3rd Death: Demonskar Legacy. The PCs find Dugobras with their arcane eye. The sneak up on him, charge in, and atttack. The party's ranger is sent reeling to -8 after Big D's first 3 attacks. The party invisible party cleric sneaks him and heals him back up to 10 or so. On D's next action, he readies his hammer and commans "stay back or the ranger gets another one!". The party ignores the warning, Dugobras takes his ready action and kills the ranger.
Second party member is at -8, 3rd party member is about to be killed before Dugobras fails a will save on a Suggestion.
Life's Bazaar - 2
Flood Season - None
Zenith Trajectory - 1
Demonskar Legacy - 1 (but resurrected)
I'm a softy, but my players were already grumbling as it was.
None, thus far and they have just entered the temple in Zenith Trajectory.
However they have used up a few hero points which surely would of seen death. I gave players who persisted in my old Ravenloft game a couple of re roll (Hero points), and well they have come in handy. However as time goes on the supply dwindles...
We've had 3 so far (nearing the end of Secrets of the Soul Pillars).
#1. Cryo-hydra in chapter 4 tore apart the paladin of Torm, but she came right back thanks to a lucky godcall.
#2. Paladin of Torm falls again, this time to a crit from Dugobras in chapter 5. She is raised.
#3. The assassins in the begining of chapter 7 managed to kill the wizard/cleric of Lathander/mystic theurge. Unfortunately, the party had to go all the way back to Occipitus to raise him (thanks to the smoking eye template).
The close calls have been too numerous to count.
Life's Bazaar - No deaths
Drakthar's Way - 1: Cleric killed by Drakthar
Flood Season - 2: Fighter killed by Tongueater. Raised and died again later in the adventure!
Zenith Trajectory - 5: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Ranger, Paladin all dead to Aushanna. Rogue hid and rescued bodies for raising.
Demonskar Legacy - No deaths
Test of the Smoking Eye - No deaths
Secrets of the Soul Pillars - 2: Cleric killed by assassins, Paladin killed by Ike Iverson
Lords of Oblivion - No deaths
Foundation of Flame - 1: Ranger killed by derro sorcerer
Would have had a LOT more deaths if it weren't for Revivify, Close Wounds, and the fact that the party has a cleric, a monk/cleric/sacred fist, and the paladin has a cleric cohort.
I think I'm too soft on my players. Not a single death so far, though Aushanna, Gottrod and the Cryohydra haven't been easy. They beat aushanna by flying/grappling her. It sucks not being able to teleport away. And the artificer kept hitting her with a bane (evil outsiders) holy light crossbow every time she got out. Plus, the lucky max strength ray of enfeeblement was helpful too. All told, she got in one round of attacks, but was strength drained and missed most of the shots.
Chapter 1: 0 deaths (they actually used diplomacy to completely bypass the malachite fortress..... who would have known!!!)
Chapter 3:4 deaths (Tongueater butchered 2 PC's, a PC died in the fall from the the gondola, a PC got zapped by Skaven as well)
Chapter 4:3 deaths (Mainline fighter sneak attacked by Koa Toa, Dhorlot acidified another one, a rogue was dropped from on high by Gotrod the Red Dragon)
Chapter 5:0 so far, but we've only had 1 session.
Life's Bazaar - No deaths
Drakthar's Way - No deaths
Flood Season - No deaths group #1, No deaths yet group #2
Zenith Trajectory - Lost a cohort to Aushauna (raised)
Demonskar Legacy - No deaths yet
I use action points, which has really made the difference, I think. I have 6 good players in group 1, plus an animal companion, plus a cohort. They've not really had a difficult time of it.
Group 2 has 4 less technically competent players, plus an NPC. They almost all bought it at the Lucky Monkey, with their brilliant plan of "Let's split up into 3 groups and all enter at the same time". When it was all over I couldn't believe that NONE of them died.
~Qualidar~
I'm still sitting at no PC deaths yet, although there have been more than a few close calls. I have to credit our priestess of Tymora and her player's amazing luck at dice rolls. :)
So far the body count is 5.
- 2 deaths in Life's Bazaar against Kazmojen. The priestess found herself between a surviving hob and Prickles and didn't like it. She was raised by a scroll bought in Sasserine. I killed Fellian Shard as well. (NPC acting as a cohort)
- 2 deaths in Flood Season. The priestess died again when they sneaked invisible in the Kopru Ruins and found Triel in her room. Complex was on alert nevertheless so she was ready. The round the fight began, 6 Alleybashers from previous rooms came to help and the priestess forgot to cast on defensive. She died from multiple sneak attacks. The rest of PCs killed Triel and take her back to Cauldron where she was raised again. When the PC came back for the rest of the wands I killed the monk PC when he tried to tumble past the T-rex skeleton. The player decided to reroll.
- 1 death and many close calls in Zenith. The cryohydra put 2 PCs down to negs (including the poor Selune priestess). The kuo toas whips put the human amnian wizard with their lightning bolts down to -8 as well. The fighter/hexblade was killed by Mang Minctho and a lucky spiritual weapon. They finished Mang and fled with their dead companion before Aushanna came in. They made two more forays before they could retrieve Zenith but killed both Aushanna and Dorloth (the dragon was not much of a challenge on a PCs' lucky day)
- Since then there was no more death, but they just killed Gottrod on their fourth battle with him yesterday night en route to Redgorge and the paladin was down to -6 before the dragon was finished by the Rgr/Scout PC. We're in the middle of Demonskar Legacy right now and I'm looking forward a certain Fire Giant to increase my score. :)) The players seems to have a blast and they now know I'm serious when I'm playing intelligent foes. They honed their team skills as well and never go without serious planning and tactics. The Selune priestess handles her spell repertoire with great knowledge and avoided the paladin death yesterday with a clever Vigor spell on the first round.
