird is up when the time-shift happens - hopefully this will also limit whole-hearted belief?)

About the NPC design/strategy:

:

Options 1 and 3 mentioned sound very viable! 1 is more like I was originally imagining, but I hadn't considered mounts and that could be a good way to make the NPCs assailable in different circumstances (rather than being too boss and difficult to take out at all) - that initial round of damage can't happen in a second encounter if the mercs aren't able to mount. The appearing out of thin air would also feel more deliberately unfair, probably lessening the suspension of disbelief a bit?

Unfortunately an attack while asleep (option 2) wouldn't fit with the more general story going on here, but I will certainly make note of that setup - I'm sure I can work it in! (For an adventure where they are supposed to survive - I won't be able to pull this malarkey more than once :P )

Getting players to play the antagonists could be a good idea, but I'm hoping the fight won't last long enough for anyone to be sitting on their thumbs for more than a round or two. (Moving on before it really sinks in seems to me to be the best strategy for stopping people actually getting upset about it.) I could keep those cards up my sleeve though...

Brb, off to check out the music recs... :)


Nooo the post with the scenarios and music recs is gone D:


Haha Ryze Kuja I'd consider it for a real impossible last stand in another campaign of that flavour, but "you wake up and it was all a dream" after ALL OF THAT?? Noooo xD


Yeah no I would never repeat this as an adventure plan!

:
It's a one-time timey-wimey session to introduce a mysterious meta-story entity with time-altering powers. If I ever used it again, the players would recognise the signals of the time-shift anyway, so no one could think it was for real. But it would be repetitive and lack investment anyway. And I can't think of another campaign I might run in which it would work.


just be careful you be alienating you players by doing something like this some people just want to show up hang out and rp and when combat comes around just slug it out until its done and they can get back to hanging out and rping and forcing them to try and be tactical geniuses for combat in order to survive may push them away.


In case you can't be sure of how the players will take getting sandbagged, here's an alternate strategy that leads up to the same thing:

Spoiler:
They start having recurring nightmares of snippets of the TPK scenario. After a few nights, as the snippets grow bit by bit, they begin to allow bits of player action, which grow as the nights go by, with party members starting to be able to see each other and then even interact with each other in the increasingly long and more vivid snippets. But the nightmares, while recurring, do not recur exactly the same way, almost as if whatever is giving them nightmares is adapting to their attempts to escape from the nightmares. Give plenty of clues that someone or something has it in for them, but not exactly who or where, as traumas from the nightmares gradually begin to eat into their daily functioning and resources . . . .


This sounds like a horrible idea.


Lady-J they're already in a very emotion-heavy and plot-complex campaign, although the mood does get mixed up quite often. There are plenty of other RPs at the shop that are less intense :)


Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:
This sounds like a horrible idea.

i agree forcing tactics on the party never ends well

Silver Crusade

The idea can be good or bad, that is irrelevant.
The execution is what is important, if you do it well, you will have an interesting atmosphere, on the contrary, you will have lost session time.

Since this is a "cut-scene" because it wont be real, i advise to go full "fake rolls" on this one. Just throw the dice and make up the number, that way you can control how the combat will go from the POV of your monsters.

Let them kill some of the monster so they dont realize the truth, or if you want them to suspect throw something weird like "im sure it hits but it does not make any damage" kinda of stuff.

I would suggest that after the party has used all of their resources and are either half dead, or almost TPK, throw something big, a big explosion, the arrival of a demons which kills everyone on their first turn, your personal BBEG doing something evilly awesome. Then they wake up.

Regards.-


Not everything has to tie into the primary meta-plot.

Forest ambush in dim light, soundtrack recommend Bodies.

Mounted charge-fest plus mop up, soundtrack recommend either Balls to the Wall or better You've Got Another Thing Coming. Where this gets brutal is when they not only have Spirited Charge and Ride-by Attack, but a combination of lighting conditions and/or say, light fog, that they can appear out of, skewer someone and disappear into on the other end of their charge lane... This is best done with riders that can see through the aforementioned source(s) of concealment.

