Had our first death last session. Our druid was killed by Aushanna. One of our casters did an Obscuring Mist, and everybody else was able to hide in there, leaving the poor guy as target number 1.
This player doesn't like using raise dead spells or the like, so he's rerolling a new character. I'm trying to figure out if it's possible ton introduce a new character here in the middle of the temple, or if he'll have to wait until they get back upstairs.
There are a couple of prisoners in the Temple already, a new PC could be added to the list of the imprisoned.
Failing that, they could be in the Temple on a mission to kill Dhorlot or rescue Zenith Splintershield. Hell, they could even be the last member of a previous adventuring group that were decimated in the Underdark and who just happened across the Temple.
Had our first death last session. Our druid was killed by Aushanna. One of our casters did an Obscuring Mist, and everybody else was able to hide in there, leaving the poor guy as target number 1.
This player doesn't like using raise dead spells or the like, so he's rerolling a new character. I'm trying to figure out if it's possible ton introduce a new character here in the middle of the temple, or if he'll have to wait until they get back upstairs.
Well we added the new character in just fine. He chose to play a dwarf, and actually is playing a Splintershield. We had him going down to investigate what has become of his lost kin. It's all tied into a great crime his clan did a generation ago that we created. It's a ctually pretty cool.
Unfortunately 3 rooms later somebody else died. I'm actually a bit bummed, and had I to do it over again I might have fudged it a bit. Our rogue entered the room with the Assassin on the roof, and was searching for traps when the Assassin dropped down and took him out with a death strike. Rolling a 3 on his save, he had no chance. It brought the session to a screeching hault, and the characters decided after 2 deaths to high tail it back to Cauldron to Regroup.
They will at least go back in. They want to find Zenith. I also had them independantly make a deal with a Gauth they met on the way down. He offered them a magical item to take out the dragon, as it was causing a shift in the local balance of power that he found problematic.
It sounds like the new character will be an Artificer. So my party will be
Elven Duskblade
Gnome Artificer
Dwarven Cleric
Dwarven Fighter/Barbarian/Pious Templar
Tiefling Rogue/Assassin (with special dispensation to be neutral not evil)
Halfling Sorc/Fighter/Abjurant Champion
We've lost a druid and a rogue/Thief Acrobat
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Three death in Life's Bazaar
One in Drakthar's Way
Just finished Flood season with no loses. I think the group has found a balance that works, and I can start developing the characters.
Human Rogue 6th Scarred Soul. has no idea what he is in for.
Dwarf Fighter 6th
Human Sorcerer 6th, using a Monte Cook style Sorcerer class. Touched in the Head, lots of fun we'll see how he handles the influence of Adimarchus
Gnome Illusionist 6th Nobility, playing it to the hilt
Human Scout4/Fighter2 Wyrm Blooded, planing on having Dhorlot recognize him.
Assimar Paladin4/Favoured Soul2 Relative of Nidrama, should involve her more with the group.
Triel killed our monk with a critical hit.
The wizard was killed with a cone of cold in the ruins of Karan Kural.
The spellthief was killed with a cone of cold in the ruins of Karan Kural.
The healer cohort was killed with a cone of cold in the ruins of Karan Kural.
The barbarian died when he chose to dive into the portal of fire in Occipitus.
The healer cohort died when she chose to dive into the portal of fire in Occipitus.
The favored soul died when she chose to dive into the portal of fire in Occipitus.
The monk died when she chose to dive into the portal of fire in Occipitus.
The spellthief died when she was pushed into the portal of fire in Occipitus.
(That was a fun session, heh.)
The scout was killed when a certain undead dragon paralyzed him, carried his body away and bit his head off.
A couple of those deaths were reversed by revivify, but I still consider them “kills” none the less.
3 so far:
Make that 5:
4. The invisible stalker hovered above the archer, who insisted on taking AoOs while he shot. When the stalker finally got a round of attacks it was, "Hello, minus 11."