Bran.
2 deaths....
1 - Searok. The Fire Giant smith. He was willing to talk and live and let live but the dwarf in the party gave him a choice of dieing slowing or dieing with a clean neck shot. The fire giant hit him 3 times in one round (1 a crit) and put the dwarf to -a lot...
2 - Vander. Paladin rushed the Lich in Smoking Eye adventure and failed his save vs. Slay Living (he rolled a 1!!)
Several close calls
-- david
Sad Sunday, whe are playing for more than 2 years now and after 3 deaths, 1 in Jzadirune, 2 at the Luky Monkey, yesterday saw what I think is the end of the Campaign.
The Kopru ruin in Flood Season took 5 lives out of seven.
Very bad play from everybody, group splitting two times, and the "never flee" attitude.....three years of gaming thrown away!!!!!!!
Skulvyn (aquatic demon)got the barbarian and a rogue.
Skaven (hobbit wizard)got the wizard, a cleric, the favored soul.
Alive and going to town, not aware of the three last deaths, a cleric and a spellthief with 3 wands taken from Triel.
I think I'll stop it and try AoW.
A sad and angry DM.
Chapter 1 : 6 deaths. 1 by inter party combat ( the rogue killed the wizard after he shot the cleric) 3 by acid pool ( how many 1's can a party roll on their climb checks before someone decides to take 10) 1 monk got impaled by the stone spike thing and the goliath barbarian got killed by the skulk infected by the vanishing. The monk was almost killed by the rest of the party after an argument/duel over the clerics magic kama .
Chapter 2 : 3 deaths/ or MIA . 3 party members were infected by the wererats. They were all locked up by Alek Tercival to be cured on the full moon, but the ranger escaped. The rogue and the beguiler were cured, but the ranger came back and abducted the rogue. The Goliath dragon shaman smashed the infected rangers head in though.( what's non lethal damage?) Later after entering Drakthar's way. They fought an army of goblins , and eventually faced Drakthar who dominated the above dragon shaman. The rest of the party ran for it as soon as the dwarf fighter realized it was a vampire.
Chapter 3 . 0 deaths . The party thrashed the hillmen and alleybashers with some well placed colour sprays. They sent a scout to recon the rest of the inn. When they saw a pack of baboons and Tongueeater they ran and hid in the stables till either The baboons left or Alek Tercival arrived. =p Pretty cowardly in my opinion but it probably saved them from a few more character deaths. The party seems to have developed a healthy fear of were creatures and baboons (in previous campaigns I used a creature called the rock baboon from the DD rule cyclopedia which resulted in many player fatalities )
Party is just entering the kopru ruins and I can't wait to see what sort of silliness they will come up with.
My latest death report -
With only the drow warrior still on the run from there strike on shatterhorn, and still shocked by the unexplicable resurection of vahalantru, the party splits. The pali and cleric begin to search for the drow, while the dragon discible, her blood magus husband (smoking eye), and the tempest fighter plane shift to carceri, and locate the bastion of last hope.
Attempting to gather information on adimarchus and skullrot is proving futile as they lack the monetary funds to prusade anyone who might know somehthing to divulge their info, so they decide to take a break and rest in a local bordello who's madame is a promising lead. Paranoid they decide to hold up together, two resting one on guard.
4 githyanki rogue/assassins hired by Allustani (the pc's still dont know she is out there)d-door in to the small room swords drawn. DM to the blood magus on guard - "Four dimensional doors open with in the room a gaunt githyanki, sword drawn walking through. Roll initiative - Gith go first no actions available. Blood magus - In a normal voice I ask the Githyanki what they want. No reply as she asks in infernal? Other two PC's make listen checks to see if they hear anything. They fail the checks. Next round - One githyanki standing beside the tempest coup-de-grace him in his sleep. The tempest needs a natural 20 to save and rolls a 19.
The blood magus casts defensively and d-doors her and the dragon disciple away!
1 by inter party combat
...
The monk was almost killed by the rest of the party after an argument/duel over the clerics magic kama .
...
The Goliath dragon shaman smashed the infected rangers head in though.
...
The rest of the party ran for it as soon as the dwarf fighter realized it was a vampire.
...
When they saw a pack of baboons and Tongueeater they ran and hid in the stables till either The baboons left or Alek Tercival arrived.
Wow. So your party's MO is to kill each other and run away from the bad guys? I think there's a street-gang of low-life thugs looking for recruits.
Sad Sunday, whe are playing for more than 2 years now and after 3 deaths, 1 in Jzadirune, 2 at the Luky Monkey, yesterday saw what I think is the end of the Campaign.
The Kopru ruin in Flood Season took 5 lives out of seven.
Very bad play from everybody, group splitting two times, and the "never flee" attitude.....three years of gaming thrown away!!!!!!!
Skulvyn (aquatic demon)got the barbarian and a rogue.
Skaven (hobbit wizard)got the wizard, a cleric, the favored soul.
Alive and going to town, not aware of the three last deaths, a cleric and a spellthief with 3 wands taken from Triel.
I think I'll stop it and try AoW.
A sad and angry DM.
If you really want to continue the campaign, there might be a way to do it. I'm not sure I would let the bonehead moves of the players completely undo 2 years invested in a campaign. Especially since the Age of Worms is just as deadly as the Shackled City, if not moreso. Moving on means you may just have these same circumstances appear later in the next campaign.