Choking smoke-death / mowed down in a hail of bullets and arrows as they exit over different rounds "scene vibe" is from near the end of A Fistful of Dollars. Music recommend is any number of pieces by Ennio Morricone. Such as this piece from the Hateful Eight.

You want to really scare 'em good, at least for players in the know, when the 'gunslinger' makes its presence known, I'd go with this quiet piece as the 'slinger holds its pocket watch in one hand. This version is longer and should work better.

Fair warning though, were I a player that heard that last piece of music queued up for a villain, I'd expect serious badassery. A few recent films have made excellent use of several of the spaghetti Western musical pieces to excellent effect.


I think some people are over-estimating how hard my players will take this and how much choice it takes away from them.

A few rounds scripted at the beginning of an hours-long adventure (usually 6-8 hours) doesn't feel like a GM puppet show to me. (It can be pretty necessary if 14 people show up because they never agree among themselves what to do...) And pretty much anything other than the exact original scenario will have them succeed. (There can be no fight, a fight somewhere else, a fight that splits the opposing party, a fight in which they have more allies, etc. etc., and the sheer fact they have the information given in the opening sequence should be enough to change the outcome of even a very similar encounter.) Mostly it's to make them take it seriously (even though it's not a battle with a god...), so if that happens I'm happy.

It's also been an emotional see-saw of a campaign; intense drama is the name of the game. I could be wrong about the impact, true, but I'd rather work through the idea and then decide whether to run with it. If it's not your thing, that's fine... We all have our different ways that we like our RP :)

ANYWAY...

MuertoXSky, I was wondering is the exploding fireball-thing ability that blood hags have (I forget the exact name) would do the trick for that cherry-topper multi-character damage? If they were already whittled down on hit points and, say, unable to make a Reflex save due to injury, that could make an effective close?

I was also considering saving the Fetchling to sneak-attack anyone who thinks they might have survived...

And for sure, they can kill a bunch of the opponents if they land damage :) It just wouldn't be enough...


Yayy music links :) I do actually recognise some of those, nice choices!


Hmm. "A blood hag in fiery form can explode in a 30-foot-radius burst that deals 8d6 points of fire damage (Reflex DC 18 for half). Using this ability returns a blood hag to her normal form. The save DC is Constitution-based."

A potential 48 damage EACH is not to be sniffed at. And I can go with "she's more powerful than most" if I have to, that's allowed in this campaign. Not sure what that last line means though?


The campaign is going well, emotions run high and the game is intense, you're enjoying your fights and your tactics are working, you feel like bad-asses. Well let me just show you how wrong you are!

You're not bad-assess at all, I could have killed you in 2 rounds with ease, but worry not, I showed you'd your opponents chances to give you a hope of victory. For I am a merciful god. I hope you learned your lesson! I'm the one with all the power and if you don't take these fights more seriously I can kill you all.


Well, if that's how it's going to come across in your campaign, obviously don't do it...

In this campaign, the PCs are supposed to feel very threatened, working against all odds, on a knife edge of failure, often actually failing at things (although no one has died yet). That was getting great feedback. But it's been a while since anyone actually felt in danger of things going significantly sideways. I think this might help add some intensity and sense of danger back.

The fact that the GM could kill anyone if they wanted is just... so beyond obvious why would anyone make a point out of it?

Horses for courses.


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That's how it has come across when people have done it in campaigns I was in.

I've literally never heard of this sort of thing going well.


Hey, I like the idea of a mock-fight for the real fight. The deal-maker here is having some very clear, telegraphed abilities/moments that they can recognise the second time through and act to avoid them.