5. The fighter/rogue mentioned in my previous post survived his mummy rot problem quite nicely, thank you very much. But Zenith's waraxe bit home deeply on a crit for 42 points of damage. The problem? Only 16 hit points left. *snick*
The good news is that they seem to have taken the deaths very well. :-)
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Three deaths in Life's Bazaar
One in Drakthar's Way
No loses in Flood Season. I think the group has found a balance that works, and I can start developing the characters.
Human Rogue 6th Scarred Soul. has no idea what he is in for.
Dwarf Fighter 6th
Human Sorcerer 6th, using a Monte Cook style Sorcerer class. Touched in the Head, lots of fun we'll see how he handles the influence of Adimarchus
Gnome Illusionist 6th Nobility, playing it to the hilt
Human Scout4/Fighter2 Wyrm Blooded, planing on having Dhorlot recognize him.
Assimar Paladin4/Favoured Soul2 Relative of Nidrama, should involve her more with the group.
Almost finished with Zenith Trajectory and of course:
Dwarf Fighter got separated in the main battle and stumbled into Dhorlot, dead dwarf.
Human Rogue got shredded by Mangh Micho's pincer staff as he tried to hold the front line in the dwarf's stead.
Here is a quick update to the last ten deaths...
I also forgot to mention that the wizard was killed by a demon that attacked the party's temple.
Then the Favored Soul failed an assassin’s Death Strike in the middle of a crowded city street.
Then the wizard was recently assassinated by a close friend.
Then the barbarian was held and killed with a coup de gra.
So that means that each PC IMC has died at least once:
Monk (died twice)
Spellthief (died twice)
Wizard (died three times)
Barbarian (died twice)
Favored Soul (died twice)
Scout (died once)
Healer Cohort (died twice)
Seeing as we're in the middle of Lords of Oblivion I don't think this is the end of the death counts...
The party I am running through SCAP now are the same 3 players that started the campaign over a year ago. They are currently level 12.
Seven character deaths, out of that one was a TPK.
Our first death happened at the end of Chapter One while fighting the dwarf/troll BBEG. The character was a human rogue.
Second death occured in Flood Season while fighting Skaven Umbermead. A goliath barbarian fell prey to the phantasmal killer spell.
Third, fourth, fifth and sixth deaths occured on the occaision of a TPK in the Kuo Toan temple while fighting the Erinyes guardian. The first character to go down was the partys only original member, a half-fire elf (UA variant race) fire domain (UA variant class) sorcerer. The second two to go down were one players character and his cohort, both were followers of St Cuthbert, one a Paladin and the cohort was Cleric if I remember correctly and the last was a dragonborn favored soul / warlock.
The seventh death happened during the quest to find Alec. A duskblade fell to two hill giants.
I think that has been it.
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Three deaths in Life's Bazaar.
One in Drakthar's Way.
No loses in Flood Season.
One in Zenith Trajectory,one false alarm, rogue went negative but miscalculted total hit points and was actually able to stablize, and lost one character to "group tension" too chaotic exposed the group to too much danger the player is making a Lawful PC to control his own urges.
Human Rogue 8th Scarred Soul. has no idea what he is in for.
Dwarf Fighter 6th DEAD ate by dragon.
Dwarf Barbarian 7th
Human Sorcerer/Mindbender 6th/2nd, using a Monte Cook style Sorcerer class. Touched in the Head, lots of fun we'll see how he handles the influence of Adimarchus
Gnome Illusionist 6th Nobility, playing it to the hilt RETIRED
Human Scout6/Fighter2 Wyrm Blooded
Assimar Paladin4/Favoured Soul2/Shadowstriker Relative of Nidrama, should involve her more with the group.
I have another death to report, bringing the total in my campaign to just 2. It may not seem like much, but after all, we still haven't finished Life's Bazaar. :)
Anyway, the party had burgeoned to 7 PC's, plus Fario and Fellian, after their first foray into the Malachite Fortress nearly ended in disaster and the Striders had to come to the rescue. The second foray started smoothly, with the small company swiftly dispatching the few guards left and a couple of goblins on the way to the slave bazaar.