UPDATE:
[u]Current Group (all 16th level PCs):[/u]
Male Human Archivist (original member)
Female Dwarf Paladin/Fighter/Hammer of Moradin (original member)
Male Elf Warmage (original member)
Male Halfling Rogue/Fighter/Invisible Blade (original member)
Male Human Warlock/Wizard
Male Halfling Druid/Wildshaper/Warshaper
[u]Deaths:[/u]
Original Scout (level 2) dies to a lucky crit by Kazmojen from his axe (35+ dmg to a level 2 PC...ouch). First death for this PC. Brings a new PC.
Fighter (old PC) is captured by Orbius because he's a Shackleborn (player had to leave the group due to real life issues).
Many "almost deaths" to the brutal Aushuana.
Replacement Scout/Dervish/Fighter (level 13) dies to getting owned by the broken Nabathatoron in Demonskar Legacy. 2nd PC death for this PC. Quits group frustrated with lethality of campaign, but later returns.
Archivist dies to a slay living spell (rolls a "1") cast by a evil cleric on Occipitus during The Smoking Eye. 1st death for this PC. Raised by Nidrama.
Warmage is disintergrated by the naga. 1st death for this PC. Resurrected.
Both warmage and bard/wizard/sublime chord (new player to replace fighter) are disintergrated by Orbius in a brutal battle. 2nd death for warmage, 1st death for bard. Bard is replaced by warlock/wizard and warmage is resurrected...again.
Warmage is avasculated and then a quickened orb of force finishes him off against a tough battle with 8 flamewarders, the Ti'rok and Freija. All other PCs make it out alive, but Freija escapes. 3rd death for this PC. Nidrama raises him.
4th PC Death: In the temple of Wee Jas, the PC Wizard is countering the main cleric's spells. He taunts the PC with "Hah! You're one weak spell caster!". A Destruction spell later, the wizard is gone.
5th PC Death: Fighting Orbius, the party bard dies due to a Disintegration eye ray.
Welcome to the "Save or Die" portion of the campaign.
We've had 2 deaths so far in Life's Bazaar.
One was in the fight with Kazmojen when the enraged barbarian got dropped to the negatives, fell out of rage, and instantly died from the Con reverting to normal. We would have had a second death in that same fight as the monk got taken from full 20 hp down to 0 hp in one swing from Kazmojen. If Prickles had hit him with a full attack sequence, virtually guaranteed to drop him to below -10. But the party's archer decided that he could thread the needle and land an arrow into Kazmojen... but missed and hit the monk in the back dropping him to -7 and causing Prickles and Kazmojen to turn their attention elsewhere. That arrow to the back was the only thing that saved his life.
The other death came when the party's wizard became infected with the Vanishing and failed to address the issue. He is one of three party members with a 6 Charisma (point buy system and the two dwarves and a half-orc all used Charisma as their dump stat). The first day, he lost 2 points of Charisma and became translucent. The party had heard plenty about the Vanishing and knew what they were dealing with but chose to not address it just yet. The second day he regained 1 point of damage but then lost another 5 putting him flatly at 0. The wizard just isn't there in the morning, though his bedclothes are still lying under the covers just as if he was sleeping in them.
They're almost done clearing out the rest of the Malachite Hold so we'll be moving on to Drakthar's Way. I think I'll be taking some others' suggestion and change Drakthar from a vampire to something less redundant compared to Tongueater, so we'll see how they handle that.
Shannon
We've had 4 deaths so far (and 4 raise deads and the PC with the smoking eye died once but returned to Occipitus).
The first fighter died against a mimic in Chapter 1 (although they later befriended the one with Starbrow and it now guards their base).
A cleric and sorcerer were killed by Aushanna in chapter 4.
Another sorcerer was killed by Kravichak in our last session (no coming back from disintergrate taking you to -24hp)
Update almost finished Chapter 3 . Lost the dwarf fighter to the skulvyn water demon thing after he was dominated by the kopru to fight it. Then lost the above dwarf's wyrmling pet white dragon to the crazy goliath red dragon shaman (He's been itching to kill that thing for awhile) . Lost the Goliath dragon shaman in the battle with the red head chick (he was knocked into negs, she told the party to back off or the goliath gets it..well you can guess the rest) .
Party defeated the blood bloater ooze with no casaulties ( compared to the acid pool in chapter 1 )and did a good job of not fighting each other. Although the beguiler did try to charm the npc warmage. Oh well, habits are hard to break i guess.
Party now consists of dwarf cleric 6, human beguiler 5, tiefling rogue 1 paragon 2, half orc mercenary fighter 4 (replaced dwarf fighter) and drow commoner 1 dragon shaman 3 (replaced goliath dragon shaman). Npc's are elf favored soul 5 , halfling warmage 1
Wow. So your party's MO is to kill each other and run away from the bad guys? I think there's a street-gang of low-life thugs looking for recruits.
Actually, before the dwarf fighter died they were trying to recruit alley bashers to form their own guild. Still a fairly accurate observation.
Party now consists of dwarf cleric 6, human beguiler 5, tiefling rogue 1 paragon 2, half orc mercenary fighter 4 (replaced dwarf fighter) and drow commoner 1 dragon shaman 3 (replaced goliath dragon shaman). Npc's are elf favored soul 5 , halfling warmage 1
I would think that your players with the level adjusted races are going to have a difficult time with this adventure path, more so as time goes on. They can be a big help with low CR encounters, but it gets tougher as they fall behind. That's why I limited my players to LA +1 races.
Maybe this topic deserves its own thread. I'd be interested to hear what others' experiences are.