Ryze Kuja gave a necromancer example further up that uses negative levels. Since they are completely done in by this, they can afterwards go buy protection from death effects/negative energy scrolls and have them handy. Then, when they recognise what's going on "hey..doesnt this remind you of the tunels in our vision?" "Get the scrolls out".

Another option is to have a fragile but deadly threat in the first run through which will put the hurt on them. Say, someone with a scroll or siege weapon higher up that throws a devastating effect at them.
Imagine someone with a bomb, that lights it and is just waiting the opportunity to throw it...first time around, he does throw it and the explosion causes havoc. Second time around..."I remember, that's where that bomb came from - I ready an action to shoot whoever appears there" with a True Strike or you give them a big bonus for being ready. Then, they shoot the guy with the bomb, which falls to his feet or down to the hordes of undead, explosion on them instead of the party.

In these examples you are rewarding counter-measures which are very clear. The players will feel rewarded they avoided what they know is a catastrophic outcome and have an effect on the battle turning the tides.

Make sure it's just not "play better, max those + to damages!" because this is not interesting from a narrative point of view.


Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:

The campaign is going well, emotions run high and the game is intense, you're enjoying your fights and your tactics are working, you feel like bad-asses. Well let me just show you how wrong you are!

You're not bad-assess at all, I could have killed you in 2 rounds with ease, but worry not, I showed you'd your opponents chances to give you a hope of victory. For I am a merciful god. I hope you learned your lesson! I'm the one with all the power and if you don't take these fights more seriously I can kill you all.

Yeah exactly what to avoid. If you do it through a clever mechanic / narrative sequence it feels less cheap than "He's just 20 times more powerful than you guys mua ha ha HA". Something that with a little previous knowledge can be avoided and countered.

EDIT:

I believe it is extremely important that your players KNOW that the first time around is NOT REAL. Otherwise, it'll feel cheap. "It was all a dream" has to be one of the most overused, overrated, cheaper, low shot, lazy narrative tools since people tell stories.
Have a seance with mystical see-the-future incense that transports you there...whatever. For example the Dragon Ball (wow this is an oldie) time machine that they go into to face the incoming Vegeta & co enemies..they go in there, get trounced...and after a while they've trained and learnt what to do/not do. For RPG purposes...once is more than enough, montages are difficult to do at the table.


Yep, I would definitely like something like that in the fight itself. The current easiest "to avoid" is pretty much "don't go into the woods alone to face these antagonists on their terms," since there are many ways to confront them elsewhere or in different circumstances. But beyond that...

I liked an idea posted earlier to have an initial mounted charge-through attack out of fog; the antagonists then dismount to come back and finish the job. Anti-horse, anti-fog items...

Also I'm trying to think if there is a spell that would let the blood hag drain at distance from bleeding wounds? Then taking her out early would help ANYONE who later took bleed damage. I like the flavour of that, can't think if there's a mechanic for it.

Something to disable or trap the gunslinger and the ninja, since they're now aware of their class (more or less)

"The players will feel rewarded they avoided what they know is a catastrophic outcome and have an effect on the battle turning the tides." - this is definitely what I am going for.


I still like the idea of it being in doubt whether it's real or not, purely for shock value, but I might make it more obvious there's something strange going on.

Perhaps an NPC time-loop right before? There's a character with them that disappears at the time-shift begins, since they wouldn't be there in the time they've moved to. But that NPC could remain visible, partially see-through, stuck repeating their last sentence on loop. Maybe even addressing partially visible versions of themselves?

Maybe when they start taking damage they somehow step out of their bodies and are watching a fading version of themselves and their attacker complete the combat? I suppose that could be interpreted as a post-death out-of-body but something in that vein.

I think I might get away with "it was a dream" because why and how they received it is also a mystery to be solved. Something did that to them... and I don't mean me! It also reveals something of that creature's timey-wimey powers...

And yes, I was asking for antagonist advice because I want the party to be able to take these mercenaries, even if they are outmatched due to circumstance in the scenario the premonition helps them avoid. It's a bit of a balancing act in the rough opponent stat design. Obviously I can fudge it if need be, but the less the better.