When they opened the door to the bazaar, the PCs started hostilities before Kazmojen had a chance to speak, so the battle was on! Thorn, an elven ranger with Favored Enemy: Evil Outsider, was overjoyed that his choice of favored enemy would come into play yet again (after the lemures). He moved into position in the bazaar, and was charged by Prickles. In return, Thorn unleashed a mighty critical blow to Prickles, nearly ending its life. Prickles returned the favor, however, and after 4d6+8 damage, the ranger fell to the ground sans face - dead.
We had to leave off tonight after Orbius made his appearance, but Kazmojen and the party are eager to resume hostilities, so next session may find me here yet again!
So far (close to the end of Zenith Trajectory), I have had four PCs and one cohort retire (3 players left and 1 changed characters), and six PCs and 2 cohorts slain.
Their details can be found here:
First death in our AP happened last night. Our half-orc monk/cleric charged Triel and her guards (my party is not subtle, and the Kopru Ruins are on high alert), and they all had readied actions. They pulped him down to about 3 hit points. The wizard webbed the room trying to slow everyone down, and caught everyone except Triel. She power attacked the half-orc with two hits, and pretty much cut him in half.
RIP, Caliban.
Compared to a lot of these grisly lists, I think I've been pretty gentle to my party:
Flood Season: 1 death (Tongueater; when this character was raised, I held back his tongue until he was able to collect enough cash for a regeneration spell)
Zenith Trajectory: 3 deaths (Bhal-Hamatugn seemed wildly over-powered, even after I added two Palmstrider NPCs. This may have been due to PC recklessness, but I don't think the game designers really excpected all the creatures (including Dhorlot) to cooperate)
Smoking Eye: 2 deaths (including 1 sacrifice at the end -- I eliminated Kaurophon entirely, trusting that one of my PCs would take the dramatic exit)
Soul Pillars: 2 deaths, so far (1 in the cathedral, 1 vs. the Ice Devil -- haven't got to Vittriss yet, so that should be fun)
More carnage now at the start of Soul Pillars. Previously I've had:
2 deaths in Demonskar
3 deaths in Smoking Eye
1 stoning
We got through my homemade Siege of Redgorge with no fatalities (other than most of the Chisel) and this session the assassins attacked while the party was discussing their next move in the Red Miner's Inn. I had Shensen, Fario, and Fellian all there too. Fario is now my bard's cohort, Shensen is taking over the Red Miner's Inn after the death of Mikimax, and Fellian was due to report back to Meerthan in Cauldron but hadn't left yet.
My group has two newer guys, one who's been playing the monk and kind of annoying everyone because he plays the monk stupid. He jumps into battle first and is the object of attack instead of waiting for the tank to get there, then flanking and tripping or whatever. Basically he usually gets one attack in, either goes unconscious or dies, then b$%!%es about how little magic/feats/powers/armor/etc. his character has which is the reason he's always dying.
The other new guy has never played D&D before and chose to play a druid. Starting your first session with a 10th level druid with pages and pages of spells and special abilities is rather daunting. He's constantly paging through his sheets looking for the thing to do on his go, then finally casting an annoying spell (entangle) that's too low level to do much of anything to the bad guys, or refocusing because everyone's waiting on him.
So the assassins kick in the door, the monk finally gets his go. He jumps over to the fighter/rogue and hits him for 11 damage. The next go, the fighter/rogue gets his full attack + haste with his greatsword, does 76 points of damage to the monk, and the monk is dead.
The assassins were told to focus first on divine spellcasters, so the druid and Shensen are the targets. Shensen goes down but doesn't die after unholy blight + cone of cold, but the druid has the misfortune to move near the fighter/rogue. Full attack again and one dead druid.
So the party is strapped for cash after basically spending everything in a shopping spree in Sasserine (it was the first free week they had since the tax riot). In order to raise these guys they're basically bankrupting the party and maybe have to sell some decent stuff at a loss.
Both new guys decide to roll new characters. The monk becomes a cleric of St. Cuthbert who was so moved by the recounting of the party's exploits that he joins them, and the druid becomes a barbarian follower of Kord, who has come to Cauldron because of a dream after the priests of Kord pray for aid against the gathering darkness in Cauldron.
