My group has followed everything perfectly and activated the tide stones entering the Temple of Blood at level 4. They even were able to convince Ekubus to help them in the first room of the temple. (He left after the fight with the skeletons, being injured and not wanting to leave his ship without a captain.) Our rogue found the trap door to the Soulbound Dolls room and they cleaned them out just fine. They spent some time resting in the priest cells before making thier way across the walkway and falling into thier first pit trap. After pulling their one party member who fell out they tried to jump across, they all rolled poorly and fell in, excpet for the cleric who was safely on the otherside. . . . when the gibbering mouther showed up. They actually managed to kill the mouther without losing anyone and healed themselves up pretty well before making thier way to the trapped room. The rogue now going first was the only one to get trapped in the flensing room. After the trap reset the sorcerer who had detect magic on came in and saw the switches just as the axe blade was coming out again.
This is my first time GMing and even though they were obviously in a very dangerous temple my lovely group (for half of whom this is their first dice game) opened up the doors to the catherderal room and antaginized Yarzoth who pretty promptly kicked thier butts. Our rogue is completly dead, (thank heavens for that scroll they found in the treasure pit) and when they attempted to flee forgot about the trap they jumped over and opened up a the pit trap just outside the flensing room. So now our ranger who is strong enough to drag the rogue can't get him over the thirty foot pit. Not to mention that Yarzoth managed to enthrall him just as he was getting out the door. which brings me finnaly to my question.
Do you think I should let Yarzoth kill off the party and have my players roll up new people on the mainland only to be sent back to the shiv to uncover the last of what they needed or is there anything that you can think of that Yarzoth would let them bargian for thier lives with? Obviously she would be pretty contemptous with the group who's killed her skeleton buddies and has her at about 40 HP. I was thinking about having her bring them all to below 0 HP but not kill them and use the rules for stabilizing yourself to see how many make it. Any advice for a first time gm who has what looks like is going to be a TPK on his hands? For clarification it was really late and we had to stop in the middle of the fight. I also just got off the phone with one of my players and I guess he still has about half his HP. So I would give them maybe a 40% chance to defeat her, or at least get her to the 30 HP to cause her to flee. Maybe once she flees they just don't have to give chase? Ahh thoughts please?