3 so far:
Death at the Lucky Monkey became literal for the scout/warmage when they were fighting on the second floor. He got critted and tumbled away, but instead of tumbling back he tumbled forward. The second group of looters came and one critted him around a corner. He bled out while the party cleric continued to fight.
Never could understand why the cleric let the scout/warmage bleed out, but he got is own when Tarkilar brought out his death touch. One tappity-tap-tap later and the dwarven cleric of St. Cuthbert was saying hi to Sarcem.
The aasimar paladin had of late become exceedingly brave. He charged Gottrod all by his lonesome, but that wasn't his doom (though perhaps it should have been). No, the cryohydra reared its ugly heads and breathed, then hit him with an AoO as the holy warrior closed in. Instead of backing out, the paladin drew a wand of cure but never got a chance to use it: a hit, a crit hit, and he was at -16.
1 potential death in the making:
The group was in Bhal Hamatugn and went down the stairs past the jail cells until they were at the edge of the torture chamber. They spent several minutes discussing about what they were going to do, lining up, etc. Finally, Garekk just rose up out of the water, having seen the light for too long. To make a long story short, the mummy's 10 was the second highest initiative and he ended up bottling the group up in the hallway. The tank stood firm, but a nat 20 is a nat 20. One failed Fort save and he's suffering mummy rot. He's got a bear's endurance up for a few more minutes, 2 hit points while the spell lasts, and a 6th level cleric who just wasted a cure moderate wounds because of the (now required) caster level check. We'll see what happens next week...
It's been awhile since I've updated. We've had two more character deaths.
1. The rogue died again in the fight with Nabthatoron. The cleric now has Raise Dead, a bunch of diamonds and a willingess to use them. It kind of sucks for the rogue, though, because he's still midway through 8th level while the majority of the party is 10th.
2. Our half-orc fighter/weapon master (fullblade) just died last session to the Noble Salamander in the Cathedral of Feathers. I was somewhat dreading a death on his part, because he's constantly complaining about how SCAP hates fighters. I'm always confusing, paralyzing, or taking him out of the fight some way because, well, the monsters can.
I described the Noble Salamander as a "lizardy thing that seems to be on fire without getting burned" (yeah, I know, not my finest descriptive hour). During the fight, he cast a wall of fire, a fireball, and summoned a huge fire elemental. Somewhere in there, the fighter said, "Hey, this thing's a salamander, right?" I confirmed his diagnosis, so later when he charged the thing, did some damage, then got spanked by the longspear and tail combo he complained that if I had described it as deadly as it suddenly appeared to be, he probably wouldn't have charged it.
He had a point.
The fighter went unconscious and was killed by 2 points of burning damage. He was oddly stoic about the death (he has been to -9 and spontaneously stabilized before). I noted after the session that I expected more b$++!ing from him about the circumstances of his death and his response was, "It was a fair fight. I wasn't slowed, confused, nauseous, paralyzed, or any other crazy thing you've done to me. I did my damage, he did his, and he did more. That's the way of the fighter."
I thought that was pretty cool.
So we go into the first test of the Smoking Eye with:
8th level rogue
9th level fighter/weapon master
10th level cleric
10th level evoker
9th level bard
9th level monk
I'd be worried about the levels but we had two players join the campaign so the party has filled out a bit. After the next session everyone should level except maybe the 10th's, so we should be in good shape for the other tests, level wise.
My group have just finished Thirteen Cages... with a few more deaths. They had the striders with them as they were a level lower than they should be.
-Fario was disintergrated by Moltenwing.
-Shensen was killed by a Blade Barrier from Shebeleth Regidin
-Thog (the party half-orc fighter) died against Grehlia Cairnis' Slay Living spell while he was trapped by Evard's black tentacles.
-Druss (the dwarven fighter/dwarven defender) was killed when the volcano erupted. The players found a dispersal collar in the bluecrater academy during a side treck but never found out what it did. They discovered that there was some way to 'shut down' the Tree of Shackled Souls but didn't know how... so they felled it. Four PC's made it out via a teleport scroll and Druss's body returned to Occipitus.
No more Cauldron.
Anyway that totals 8 deaths in the AP including the two striders.
Chapter 1 : 6 deaths. 1 by inter party combat ( the rogue killed the wizard after he shot the cleric) 3 by acid pool ( how many 1's can a party roll on their climb checks before someone decides to take 10) 1 monk got impaled by the stone spike thing and the goliath barbarian got killed by the skulk infected by the vanishing. The monk was almost killed by the rest of the party after an argument/duel over the clerics magic kama .
Chapter 2 : 3 deaths/ or MIA . 3 party members were infected by the wererats. They were all locked up by Alek Tercival to be cured on the full moon, but the ranger escaped. The rogue and the beguiler were cured, but the ranger came back and abducted the rogue. The Goliath dragon shaman smashed the infected rangers head in though.( what's non lethal damage?) Later after entering Drakthar's way. They fought an army of goblins , and eventually faced Drakthar who dominated the above dragon shaman. The rest of the party ran for it as soon as the dwarf fighter realized it was a vampire.