We did a bunch of investigating in the city, and the party ended up at the cathedral of Wee Jas. It ran like a well oiled machine. The new cleric of St. Cuthbert has lots of magical choices to make, and the new barbarian has a sonic waraxe, so basically his go always sounds like this:
"KORD!"
whack
BOOM!!!
The new guys both love their new characters.
Best two deaths ever for the party.
Never enough :P
Two years after completing the campaign fully, I have started playing with a new group, so I thought it was the perfect time to pull out this classic.
So far, they have just entered the Kopru Ruins of Flood Season, and explored a little bit. Character Deaths as Follows:
Very first death of the campaign was to poor Damien, who opened up the trap-door in the theater and was strangled to death by the Choker.
Next one did not happen until they got all the way to Kazmojen, where Prickles decided that he wanted to bite off the head of one Mauton Oronar.
Mauton was later saved, and raised.
Next, the party decided that they would like to go back to the Malachite hold in order to loot / find Mauton's body. In the process, Tobias got stabbed through the chest by a hobgoblin. Died in one shot.
Flood Season comes along, and they don't find death until the Kopru Ruins. They walk into a room with a couple thugs and Alleybashers (Conveniently, the room closest to Skaven), and they figure it is no problem. They kill three of them, and the fourth runs out of the room to warn the compound / warn Skaven. Everyone runs in after him, and the first person (Raineff, I believe) stops short in the doorway. Demek proceeds to stand behind him, while Kai stands behind him. Wode and Mauton are to either side.
Skaven sees this nice little formation, and sends a lightning bolt through the doorway. Raineff drops, Demek drops, Kai dies outright.
Raineff gets healing, and runs into the room after him. I didn't run the encounter entirely properly, and had Skaven continue to fight, so he burned him down with a Scorching Ray. Died outright.
Currently, they have raised enough money to bring both Kai and Raineff back. They are sitting on the resurrection tables in the Cathedral of Wee Jas as we speak, and out first plan of action this Saturday night is to bring them back.
Then? God only knows . . .
Well we had another session and three more deaths.
Soul Pillars: The encounter with Ike Iverson
Halfling rogue climbs up the wall from the steps only to encounter the Dread Wraith. The next round he's dead (two hits -10 Con). He has an eternity (or at least a couple of rounds) to look forward to as another Wraith enslaved to the Dread Wraith but the very next round the Cleric of St. Cuthbert hits him with a revivify and he's at -1 and stable. The cleric announces, "That was the only one of those I had. No one else die."
Ah, if only it could've been...
Gray Render Zombies + Bone Devil take out the barbarian and the paladin through sheer attrition. These two shouldn't have died, but the cleric had dim doored across the room with the wizard, so was nowhere near them for heals when they started getting down in hp.
I would count those two deaths to player error as opposed to bad dice. It's a new cleric, and he doesn't really know that his best position in battle is in line right behind the fighters.
My group has had one death to date (we are currently mid-way through the Kopru ruins in Flood Season.
Armel, Elven Sorceress, was brought low by the aptly named "Prickles" in the climax of Life's Bazaar. She was then reincarnated (cheaper you see) as a dwarf who then went on to pay for a Polymorph Any Object spell to turn her back into an elf... so it would have been cheaper for a raise dead spell... but whatever.
Sean Mahoney
We've been playing this for almost a year now ( bi weekly) and just started chapter 8
Deaths so far.
Chapter 1 :6 deaths , 1 by interparty combat, 3 by acid pool, 1 by stone spike thing, 1 by skulk
Chapter 2 : 3 deaths or mia, 3 by were rats
Chapter 3 :3 deaths , 1 by water demon, 1 by red head chick, 1 by skeletal dino
Chapter 4 : 6 deaths 1 mia, 2 by umberhulk, 1 death by black dragon, 2 by fishman cleric, 1 by zenith , 1 mia by black dragon , surprisingly no deaths from the Erinyes .