New idea: At any point after the time-shift, a Will save (I can offer a bunch until one comes through) of a moderate DC allows the player to see the frozen image of their party still alive and well in the time they shifted from. The active version of the player will certainly get killed before they can do anything to get back, but...

I can then take aside players immediately as they "die" and put them in a group that is now back in the real timeline. So, nobody actually thinks their character has died for more than about 30 seconds. And not-yet-dead PCs are probably more curious than annoyed?

Attempting to interact with still 'shifted' characters once back can have them appear a bit like a hologram, not fully in one time or the other.

I like this better than a seance, where it is too obvious (given what else I had planned) what is going on. The "how this experience was possible" was part of the mystery I had planned to unravel later in the adventure/campaign.

On the other hand... This is quite possibly too complicated. That was something the original "yeah they can think they're dead for a round or two" - or a seance-style setup - avoids nicely. Still, something in this direction might be an improvement.


Remember the Matrix's 'deja-vu' cues for when the Agents showed up?


...I should absolutely be watching the Matrix movies again to plan this, yes :D (Like I need an excuse...)


If you are planning on trying to do this to teach the PCs you need to make it completely and insanely obvious. This like a cartoon super hero team shouting attack pattern ALPHA and doing X then Y then Z to make their team more effective. So for each tactic you are trying to instill make the bad guys use them vs. the PCs and announce them with super villain style over the top commentary. For example if you are trying to get your players to target the spell caster 1st because they are the biggest danger the have the super villain dream sequence have someone point out their cleric or wizard and bellow orders to take out the caster, then the martial leader scream focus fire and a stream of attacks go right to the caster. But be clear that it is the tactics and the teamwork that is making them super dangerous. Maybe even make out of character statements like wow that worked even better than I thought. These guys are your power level but the tactics are really taking it out of you. Again if you aren't crazy blatant expect some people to miss the lesson. I also suggest a letter or something you hand to someone who is out of the fight with something like please stay quiet, sit still and you are not dead. Afterward are you going to explain where the warning came from? Is it a divine character's god trying to warn them? Something like your cleric's face spreads wide in a smile and looks totally at peace as a voice not their own issues from their mouth and says something like take this knowledge and make it your strength, your lives are at stake. I hope this helps. I would love to hear how it turned out.


I think you've got a very clever bit of storytelling, mindscrewy timey-wimery stuff going here, but because of the nature of tabletop games it's gonna be hard to pull it off right.

The key is for the players to only think 'oh crap, we just got butchered' for a few minutes of realtime, just enough to feel shocked but not enough to start getting pissed off, before you have them 'wake up' alive and well ...prior to the fatal battle.

But don't just do 'it was a dream' straight.

1. Have there be some foreshadowing before the prologue fight, as they're running in have them catch a brief staticky glimpse of the mystery creature doing the timescrewy, or have a time skip glitch, or both.

2. If it looks like the fight's dragging on or the players are getting upset, end the fight with the hag's super-attack going off, fire everywhere, more time-scritchery, BOOM everyone blacks out.

3. Don't have them 'wake up' in a normal place. Especially not their beds. Have them either snap out of it while they're in the middle of some other mundane task or have them wake up somewhere they shouldn't be, like someone else's house, or a ditch beside a road outside the village, or on the roof of the tavern. Something that makes them go 'wtf just happened'.

4. Keep throwing those little glitches and time-spacks through the ensuing day, little hints building up as you drop the clues.

Dark Archive

Maybe you can make a handout card for PCs that die earlier in the combat to keep them from getting really upset while still maintaining the ambience for those in the fight. Especially since you may have 14 PCs x 3 rounds.