Chapter 3 . 3 deaths . The party thrashed the hillmen and alleybashers with some well placed colour sprays. They sent a scout to recon the rest of the inn. When they saw a pack of baboons and Tongueeater they ran and hid in the stables till either The baboons left or Alek Tercival arrived. =p Pretty cowardly in my opinion but it probably saved them from a few more character deaths. The party seems to have developed a healthy fear of were creatures and baboons (in previous campaigns I used a creature called the rock baboon from the DD rule cyclopedia which resulted in many player fatalities ) Lost the dwarf fighter to the skulvyn water demon thing after he was dominated by the kopru to fight it. Then lost the above dwarf's wyrmling pet white dragon to the crazy goliath red dragon shaman (He's been itching to kill that thing for awhile) . Lost the Goliath dragon shaman in the battle with the red head chick (he was knocked into negs, she told the party to back off or the goliath gets it..well you can guess the rest) . Beguiler was killed by the dino after the orc fighter ( replacement of the dwarf fighter ) used him as a human shield. Npc elven cleric paragon went insane.
Chapter 4. 2 deaths. Beguiler charged the fiendish umberhulk so he can color spray it , and was promptly confused and torn shreds. Dwarven cleric tried to rescue beguiler but was confused and torn to shreds.( he's been the longest lasting character so far.) Surprisingly nobody died to gotrod, the cyro hydra, or ashuuna . The ashuuna fight actually lasted the full 100 rounds then her time was up. But alot of that was spent by the party recovering with the dragon shaman's healing aura, and the use of a wand of cure light and 2 clerics healing. The party's damage output is very poor but their general ac and healing power is quite impressive. The 3rd lvl npc fighter and the npc warmage both died though, but I'm not counting those guys heh.
Current party composition . lvl 4 tiefling rogue, lvl 7 dwarven cleric of st cuthbert, lvl 6 human beguiler, lvl 7 orc fighter/barbarian , drow lvl 1 commoner lvl 5 dragonshaman, lvl 5 human cleric of koryis (the guy from mystara)
Npcs Duegar lvl1 psychic warrior lvl 1 divine mind.
Was quite surprised that no one died to ashuuna but dhlort and zenith are still on their way to even things out heh.
So far we're had...
Life's Bazaar:
Our first fatality came in the shape of the Abdarion, an Air Genasi Swashbuckler. Upon encountering the mimic in Jzardirune, he decided that bribing the creature was against his principles (Money comes out of chests, it doesn't go in!) and charged the mimic, hoping to the get the drop on him. Alas, with 42 hit points, second level characters would have to drop on it several times to make a differance, and he was tragically crushed to death by the creatures pseudopods.
A genasi swashbuckler proved a consistently unlucky combination for the group, when the Morgan Cinderstorm, a Fire Genasi Swashbuckler, was abducted by the Grell living in Jzardirune. The creature surprised the party, swooped down hitting her with a tentacle, paralysed her, grappled her, and propelled the hapless (and helpless) warrior into the rafters. Upon gaining the initiative in the the first regular round of combat, it coup de graced the helpless fire genasi with its wicked beak.
Flood Season:
Abdarion bit the dust again, coming off on the wrong side of Triels heavy flail. This time his players decided that a second raise dead spell with it's monetary cost and loss of a level was too much, and he retired the character.
Zenith Trajectory:
Gotrod burned the party sorceror, one Shadi el Maskari, to an impressive -30 hit points with his breath weapon in response to a lightning bolt that cost him a third of his hit points. Shadi has since been resored to life, and is now a good deal more careful.
The party's Tiefling Barbarian had the top of his head neatly removed by Zenith Splintersheild with a spectacular 71 points of damage crit, proving that sometimes Improved Critical- Dwarven Waraxe really pays off.
So, they've just started Test of the Smoking Eye with 5 fatailities so far under their collective belts, though aside from Abdarion all have been raised. It remains to be seen how many more deaths are going to happen over the course of the Adventure Path, but so far they're averaging 1 per Adventure.
|
I almost had my first one this past week during the second session of "Life's Bazaar," but I went easy on them, both to avoid souring them of the campaign so quickly and to assuage my reputation as the killer DM of our group.
The PCs entered the grell's room, and though they all made their Spot checks, the grell won initiative. It swooped down on the party wizard, quickly paralyzed her, wrapped her up in its tentacles, and began flying away with her frozen form. The party tried bringing it down for a while, but had a great deal of trouble with it. Instead of coup de grace-ing her, I just had the creature bite her a few times and then drop her onto her companions, knocking one of them into negatives as well. It was a tense combat even after that, but they managed to finish the creature off.
Life's Bazaar - 1 death from Kazmojen, 1 from hobgoblins
Drakthar's Way - 1 with wererats, 1 death from Ranger Goblin on Wolf
Flood Season - 0
Zenith Trajectory - 2 from cryohydra
Demonskar Legacy - 0 (so far)
These are a lot more deaths then my group is use to having. Just wait until they meet Nabthatoron :)
Dedekind
Well, another session with the Test of the Smoking Eye and Occipitus has really turned brutal.
The fighter/weaponmaster was revived and the party went into the first test at full. They fought the Bebilith demon and the monk decided he wanted to be the primary tank. He's got a better AC than the other fighter, but he just doesn't have the hit points. Two rounds of fighting the Bebilith and he was dead. The fighter didn't take any damage.
Once the first test was complete, the party went off across Occipitus to the second test. On the way there they had a random encounter with two chaos beasts. On the first round the fighter gets hit for 5 pts of damage but misses his fort save and can't keep his shape. He descends into an amorphous puddle of goo. He has to make a Charisma check to regain his shape for a minute. He makes it once, long enough for the cleric to make a heal check and find that a restoration, heal, or greater restoration is the only way to cure this affliction. Unfortunately the cleric doesn't have any of these spells up today and it's morning, so there are 22 hours before he can regain his spells. The fighter has a Charisma of 8, so those Char checks every minute are going to be a b+#+&. Every round the fighter stays as goo is a point of Wisdom damage, and when his Wisdom reaches 0, he will become a chaos beast.