Chapter 5: 4 deaths , 2 by regular giants, 1 by big hill giant, 1 by interparty combat
Chapter 6: 10 deaths (whew) , 2 by interparty combat/babau , 1 by fiendish owl bears, 2 by bebilith , 1 by basilisk, 1 by black dragon, 1 by fire giant, 2 by smoking eye test
Chapter 7 : 8 deaths , 1 by assassins, 2 by Ike , 1 suicide, 1 by wizard, 1 by dracolich, 2 by salamander and succubus from chapter 6 ( Party planeshifted from draco lich, and of all the planes to pick, they picked Occipitus?!? )
Chapter 8 : 1 death , 1 from Jil the Assassin.
Total PC deaths 42( Not counting the cohorts or the revivifies but only deaths that cause new characters or xp lost )
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We experienced the first death of the campaign. Fortunately for us, death does not seem to be as rampant as it is in many of the campaigns that are being posted on this thread.
During Flood Season, at the Lucky Monkey, Gabriel, the tall and muscular paladin of St. Cuthbert hailing from the north, charged Tongue-eater upon instantly setting his eyes on him. Unfortunately, the reckless manuever seperated him from the rest of the party. The war-baboons and thugs joined the fray seperating help to the paladin, and Tongue-eater rent the holy warrior limb from limb - and spent much of the rest of the combat devouring the paladin's tongue much to horror of the onlooking PCs who still battled.
Tongue-Eater fled after that as he saw that most of his fodder had been killed, and the party was ready to move in on him. But I have a feeling that the fiend-like baboon will show his ugly face once again - with the breath of the paladin's flesh on his breath.
Robert
We've been playing this for almost a year now ( bi weekly) and just started chapter 8
Deaths so far.
Chapter 1 :6 deaths , 1 by interparty combat, 3 by acid pool, 1 by stone spike thing, 1 by skulk
--<snip>--
Chapter 8 : 1 death , 1 from Jil the Assassin.
Total PC deaths 42( Not counting the cohorts or the revivifies but only deaths that cause new characters or xp lost )
The discrepancy between some groups' kill ratios and and others' amazes me.
I've been having quite the opposite experience from Teemu (much like Robert Brambely above). My group has had zero character deaths, and we're three-quarters of the way through Flood Season. The choker in Jzadirune came close to claiming one life, and Skaven working with the harpoon spider came close to taking two. But other than those encounters, my group has had no problem keeping its collective head above water.
I have seven (yes, one too many) smart players with fairly optimized characters. Your group, if it still has six players plus cohorts and henchmen doesn't seem to be all that different from mine. Do you make things more difficult on the fly, like adding to monsters' and NPCs' hit points to make battles more dangerous and suspenseful? Or are your players just throwing their characters willy-nilly into the fray and laughing when one dies?
How are your players taking the deaths? Are you having difficulties keeping the story together due to new characters coming in so often (or are the same characters always being resurrected?)
I'd love to sit in on one or two of your group's sessions, that's for sure!
Ully
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I personally have been trying to keep my party from dying, at least against unimportant NPCs, to ensure party cohesion and interest in the plot. Aushanna ticked me off when she peppered the cleric and wizard in two rounds. Something about being killed by someone you've never met.
Now, when they walked into the Alleybasher's safehouse knowing full well it was a theives den, I didn't pull any punches. A ranger/rogue makes for a deadly guildmaster. The only reason they took everyone with them was the psion going nova and burning down the building. XD
Just had a TPK in Bhal-Hamatugn in the Zenith's Trajectory scenario! The team of 9 PC's ranging from level 7 to 9 noisily fought their way into the temple, alerting all of the soldiers and whips, then marched directly into the main shrine area.
Usually this team of 9 PC's has little difficulty walking through the battles, but the lightning bolts and mobs of soldiers took them down even before Aushanna arrived.
Rather than give up on the campaign, I offered the players the option of "reloading from a prior save". :) They're having so much fun in the campaign, and wanted so much to strike back at the temple (knowing that they should've been a bit better prepared), that they jumped at the chance.