"Your Character find themselves suspended in a limbo world. A Purple haze spreads into the horizon masking multiple darkened shapes that appear to be coming closer. The shapes appear to be whispering one phrase over and over again... '<insert vague or cryptic clue about upcoming fight, clues should be unique to require PCs to combine their clues'.

[All time has stopped for you and your character. You find yourself unable to show this card or speak of where you are to anyone else at the table until you have heard the knelling of death's bells once more]"

Have some kind of ominous church bell ring once everyone has died and gotten their cards to Segway into a deity providing them further warning or them all waking up drenched in sweat.

I think its a cool mechanic. You could also use the bell before combat, pretending it was the ambusher's signalling system. But instead they realize it is as an indicator of start/stops of these shared premonitions. Maybe salt a few more short premonitions throughout the day (e.g., picture of one of the PCs falling into a rock fall trap, etc.) just so they get used to the mechanic.


simple BFR. big freaking rocks.


zainale wrote:
simple BFR. big freaking rocks.

drop them from high enough. they will be falling fast enough to cause large amounts of damage.


More food for thought, thanks :D

I probably misphrased the whole "tactics" thing... I don't have anything specific to teach, just more... Don't be half-assed and assume I will save you just because you're a PC and there is more story to play :P The tension and investment goes wayyy down when that is the assumption.

Using handouts to indicate to "dead" players what is going on might be a good idea! Rather than taking them aside as it happens and breaking up the fight, just give them the next bit to read. There are RP opportunities for those that get back first... but I will definitely make some to keep up my sleeve just in case splitting the party isn't looking like it will work in practice. Might add a "let me know if you make a will save or perception check over X number" so I can come back to an RP opportunity and don't have to attend to them immediately...


Open with a web spell. That will hopefully entangle a few PCs and even if it doesn't it will cause difficult terrain modifiers and keep them grouped up. More importantly, it will keep them from seeing clearly. Beyond 20 feet, there will be total cover (and while that says cover not concealment, it's logical to assume the web is too thick to see through at that point) but even at 5 to 20 feet that's cover which will hinder any gunslingers or other ranged attacks. Most importantly though, it will keep you from having to describe what they can see (assuming at least 20 feet of web is between them.) This is far more important to causing them uncertainty. They won't know where to go, what they're facing, or how to deal with it. They will be able to see each other likely, know who's entangled or needs help, so they'll still be able to act, but their actions won't be focused on your antagonists.

Obviously attacks against them will be harder, since your own Pale Stranger gunslinger won't be able to hit them, except for the ones that slip out of the web. Using attacks that don't need targeting are good here. Follow up with an aqueous orb that rolls into the web. It won't hurt the web and it will deal nonlethal damage, which is good for getting PCs hurt and if they drop then that's still as scary as actual damage but it also means if they take actual damage they are closer to being knocked out as well. Plus, if you park the orb on top of them, the gunslinger will be unable to fire his weapon and, even if he somehow can (Dry Load ammunition) or gets out of the orb, firing through it causes a -2 for each 5 feet of water (assuming he can see a target through the web.)

Otherwise, a create pit underneath them at that point will also keep them from getting a full view of their surroundings and attackers, though anyone engulfed in the aqueous orb or entangled in the web spell probably won't fall in unless they break free or burn it away (which they can't do in an aqueous orb.)

I'd recommend switching out one of your lycanthropes or jackalweres for an evil or corrupted treant. Do you really need 4 of those things? The treant will be able to animate trees, which will be basically like two huge attackers that it doesn't matter if the PCs kill, plus they will have the treant's improved sunder and double damage to objects, you can have them wade into the parties weapons and magical items even if the treant itself never reveals itself directly. Since this isn't intended to be a complete party screw and only a cutscene and prophecy of sorts, this is a fair use and a good demonstration of tactical maneuvers like disarms, sunders, and tramples. Plus the trees can knock foes into any create pits with little fear if falling in themselves because of their size (not that they have any fears, even to fire which they will be vulnerable to, but that's what the aqueous orb is for.

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