The party decides that the only way to save the fighter is to kill the fighter. If he's dead, he can't turn. They'll be able to revive him tomorrow and cast restoration. So they kill him.
It was honestly the weirdest character death I've ever seen. The rest of the party apologized every time they did damage to him, but the really didn't have any other way to save him. They proceeded to the next test carrying him in a bucket.
Where the bard was promptly turned to stone by the abyssal basilisk.
My players are very afraid.
New totals:
2 deaths in Demonskar
2 deaths in Smoking Eye
1 Stoning
We are in the Kopru Ruins of Chapter 3 at the moment, and are yet to have a death. There have been several near things though. Triel nearly took down our Duskblade.
We do use the Wound System in our game, which gives them a real boost. I like the balance of it though. It makes beginning characters much more suvivable, but the advantage lessons as you get up in level.
So far:
Life's Bazaar: archivist waxed by the half-troll
Flood Season: fighter pounded flat by (oddly enough) ogre zombies
Zenith Trajectory: barbarian icicled by the cryohydra
The group is poised to assault the kuo-toa shrine next session. I have serious doubts about their ability to take on Aushanna. They're not full of what I would call optimal builds...
I don't feel so bad. So far for me it has only been:
Zenith Trajectory: elven wizard riddled by Aushanna's arrows!
My party is about to start Thirteen Cages and this is the (meager) death count so far.
Life's Bazaar: The human rogue gets squished by one of the automatons.
Secrets of the Soul Pillars: The elven wizards is BBQd extra crispy by a lightning bolt from Fetor Abradius.
There have been a couple of close calls, especially with Vitriss Bale and Hookface, but in the end they have managed to pull through.
I know this isn't technically an obituary thread, but I think they are fun to read from the other boards, and I just started this AP. That said, I have my first death to report
Location: Jzadirune, room J4
Casualty: Gregor, Half-orc Ranger 1
Catalyst: Deady DM Dice
Gregor squeezed through the half-open gear door, only to be surprised by the two skulks lurking on either side of the door. One of the surprise attacks hit for max damage (6). The skulks won initiative, and both hit again, both with critical threats! One of the threats confirmed, and Gregor took another 14 points of damage, being slain instantly before he had a chance to react.
Out of 4 attacks, I rolled 3 hits, one of which was a critical. On 4d6 for damage, I rolled 20. Jeeze, sometimes you're the windowshield, sometimes you're the bug.
If you really want to continue the campaign, there might be a way to do it. I'm not sure I would let the bonehead moves of the players completely undo 2 years invested in a campaign. Especially since the Age of Worms is just as deadly as the Shackled City, if not moreso. Moving on means you may just have these same circumstances appear later in the next campaign.Sad Sunday, whe are playing for more than 2 years now and after 3 deaths, 1 in Jzadirune, 2 at the Luky Monkey, yesterday saw what I think is the end of the Campaign.
The Kopru ruin in Flood Season took 5 lives out of seven.
Very bad play from everybody, group splitting two times, and the "never flee" attitude.....three years of gaming thrown away!!!!!!!
Skulvyn (aquatic demon)got the barbarian and a rogue.
Skaven (hobbit wizard)got the wizard, a cleric, the favored soul.
Alive and going to town, not aware of the three last deaths, a cleric and a spellthief with 3 wands taken from Triel.
I think I'll stop it and try AoW.
A sad and angry DM.
I give some news, enter a dwarf fighter and an elven fighter/wizard going arcane archer, I "saved" one cleric from the church of Cauldron for the story (and because she fell at -9 only)
Hope they will survive....
Currently, my group has made it to the middle of Chapter 4, the search for Zenith, and we have had four deaths, three of which happened in this adventure.
The first, sadly, was my own human sorcerer killed by the howler in the battle with Kazmojen. The fight also dropped several of our party to dying status. Luckily, I was raised by the Cuthberts, but had to eat the xp penalty.
In this section, though, and in one night, we lost three of our party. In the battle with Aushana, we had takena beating but found away to use the hallway doors as a shield against her. She was almost down when she was joined by the high priest koa-toan. We were able to defeat both of them, but not before the high priest killed our bard/cleric, and no one else has the divine will to raise him.
Later on that night, we ran afoul of the black dragon and his guards. One member of our party panicked and ran into the room containing the pit trap and fell badly. Already injured, he was attacked by the wraith and turned into one. He subsequently attacked us and the dragon, and was subsequently obliterated (no raising him). The dragon killed our druid, but not before taking insane damage from her thornskin spell. My sorcerer killed the dragon afterward, but as of right now there are only three of us left with two dead characters and no way to raide them as of yet. And we still haven't found that dwarf!
UPDATE
Chapter 1: 0 deaths (they actually used diplomacy to completely bypass the malachite fortress..... who would have known!!!)
Flood Season:4 deaths (Tongueater butchered 2 PC's, a PC died in the fall from the the gondola, a PC got zapped by Skaven as well)
Zenith Trajectory:3 deaths (Mainline fighter sneak attacked by Koa Toa, Dhorlot acidified another one, a rogue was dropped from on high by Gotrod the Red Dragon)
The Demonskar Legacy:0 Surprisingly no deaths! Althogh the whole group was dominated by the green hags and sent off to kill Nabthataron (2 birds with 1 stone for them).
Occipitus: 0 Despite rogue falling 30,000 feet.
Secrets of the Soul Pillars: 0, They healed the dracolich to death.