SIDE NOTE: Since I have 9 players, I've usually had to beef up each encounter in the campaign to provide something of a challenge and, even in doing so, my players usually only struggle for a few rounds until they size up the situation. In this case, I modified the encounter by adding a cave troll (enslaved by Mangh-Mictho) who stormed into the battle on round 5, and also liberally borrowed areas, creatures, and color from the legendary "D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa" module by Gary Gygax.
Hurm.
I don't think I've been particularly harsh on my players. I don't fudge rolls against them or beef up the bosses or anything like that. If you read the death toll on my above post ,quite a few have been by interparty combat ( The act of one party member attacking another party member). The final test of the smoking eye caused 2 people to die ( almost 3 , but I ruled the gnome was too weak to drag the fighter and throw her into the vortex). I also remember a certain half orc that ran into combat to save the dieing beguiler from the skeletal dino, but when the dino turned to attack him, he threw the beguiler into its maw instead.
Also a few deaths have been by pure stupidity , in chapter 3 when I described the rickety gondola ( and emphasized how fragile it looked )they all still piled in and then fell to their dooms to the waiting Skulvyn . The last session I ran , they were getting paralyzed left and right by the draco lich so they decided to evac(planeshift ) out of there. They left the old lady fighter behind (who was promptly squished by V.Bale) , and when I asked which plane do they transport to, they replied Occipitus. Not having another planeshift memorized or any scrolls handy , they proceeded to the cathedral where they met the salamander and the succubus again. It should have been a cake walk but they were still weakened by their fight from the undead dragon, so another 2 died.
My players range from very experienced to just started a few months ago.
2 of my players qualified for the DDM world championships at gen con last year ( and the year before that) so they are pretty skilled tactically on the battle mat. Class selection is not optimized though. Half the party is halflings , and they only have a cohort for a cleric. (They have 2 dragon shamen though, which helps inbetween fights but not during)
Most of my players take their deaths pretty well, some of them really grumble about it though. Come the next session, all is forgotten and they are ready to go again.
I do agree 42 deaths at chapter 8 might be a wee bit harsh, but if you cut out the infighting and the stupid mistakes I'm sure that number would be a lot lower.
BTW Allen Stewart is my hero! heh
How are your players taking the deaths? Are you having difficulties keeping the story together due to new characters coming in so often (or are the same characters always being resurrected?)
I actually copied and emailed Teemu's post to my players with some editing (they didn't get to see the deaths after Ike Iverson because they just fought him).
Right now they're dealing with the idea that every encounter seems to mean a death or two. They're grumbling that they're underpowered, that dying constantly means they're getting more underpowered, and this whole thing "isn't fair."
42 deaths to Chapter 8 is impressive. No one died in my campaign until chapter 5. I'm afraid at the moment that I'm going to lose a player, so I've offered a godly boon to the two players who died vs. Ike-- no level loss for coming back. Because at this point what remains of the party goes up in APL from the xp from Ike and his buds, so if they come back they lose a level (normally) but if they roll up new characters at APL-1 they actually gain a level.
That's stupid, so they get to at least stay the same.
I had 4 really experienced players, lost two, gained one experienced player and two newbies. Since the newbies came in the deaths have been coming fast and furious. This is the first time a newbie (cleric) caused experienced players to die.
I'm at the exact same spot as Teemu and we have had 15 party deaths, including one TPK (with Vitriss Bale).
I've received some flak, too, regarding difficulty/under-powered/under-treasured. I let the TPK go without any character or monetary penalty, but my players are getting a little aggravated with the large number of deaths. (One player has died 4 times, and only one can be attributed to bad decisions.)
I can feel their pain. More importantly, I hate that some of them do new characters at higher levels because of the loss of continuity.
Can't remember exact numbers at the moment, but the most dangerous moments in our recently finished party...
Near TPK in Jzadirune, at the slave auction. No actual deaths when the party was 'rescued' by a beholder...
Near TPK at the Lucky Monkey, as FOUR characters fell to Tongueeater. Yeah, one character charging off alone inside the inn after a retreating monster while the party is already wounded, and then the whole party not following her immediately...yeah, that was messy. Only 2 survivors who retreated back to Cauldron to regroup. Or should I say re-group?