Lords of Oblivion:4 The group followed Mhad to shatterhorn. The 2 spellcasters died in a Wail of the Banshee trap. One party member was turned into a vampire. Later, that same character was disintegrated by Vhalantru. Two deaths for one PC.
Foundation of Flame: 0, No deaths. The party didn't do so well with this one. I had to split them up so they could hit all 4 quarters in time. They chose to teleport away from Hookface and he ravaged many citizens. Only 1000 people survived out of the original 10,000. The refugees stayed at Redgorge (despite Redgorge being sacked by them earlier due to Alek Tercival's death).
Thirteen Cages:1, The vampire character made a wish and got turned into a replica tree of the real tree.
Strike on Shatterhorn:2, There were now 2 vampires in the group. The party had decided to go after Hookface on their own. They killed him with ease. Then Hookface's wife showed up (a CR 26 Collosal Red Dragon). She cast antimagic field and killed one vampire PC for good. The other vampire PC died from a party member mistakenly Healing him.
Asylum: We'll see
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
|
<Spoilers>
Before I go on I will clarify that our DM has given us "Fate Points" that we can earn to get a reset if our characters die. We start play with 1 Fate point and can earn them at different points in the adventure.
We have ONLY played Life's Bazaar so far, but my character was killed by the Choker under the stage after I stuck my head down the hole. It decided to grab my head and slam me into the ground acouple of times until I was unconscious and then to slowly constrict me until I died (all the while screaming -5, -6, -7, -8, -9 c'mon guys kill it already).
Apart from that, the Paladin died. The Fighter/Pirate died, was reset and then died again. The Wizard died, was reset and then died again.
So to recap:
Duskblade (me) Died
Paladin Died
Fighter/Pirate Died reset Died
Wizard Died reset Died
Cleric only one to survive.
We did go through a Cure Light Wounds Wand (30ish charges) all the Cleric's Cure Light Wound spells and around half a dozen Potions (one of them cursed from Jazadirune)
flash_cxxi
Since Test of the Smoking Eye, that's changed to a no-foolin' eight (Count 'em, Eight!) deaths...
Barbarian: Killed by two Greater Shadows that he randomly encountered fleeing alone from the Greater Abyssal Basilisk in the Plain of Cysts. Resulting Shadow was killed, and the character Reincarnated as an orc.
Sorceror: Killed by the Retriever, eaten by the Basilisk, Ressurected from the few bits the Basilisk didn't actually finish.
Rogue: Heaved into the plasma gusher by one of the party after being cone of colded to death by Kaupharon. Body and soul became one with Occipitus.
And tomorrow, they have Secrets of the Soul Pillars and the assasination attempt...
Just about to start chapter 4, no deaths yet. I'm crossing my fingers, as several of the encounters coming up look pretty tough.
We played another session where the party tried to raise the half-orc fighter (see above). They waited until he has 1 Wisdom left to kill him, and they only had Raise Dead, so he was coming back with one round left before turning into a Chaos Beast. So the deal was they had one round where init was crucial-- they raise the fighter, cleric must win initiative, cast restoration to remove the chaos beast supernatural affliction. If not, other things happen.
The party buffs the cleric so he's as dex-ed up as they can make him (for a better init). The cleric raised the fighter and he came back in his chaos beast-blobby form (which is how he died).
Roll initiative. Half-orc wins init. Blobby half-orc tries to reconstitute himself (Charisma check), he fails. Wisdom goes to 0, and he turns into a Chaos Beast. Party kills him, but party monk gets hit and misses his Fort save, so now he's blobby and trying to make Charisma checks.
Luckily the cleric makes his touch attack and uses the restoration meant for the fighter on the monk.
Fighter player rolls up a new character.
So, this was another brutal day. Current tally:
Demonskar: 2 deaths-- Rogue dies to both Sloth and Nabthateron.
Test of the Smoking Eye: 4 deaths --
Fighter to Noble Salamander
Monk to Bebilith Demon
Fighter to party, who kills him to save him.
Fighter to party (again), now that he's a chaos beast, they just kill him.
My party now firmly believes that SCAP hates all fighters.
|
Started a new campaign. Last campaign fell apart after the group successfully finished the Test of the Smoking Eye, scheduling conflicts. Anyway.
Life's Bazaar
Rogue killed by two Shulks, he went in the room first.
Cleric killed by the mimic, the Lawful Neutral fighter attacked it on a whim.
same Lawful Neutral fighter killed by Kozmojen when different cleric was forced to choose between two dying PC's.
Drakthar's Way
DuskBlade killed by a rain of crossbow bolts from goblins high above.
This group is doing much better than the first group I ran through Shackled City campaign.
So far we have been playing the SCAP for a little bit more than a year, and we are about to begin Zenith Trajectory (yeah yeah we're not fast). So far we've had:
1 death in Life Bazaar (shifter rogue crushed by automaton)
3 deaths in Flood Season (drow fighter killed by the zombie ogres, then by the t-rex skeleton + halfling favored soul shred to pieces by the same t-rex)
Not so bad, not so bad!
We're finishing up Flood Season at the moment. To date, we've had only two deaths, both in Life's Bazaar. I've had to pull a few punches (like not coup-de-grace'ing a PC whose been caught by Hold Person) and I tend to avoid save or die situations. One of the previously dead characters, a gnomish rogue/urban ranger, has hit -9 more times than I can count. That light at the end of the tunnel is turning into a strobe...
I've also had only two NPC deaths to date. One was Fario in Jzaridune, who got gibbed by Yuathyb with a critted sneak attack javelin. The other was Shensen who was killed using Tarkilar's Death domain ablity.
Not bad, considering some of what I've read on these boards. This is mostly due to one of my players being an expert at the game, who has dedicated his necromancer to being a buff/debuff/battlefield control, and understands the value of tactical retreats. He's saved the party's bacon on at least 3 separate occasions by talking them into a limited withdrawal action.
The adventure path seems to be getting deadlier as the adventures progress...
From 8 deaths at the end of the Test of the Smoking Eye, my party have now progressed to 10...
Number 9: The party's elven mage was taken down in the first round of the assasination attempt.
Number 10: The Assimar Paladin of Tyr was Destroyed (!) by Ike Iverson, burned to ash by the all devouring flame of the Black Sun (Ike is a Cyricist as I'm running SCAP in the Realms). It remains to be seen whether or not a Ressurection will be forthcoming.
Well, before we just said "No more!" (somewhere around level 16 or so), we probably had around...80 to 90. Yeah, that's about right. I'm not kidding. They might as well have called it "Death on a Stick Adventure Path".
Chapter 1 : 6 deaths. 1 by inter party combat ( the rogue killed the wizard after he shot the cleric) 3 by acid pool ( how many 1's can a party roll on their climb checks before someone decides to take 10) 1 monk got impaled by the stone spike thing and the goliath barbarian got killed by the skulk infected by the vanishing. The monk was almost killed by the rest of the party after an argument/duel over the clerics magic kama .
Chapter 2 : 3 deaths/ or MIA . 3 party members were infected by the wererats. They were all locked up by Alek Tercival to be cured on the full moon, but the ranger escaped. The rogue and the beguiler were cured, but the ranger came back and abducted the rogue. The Goliath dragon shaman smashed the infected rangers head in though.( what's non lethal damage?) Later after entering Drakthar's way. They fought an army of goblins , and eventually faced Drakthar who dominated the above dragon shaman. The rest of the party ran for it as soon as the dwarf fighter realized it was a vampire.
Chapter 3 . 3 deaths . The party thrashed the hillmen and alleybashers with some well placed colour sprays. They sent a scout to recon the rest of the inn. When they saw a pack of baboons and Tongueeater they ran and hid in the stables till either The baboons left or Alek Tercival arrived. =p Pretty cowardly in my opinion but it probably saved them from a few more character deaths. The party seems to have developed a healthy fear of were creatures and baboons (in previous campaigns I used a creature called the rock baboon from the DD rule cyclopedia which resulted in many player fatalities ) Lost the dwarf fighter to the skulvyn water demon thing after he was dominated by the kopru to fight it. Then lost the above dwarf's wyrmling pet white dragon to the crazy goliath red dragon shaman (He's been itching to kill that thing for awhile) . Lost the Goliath dragon shaman in the battle with the red head chick (he was knocked into negs, she told the party to back off or the goliath gets it..well you can guess the rest) . Beguiler was killed by the dino after the orc fighter ( replacement of the dwarf fighter ) used him as a human shield. Npc elven cleric paragon went insane.
Chapter 4. 6 deaths 1 MIA. Beguiler charged the fiendish umberhulk so he can color spray it , and was promptly confused and torn shreds. Dwarven cleric tried to rescue beguiler but was confused and torn to shreds.( he's been the longest lasting character so far.) Surprisingly nobody died to gotrod, the cyro hydra, or ashuuna . The ashuuna fight actually lasted the full 100 rounds then her time was up. But alot of that was spent by the party recovering with the dragon shaman's healing aura, and the use of a wand of cure light and 2 clerics healing. The party's damage output is very poor but their general ac and healing power is quite impressive. The 3rd lvl npc fighter and the npc warmage both died though, but I'm not counting those guys heh. Dhlort recruited the halforc fighter and the beguiler ( they both had dragon blood ) and made them both fight for his favor. In the end , the half orc got lucky splattered the beguiler and then Dhlort took off with the victor never to be seen again ( for now anyways.) The weakened party lost the dragon shaman and the dwarven cleric to the big fish cleric in a massive 4 hour brawl. Finnaly Zenith killed the brand new rogue who just joined the party (welcome to the campaign!)
Chapter 5 . 2 deaths. Half the party seemed to want to incite a riot, the other half wanted to calm down the mob. Some chaos ensued but no one got hurt. When the half orc bar was burning down , most of them just watched and then the spectators ran away as soon as the fire elementals popped up. Amazingly they decided to go find their buddy Alek Tercival , and through some stroke of luck they journeyed to Red Gorge ( although there was some debate about searching the Lucky monkey?!? ) They survived most of the encounters relatively unscathed although the giant sloth almost squished the new cleric. They lost the elven fighter and the halfling ranger in the fight against the 4 giants mainly due to the elven fighters refusual to retreat and get healing, and really poor healing rolls by the clerics and the giants last minute critical club strike on his face.
Current party composition . human dragon shaman ( drow was reincarnated because they started to run out of cash) human cleric , elven swashbuckler/rogue , human fighter , tiefling paladin , duegar psychic warrior
Cohorts include duegar cleric, human bard/cleric/marshall, human fighter/adept,
|
|
Well, before we just said "No more!" (somewhere around level 16 or so), we probably had around...80 to 90. Yeah, that's about right. I'm not kidding. They might as well have called it "Death on a Stick Adventure Path".
This is my second time running the Shackled City and I explained to the group that if they play this as a "Kick in the Door" dugeon hack they would be able to run though the entire campaign by contiually replacing characters.
Seems to have worked after Jzadirune and the confrontation with Kozmojen they have started working together, actually being cautious, ya know acting like people who are putting their lifes on the line.