Another neark TPK the shrine at Bhal Hamatugn, as the erinyes dropped 2 players into negatives, and one character elected to stay behind to distract the fiend while the rest of the party escaped. He was taken to Baator for a long period of torture, only to be rescued and returned to the party by the fallen solar. No actual deaths, though.
Near TPK after listening to Lady Riavati's speech, though only two characters actually died. Force Cage is a b!!$+.
The fight with the murcoth(sp) was also deadly, though not as deadly as it could have been. Half of the party moved out over the lake(with fly and similar magic) while the other half stayed on the beach, contending with the fiend the murcoth summoned. When his blasphemy went off, only 2 characters were caught in it, and were annihilated while stunned.
Overall, EVERYONE died at least once, including my character Garret(disintegrated by Kaurophon, petrified by the resurrected Vhalantru, and decapitated by Dark Myrakul when he and another character engaged the fiend in melee, and the DM rolled out in front of us, proclaiming as the die rolled, "And now a 20 to kill off Garret!" ....and a 20 came up.) I think, all told, we had about 30 deaths, though, obviously, not all were permanent.
Well, my group finally experienced their first PC death during last night's session. The ridiculously-optimized, mostly-broken chaos gnome chain-fighter was frozen solid by a second volley of breath attacks from the cryohydra.
That's one nasty creature, I'll tell ya. We had to end the session mid-combat, so it remains to be seen how the encounter turn out. The cryohydra has pulled back into the fissure, and the party is now effectively concerned for their own survival.
Well, my group finally experienced their first PC death...<snip>...from the cryohydra.Funny, but that Cyrohydra was nearly a TPK for my group.
My group definitely still has that option, since the battle is far from over. For continuity's sake, I hope they don't go there.
Lost 4 characters so far: [spoilers!]
- 1 character (a cleric) to those automatons in the Malachite Fortress
- 2 characters (rogue and samurai) to Triel (her power attack is drunk)
- 1 character (dwarf fighter) to Skaven's phantasmal killer (how did he botch his Fort save...?!)
Not sure if Delay Death counts, but we had our main fighter at -31 and the cleric at -16 last night in the fight against the HUGE fire elementals. These are the first "extremely near-deaths" so far in the campaign. (We have had others in negative hit points, but none past -10)
They were healed and realized that getting too close to the elementals was a bad idea.
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First death of my campaign this past session. Desmond Whoreson, half-orc cleric of St. Cuthbert, died during the goblin ambush in Drakthar's Way. Goblins surrounded our paladin and whaled on him until he dropped - he valiantly attempted to smite the Silent Wolf goblin rather than heal himself, but rolled a natural 1 and went down shortly thereafter. The goblin adept stepped out and blasted Desmond with a scorching ray, taking him down to 1hp. The Silent Wolf goblin and the worg then flanked Desmond and the goblin critted, killing him with a short sword to the chest.
Even though the PCs are only 3rd level, I allowed them to raise the fallen cleric by agreeing to do a single favor for the Church of Wee Jas somewhere down the line.
Life's Bazaar
- TPK at Kazmojen (Kazmojen is now a recurring villain, Ive determined that Kazmojen's stats are totally and utterly broken after looking into it after the TPK, bad paizo bad!)
Flood Season
- no deaths
Zenith Trajectory
- rogue death at the cryo-hydra pit, he always takes point in party formation and he failed his reflex save, spot and listen check (poor flash frozen bastard)
- party TPK at the shrine to Blipdoolploop (largely due to the fact that most of the party couldn't enter the shrine because of the broken unhallow DC17 Will save to enter, very bad paizo very bad!)
Demonskar Legacy
- I eagerly await the flow of fresh PC blood!!!
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I couldn't tell you how many at this point. I did have 3 of 5 die in the Shrine in Zenith Trajectory, as well as various one at a time deaths prior to that.
Demonskar Legacy however has been a bloodbath. First we had a PC vs. PC kill (right after another PC drank the poisoned elixir) then the rest of the party lost another after fleeing the fire giant as they kept pushing deeper and searching for loot after fights instead of running away to heal up.
Ran the final encounter in Demonskar 2 nights ago, and that resulted in a TPK. So far the concensus is that they don't want to continue, even though I'd be more than happy to. If they don't want to, there's many more adventure paths where SC came from!
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No more kills to report, but I had to fudge things pretty seriously to avoid a TPK in Drakthar's Way, to the point where the players noticed and were put off by the experience.
They ran into Drakthar in his throne room and pounded him mercilessly, so that he retreated into the dire bat cave behind it. Then they took his throne down easily, though the primary arcane caster wasted most of his spells in the process. They chased Drakthar into the dire bat cave, where he summoned three more swarms of bats. I had to just have the swarms fly around ineffectually to avoid killing them all, since the lack of spells meant that they couldn't harm Drakthar.
I'm hoping Tongueater is less of a challenge, which he should be unless they sell off their silver weapons.
- party TPK at the shrine to Blipdoolploop (largely due to the fact that most of the party couldn't enter the shrine because of the broken unhallow DC17 Will save to enter, very bad paizo very bad!)
FWIW, it's only good-aligned summoned creatures that must make a Will save to enter an area with an active unhallow or magic circle against good spell.
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We had our very first death last night. Skaven Umbermead took out Krag the dwarven ftr4/barb1/stonelord1 with Phantasmal Killer.
It was a pretty epic fight as the hillfolk and allebashers kept pouring out the doorway to keep the PCs at bay while Skaven sat back and pumped spells at the party. Then the rogue invisibly snuck back there and stuck a dagger in Skaven's gizzard.
The wizard quickly quaffed a potion of Obscuring Mist at that point, and headed off to seek backup from Triel.
Interesting session coming up. The party is pretty beaten up at this point, and the main tank is dead. Meanwhile, Skaven, Triel, and soon Tarkilar are going to be coming in search of blood.
Just had my first 2 deaths in the Adventure Path as follows:
PC Name: Asenath (Female Human Rogue3/Warlock4, Scarred Soul template)
Adventure: Zenith Trajectory
Location of Death: Crazy Jared's Hut
Catalyst: Gotrrod, and being the most effective ranged combatant in the party
Long Description:
Freedom's Dawn arrived at Crazy Jared's hut, only to find a large red dragon in the midst of attacking the old man. Asenath immediately became invisible and moved forward aggressively to engage the flying dragon, while most of her party moved up more slowly and cautiously, taking as much cover as they could.
Once she had gotten close enough, Asenath became visible as she started hurling Eldritch Blasts mixed with Ice at the angry dragon. Of course, this made Gotrrod very angry at her. After a successful flyby attack, Gotrrod executed a wingover and landed next to the lightly armored warlock and bit her with a full +13 power attack, inflicting 29 points of damage and taking her to -15. Clenching her in his mighty jaws, the young dragon shook the helpless woman like a puppy with a chew toy. The results were predictably gruesome.
Asenath had previously told the party that she would not want to be raised.
PC Name: Marievius Astrophage (Male Human Sorcerer 6)
Adventure: Zenith Trajectory
Location of Death: Crazy Jared's Hut
Catalyst: Red Dragon breath weapons are NASTY!
Long Description:
Marievius actually drew first blood against Gotrrod with a Magic Missile spell, but after that things went downhill for him. His strongest spells were all fire-based, which limited his effectiveness. After the young dragon landed and tore Asenath to pieces, Marievius approached to close range and hurled his favorite spell, Battering Ram, at the beast. Unfortunately, the spell was not sufficient to drive the dragon back and did only minor damage to it.
With the party's melee specialists closing in on him as well, Gotrrod noticed that they were all in a convenient cone-shaped formation to his southeast. I rolled well for the damage, inflicting 39 points of fire damage. The melee folks managed to save, but Marievius rolled a terrible 7 on his reflex save, which took him from full hp to -11 instantly.
The player is actually a bit upset because he was not present for the battle in which he died, but our group has always played with characters whose players aren't there being ghosted. The party and Marievius' player are now trying to decide whether to raise him or to look for a replacement.
Eric "Critic of the Dawn"